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A lot of games can start off relatively balanced. However, good/bad rolling on the first turn can suddenly squew a fair game into a one sided stomp. We've all had those games where a lucky Lascannon pens and destroys a Landraider on the first turn. We've had those games where Fateweaver Perils himself off the board on turn 1 etc etc. The other imbalance comes from shooting armies vs assault armies which usually favours shooting heavily, especially if the assault army is a lower tier dex.

Asura Varuna wrote:
A lot of games can start off relatively balanced. However, good/bad rolling on the first turn can suddenly squew a fair game into a one sided stomp. We've all had those games where a lucky Lascannon pens and destroys a Landraider on the first turn. We've had those games where Fateweaver Perils himself off the board on turn 1 etc etc. The other imbalance comes from shooting armies vs assault armies which usually favours shooting heavily, especially if the assault army is a lower tier dex.

Oh, man, yes. Wraithguard are a great example of this - I've had games where the squad 1-shotted an imperial knight and ones where they took 2 wounds off a tervigon in two rounds of shooting. Either of those could be game-swinging.

Tournament games are extremely even( only a few games of friendly oldhammer have ever been huge blowouts, oddly enough.

Friendly games trend towards my army 'losing' special rules as things go on. Not because I'm a great player but because I'm a pretty good list builder compounded by the fact that I don't really like painting or modeling so almost always make purchases based on power.

No, but people being tactical numpties balances it out.
Mind you, about 5% of the time I see there's literally nothing else that could've been done to change the outcome.

Shooting armies are perfectly matched against assault armies in my local, as we only ever use 4x4 boards.
(Maybe 6x4 if we're up to something big)

Example 1:
A bunch of Kataphron Destroyers with Grav cannons, alongside a stack of Vanguard, square up against a nicely well-rounded 'Nid force.
Guy decides to chuck the big things out in the open, curbs the gaunts and gargoyles to deal with the 5 infiltrators (who aren't going to do much against the bigguns).

Pretty obvious what happens there.
Would've been an even match if he didn't stuff his Genie-scabbers in some tower in the middle of nowhere, and rammed the ikklediddies down the throats of my kataphrons.
He had some pretty serious beasties on the 4x4 board.

Example 2:
Recent Kill-team league match, I'm using my 4 Thallax against a mob of Orks.
One of my guys has a Rad-cleanser (fleshbane template, AP5).

He does a funny thing where he steps the boyz forward, then back again, which would be completely sound against a gunline of lasrifles, but not against a spoopy cyborg with a nasty radiation gun, zipping over at 12"/turn.
Finally came to his senses and mugged the poor git against a wall, making short work of him, but by that time, the one Thallax had wiped out half his army.

He absolutely had the models to dominate the board and giving me nowhere to run to, but he kept to moving his men around as he would his Eldar (which is what he normally plays).

Example 3:
[nothing I could've done to not lose]
Up against the un-defeated Necron chap with his Praetorian shenanigans, 2000pts game.
I try going at logger heads against the Prats, using 5 robots to blind -> charge combo him, which should've worked, had he actually had the 10 prats in 1 unit like I thought; not 2 5'mans right next to eachother.

2k pts, tabled on turn 2.
Even if I'd sorted out the Prats, I had 30 ruddy warriors, a freaking Necronified Knight (was just an 'allied' Paladin), and some shield jobbies to deal with.
My Skits and Styrix weren't quite up to the task.