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Ghorgul wrote:Marketing is insanely blatant with GW.

FTFY. 'Cause why would a company want you to buy their new products?

combatcotton wrote:

 Ginjitzu wrote:

Spoiler:

Games-Workshop appears to prefer a casual approach to Warhammer in general: casual games where players just want to have a few hours of fun backed up by a suitably fun narrative; casual rules where contradictions are solved by level headed players who let fun decide the outcome; casual lists where players choose their armies based on what looks cool, or what fits a cool theme.

As a narrative gamer, all of these philosophies suit my purposes perfectly well. I'm sure that many of you feel the same as me and many of you don't.

I sincerely doubt narrative and casual gamers would stop playing with perfectly balanced rules or have less fun with them. There is no downside to them so their opinion actually does not matter one way or the other. If that offends you, tough luck.

As a narrative gamer, I certainly wouldn't stop playing if the rules were far more balanced, so I take no offence whatsoever. As others have pointed out balance and symmetry are not the same thing.

I'm not sure whose opinion you suggest doesn't matter though.

w1zard wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I agree, with one caveat:

Oftentimes, there is a downside: blandness. Units and factions lose their identities and often sacrifice their narrative elements on the altar of balance, which is a pretty big downside for narrative players.

Asymmetric balance is a thing. Balanced does not mean factions have to sacrifice their flavor to achieve it. That is a false premise.

It's why I said "oftentimes." I know it is not necessarily the case. My full stance is:

"Balance is always good, so long as blandness is avoided." Any rules change or suggestion that requires an army to lose its flavor, such as the loss of doctrines from the 3.5 guard codex in the 5e codex, is bad. This makes balance much harder, and some might say impossible, though I'm not willing to go that far yet.

I'd say that GW should manage expectations first and return the factions to their core identities. Right now, Imperial Guard is a sprawling monstrosity as far as what one can expect when playing against an "imperial guard" army.