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 Tawnis wrote:
100% Agree with 3rd ed Chaos Codex, that's around when I got into the hobby and my brother got into Chaos. It was so cool all the thematic things you could do with the army at this time and it was one of the things that drew us into the setting. (The Tyranid one of being able to swap weapons across all units because they were all stat modifiers was cool too.)

As Andy Chambers said in an interview a lot of stuff was put out on rule of cool without much playtesting. A lot of the early stuff had a bundle of options and flavour but no internal balance for anyone looking to power game by cherry picking the best combos from 100+ options.

Forgeworld could get that way at times as well. I think it was Gav Thorpe that commented (paraphrasing) that huge pick and mix lists could paradoxically gave you less options when the everything in the codex was competing against a few wombo-combos.

BanjoJohn wrote:

Siegfriedfr wrote:
The crux of the matter is, 40k was never a good game, in any edition, and players came for the models and the Lore surrounding them, and just bear with the terrible gameplay.

Between GW wanting to sell codex and rule books regularly, and some vocal Players being attached to legacy systems that don't make sense anymore (like IGOUGO and D6), the game, in spite of having frequent new editions, doesn't really improve, it just changes.

I'm just curious, what, if any, good games do you think are out there? Or simply, what games are good?

40k Apocalypse

One Page Rule

Conquest TLAOK

Thinking about it, it certainly seems like for the time I played the game and right after I stopped, Eldar were ALWAYS capable of producing some sort of over powered list. Seems like they were real designer favourites for a lot of the game's history. Especially when I consider how bloody annoying they were in Battlefleet Gothic as well!

 Da Boss wrote:
Thinking about it, it certainly seems like for the time I played the game and right after I stopped, Eldar were ALWAYS capable of producing some sort of over powered list. Seems like they were real designer favourites for a lot of the game's history. Especially when I consider how bloody annoying they were in Battlefleet Gothic as well!

From my knowledge and experience, the top build of an Eldar Codex is always top tier.
The rest of the Codex may or may not be.

7th Edition, you could literally just pick units at random and end up with a good army. But that's not always the case-sometimes, bad Eldar units are BAD.

A.T. wrote:
Forgeworld could get that way at times as well. I think it was Gav Thorpe that commented (paraphrasing) that huge pick and mix lists could paradoxically gave you less options when the everything in the codex was competing against a few wombo-combos.

I think that from one perspective gav is right, but that isn't the only perspective. Now, obviously you want a balanced game, but there were plenty of people for whom making the most efficient list wasn't top priority and allowing them access to lots of stuff allowed them to be really creative and model cool things.

The focus on tournament wombo is such a small part of playing and yet it dictates 90% of the game. Gw really need to separate their tournament game from the normal.game, so it can be perfectly tuned in restricted isolation while the normal game is free to be more.

JNAProductions wrote:
From my knowledge and experience, the top build of an Eldar Codex is always top tier.
The rest of the Codex may or may not be.

7th Edition, you could literally just pick units at random and end up with a good army. But that's not always the case-sometimes, bad Eldar units are BAD.

The issue I think is that Eldar due to their design were built with so many bespoke specialists at a time when most armies didn't have that, they are easier to optimise. But it also means that the rest of the army not used gets tarred with the same brush.

That army design makes it really hard to balance because for each aspect to be useful it has to be really good against it's target. So sometimes they over tune one unit and it can take the place of any other unit which allows them to dominate. Despite the fact 90% of the army is left on the shelf.

Eldar were kinda cursed.

Sure, every edition of their Codex offered some horrific combo which most enemies would struggle against.

But, the rest of their units tended to be middling at best.

And every Codex refresh changed what the nasty units and therefore army lists were.

That lead to a not entirely earned reputation as the Meta Chasing Beardy Goon Army.

Were some Eldar players just Net Listing in the hope of easy victories? Sure. Every army is going to have that.

But because of their peculiar affliction? It was often a case of “go at least a bit cheesy, or hobble yourself quite badly”. So you’d have to chase the not completely rubbish units and update your army in a way other Codexes didn’t. Much of that stemmed from your standard Guardians being pretty pants. Low toughness, low save, for a period BS3 and a 12” range basic weapon was a horrible combination.

They did improve a bit when they all went up to BS4. And I can’t for the life of me remember if the Shuriken Catapult went up to 18” range at the same point. But once both of those boosts were in play? Guardians became a handier unit beyond ablative wounds for the weapons platform.

And when you could rely on your Guardians again, a wider range of possible lists opened up, closing the gap between This Codex’s Hotness, and Everything Else.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Eldar were kinda cursed.
Sure, every edition of their Codex offered some horrific combo which most enemies would struggle against.
But, the rest of their units tended to be middling at best.

Early Eldar had three phases IMO. 2nd-4th had a mix of strong and weak with some obvious game breakers, 5e kicked their crutches out and was the only time I recall them not being top tier, and then 6e onwards they were just strong pretty much cover to cover and would routinely pad out the top tournament placings with multiple different playstyles in the face of the gladius, thunderstars, decurions, screamerspam, etc.

I just recall Falcon Grav Tanks being nigh unkillable death machines for pretty much the entire time I played the game. (I played Space Marines in 2e and Orks from 3e through to 6e).

Trying to Power Klaw down Spirit Stoned Falcons was just the pits. Really unfun to play against. Give me a straight down the line fight against Marines any day. And I think that's what I disliked about Eldar - they were often really frustrating to play against, and some of my least fun games were against them.

I wonder which army was consistently the LEAST powerful? In WFB I'd say it's Orcs all the way because Animosity is such an awful rule for a game based on precision movement, and I really felt bad playing the 3e Ork Codex for such a long time but the 4e one was a lot of fun (and I didn't even use Nob Bikers!).

I do empathise with the frustration trying to hit such a falcon.

One thing that annoys me though is that this assumption that strength vs toughness is the default correct style of combat and anything that doesn't do that is unfun.

I can tell you facing s5 anything with Eldar was unfun because you just melt and there's nothing you can do about it.

It's unfun to be told that unless you fight like Orks vs marines you're not playing properly. But then you're told you have to also be fragile as well, so how do you avoid being unfun by being hard to hit, elite and fragile?

Basically the Eldar are just intrinsically different to other factions and unless you abstracting their speed to the point they all have higher toughness or wounds to avoid the unfun of being hard to hit, you either get a bad horde army or a frustrating elite army.

Not really convinced Eldar are intrinsically anything. They have been overpowered for a certain period of time in every edition except 5th.

GW had this silly idea that specialisation was somehow a bad thing. "Oh Fire Dragons are bad because they are inefficient into Ork Boyz, but good into a Battlewagon. Whereas Tactical Marines can shoot their flamer into Boyz, and their Missile Launcher into the Battle Wagon". The reality however was that the Tactical Marines so equipped were bad into basically everything, and you could have the Fire Dragons go after the Battle Wagon while something else in your army went after Boyz.

Take an army where you typically get to act first (because its fast), and the models are fairly reliable (good weapon skills etc) in doing what you want them to do. Its going to work more often than not, and therefore be overpowered, because there isn't a lot your opponent can do about it.

I think its the reason why say Speed Freakz lists are bad in 10th. Because of how vehicle rules work, if you play with enough terrain, you are mostly going to be acting second. Unless you make the stats obnoxiously good, such that you'd always win on planet bowling ball, its very hard for a list which acts second to win. Your opponent can just carve you up as per their plan.

Also pretty sure Tyranids were worse than Orks in 3rd edition, but its a long time ago.

 Da Boss wrote:
Fifth Edition: The Nob Bikers and Paladin death star issues were well discussed, but I think the codices here are where the game really went off the rails and left a solid core ruleset with a janky game that wasn't much fun to play.

I think there's a tendency for true statements like 'every edition had broken elements' to be interpreted as 'every edition was equally broken', but I agree entirely with the above and feel the specifics are important. 5th Ed core rules + 3rd/4th Ed codices is the most fun I've had with any of the legacy editions, cleaning up rough areas of 3rd/4th without getting into the complexity bloat of 6th/7th, and using codices that generally work fairly well together (plus give most players a choice of which of two to use). It's not perfect, and you need some gentleman's agreements to prevent wound allocation abuse, but of the pre-8th editions it's the only setup that my group has found reliably produces an enjoyable game without anyone feeling unsalvageably weak or grossly overpowered.

Once you get into the 5th Ed codices is when it goes off the rails. My buddy's 5th Ed Guard vs my 5th Ed Tyranids just isn't fun.

Tyel wrote:
Not really convinced Eldar are intrinsically anything. They have been overpowered for a certain period of time in every edition except 5th.

GW had this silly idea that specialisation was somehow a bad thing. "Oh Fire Dragons are bad because they are inefficient into Ork Boyz, but good into a Battlewagon. Whereas Tactical Marines can shoot their flamer into Boyz, and their Missile Launcher into the Battle Wagon". The reality however was that the Tactical Marines so equipped were bad into basically everything, and you could have the Fire Dragons go after the Battle Wagon while something else in your army went after Boyz.

Lol. But the Fire Dragons weren't (& aren't) bad into Boyz. They'll kill more Boyz than that SM Tac squad will.
But that's what happens when you point melta weapons at a problem.

My gut feeling is that glass cannon armies (which Eldar have always supposed to be whether they work that way in practice or not) are really, really hard to balance in a system like this where players have turns using their entire armies rather than alternating actions. I'm not a person who has a preference between the two types of game but just a thought. If they hit en masse as glass cannon they'll wreck armies, if they're hit they'll get wrecked. I'm sure it's possible to balance these units but clearly it isn't easy.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with an army being Hard To Use By Intent.

Glass Cannons can come under that heading. But perhaps Finesse is the better phrase for what I’m getting at.

Marines are eternally popular because by background and game design, they can usually outperform a foe in a given thing. And that makes them pretty forgiving. With even middling skill, it can be hard to Lose Big.

But armies which are designed to richly reward carefully considered moves, target selection and overall strategy? Those are sometimes unfairly labelled as Beardy or Unfair. Because in the hands of a player experienced with them, they do really well.

Example, albeit from WHFB. My old Dark Elf army. I leaned heavily into monsters and Chariots, backed up with Dark Riders and Repeater Crossbows. But, I took no Magic At All. The army relied on essentially ignoring the manoeuvres pretty much everyone else was subject to. It moved fast. I could typically end my move facing anyway I wanted. And I was damned good with it. My opponents tended to focus so much on what I could do, they failed to see what I couldn’t do.

If you let me dictate the flow of the battle? You were mine. But, if you took the initiative, forcing me to react to you, spammed even low level spells at me and charged whenever you could? My army was easily beaten. Hence I typically struggled against Wood Elves.

And the same can be true in 40K. It’s one thing to see say, a Smash Captain and Loyal *whatever number* list and know it’s hard. But it’s quite another to look beyond what it Can Do, and see what it Can’t Do, and how to capitalise on that.

But then, I’ve never been one to overly bother with the Meta. I’m not intending to criticise those for whom understanding the Meta is part of their hobby here - but slavishly following it always feels a bit of a fools game to me, because it rarely (if ever?) lasts beyond a Codex, or potentially (Smash Captain + Loyal Whatevs) a timely errata.

The issue is that Eldar are definitely NOT always a Finesse army.

A 7th Edition Wraithknight is as subtle as a brick, and about as hard to use. ScatBikes might have some tricks you'd have to play to learn, but dumping out enough S6 shots to make Assault Cannons blush on fast moving and reasonably durable platforms in 7th was hard to REALLY mess up.

To be fair, I wasn’t referencing Craftworld Eldar specifically. Just acknowledging that designing a Glass Cannon army is tricky, and success can lie in the eyes of the butthurt bad loser, the sort that simply cannot even consider let alone accept that they blew it.

That Craftworld Eldar (see my earlier comment) were for a long time trammelled into a Single Really Good Build or two per Codex.

That was because whilst Squishy kinda came with the territory? A lot of stuff was Just Squishy. All Glass, No Cannon.

How much of this is unfamiliarity though.

The 40k ecosystem is saturated in power armour. The average marine player fights more marines than anything else. That sets an image of how a game plays by default.

Orks despite the lack of armour, fight in a complementary way to marines, pure strength and toughness. Necrons are just alien space marines. Tyranids are basically if the imperial factions were in one army, being able to take anything across a range of stuff.

The tau are similar to nids in that they mix all the unit types the imperium has in one book rather than just having codex battlesuits (marines),.codex and codex fire warriors (guard).

Imo there's a reason that people have drifted towards big monster armies or lots of battlesuits, because playing chaff armies in the land of marines isn't a lot of fun. But you're supposed to accept that you won't have fun in those circumstances, while as soon as marines don't have fun it's a travesty of epic proportions.

The glass cannon isn't common enough to encounter for people to feel confident in playing them, so they get tripped up.


If the meta was only Eldar and everyone built armies to fight them, then a marine force that can weather any attack before hitting hard would be hard to counter as well.

I don’t disagree.

But.

How much of that is a legacy of 3rd Ed Based Boredom, and The Quest For AP3?

I’m not familiar enough with the modern game to weigh in beyond, hence I deliberately phrased this as a question.

But….



During 2nd Ed? Horrific Shuriken Catapults aside, the Eldar having higher movement and superior Initiative really meant something.

Like my old Dark Elf army? If an Eldar player got caught out of position they rapidly went splat. But in the hands of someone that knew what they were doing, what they most certainly were not doing, and what if the dice are favourable they might just get away with? Utter horrors.

3rd Ed stripped away too much. Way too much. It went from an admittedly glorious mess of Rock/Paper/Scissors/Lizard/Spock (to quote an unfunny tv show) to Rock/Paper/Scissors/Sorry I’ve Got A 3+ Save And You Don’t

Bah. I remember going on a 11 game winning streak in 3rd Edition... until people started buying me a new army so I would stop playing my telephone pole army.

But that's just 40k in general?

When Marines are OP they are an adamantine cannon. And when they are UP they are pillowfisted glass. Eldar are the same. Even Orks are the same. The difference being GW seem to fall over themselves to nerf if Orks are ever overpowered.

I feel finesse usually just means weak. You have to take bigger risks and hope the dice perform. Some of the time that will happen. Statistically however more of the time it won't.

DE for instance were not hard to play in the periods of 8th (imo, much debate) and 9th (less so) when they were top dogs or near enough. They were however quite difficult for a lot of 10th because a lot of units were a bit rubbish. Now you have a codex the same unit does much the same thing in the table, but expects to do 25-30% more damage just because. (Or is more likely to do the damage you want, which is a better way of looking at it). Not really convinced it was intentional before in a way it isn't intentional now.

The game has certainly narrowed itself down to a very small range of resolution options, that just so happens to sit favourably in the marine wheelhouse.

Dropping initiative entirely, reducing hit modifiers, all have removed levers that allow defence without it being pure wounds and toughness/saves.

The game now rewards high toughness high wounds high saves and provides no alternatives.

So even more than the last, T3 w1 is less than useful and without any defensive factors that aren't making them harder to hit. It just becomes a chaff profile.

 Hellebore wrote:

Imo there's a reason that people have drifted towards big monster armies or lots of battlesuits, because playing chaff armies in the land of marines isn't a lot of fun.

Chaff was and always will be less popular simply due to the time and financial invest. Just checked GW's website. A box of 10 Cadians costs 42€ and gets you 60 points. A box of 10 Intercessors is 51,50€ and 160 points.

I could create that same video without repeating a single point made by the author and bring viewers to the same conclusion.

We regard OP as a problem when it's actually a feature. 40k's wabi-sabi is what makes it so enduring.

Horde armies also take more time in-game.

Now, playing at home or a club that’s less of an issue. But where you’ve a strict time limit to your games? It can be genuinely impractical.

That’s not a criticism of tournaments as such, just a statement of fact. And so, at organised events where you need to rattle through at a decent pace? Horde armies are just less desirable, further impacting the meta.

Dai2 wrote:
My gut feeling is that glass cannon armies (which Eldar have always supposed to be whether they work that way in practice or not) are really, really hard to balance

Eldar were more aimed at hyper-specialisation, and being fast enough that you had more control over your match-ups than your opponent. They had multiple high durability units.

Arguably harder to balance than glass cannons, and GW gave up on it in 6th when they just made everything eldar tougher and more shooty - like warp spiders with anti-armour weapons and wave serpents with tank-like firepower.

 a_typical_hero wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

Imo there's a reason that people have drifted towards big monster armies or lots of battlesuits, because playing chaff armies in the land of marines isn't a lot of fun.

Chaff was and always will be less popular simply due to the time and financial invest. Just checked GW's website. A box of 10 Cadians costs 42€ and gets you 60 points. A box of 10 Intercessors is 51,50€ and 160 points.

That's what actually attracted me to playing Adeptus Custodes. It was the cheaper option for getting into 40k after a long haitus.

(Until I discovered Resin Custodes)

A.T. wrote:

Dai2 wrote:
My gut feeling is that glass cannon armies (which Eldar have always supposed to be whether they work that way in practice or not) are really, really hard to balance

Eldar were more aimed at hyper-specialisation, and being fast enough that you had more control over your match-ups than your opponent. They had multiple high durability units.

Arguably harder to balance than glass cannons, and GW gave up on it in 6th when they just made everything eldar tougher and more shooty - like warp spiders with anti-armour weapons and wave serpents with tank-like firepower.

With one of the high durability units being the Wave Serpent. Sure, the squishy little elf bits that hit like trucks might die to a swift breeze. But they can spend 90% of their time sipping coco in the back of a WS until it’s time to come out to play. The WS that’s out-shooting MBTs, zooming around the battlefield at high speeds, and shrugging off fire that would slag other tanks.

So in addition to having the right specialist tool for whatever job the edition needs done, they get a dedicated transport that’s been solidly OP for most of it’s long life.

Eldar internal codex balance has generally sucked, but you could always get something very broken out of the book.

Yeah the glass cannon faction was more true of Fantasy elves on reflection and I guess fantasy (pre pre-measure) was a game that could accommodate such a faction more easily. Wood Elves being the army that really leaned into it.

I also recall that Fire Dragons could take a flamer so they weren't even bad vs boyz.

I do agree though that a faction like Eldar is hard to balance. And also that the game is built around Marines as the default which skews things. It's not eldar fans fault if GW have often missed with having their rules in the right spot.

The all or nothing result of being glass cannons is why something like the wave serpent exists though.

They are only effective if they aren't destroyed and when ANYTHING can destroy them, the only way to be able to use them is giving them ways to avoid being destroyed.

It's part of the reason they're hard to balance. They tend to look like an inverse bell curve. Either melt or trounce.

Once aspect squads take casualties they really lose their punch. You could try to balance this by making each one punch even harder while also making them more vulnerable to casualties, so that 1 or 2 is still effective, but people would look to leverage alpha strikes with full squads to avoid that downside.

Imo the intrinsic core mechanics are the reason the Eldar are hard to balance as they bias towards things that make it hard to effectively balance the types of features that army has.

i like many factions and play most but in the years of playing the ratio of difficulty of play to fun generated has always favoured marines. You find your satisfying moments and ability to perform fun actions much easier than something like the Eldar where trying to play them competently is hard and frustrating for the player, let alone the opponent.

The all or nothing of their design means if you don't pull off those moves no one else likes then you tend to fail. it means you are only having fun when your opponent isn't, where as marines punching in with each other had more give and take