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 Paradigm wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
perfectly balanced game

Nobody expects a perfectly balanced game. Drop the word perfect.

As you said, whatever minor issues there may be will likely be exploited, but the point is that they will be minor.

What GW has chosen to do (if this thing is real, or just going off the rules themselves) is take the laziest route possible and justify it with silly catchphrases like 'forge the narrative'.

For the record, I'm not ultra-competitive, but the lack of balance and poor design hurts me as much as the regular tournament goers.

Does it hurt the tournament players, though? The new options open up even more ways to exploit the issues, which from he prevailing attitude of those players, surely must be a good thing? I know thats not true, but that is why it annoys me so much when tourney players rail against a lack of balance; if the game were even close to being balanced, half the stuff they rely on would be gone. So while it would be good for the game as a whole, it seems to me that it would be worse for the tourney players if there was nothing to exploit.

But that's a tangent. To be honest I think the new options, if you play them as intended, benefit the fluff players a lot, as you can now build the army you choose with no restrictions. There's no need to exploit it, all you need is an opponent who holds the same mindset. I can see how it would caused a problem if competitive and fluff players played against each other, but a game like that was always going to be one sided anyway, and probably unenjoyable for both players.

At the end of the day, my point is this; it is the attitude of WAAC players that is largely the 'problem', not the rules themselves, so GW are better off just focusing on making the game fun and more open for their target audience, which unbound and the other options does.

At the end of the day, if you don't like something, don't play it or play against it. There is no requirement in 40k, the rules are guidelines and at a basic level everything requires agreement from an opponent, so 40k really is what you make it. It's only when units/combos are deliberately spammed/exploited that balance is an issue.

I still still think aspects such as demonology for loyalists and superheavies in 500 point games are ridiculous, but the overall changes in 7th seem OK. It's the business practice that has stopped me from buying it, rather than the content in most cases.

I wish people like you would stop calling competitive players WAAC players. We're not calling you fluffbunny noobs either.

And yes, it does hurt turnament players. A lot. People are skipping entire rounds of tournaments because both players knew what the outcome of the game was and decided to pick up a beer and lunch instead of wasting two hours. I've seen people play games of MtG between terrain, because one player's warhound titan has anihilated the entire enenmy army within 20 minutes of the start of a round. Tournament attendence is dropping rapidly, since most players aren't willing to switch armies every time something becomes the new best army. Dedicated Space Wolf, Blood Angel, Dark Eldar, Sisters of Battle, Black Templar, Khorne, Slanesh, Tyranid and Ork players are no longer willing to be target practice for close to unbeatable armies.

On top of that, WayneTheGame's post exactly describes the problem. You don't always have the luxury to be playing good friends who are on the same page as you. And then there's the Eldar player shrugging and asking you what else he's supposed to play, because he's fielding the exact same models for half a decade now. Even among friends you don't agree what is fine to field and what is not. One might think bringing his stompa to a game is fine, while another is plagued by concience for fielding even a single riptide.

Just as an example, I was talking to two fluff players on different occasions about the white dwarf mentioning Azreal becoming a bloodthirster.
Their reactions:
"That's so stupid, as if a high librarian of the emperor would fall to a daemon of khorne..."
"Hah, awsome. I guess their dirty little secrets from horus hersy finally came back to haunt them!"

So, who was right? Also, guess which one's the daemon player

A sad reality of 40K is that the more you like the fluff, the less you'll like actually playing the game.

It is a solution in that it solves the problem of bad matchups and incompatible philosophies in list-building at an individual level. It won't fix the game, but it can make your own experience more enjoyable.

Then it's not a solution. If your basement is filled with water, not going into the basement and not thinking about it makes your life more enjoyable, but does not fix the problem of your basement being full of water. That's exactly what he said, you fighting symptoms (having unenjoyable games), not problems (bad rules).

 Paradigm wrote:

You say that, but see my last post. When people can't find a broken OP option in a new codex, it is decried as underpowered, when in fact it is perfectly reasonable. So this does imply that there are people with a tendency to go for OP over player skill. Not all or most, but at least some.

The reason people say that is because of the prevalence of already existing overpowered books/units. People will tend towards to stronger things than weaker things? Colour me surprised. That's the job of a game designer; to create a game with balanced options for everyone.

It's not me saying there's a right way to play, but GW. They have made it quite clear that they want people to play in a narrative fashion rather than going all-in for winning. And I draw the line between fluff and competitive players by the following: If your primary motivation for choosing models in an army is based on the background or the look of the models, then that constitutes a fluff player, if the primary motivation is for in-game effectiveness, then that constitutes competitive. I appreciate there is often some overlap but the majority of players will fall on one side of the line or the other.

But what is a 'narrative fashion'? They keep saying stuff like that, but the game is still fundamentally a player vs. player game, which requires some degree of balance and competitiveness. Otherwise, you'd be better of playing an RPG for your 'narrative' needs.

My motivation for models is a combination of both; I buy the models I like based on fluff/looks, but play with the ones that aren't a joke on tabletop. I know I'm not the only one, as many players will shelf entire armies when they become ineffective. Point is, there is no real line between fluff and competitive. There are just players, and clearly this rule set creates a division among players. I haven't played another game as fractured as 40k. That is never a good thing.

If everything were balanced, then that would remove the list-building aspect entirely, and therefore a layer of the game. There has to be some imbalance for there to be a degree of skill in making an army, otherwise it's all down to the dice. One-sided matchups are inevitable unless both players are playing identical lists. And I've found that in games in which both players adopt the same mindset (in my case choosing models for fluff and looks) the balance really isn't an issue when both sides don't exploit it.

What? No. That's not true at all. Again, not discussing this vaunted perfect balance notion that gets thrown around in discussions like this. Having a balanced game with varied units would create more options than 40k currently, as everything would be open and viable.

If I were to play a game of Firestorm Armada, I don't have to worry about bad matchups, broken combos, differing mindsets, or identical lists. I just show up for a game with a list. With options. With balance.

Admittedly, 40k has more units total across the game, but all that means is more effort to balance it. All I'm arguing is that the balance can (and should) be better, which is a pretty good catchall for not getting worse.

I'm not saying it's superior, just that those playing 40k as a tournament game are using it for something it wasn't meant for, so shouldn't be surprised when it begins to break down. It's like trying to win a Formula 1 race in a hatchback and complaining you don't make the podium.

I agree in a perfect world, GW would make a game like you talk about, but in reality that will never happen.

Again, the balance issues don't just affect tournament players. While the current state of the game isn't conducive to competitive level playing, the balance and bloated rules are hurting casual gamers too. Or fluffy gamers. Or whatever you wish to call them.

It is a solution in that it solves the problem of bad matchups and incompatible philosophies in list-building at an individual level. It won't fix the game, but it can make your own experience more enjoyable.

Once more, not a solution, its a symptom of the rules creating unfortunate scenarios where the best option is to turn down a game.

 Paradigm wrote:
...
...
I'm not saying it's superior, just that those playing 40k as a tournament game are using it for something it wasn't meant for, so shouldn't be surprised when it begins to break down. It's like trying to win a Formula 1 race in a hatchback and complaining you don't make the podium.
...
...

I see that said quite a lot, and it ignores the fact that GW themselves ran 40K tournaments for about 20 years and only started the "forge the narrative" theme in 6th edition.

Drager wrote:
The above is not speculation, or my opinion, it is a paraphrase

A paraphrase. An opinion. Someone's interpretation. Meh.

 Melissia wrote:
Please, nothing GW does is particularly douchey compared to 9/10ths of the crap that goes on on the internet on a day to day basis.

Unfair comparison maybe?
At least they are to pretend to cater to a particular audience.
Not sure how a rather personal means of cleansing got into this topic but the new rules give me about the same comfort level.

@WayneTheGame: I see what you are saying about being told to take certain units, and how you feel like you're forced into either losing or taking netlists, but I can't help but wonder if this is a product of internet hyperbole. It seems that, online, every unit is either 'the best in its category' or 'not worth taking, swap it'. I really doubt it's this binary in real life, a list of CSM may be slightly weaker than a Plague Marine list, but I really don't think you're basically handing over the win by taking them. Of course, if you're playing top-level tournament lists, then it's an issue, but against most non-optimised armies, there's no measurable disadvantage.

@Jidmah: I'm not calling all competitive players WAAC, I appreciate that the majority of competitive players are perfectly reasonable, but it is largely the WAAC players that contribute to the 'take the best, all the best and nothing but the best' mindset that exacerbates the issue with 40k's balance. That was why I drew the distinction in my posts.

@Blacksails: By narrative fashion, I mean that both players, while still working towards a result, are more interested in having a good time and telling a good story getting there. In other words, games where players play in character with their armies, occasionally at the expense of tactics, to tell a story. The process is more important than the results in a narrative game, basically.

I'm not saying that the state of 40k is a 'good thing', in that I recognise there are some issues that are serious in certain cases. But when you regard it as a toolkit//guideline for telling a story set in the 40k universe, it does it's job just fine. This was the same in 5th, and in 6th. Of course there is potential for it to get better, but it is serviceable as-is, at least in my own experience. Yours may be entirely, different, of course, and I appreciate that.

@Kilkrazy: It may be only a recent change in direction, but surely that means there [i]is[/i[ a change in direction. GW have made the call that they want to support narrative/fluffy/casual games over the tournament scene, and all power to them for doing that. 40k hasn't always been that, but that's what it is now.

 Paradigm wrote:

@Blacksails: By narrative fashion, I mean that both players, while still working towards a result, are more interested in having a good time and telling a good story getting there. In other words, games where players play in character with their armies, occasionally at the expense of tactics, to tell a story. The process is more important than the results in a narrative game, basically.

I've always had an interest in telling a story during all my games. I still show up with the intent to put up a good fight with a well constructed list that fits a certain theme I have in mind. To that end, I've played games that worked just fine, when my opponent was on the exact same page, but I've had games where there wasn't the case; either through list strength, lack of respect for fluff, or deliberately cheesing or giving up on the game. My issue has always been that the rules may appear to be a 'toolbox', but really just end up as a series of empty boxes players separate themselves into.

I also don't buy that 40k is a narrative game. If 40k is a narrative game, every miniature is, therefore there's no purpose in claiming it to be such. There is nothing inherent to the rules that engender a particularly story focused game above anything else on the market, and I'd argue there are many elements that are actively working against this so called narrative.

I'm not saying that the state of 40k is a 'good thing', in that I recognise there are some issues that are serious in certain cases. But when you regard it as a toolkit//guideline for telling a story set in the 40k universe, it does it's job just fine. This was the same in 5th, and in 6th. Of course there is potential for it to get better, but it is serviceable as-is, at least in my own experience. Yours may be entirely, different, of course, and I appreciate that.

I'm verging on claiming 40k is un-serviceable. As for the toolbox analogy, it strikes me as a toolkit filled with broken tools, missing parts, and organized so poorly you waste time constantly looking for that screwdriver you just had a second ago.

I'm glad you've find a group of people who play with the same expectations and goals for the game. I'm hoping to find something similar in my new city, but I'm not holding my breath. Its either a small group, or playing in the local GW store, which I can't do with my models.

Such is life. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the state of 40k in the specifics. I am grateful for the reasonable discussion though.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/05/40k-why-are-we-fighting.html


It's pretty rare to read anything of value on bols, but man this commenter did a fantastic job and I can't help but think what this individual had to say is worth sharing here.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"Name • 2 hours ago

Utah alcohol commission may prevent beer being served at Oktoberfest”. What does this headline have to do with 7th edition 40k? Both are sad commentaries on the human condition.

Since the recent release of a surprisingly rules-light 7th edition 40k, we have seen many invocations of “choice”, agreements between “gentlemen”, and “social contracts”.

Increasingly, some of these invocations have begun to reveal themselves for what they are: borderline nihilism and the use of the terms cynically, turning them on their heads.

We are cunning and convoluted animals, we humans. We can cynically deprive others and call it freedom. We may even convince ourselves of our righteousness and good intentions. We can even convince ourselves we are doing the exact opposite of what we are doing. Like taking away the Oktoberfesters’ beer and claiming its good for those who are denied choices.

Let’s start with a folksy anecdotal analogy coming from a guy whose grandparents and in-laws are farmers and ranchers. The norms of a farm are good enough when driving on the farm, but broader common norms of conduct are needed for driving on a public road. If the local police start tearing around our private property trying to enforce highway traffic laws we’d have reason to be pissed and confused. One would hope we would also see the absurdity of repealing all traffic laws under the assumption that the idiosyncratic norms of each person’s farm were enough for the open road. One certainly would never lecture the injured parties, claim they had it coming, and wag one’s finger at them… if one was a “gentleman” and believed in the “social contract”, that is.

For the competitive or tournament gamer, this rules set has been stripped of many necessary parts. The rules of the road have been removed in many areas. There is almost universal agreement on this point. Many other casual and home gamers have claimed this loss of rules functionalities and standards has freed them in some significant way. But, we must investigate this claim.

There is an innate contradiction here: the desire to have GW’s permission to play in a way not dependent upon GW’s permission. If freedom to fluff is our aim, why does GW giving permission mean so much to us… or anything at all for that matter? If one plays by “gentleman’s agreement”, why do we revel in getting GW’s leave to do what we were doing anyway?

Could we not play as one wished before? Did a new set of non-rules empower anyone in a way they were not already empowered? Were given anything we did not already have? The stance is self contradictory even on its face.

At the end of the day, our brothers in arms in this odd hobby have caught one right in the jimmies and some of our reactions have been to belittle them, slander them, pigeon hole them, and generally lecture while they are down. Well, we have learned far more about some of us from our actions than we will ever learn about the “competitive” targets of our abuse.

Things were taken from “them”. You have been sold very expensive rules less than 2 years after the last one. It has less functionality and entire mechanics (such as terrain placement, full terrain delineation, proper force balancing, etc.) have been removed. And, you have been told “less is more”. Falling for this absurdity led some people in the ‘70s to buy pet rocks.

I think these bizarre reactions may spring from totally self absorbed, myopic gaming subcultures. The real issue becomes vindication of one’s chosen style; “us vs. them”.

Some of the demands to “just deal with it” are either ironic trollings or totally lack self awareness: One cannot claim to be all about gentlemanly parity and fairness between two sides, yet abandon any concern for even-handed standards when the other guy’s oxe is getting gored. To accept GW’s recent “us vs. them” side choosing has very real risks. It runs the risk of being on the losing side the next time GW decides to take sides and take away what one group needs to play their style of game.

Furthermore, if we really are gentleman, 40k rules do not exist for us any more than criminal statutes exist for saints. If some of us play in a world where we and our friends invoke insularly known house rules, great! No one is stopping us. Jive on, my brother.

But from the safety of our gated gaming community, can we support the authorities giving leave to the gaming-ruffians to riot all over our brethren downtown? Not if we actually are gentlemen who care about the social contract.

Ironically, there is no equivalent to this situation on the other side. The tournament crowd did not break into our homes and force us to play their game. They have been a gamer subculture that we have disparaged from afar, but whose existence really didn’t impinge as we played amongst other “gentlemen” in our closed venues. But, now our side of the gaming subculture is in their house, taking their stuff in ways that we “gentlemen” could never have suffered in our venues of private games and house rules.

What is the gentleman’s response? Thus far, venom for the competitive players’ objections and a total lack of sympathy and support for those who have been left out in the cold by GW’s “side choosing”. What a gentlemanly adherence to the social contract we’ve shown!

Sure, we can proffer narrow-minded, evangelical game-snobbery as “gentlemanly behavior”. But, we only make our own subculture look like narrow minded zealots who would rather burn the apartment complex down than share it with “them”.

Does having the rug pulled out from under the competitive venue improve our narratives and home games? Does running the competitive players out of 40k help support the products we are dependent on? No; this is petty schadenfreude at the misfortune of others who do not share our gaming style… even when the misfortune gains us absolutely nothing (except, perhaps, a sterling chance to make ourselves look like
complete jack asses).

We are cunning and convoluted animals, we humans. We can cynically deprive others and call it freedom. We may even convince ourselves of our righteousness and good intentions. We can even convince ourselves we are doing the exact opposite of what we are doing."


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I enjoyed that. Hat's off to this "name" character.

 Melissia wrote:
Please, nothing GW does is particularly douchey compared to 9/10ths of the crap that goes on on the internet on a day to day basis.

--->



66% price increase.

 Paradigm wrote:
@WayneTheGame: I see what you are saying about being told to take certain units, and how you feel like you're forced into either losing or taking netlists, but I can't help but wonder if this is a product of internet hyperbole. It seems that, online, every unit is either 'the best in its category' or 'not worth taking, swap it'. I really doubt it's this binary in real life, a list of CSM may be slightly weaker than a Plague Marine list, but I really don't think you're basically handing over the win by taking them. Of course, if you're playing top-level tournament lists, then it's an issue, but against most non-optimised armies, there's no measurable disadvantage.

@Jidmah: I'm not calling all competitive players WAAC, I appreciate that the majority of competitive players are perfectly reasonable, but it is largely the WAAC players that contribute to the 'take the best, all the best and nothing but the best' mindset that exacerbates the issue with 40k's balance. That was why I drew the distinction in my posts.

@Blacksails: By narrative fashion, I mean that both players, while still working towards a result, are more interested in having a good time and telling a good story getting there. In other words, games where players play in character with their armies, occasionally at the expense of tactics, to tell a story. The process is more important than the results in a narrative game, basically.

I'm not saying that the state of 40k is a 'good thing', in that I recognise there are some issues that are serious in certain cases. But when you regard it as a toolkit//guideline for telling a story set in the 40k universe, it does it's job just fine. This was the same in 5th, and in 6th. Of course there is potential for it to get better, but it is serviceable as-is, at least in my own experience. Yours may be entirely, different, of course, and I appreciate that.

@Kilkrazy: It may be only a recent change in direction, but surely that means there [i]is[/i[ a change in direction. GW have made the call that they want to support narrative/fluffy/casual games over the tournament scene, and all power to them for doing that. 40k hasn't always been that, but that's what it is now.

My fluffy list is Tzeentch. I can't play lost and the damned and I want to play Tzeentch. My army is fluffy, I play fluffy. I have my own army theme but it's punished drastically because I'm paying extra points for a useless 6++ invuln and my Tzeentchian sorcerers are some of the WORST PSYKERS IN THE GAME. I do that for emphasis because I find it hilarious the god of magic sucks at magic. And KSons? I've fielded them... 3 times. Please try to play them. You'll pay hundreds of points for upgrades that mean nothing and get a special rule that punishes you for playing them. It's not just slightly inferior, it's drastically inferior. Look at comeptitive, look for CSM that really make it anymore. Not even the Nurgle list makes it far. I'm casual but that's ridiculous. All armies should exist up there. If it's only slight imbalances then why aren't they there?

I can't tell a story when this game forces me to roll my warlord trait, my psyker traits, forces me to declare challenges, and makes the army I field inherently inferior. I want to tell a story where we don't have to say don't play that because you like Riptides but it'll make my army useless.

Allows players to make army consisting of any toys they want, forces them to randomize warlord traits and psychic powers. Quality sandbox design.

 StarTrotter wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
@WayneTheGame: I see what you are saying about being told to take certain units, and how you feel like you're forced into either losing or taking netlists, but I can't help but wonder if this is a product of internet hyperbole. It seems that, online, every unit is either 'the best in its category' or 'not worth taking, swap it'. I really doubt it's this binary in real life, a list of CSM may be slightly weaker than a Plague Marine list, but I really don't think you're basically handing over the win by taking them. Of course, if you're playing top-level tournament lists, then it's an issue, but against most non-optimised armies, there's no measurable disadvantage.

@Jidmah: I'm not calling all competitive players WAAC, I appreciate that the majority of competitive players are perfectly reasonable, but it is largely the WAAC players that contribute to the 'take the best, all the best and nothing but the best' mindset that exacerbates the issue with 40k's balance. That was why I drew the distinction in my posts.

@Blacksails: By narrative fashion, I mean that both players, while still working towards a result, are more interested in having a good time and telling a good story getting there. In other words, games where players play in character with their armies, occasionally at the expense of tactics, to tell a story. The process is more important than the results in a narrative game, basically.

I'm not saying that the state of 40k is a 'good thing', in that I recognise there are some issues that are serious in certain cases. But when you regard it as a toolkit//guideline for telling a story set in the 40k universe, it does it's job just fine. This was the same in 5th, and in 6th. Of course there is potential for it to get better, but it is serviceable as-is, at least in my own experience. Yours may be entirely, different, of course, and I appreciate that.

@Kilkrazy: It may be only a recent change in direction, but surely that means there [i]is[/i[ a change in direction. GW have made the call that they want to support narrative/fluffy/casual games over the tournament scene, and all power to them for doing that. 40k hasn't always been that, but that's what it is now.

My fluffy list is Tzeentch. I can't play lost and the damned and I want to play Tzeentch. My army is fluffy, I play fluffy. I have my own army theme but it's punished drastically because I'm paying extra points for a useless 6++ invuln and my Tzeentchian sorcerers are some of the WORST PSYKERS IN THE GAME. I do that for emphasis because I find it hilarious the god of magic sucks at magic. And KSons? I've fielded them... 3 times. Please try to play them. You'll pay hundreds of points for upgrades that mean nothing and get a special rule that punishes you for playing them. It's not just slightly inferior, it's drastically inferior. Look at comeptitive, look for CSM that really make it anymore. Not even the Nurgle list makes it far. I'm casual but that's ridiculous. All armies should exist up there. If it's only slight imbalances then why aren't they there?

I can't tell a story when this game forces me to roll my warlord trait, my psyker traits, forces me to declare challenges, and makes the army I field inherently inferior. I want to tell a story where we don't have to say don't play that because you like Riptides but it'll make my army useless.

If I had the CSM codex and the models, I'd happily try out a Tzneetch list and Tsons next time I play. The models are awesome, the fluff is cool and it seems easy to theme them. I don't know much of the Chaos codex, but I can't see how the sorcerers are that bad, they have access to decent powers and you can bring a bunch of them. I'm not saying you're going to beat a tournament with a Tsons list, but I also don't think they're going to make a game invalid against a like-minded opponent.

On the competitve scene, the lists that do well are the ones that are anomolies of balance, not the norm. It's not that CSM (or DA, SM. Nids, IG for that matter) are below the 'average' power level, it's that a handful of iterations of Tau, Eldar and Demons are above that average. Take away the Screamerstar, which relies on an unforseen combo, and Demons are on the same level. Limit Tau to 2 Riptides, the same. Stop Eldar spamming serpents, the same. 3 broken lists that only crop up in competitive events don't break the game, or even a codex.

 Paradigm wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
@WayneTheGame: I see what you are saying about being told to take certain units, and how you feel like you're forced into either losing or taking netlists, but I can't help but wonder if this is a product of internet hyperbole. It seems that, online, every unit is either 'the best in its category' or 'not worth taking, swap it'. I really doubt it's this binary in real life, a list of CSM may be slightly weaker than a Plague Marine list, but I really don't think you're basically handing over the win by taking them. Of course, if you're playing top-level tournament lists, then it's an issue, but against most non-optimised armies, there's no measurable disadvantage.

@Jidmah: I'm not calling all competitive players WAAC, I appreciate that the majority of competitive players are perfectly reasonable, but it is largely the WAAC players that contribute to the 'take the best, all the best and nothing but the best' mindset that exacerbates the issue with 40k's balance. That was why I drew the distinction in my posts.

@Blacksails: By narrative fashion, I mean that both players, while still working towards a result, are more interested in having a good time and telling a good story getting there. In other words, games where players play in character with their armies, occasionally at the expense of tactics, to tell a story. The process is more important than the results in a narrative game, basically.

I'm not saying that the state of 40k is a 'good thing', in that I recognise there are some issues that are serious in certain cases. But when you regard it as a toolkit//guideline for telling a story set in the 40k universe, it does it's job just fine. This was the same in 5th, and in 6th. Of course there is potential for it to get better, but it is serviceable as-is, at least in my own experience. Yours may be entirely, different, of course, and I appreciate that.

@Kilkrazy: It may be only a recent change in direction, but surely that means there [i]is[/i[ a change in direction. GW have made the call that they want to support narrative/fluffy/casual games over the tournament scene, and all power to them for doing that. 40k hasn't always been that, but that's what it is now.

My fluffy list is Tzeentch. I can't play lost and the damned and I want to play Tzeentch. My army is fluffy, I play fluffy. I have my own army theme but it's punished drastically because I'm paying extra points for a useless 6++ invuln and my Tzeentchian sorcerers are some of the WORST PSYKERS IN THE GAME. I do that for emphasis because I find it hilarious the god of magic sucks at magic. And KSons? I've fielded them... 3 times. Please try to play them. You'll pay hundreds of points for upgrades that mean nothing and get a special rule that punishes you for playing them. It's not just slightly inferior, it's drastically inferior. Look at comeptitive, look for CSM that really make it anymore. Not even the Nurgle list makes it far. I'm casual but that's ridiculous. All armies should exist up there. If it's only slight imbalances then why aren't they there?

I can't tell a story when this game forces me to roll my warlord trait, my psyker traits, forces me to declare challenges, and makes the army I field inherently inferior. I want to tell a story where we don't have to say don't play that because you like Riptides but it'll make my army useless.

If I had the CSM codex and the models, I'd happily try out a Tzneetch list and Tsons next time I play. The models are awesome, the fluff is cool and it seems easy to theme them. I don't know much of the Chaos codex, but I can't see how the sorcerers are that bad, they have access to decent powers and you can bring a bunch of them. I'm not saying you're going to beat a tournament with a Tsons list, but I also don't think they're going to make a game invalid against a like-minded opponent.

On the competitve scene, the lists that do well are the ones that are anomolies of balance, not the norm. It's not that CSM (or DA, SM. Nids, IG for that matter) are below the 'average' power level, it's that a handful of iterations of Tau, Eldar and Demons are above that average. Take away the Screamerstar, which relies on an unforseen combo, and Demons are on the same level. Limit Tau to 2 Riptides, the same. Stop Eldar spamming serpents, the same. 3 broken lists that only crop up in competitive events don't break the game, or even a codex.

It's mainly because they are required to roll on a Tzeentch table which only, out of the 4 spells, has one good spell. Doombolt. Besides that, the rest are terrible spells. You are forced to roll one spell on it so, despite being capable of being ML3, you will only get 2 spells from anything else. You now get the primaris but the primaris is radically random like d6 Strength and AP level random (small blast). Then you roll on pyromancy (bad), telepathy (Good), and biomancy (good). Slaanesh sorcerers and, even more so, Undivided sorcerers are the best as they can roll 3 times on a table and can get a free primaris if it is all from one table (which is rather common). Tsons are bad more because they are hyper specialized and pay for lots of excess options. The sorcerer sucks but they pay extra despite it likely getting bad spells, the Rubric marines pay out the nose for AP3 bolters, have no real customization, have slow and purposeful which only hurts them, and have a 4++ save but can die easily to anything ap4 to nothing just as easily as anything else. It makes them so pricey that even CSM with plasma can do their job better for less. They can also only become troops if you take the worst sorcerer. KSons cost 150 points for a unit of 5 and every extra member costs 23 points.

As per the mark, it's an overall bad choice. Characters must pay 15 points for it (the same as Slaanesh and Nurgle) despite it only ever being a +1 to an invuln and it can never give you more than a 3+ invuln save. Ahriman is specifically given the aura to make it so it is only a 4++, it's only slightly worth it on a lord or sorcerer if you take terminator armour, the lord is worse as it doesn't let you have Kson troops and the sorcerer is a worse option as a warlord, CSM troops have to pay 2 points for only a 6++ save, cultists pay 1, chosen 2, possessed 5 (the most pricey despite only being a 4++ invuln), terminators cost 5, mutilators cost a whopping 8 for no reason at all, bikers cost 3 points, spawn have to pay 4 points for a 6++ save, raptors pay 2, warp talons have to pay 6 (the most for them), havocs must pay 2, obliterators pay 8 whilst nurgle pays 6 for better.... It's usually a 6++ save. The problem is that it's per model so it slowly becomes more pricey and it ends up being worthless especially if in cover of some form or if they aren't shooting with ap1-3 guns.

Ahriman is a trap as he's just overpriced and likely to peril himself to death.

Finally, the Icon of flame is terrible giving all boltguns, combi-bolters, heavy bolters, and bolt pistols if mark of Tzeentch soul blaze. Fething soul blaze. Finally, to kick them in the nuts, the daemonic steed isn't worth it. The disc of Tzeentch gives you +1 A and jetbike. It becomes the only jetbike in the CSM codex meaning it doesn't really mesh that well with anything.

Actually I think IG are now common in competitive. Also you listed SM but they are common competitive lists. Even taking those out its not quite an even level, there is some horrid internal balance within the Chaos Daemon codex mainly being Khorne largely sucks (except basically one unit). Even with Tau and Eldar restrictions, it doesn't just end there. Nerf that and they'll still likely be at the top with, at best, Nurgle appearing.