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About year ago I asked Dakka community about balance issues in 40k. At the time 60% thought that armies were nicely balanced and equally skilled players would have equal chances of winning with any army.
But now with new codices coming out...

Is 40k unbalanced and are the new codices clearly better than older ones?
a) Yes, the codices are unbalanced and players with equal skill can have serious advantage/disadvantage depending on which army they play.
b) No, players with equal skill have equal chances of winning with any army

Personally, I'll say Yes. Playing with both Vanilla Space Marines and Blood Angels codices... I just can't believe that they were both written by same guy...

Doh, weird poll. In the post you ask the question "Is 40k still balanced" so I click yes but now I see that the poll question is the other way around...

Shrubs wrote:Doh, weird poll. In the post you ask the question "Is 40k still balanced" so I click yes but now I see that the poll question is the other way around...

Sorry. Rephrased it now.

There is no such thing as a perfectly balanced turn-based game. There's always going to be advantages to either going first or second even if the forces are identical.

The new codex are a little over powered compared to older codices, but an intelligent tactician should be able to find ways to work around this. If every single part of the game was balanced, it wouldn't as exciting. Imbalance will breed both bland and creative strategies.

Mr Nobody wrote:The new codex are a little over powered compared to older codices, but an intelligent tactician should be able to find ways to work around this. If every single part of the game was balanced, it wouldn't as exciting. Imbalance will breed both bland and creative strategies.

Agreed. time will tell when everyone has a fifth edition codex and we are allowed to play in the current ruleset without changes. Oh wait...that isnt GW's business model.

40k is and always will be with the current business model.

We have army books from 3 different editions in play currently, of which there are very clearly tiers of competitiveness. Only an idiot is going to consider Necrons on par with Space Pups or Imperial Guard for instance.

With a game that releases army updates not only individually, but piecemeal over the course of years and editions, with no willingness to maintain a living ruleset/FAQ/Errata, and especially without proper playtesting, then there is never going to be balance in this game. It's the nature of the business model.



The only way this game is going to get as close as is possible to real balance in a game that inherently also has wild variation in units, is to create and release all factions army lists at the same time after extensive playtesting and continually update FAQ's, Errata's, and the core rules when needed. However that does not work with GW's business model, so we are unlikely to see that.


But all that said, 40k is not so bad off that it is unplayable by any means, certainly not the cluster**** that was Fantasy 7th Edition.

40k is nowhere near balanced, and the rules are held together with duct tape and wishes.

That said, it's hardly a fatal flaw. The game can be fun even if all the races/factions aren't evenly viable. Of course I say this as a SW Player who has a fairly solid dex, and all of one truly terrible unit. So take that with a grain of salt.

Its unbalanced, and it should be. This is not a game of checkers. This is a game about using what you have to its strength and playing to your opponent's weaknesses. Some armies have more viable choices than others.

I'm playing this game for its diversity and fluff. I'f I play against an army that is more powerfull than mine, I consider it a challenge. I'm not in it to win it. I'm in it for the fun of it. I love to compete, but I don't care if I win if its a good game. I'm under no delusions that I have an equal chance against every army.

Define "balanced" and then provide a perfectly balanced game that isn't a generic board game type. You can't. There will always be differences in codexes and there's virtually no way to ensure that a collection of oddball special rules, etc. is fully balanced with another aside from making them generic and virtually identical. On top of that, if you're basing "balanced" by results, player skill and luck factor even greater, especially in small sample sizes, than "balance." Codexes are not perfectly balanced and never will be, but the margins by which they are imbalanced are often small and can be overcome by good lists and strong players.

Skarboy wrote:Define "balanced"

All distinct groups of playing pieces provide roughly the same chance of winning when used against any other group. In the context of 40k and other strategy games this means that in any given game choice of faction isn't major contributing factor to loss/victory. Assuming other factors such as player skill, environment, or turn order wash out over a large enough set of match ups.

Within in each distinct set of playing pieces each (or at least most0 has at least one situation in which it is serves a function well, if not optimally and the majority of pieces have multiple common situations in which they can perform at least one function well.

and then provide a perfectly balanced game that isn't a generic board game type. You can't.

If you're counting video games, Starcraft approaches about as close as you can possibly get. Say whatever you want about it's quality or enjoyability as a game but it's balanced is tuned very tightly. I'm sure there are others out there as well. For all it's stumbles, Magic: The Gathering* is also a fairly well balanced game. I'm sure there are others, those are just the only ones that come to mind off the top of my head.

Something doesn't have to be "Perfectly" balanced to be balanced anyway. 40k has flimsy rules that don't interact with each other well. It's not a *fatal* flaw, not but they easily be much, much better.


EDIT:(* Though it doesn't really interact too well with the strategy game definition of "Balanced")

Chongara wrote:Of course I say this as a SW Player who has a fairly solid dex

What would it take for a codex to be beyond "fairly solid"?

/boggle

It is not very balanced. But it is fun nonetheless.

Well, it's nowhere near as blatantly unbalanced as, say, Battlefleet Gothic, but then that's what makes these two games fun; you rely less on your army than on your abilities as a tactician.

Imho, if this trend continues, 40k will become incredibly close to the WHFB 7th edition days. From what I've gathered at my flgs, it's either SW or go home for tournament play. Awfully familiar to the daemon/VC power house of 7th.

Is it a fun game? Totally, the imbalance is not worth getting to riled up over. The fluff and environment (other people, gaming groups, etc..) make up for it a lot. And the dice gods betray any codex equally!

As far as people asking for balance...depending on how the first couple 8th edition books go as far as creep is concerned, fantasy has a good shot at really good balance once wood elves/TK get updated.

Considering GW have actually admitted they don't balance for tournament play, I'd say it's not balanced.

40k is a 'beer and pretzelz' game. Or 'tea and biscuit's, depending on your country to origin. It's a hobby, and it's meant to be played for fun. You can play it in a tournament scene, and people get a lot of enjoyment out of doing that - more power to them. But it's not what GW is aiming for when they make these games.

-Loki- wrote:Considering GW have actually admitted they don't balance for tournament play, I'd say it's not balanced.

40k is a 'beer and pretzelz' game. Or 'tea and biscuit's, depending on your country to origin. It's a hobby, and it's meant to be played for fun. You can play it in a tournament scene, and people get a lot of enjoyment out of doing that - more power to them. But it's not what GW is aiming for when they make these games.

We drink beer over here too, you know.

Mr Nobody wrote:The new codex are a little over powered compared to older codices, but an intelligent tactician should be able to find ways to work around this. If every single part of the game was balanced, it wouldn't as exciting. Imbalance will breed both bland and creative strategies.

Like Button

Balanced enough for me

Yes, the blood angels codex is pretty....OP(especially for a chapter that really isn't anything special, aside from having a lot of predators and blood-frenzied maniacs).

I don't really care about broken armies, to be honest. If you know they're broken, and play them (To abuse their strengths) anyway then I probably think you're a weak player

Only people who know they can't win (and those that want to ruin the game) play blood angels, IMO.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

-Loki- wrote:Considering GW have actually admitted they don't balance for tournament play, I'd say it's not balanced.

40k is a 'beer and pretzelz' game. Or 'tea and biscuit's, depending on your country to origin. It's a hobby, and it's meant to be played for fun. You can play it in a tournament scene, and people get a lot of enjoyment out of doing that - more power to them. But it's not what GW is aiming for when they make these games.

We drink beer over here too, you know.

I thought you guys drank ale?

Samus_aran115 wrote:Balanced enough for me

Yes, the blood angels codex is pretty....OP(especially for a chapter that really isn't anything special, aside from having a lot of predators and blood-frenzied maniacs).

I don't really care about broken armies, to be honest. If you know they're broken, and play them (To abuse their strengths) anyway then I probably think you're a weak player

Only people who know they can't win (and those that want to ruin the game) play blood angels, IMO.

So true

When I see "unbalanced" I generally think of it as "there is something so broken about this game that it narrows the gameplay so far as to be unfun."

For example, in a game like Starcraft, if a single faction with a certain build order was literally (or very close to) unbeatable, I would call that unbalanced.

There is not one faction in 40k for which a moderately good player (not new, not a tourney master) can build a list that will have an almost guaranteed chance of victory over anything the enemy could possibly field. Thus my general opinion is that WH40k is not unbalanced as a game.

However, it has unbalanced elements as a result of creep, oversights, and other odd rule-interactions. Inquisition-only armies, for example, are considered pretty weak currently as a result of new codices having "better stuff" and better synergy. Furthermore, not all the codices have a dozen workable strategies and playstyles; some codices need to be played a certain way to have a good chance of winning. I feel like this is something that makes a codex "strong" in the eyes of players. The fact that IG or SW can field at least half a dozen radically different lists and not fight an uphill battle with any of them says a lot about that army's strengths.

All that said, I still think the overall game is reasonably balanced. It may have some unbalanced elements, but the fact that (most) 40k players won't flat out refuse to play against certain factions is pretty strong evidence that nothing is absolutely 100% broken.

mmmh .... I play with the vanilla marines codex to represent my DA (someone whined about it, pretending me to use DA codex... can you believe that???).
The codices are definitely unbalanced, with last codices always being a little more powerful (cept for DA... yes I'm whining) but I don't think they're so unbalanced to make victory impossible for an army against another one... you can make good builds with every codex, even the DA codex.

So... I wouldn't offend so much BA players... their codex is pretty OP, but it's not their fault
(personally I hate SW... their fluff is just orrible and their totally out of place in the 40k universe... but that's my opinion)

The game's poorly written, poorly tested, and poorly worded. What's more, newer codecies are intentionally made to be more powerful.

If someone wanted to teach a class about game design, and wanted an example of piss poor balance, I'd put up 40k.

I have to say something about space wolves....This is just my opinion.

Space wolves are fine. Thunderwolf cavalry is an amazingly cool idea that already fits the fluff, and I think they're more than welcome in a MEQ army.

I've read the majority of their Index astartes articles, and I have to say, they're my favorite loyalist chapter (more like legion). They have immeasurable courage and cunning, as well as being hardened by their formidable planet, and being members of one of the most unforgiving chapters.

Anyway, that's my opinion. I have no intention of ever playing space wolves, but they're wicked cool

-Loki- wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

-Loki- wrote:Considering GW have actually admitted they don't balance for tournament play, I'd say it's not balanced.

40k is a 'beer and pretzelz' game. Or 'tea and biscuit's, depending on your country to origin. It's a hobby, and it's meant to be played for fun. You can play it in a tournament scene, and people get a lot of enjoyment out of doing that - more power to them. But it's not what GW is aiming for when they make these games.

We drink beer over here too, you know.

I thought you guys drank ale?

Ale, beer, cider as long as it's alcoholic most people aren't fussy.


On more of an on topic note i think that:
Space Wolves are fine (But i would say that)
As long as an army has a weakess that is exploitable by at least 1 unit in every codex then it's balanced to say the least possible underpowered.
BA are a tad too strong, maybe not OP but a bit too strong.

SW and BA are equally OP if you look at it. I have seen both codexes and there's stuff to cry over in both books. Vanilla is the only one to look at if you want "balance"

But balance in this game isn't the point, and it's just a matter of "wait for the new codex" for most armies to catch up competitively IMO

Although when that new dex comes outm expect a ton of whining from everyone who hasn't jumped the bandwagon or been playing since "I was your age"