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 ClockworkZion wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


We even saw a Riptide character from the Farsight Enclaves codex in 6th or 7th (cannot remember which). He was not game breaking.

O'vesa still exists in 8th, he was in the last Chapter Approved. According to the internet he (and the Eight in general) is trash. The internet is almost totally wrong on that but if we were just to listen to online opinion we would have completely the wrong ideas about how that unit is balanced.

There is a melee Tau build that centers around the 8 that seems to be decent, though that's anecdotal evidwnce provided via hearsay since I never played against it.

The 8 is not broken because the multitude of special rules each unit had were mostly niche applications and did not stack on top of each other creating a uber unit.

The melee The 8 list doesn't focus on killing everything via melee (they have a few options but they're not a game changer), but by using their fly keyword and high durability that of HQ level units that allowed them to soak overwatch and "hide" in combat by triangle locking their target, making it impossible for a fall back. In the ensuing turn, the 8 would fall out of combat and shoot. This was nerfed after changes to how fly works in charge phase.

Wayniac wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Aside from point values for units not properly reflecting its performance on the board, stratagems being unevenly helpful, and typos on the rulebook/codex, exactly what about the rules do you guys truly think is wrong/bad about it?

Or is it simply the sins of the above that brings down the entire game?

The terrain rules fething suck and you can't defend them as is.

CA18 fixed them and now terrain works great.

Would that be the Cities of Death, which are touted as being for Narrative play and seem to have never been picked up for Matched? If so then I agree it fixed them, just that fix is never in place where it matters because it's "not for matched play" so might as well not be a fix at all.

then they should add them to the matched play rules.

Racerguy180 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Aside from point values for units not properly reflecting its performance on the board, stratagems being unevenly helpful, and typos on the rulebook/codex, exactly what about the rules do you guys truly think is wrong/bad about it?

Or is it simply the sins of the above that brings down the entire game?

The terrain rules fething suck and you can't defend them as is.

CA18 fixed them and now terrain works great.

Would that be the Cities of Death, which are touted as being for Narrative play and seem to have never been picked up for Matched? If so then I agree it fixed them, just that fix is never in place where it matters because it's "not for matched play" so might as well not be a fix at all.

then they should add them to the matched play rules.

CoD rules favor FLY and INFANTRY too much to be of a fair mission across the board. Lists need to be tailored specifically to do well in CoD ruleset.

Racerguy180 wrote:

then they should add them to the matched play rules.

Actually, I agree with this. Only by "they" I mean "everyone" since unless it involves PL the rules should port over into matched play games just fine (and even then since points costs for things exist even the Looted Wagons and Custom Land Raider tules can be made Matched Play just by adding up total points costs).

That said, I feel the big fault of terrain in 40k is that it's only really two categories: ruins or fortifications. That isn't enough depth (and titanic units should be able to hit anything that isn't higher up than they are tall in melee) and that leaves a loy about the game feel rather meeeeeh when it comes to board layout.

Then again I miss replacing exploded vehicles with craters and using wrecked vehicles as terrain, so I have biases.

Racerguy180 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Aside from point values for units not properly reflecting its performance on the board, stratagems being unevenly helpful, and typos on the rulebook/codex, exactly what about the rules do you guys truly think is wrong/bad about it?

Or is it simply the sins of the above that brings down the entire game?

The terrain rules fething suck and you can't defend them as is.

CA18 fixed them and now terrain works great.

Would that be the Cities of Death, which are touted as being for Narrative play and seem to have never been picked up for Matched? If so then I agree it fixed them, just that fix is never in place where it matters because it's "not for matched play" so might as well not be a fix at all.

then they should add them to the matched play rules.

I 100% agree, just pointing out that they didn't fix gak since their "fix" is explicitly not for the segment of the rules that virtually everyone who plays Warhammer use. And, as with everything that isn't matched play or doesn't have points, it might as well not even exist at that point.

Caveat: if ITC used them, then they'd also be used by everyone as they would be tournament standard.

Wayniac wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Aside from point values for units not properly reflecting its performance on the board, stratagems being unevenly helpful, and typos on the rulebook/codex, exactly what about the rules do you guys truly think is wrong/bad about it?

Or is it simply the sins of the above that brings down the entire game?

The terrain rules fething suck and you can't defend them as is.

CA18 fixed them and now terrain works great.

Would that be the Cities of Death, which are touted as being for Narrative play and seem to have never been picked up for Matched? If so then I agree it fixed them, just that fix is never in place where it matters because it's "not for matched play" so might as well not be a fix at all.

Seems to be the players' fault if they're on the one hand consider a rule that is not matched play but useful as default matched play rule ("rule of 3") and on the other hand consider a rule that is not matched play but even more useful (Cities of Death terrain rules) as not worth it.

Also, some people seem to miss that CA also updated most terrain rules from the rulebook. These terrain rules aren't even optional (unlike rule of 3) yet I'm not sure if many people noticed them.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


We even saw a Riptide character from the Farsight Enclaves codex in 6th or 7th (cannot remember which). He was not game breaking.

O'vesa still exists in 8th, he was in the last Chapter Approved. According to the internet he (and the Eight in general) is trash. The internet is almost totally wrong on that but if we were just to listen to online opinion we would have completely the wrong ideas about how that unit is balanced.

There is a melee Tau build that centers around the 8 that seems to be decent, though that's anecdotal evidwnce provided via hearsay since I never played against it.

My point is that hardly anyone knows what they really do because on release they were universally panned as uncompetitive gak so you do not see many tournament players using them - or even tournament focussed sites like Frontline Gaming reviewing them. I asked when they finished the Tau reviews and was straight told that they were such gak that it would be a waste of time writing an article on them.

This tells me that so-called experts on the internet know nothing about balance, nor is the wisdom of crowds very wise. So when I see the usual stuff about balance in the usual rants I have developed a certain disdain - magnified in this thread by the apparent lack of people bothering to listen to the podcast they are then commenting on.

 auticus wrote:
Caveat: if ITC used them, then they'd also be used by everyone as they would be tournament standard.

ITC is too busy making magic boxes and putting bullet proof glass on the ground floor of buildings for that.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


We even saw a Riptide character from the Farsight Enclaves codex in 6th or 7th (cannot remember which). He was not game breaking.

O'vesa still exists in 8th, he was in the last Chapter Approved. According to the internet he (and the Eight in general) is trash. The internet is almost totally wrong on that but if we were just to listen to online opinion we would have completely the wrong ideas about how that unit is balanced.

There is a melee Tau build that centers around the 8 that seems to be decent, though that's anecdotal evidwnce provided via hearsay since I never played against it.

My point is that hardly anyone knows what they really do because on release they were universally panned as uncompetitive gak so you do not see many tournament players using them - or even tournament focussed sites like Frontline Gaming reviewing them. I asked when they finished the Tau reviews and was straight told that they were such gak that it would be a waste of time writing an article on them.

This tells me that so-called experts on the internet know nothing about balance, nor is the wisdom of crowds very wise. So when I see the usual stuff about balance in the usual rants I have developed a certain disdain - magnified in this thread by the apparent lack of people bothering to listen to the podcast they are then commenting on.

Well, if they're anything like the previous versions of the Eight then I could see what they mean, as they had some of the most schizophrenic mechanical designs I've ever seen, with loadouts that seemed to just be randomly thrown together, almost.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Aside from point values for units not properly reflecting its performance on the board, stratagems being unevenly helpful, and typos on the rulebook/codex, exactly what about the rules do you guys truly think is wrong/bad about it?

Or is it simply the sins of the above that brings down the entire game?

The terrain rules fething suck and you can't defend them as is.

CA18 fixed them and now terrain works great.

Would that be the Cities of Death, which are touted as being for Narrative play and seem to have never been picked up for Matched? If so then I agree it fixed them, just that fix is never in place where it matters because it's "not for matched play" so might as well not be a fix at all.

Seems to be the players' fault if they're on the one hand consider a rule that is not matched play but useful as default matched play rule ("rule of 3") and on the other hand consider a rule that is not matched play but even more useful (Cities of Death terrain rules) as not worth it.

Also, some people seem to miss that CA also updated most terrain rules from the rulebook. These terrain rules aren't even optional (unlike rule of 3) yet I'm not sure if many people noticed them.

People don't use the COD rules because they're a janke first draft that HEAVILY favors some units/armies over others.

They absolutely need another balance pass before they get implemented, even by 40k's loose standard for balance.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Caveat: if ITC used them, then they'd also be used by everyone as they would be tournament standard.

ITC is too busy making magic boxes and putting bullet proof glass on the ground floor of buildings for that.

They are trying to fill gaps in the BRB. TLOS is just terrible. It's practically impossible to block it with anything but solid castle walls or mountains. Magic boxes are also stupid. As you should be able to launch HE rounds into a ruined building and dispatch everything inside but you can't do that in this game ether.

 Peregrine wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Why on earth would you not be in favor of this?

I am in favor of it. I just reject this idea of it being in the form of a separate tournament ruleset instead of putting all of those changes into 9th edition and using the new rules for all games. This conversation started with the idea of making separate rules because they wouldn't be appropriate for non-tournament games, when in reality what is needed is a comprehensive overhaul of the entire game where at the end of it there is no further need for separate tournament/narrative/etc rules.

If your tzeentchs' gift to rules design maybe you should go work for GW? No, better yet, create your own game system and manage it the "best" you can. Cuz you'll go far kiddo.

No thanks, I'm pretty happy with where I am and I'd rather not take a pay cut to change careers.

Well, the amount of time I've seen you waste arguing nonsense over the past year could've gone along way to instead penning "Perfect 40k".

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

then they should add them to the matched play rules.

Actually, I agree with this. Only by "they" I mean "everyone" since unless it involves PL the rules should port over into matched play games just fine (and even then since points costs for things exist even the Looted Wagons and Custom Land Raider tules can be made Matched Play just by adding up total points costs).

That said, I feel the big fault of terrain in 40k is that it's only really two categories: ruins or fortifications. That isn't enough depth (and titanic units should be able to hit anything that isn't higher up than they are tall in melee) and that leaves a loy about the game feel rather meeeeeh when it comes to board layout.

Then again I miss replacing exploded vehicles with craters and using wrecked vehicles as terrain, so I have biases.

There are far many more terrain elements than just those 2. It's just that ITC uses only ruins, so for some reason people decides to use only ruins.

There are craters.
There are barricades.
There are sector mechanicus.
There are woods.

There are a huge number of different elements that people refuse to use and then complain that there aren't in depth terrain rules.

This has even skewed the common thinking of players. For example many think that lists based on bike and beasts for melee isn't good, because they can't charge someone on a terrain element WHICH IS WRONG. They cannot go only on RUINS, every other terrain element is perfectly fine. If you identify an element as a sector mechanicus instead of a ruin, you actually have the opposite effect, with infantries being limited in mobility.

The players are shooting in their foots here.

To the absolute best of my knowledge, while GW condones it, there has never been a set of competitive rules released for 40K. So, the OP makes complete sense.

AoS, on the other hand, did get a set of competitive rules.

SG

happy_inquisitor wrote:
My point is that hardly anyone knows what they really do because on release they were universally panned as uncompetitive gak so you do not see many tournament players using them - or even tournament focussed sites like Frontline Gaming reviewing them. I asked when they finished the Tau reviews and was straight told that they were such gak that it would be a waste of time writing an article on them.

This tells me that so-called experts on the internet know nothing about balance, nor is the wisdom of crowds very wise. So when I see the usual stuff about balance in the usual rants I have developed a certain disdain - magnified in this thread by the apparent lack of people bothering to listen to the podcast they are then commenting on.

Part of the issue with the discussion of balance is that while people talk about it, and even make broad statements about TAC lists (a loaded term because TAC are geared towards specific metas not the game in general), we can never come to an agreement of what balance looks like. Basically people put too much stock in what balance is while failing to understand that it's a largely meaningless term.

Now before the hate squad jumps down my throat again, I'm not saying that tighter and less exploitable rules are bad, nor am I saying that I wouldn't love for two units of equal points costs to feel equal to each other, I'm just saying this argument about balance will never die. Even games like Chess where both players have identical starting layouts and forces have a balance issue involving turn priority being important (and even chess went through hundreds of years of development and changes)

So yes, tighter rules with less room for people do create "feels bad" moments are important to every game are important, but I don't think that strictly should be laid onto an altar dedicated to this idea of perfect balance. To steal a term from Warhammer Weekly, the goal of the devs should be to have as many books as possible sitting in the "fat middle" while hammering down combos that break the curve. That said, there needs to be some attention focused on armies that fall below that curve as well (something we haven't seen much of from the Chapter Approved or FAQs, so likely that is something they're saving for codexes for better or worse).

 ClockworkZion wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:
My point is that hardly anyone knows what they really do because on release they were universally panned as uncompetitive gak so you do not see many tournament players using them - or even tournament focussed sites like Frontline Gaming reviewing them. I asked when they finished the Tau reviews and was straight told that they were such gak that it would be a waste of time writing an article on them.

This tells me that so-called experts on the internet know nothing about balance, nor is the wisdom of crowds very wise. So when I see the usual stuff about balance in the usual rants I have developed a certain disdain - magnified in this thread by the apparent lack of people bothering to listen to the podcast they are then commenting on.

Part of the issue with the discussion of balance is that while people talk about it, and even make broad statements about TAC lists (a loaded term because TAC are geared towards specific metas not the game in general), we can never come to an agreement of what balance looks like. Basically people put too much stock in what balance is while failing to understand that it's a largely meaningless term.

Now before the hate squad jumps down my throat again, I'm not saying that tighter and less exploitable rules are bad, nor am I saying that I wouldn't love for two units of equal points costs to feel equal to each other, I'm just saying this argument about balance will never die. Even games like Chess where both players have identical starting layouts and forces have a balance issue involving turn priority being important (and even chess went through hundreds of years of development and changes)

So yes, tighter rules with less room for people do create "feels bad" moments are important to every game are important, but I don't think that strictly should be laid onto an altar dedicated to this idea of perfect balance. To steal a term from Warhammer Weekly, the goal of the devs should be to have as many books as possible sitting in the "fat middle" while hammering down combos that break the curve. That said, there needs to be some attention focused on armies that fall below that curve as well (something we haven't seen much of from the Chapter Approved or FAQs, so likely that is something they're saving for codexes for better or worse).

No one is saying "Balance has to be perfect!" Stop strawmanning.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Caveat: if ITC used them, then they'd also be used by everyone as they would be tournament standard.

ITC is too busy making magic boxes and putting bullet proof glass on the ground floor of buildings for that.

They are trying to fill gaps in the BRB. TLOS is just terrible. It's practically impossible to block it with anything but solid castle walls or mountains. Magic boxes are also stupid. As you should be able to launch HE rounds into a ruined building and dispatch everything inside but you can't do that in this game ether.

Right, but his point remains. If ITC updated their packet to say Cities of Death would be used, then you would see a lot of games use it (Incidentally I absolutely think they should do this). But I do think it's obnoxious how pick and choose people are. Something like the Ro3 isn't matched play but is widely accepted as a default option. Better terrain rules get ignored because it's not matched play, despite making the overall game better. I can only deduce from this that people don't want terrain to matter much.

Spoletta wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

then they should add them to the matched play rules.

Actually, I agree with this. Only by "they" I mean "everyone" since unless it involves PL the rules should port over into matched play games just fine (and even then since points costs for things exist even the Looted Wagons and Custom Land Raider tules can be made Matched Play just by adding up total points costs).

That said, I feel the big fault of terrain in 40k is that it's only really two categories: ruins or fortifications. That isn't enough depth (and titanic units should be able to hit anything that isn't higher up than they are tall in melee) and that leaves a loy about the game feel rather meeeeeh when it comes to board layout.

Then again I miss replacing exploded vehicles with craters and using wrecked vehicles as terrain, so I have biases.

There are far many more terrain elements than just those 2. It's just that ITC uses only ruins, so for some reason people decides to use only ruins.

There are craters.
There are barricades.
There are sector mechanicus.
There are woods.

There are a huge number of different elements that people refuse to use and then complain that there aren't in depth terrain rules.

This has even skewed the common thinking of players. For example many think that lists based on bike and beasts for melee isn't good, because they can't charge someone on a terrain element WHICH IS WRONG. They cannot go only on RUINS, every other terrain element is perfectly fine. If you identify an element as a sector mechanicus instead of a ruin, you actually have the opposite effect, with infantries being limited in mobility.

The players are shooting in their foots here.

But TLOS means that woods and craters and (maybe) barricades are often completely useless for vehicles and models not standing literally in them.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Caveat: if ITC used them, then they'd also be used by everyone as they would be tournament standard.

ITC is too busy making magic boxes and putting bullet proof glass on the ground floor of buildings for that.

They are trying to fill gaps in the BRB. TLOS is just terrible. It's practically impossible to block it with anything but solid castle walls or mountains. Magic boxes are also stupid. As you should be able to launch HE rounds into a ruined building and dispatch everything inside but you can't do that in this game ether.

I feel like terrain should have been a BS modifier (with 6s always hitting for everyone, not just Orks) more than a bonus to the model's save.

Then again I feel like there should be a BS penalty shooting through the footprint of another unit as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:
My point is that hardly anyone knows what they really do because on release they were universally panned as uncompetitive gak so you do not see many tournament players using them - or even tournament focussed sites like Frontline Gaming reviewing them. I asked when they finished the Tau reviews and was straight told that they were such gak that it would be a waste of time writing an article on them.

This tells me that so-called experts on the internet know nothing about balance, nor is the wisdom of crowds very wise. So when I see the usual stuff about balance in the usual rants I have developed a certain disdain - magnified in this thread by the apparent lack of people bothering to listen to the podcast they are then commenting on.

Part of the issue with the discussion of balance is that while people talk about it, and even make broad statements about TAC lists (a loaded term because TAC are geared towards specific metas not the game in general), we can never come to an agreement of what balance looks like. Basically people put too much stock in what balance is while failing to understand that it's a largely meaningless term.

Now before the hate squad jumps down my throat again, I'm not saying that tighter and less exploitable rules are bad, nor am I saying that I wouldn't love for two units of equal points costs to feel equal to each other, I'm just saying this argument about balance will never die. Even games like Chess where both players have identical starting layouts and forces have a balance issue involving turn priority being important (and even chess went through hundreds of years of development and changes)

So yes, tighter rules with less room for people do create "feels bad" moments are important to every game are important, but I don't think that strictly should be laid onto an altar dedicated to this idea of perfect balance. To steal a term from Warhammer Weekly, the goal of the devs should be to have as many books as possible sitting in the "fat middle" while hammering down combos that break the curve. That said, there needs to be some attention focused on armies that fall below that curve as well (something we haven't seen much of from the Chapter Approved or FAQs, so likely that is something they're saving for codexes for better or worse).

No one is saying "Balance has to be perfect!" Stop strawmanning.

Perfect was too strong of a word perhaps, but there is a rather vocal minority who wants a game more balanced than we're ever realistically ever going to see unless GW stops making stuff for the game and only focuses on refining the rules from this point on.

Wayniac wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Caveat: if ITC used them, then they'd also be used by everyone as they would be tournament standard.

ITC is too busy making magic boxes and putting bullet proof glass on the ground floor of buildings for that.

They are trying to fill gaps in the BRB. TLOS is just terrible. It's practically impossible to block it with anything but solid castle walls or mountains. Magic boxes are also stupid. As you should be able to launch HE rounds into a ruined building and dispatch everything inside but you can't do that in this game ether.

Right, but his point remains. If ITC updated their packet to say Cities of Death would be used, then you would see a lot of games use it (Incidentally I absolutely think they should do this). But I do think it's obnoxious how pick and choose people are. Something like the Ro3 isn't matched play but is widely accepted as a default option. Better terrain rules get ignored because it's not matched play, despite making the overall game better. I can only deduce from this that people don't want terrain to matter much.

Cities of death rules are pretty Janky IMO. Like -2 to hit modifiers and +2 cover....It's silly. Honestly I don't want terrain to matter much. Because while terrain is an important factor in warfare. So is choosing your battlefield (which you can't really do in this game) You are just thrown onto a random field and there you go. I want terrain to do two things. I want it to obstruct movement of big units to give smaller units a purpose and I want it to allow you to protect important units turn 1 - but not your whole army. I don't want it to be indestructible pillboxes and I don't want it to be useless.

I'd be happy for cover to be a BS modifier.

I suppose when you play a lot of other games and then play 40k, you can feel and taste the difference in balance with most games and with GW games.

There is no perfectly balanced game, but the massive amount of feel bad moments in GW games seems disproportionately high compared to playing Antares or battle tech or saga or kings of war.

Honestly? If the rules aren't very good, GW SHOULD probably spend some time refining them, rather than introducing new things that will likely have unexpected interactions with the rules. But whenever they introduce "fixes", they always seem to introduce something new that makes something else in the game break.

That said, I'm one of the types who don't think the rules are actually all that bad. I'd just like to be able to use my cool models without my opponent having to give up using their cool models, or play half-heartedly, to give me a fighting chance.

ccs wrote:

Well, the amount of time I've seen you waste arguing nonsense over the past year could've gone along way to instead penning "Perfect 40k".

And this addresses the points he raised exactly how...?
Is he the only one pointing out rules inconsistencies? I don't think so, the thread is full of people pointing out this or that failure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Perfect was too strong of a word perhaps, but there is a rather vocal minority who wants a game more balanced than we're ever realistically ever going to see unless GW stops making stuff for the game and only focuses on refining the rules from this point on.

I find amazing the fact that the minimum work required from a game designer it's presented as a sort of extraordinary effort that GW would carry out as a magnanimous deed only for us.
Writing a game? Asking money for the rules? Well playtest these rules, make them clear and consistent, etc.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

ccs wrote:

Well, the amount of time I've seen you waste arguing nonsense over the past year could've gone along way to instead penning "Perfect 40k".

And this addresses the points he raised exactly how...?
Is he the only one pointing out rules inconsistencies? I don't think so, the thread is full of people pointing out this or that failure.

No, but he is the one saying we should sack all the rules writers and replace them.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Well, if they're anything like the previous versions of the Eight then I could see what they mean, as they had some of the most schizophrenic mechanical designs I've ever seen, with loadouts that seemed to just be randomly thrown together, almost.

How do you see what they mean when neither they nor you have ever tried to actually play them in a competitive format - or probably at all?

Which comes back to this thread and people slating what some GW designer has said without even bothering to listen to what he said. So they are putting words in his mouth and then slating the words they put in his mouth.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Perfect was too strong of a word perhaps, but there is a rather vocal minority who wants a game more balanced than we're ever realistically ever going to see unless GW stops making stuff for the game and only focuses on refining the rules from this point on.

I find amazing the fact that the minimum work required from a game designer it's presented as a sort of extraordinary effort that GW would carry out as a magnanimous deed only for us.
Writing a game? Asking money for the rules? Well playtest these rules, make them clear and consistent, etc.

They do playtest the rules with multiple groups. This blatant show of ignorance of how the rules are written when there is so much publicly said by the studio and the testers baffles me.

Here's what GW does to playtest rules:
1. Write the rule to try and capture the feeling of the lore and the design of the mini (James even mentions that's the most important part of his job, making the rules represent the setting and the models)
2. Peer review the rule in the studio
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until they feel satisfied with the rule.
4. Playtest with said rule so they know that it feels good to play with and against
5. Rewrite or scrap rules as needed
6. Give all the rules of that codex or campaign to playtesters who represent Matched Play, Narrative and Open play for testing. Reece is part of this step and brings in a competitive mindset into the Matched Play feedback as well as has mentioned that they do try to stress test things and look for broken combos though things can fall through the cracks.
7. Take feedback from the playtesters and rework the rules for greater clarity and less "feels bad" moments
8. Send rules off to printing

And those are just the steps we know of. This isn't counting any more playtesting that can crop up between sending something off to printing and release, like what happened to the Space Wolves and their Sagas.

Just because you don't like something that comes out in the end result doesn't mean they aren't doing their jobs or that what you see is all the work they put in. The game you get is not proportional to the amount of work that goes into making said game. You're looking at the tip of the iceberg and ignoring everything you can't directly see as being non-existant.

The missing step is handing the rules to someone outside the development team who doesn't already know what they're supposed to mean, so they can check that they don't use the same word to mean two different things in different places.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The missing step is handing the rules to someone outside the development team who doesn't already know what they're supposed to mean, so they can check that they don't use the same word to mean two different things in different places.

That's why they hand them to three different playtesting groups outside of the dev team.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Perfect was too strong of a word perhaps, but there is a rather vocal minority who wants a game more balanced than we're ever realistically ever going to see unless GW stops making stuff for the game and only focuses on refining the rules from this point on.

I find amazing the fact that the minimum work required from a game designer it's presented as a sort of extraordinary effort that GW would carry out as a magnanimous deed only for us.
Writing a game? Asking money for the rules? Well playtest these rules, make them clear and consistent, etc.

They do playtest the rules with multiple groups. This blatant show of ignorance of how the rules are written when there is so much publicly said by the studio and the testers baffles me.

Here's what GW does to playtest rules:
1. Write the rule to try and capture the feeling of the lore and the design of the mini (James even mentions that's the most important part of his job, making the rules represent the setting and the models)
2. Peer review the rule in the studio
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until they feel satisfied with the rule.
4. Playtest with said rule so they know that it feels good to play with and against
5. Rewrite or scrap rules as needed
6. Give all the rules of that codex or campaign to playtesters who represent Matched Play, Narrative and Open play for testing. Reece is part of this step and brings in a competitive mindset into the Matched Play feedback as well as has mentioned that they do try to stress test things and look for broken combos though things can fall through the cracks.
7. Take feedback from the playtesters and rework the rules for greater clarity and less "feels bad" moments
8. Send rules off to printing

And those are just the steps we know of. This isn't counting any more playtesting that can crop up between sending something off to printing and release, like what happened to the Space Wolves and their Sagas.

Just because you don't like something that comes out in the end result doesn't mean they aren't doing their jobs or that what you see is all the work they put in. The game you get is not proportional to the amount of work that goes into making said game. You're looking at the tip of the iceberg and ignoring everything you can't directly see as being non-existant.

Citation please? I'd really like to know where you're getting this from.

Because, from an outside perspective, it really seems they do mostly in-house playtesting, and do NOT hand it to people who want to break the rules as best they can, which is what playtesting SHOULD be.