Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Heyoo everyone!
Now this isn't a rant of the usual kind, more just a statement to lead to a much grander discussion
I was reading the 'Grey Knights are the most overpowered book GW has put out in a decade.' thread (see http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/417456.page.) So after playing this game for 5 years, and though I am younger than most of the mature playerbase ( I just turned 18 ), I've decided to have my own say in what possibly the most frustrating thing I, personally, find when I visit any games-workshop related website.

ALL codex's have things that make them ludicrous to the majority of people (GK with psy-cannon ammo, BA fast vehicles, Long-Fang cheapness, DE PFP), there is denying that, but these thing's are not what make a Codex over-powered. Yes the 'under-priced' units will affect how an army can do things, but that is not the main problem. Codex's will always get out of date with newer ones, but again that is not the problem. Its how the army is formed.

How many different lists do you see in the tournament scene these days? We aren't talking about one or two different units or wargear. Venom-spam, Razor-spam of all kinds, Mech spam in general, this is the problem that curses the tournament and TFG scenes I personally play DE, Necron's and SOB, and I never see lists like mine. Having an individual list that works is something that everyone should feel proud of. It would be fine with a couple of people playing their' 'spam' armies, but everyone using them to win is ridiculous. I believe the excessive use of spam (I could see that becoming a meme must draw a picture of that sometime... ) is what ruins the game for quite a lot of people. The most fun games I ever play are with experimental units, or just using units you like. I enjoy using a squad of 9 incubi with an Archon, along with harelquins, scourges and helions. Apparently my lists aren't 'optimal', yet my record with my DE is 38/15/4, and I have ever not enjoyed one of those games (well except when my friend sat back on a field and played 3 Lemon Russ tanks and a bunch of heavy weapons and jsut blew me off the board )..I guess what I'm trying to say is that the units people choose, spamming 'good' units, is what makes people cry "OMG DA GREY KNIGHTS ARRRZZZ OVER POWEREDZZZZ!"

It's never going to happen, but if people stopped spamming (It's not good for you ) the game would get a lot better (IMHO), and discussions could be a lot more productive Fun games against SW do exist you know! What happened to the decent discussions instead of people flaming each other on which codex is the most over powered? (as most threads seems to do) So what say you folks? How many of you actually think the Meta really needs to be changed?

You play an warhammer 40k army! What cheese!

Pretty much sums it up. Even if somethings are kinda weird. Hammerhand applies before your str is doubled. You can have 15 av 12 tanks on the table. Jotww does what again?!? You get red vampires.

But really its the meta. Im competitive, but not to the point where i play leafblower. I want to win but not shutout. Unless its a tourny.

Point being, yes its the meta but its also GW trying to make the WAACos buy a new army every few months.

I have to say, I agree with you. Infact your point, is one of the reasons I get tired of posting in the Tactics forum. Most peoples response to a "Help me" question is "Oh you play X army? Then go out and buy these units and play X army like X tourny player" and it just gets under my skin. Luckily the group I have, we like to play what we like, and we constantly try new things. Infact something my brother does to keep it fresh and interesting, is he has a specific build for 500pts, and to goto 1000pts he HAS to use something different to add to his first 500pts, and try to use something from every slot. And same at 1500 and so on in 500pt increments. The only way he can use the same unit twice (excluding the 2 troops for FOC of course) is have already fulfilled his rules he set for himself. It makes his lists fun to play against, because you end up playing against damn near everything in the codex as the points go higher and higher.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wow, lost my point

But agree, the was, that we have a pretty diverse group going, and no codex really stands out as "oh god its THOSE guys again" its more about the player skill and dice rolling.

Jesus Christ, Wall of Text.

Chowderhead wrote:HOLY EMPEROR! Wall of Text Of The Truth!

Fix'd

Anyway agreed.

You play Grey Knights, right?

I fail to see how it is a wall of text.

Spamming is not a problem if each side is doing it. I think the problem, if problem there is, is in setting the context.
If you're battling a WAAC list while yours is softer, chances are you and your opponent are not playing with the same mindset, which can indeed make it hardly enjoyable for one of you or both. But that's something you should be aware of beforehand.

There should be no problem as long as everyone agrees on the playstyle. People do not play "for fun" or (as in to the strict exclusion of) "competitively", competitive players do so because they find it fun in the first place (or because of less healthy motives, but let's be optimistic here). And competitive players do not complain, they adapt.

Personally, I'd say complainers are either in the wrong environment as mentioned above (in which case they are not entirely mistaken, but should be aware of that matter) or just scrubs.

It isn't the codecies... It's the people who play them.

I just get annoyed when people take blatant advantage of rules or spam stuff. it annoys me and is so unrealistic.

I suppose I am lucky- the worst I have played against was a nid player with four tervigons. FOUR!

I got halfway through this rambling train-of-thought wall-of-text ,and then realized that emoti-orks was used as both a form of punctuation and a replacement for the Enter-key.

Naturally I concluded that no value what so ever could be assigned to the content of said post.

OP, I agree with you 100% its got to the ponit where every codex has something that would be considered broken and no one has any right to say any codex is OP

this happened to me the other day:

me: *says someting about my GK's"
other person: OMG GK's are sooooo over powered
me: what? their just marines with fancy gear
other person: yeah but they all have power weapons. that makes them op
me: *rants about how they die like marines, have a 30" threat bubble at the most and will get raped by deldar in a heartbeat
other person: *grumbles and goes back to painting his 3 doom barges and imohtek the storm lord*

I agree with everything to, it's not the game that's broken it's the people. Most people that play 40k simply play to win, and there is no fun in that for both of us. I to am like that but only when I play Dawn of War and we start to lose against insane because my ally don't have an army of defense and I must defend him to. But when we play against each other it is still fun no matter who won.
But same thing is in models, bunch of people are presuing me what to buy. I wanted a ordinary Land Raider and everyone is shouting on me to buy a Redemer. I bought ordinary terminators and everyone saw me like I am crazy and ask me " why not assault ones? "
To me people are to far into idea I must win to the point that they are gluing magnets to their miniatures so that they can switch weapons before battle. Even if that is useful in tournaments it destroy the miniature in my opinion. I like them just like they are: choosing a single weapon for them to carry in battle for the rest of their existence.
GK are little overpowered on the table because they are after all one of the most elite army's of the Imeprium. But if you use right list against them you can win against them, people were probably furious about having to change their lists that won them many battles before that.
Overall, for table It doesn't matter to me - the point is to have fun and hobby. I only get angry fluffwise, because everybody today want to change a story to their own believes not asking others is that a good idea or not.

Not spamming would make the edge grey knights have even bigger.

Space Wolves have three good units; grey hunters, long fangs, and rune priests. If they stray much at all from that backbone the army becomes sub par extremely quickly. Guard and Blood Angels are much the same way.

Even the "less than optimal" options for GKs kick peoples teeth in. And there are so many amazing choices in so many FOC slots that GKs don't need to spam to still be better than everyone else.

2/3 of the accusations of over poweredness are baseless (and why of why are people still crying about leafblower? Have you played the game in the last two years?). But there are armies that are steps a head of others. When you get one that is many steps ahead of all other armies than the accusations are well founded. Grey Knights are the first army to fit that bill in 5th ed, and the just as ahead of its peers as other truly over powered books were in their day.

What exactly constitutes spamming? Would 3 anni barges count as spam?

Hyd wrote:I fail to see how it is a wall of text.

It is one large block of text.

What seems more likely to me isn't the spamming, but rather the codex just being new. Some will find some nice tricks in the new codex and not everyone will be able to counter right away. Thus their negative experience gets echoed for quite a while before the codex gets a proper test to determine exactly where it stands.

Redundancy is a valid strategy.

I can't be the only one to see the paragraphs.

Grey Knights, Blood Angels, and IG can all be argued to be overpowered quite well, so no. Yes, it's possible to beat GK with Tyranids, but it requires a level of skill to make up for the natural handicap.

Op needs formatting!

I'll agree that no codex is overpowered. I won't agree that certain unit combinations aren't overpowered, and I certainly won't agree that newer codexes are better than older codexes in terms of power on the tabletop.

I fixed^ the OP for all you 'wall of text' sayers out there and play nice! This is a forum not a place to make yourself feel superior to everyone else with your 'can't read this because it has bad grammer' statements (which is I aplogize for forgetting to use the enter button twice )
Annnnyyyyyywayyyy, when I speak of newer codex's being better, I mean edition wise, I think all the 5th Ed codex's are great! (well except perhaps nids, but that's only because of the FAQ, or else they would be fine) but its a tough battle for the 4th Ed codex's these days; which is a good thing, the games is becoming more balanced.

I think the main problem lies to the WAAC players mind set to alienate certain units or lack of. IMHO I think fluff armies that are competitive are a much better way to play the game. Abusing units and their upgrades is what constitues spamming, like really would a grey knight army actually use a bunch of razorbacks over say, stormravens? They are going to fight daemons, not running in to war (shouldn't they mostly be teleporting in anyway?). Or a SW army, that prides its self in close combat, having most of its troops with heavy weapons? Fun/fluff/competitive armies do exist, and have proven to, DOA BA, WWP DE, horde IG, essentially any ork build (which is by far my most favourite book in terms of 'balance' ) are all lists that can do well with out the need to completely alienate any idea of fluff from an army!

DPBellathrom wrote:OP, I agree with you 100% its got to the ponit where every codex has something that would be considered broken and no one has any right to say any codex is OP

this happened to me the other day:

me: *says someting about my GK's"
other person: OMG GK's are sooooo over powered
me: what? their just marines with fancy gear
other person: yeah but they all have power weapons. that makes them op
me: *rants about how they die like marines, have a 30" threat bubble at the most and will get raped by deldar in a heartbeat
other person: *grumbles and goes back to painting his 3 doom barges and imohtek the storm lord*

Are you implying that Imotekh and Doomsday Arks are Overpowered?


As far as OP goes, I'd say most dexes have a few units that are really good, and people just spam them.

I think the thing about GK's that make people upset, is all the FoC swapping they can do. I think there would be a lot less complaints, if Purifiers and Paladins stayed elites.

Well, if there are no over powered codices, there are certainly a fair few underpowered ones. I won't disagree that it's possible to beat a GK army with the others, but when some armies are limited to one or two lists to even have a hope while the Imperial side, and Grey Knights in particular, have far more options, then you can see why there'd be some resentment.

For the years I have watched the 40k world evolve, I do not agree at all when people say new codex releases are not op! It has always been the way! As far back as 2nd ed days, the natural power creep has been apparent with each new release. I suppose there are many reasons for this however the two main ones I go by is that some new release rules are needed to be better than the last army to be released in order to give people a fairer chance at fighting that particular army. The second reason I would say is purely a marketing tactic by GW. GW and a lot of power creep followers (as well as newbies to the hobby) will rave on about the new models and rules for the latest release.

However every army has fairly decent attributes with one exception of course being GKs. As stated, there is a general power creep, but for the case of GKs, its more of a power 6 foot jump! Although I collect inquistion armies including GK, if you are savvy enough to work it out, you can make one SERIOUSLY hard army with Driago leading one squad of paladins and a few extra bits. The extra bits make the army tournament legal, but, the VAST majority of the points are spent on the 1 squad and the upgrades make that 1 squad capable of taking a whole army out.

The special rules for GK are very numerous and some of them are down right unfair. I was discussing this issue with some other hardened 40k players who know many chaos daemon army players who will basically not fight against GK due to the fact that they would be very very very very lucky to have enough alive to start a 2nd round!

My extreme hate for optomized list mongers can not be understated... I play for fun, for the fluff, and for the Lolz.

Hhhmm if gk are overpowered then what does that say bout Orkz? Orkz are a 4th edition book and always in the top 3 of every tourney.

Draigo wrote:Hhhmm if gk are overpowered then what does that say bout Orkz? Orkz are a 4th edition book and always in the top 3 of every tourney.

That's mostly thanks to any of the following things:

Nob wound allocation stupidness, make them not bikers to make it worse
Deffrollers solved their anti-vehicle woes
Kustom force fields, being bastards

I've seen a 1850 point DE army with 14 dark lances and 30 warriors, plus 3 blasters (melta) shoot at a unit of nob bikes. One nob died. Then the nobs wrecked the face of the DE army.

Orks have some nice tricks, but they are all going out the window in the next edition if everything holds true.

So, I'm a firm disbeliever in codex creep.

If codex creep were real, then every new codex would ALWAYS have a victory bias towards any older codex. By the time you got a codex that was a few years old, it would be practically impossible to wring a victory out of the newest codex army. This just isn't true. There were people who were doing just fine with their ork armies even as their codex approached a decade without being updated.

The other part of it is that every new codex would be cheese, without exception, and we certainly know this isn't true. I still haven't quite gotten the "OMG WE GOT NERFED!" ringing out of my ears from when the last eldar codex came out, and likewise people loudly complained about how worse their codex got when the current CSM codex came out, and when the current necron codex came out, and when the current tyranid codex came out, and when the current tau codex came out. In fact, there have been some codecies where people thought they got slathered in cheese sauce while other people think they just got nerfed, over the same codex. Simply put, you wouldn't see this if codex creep, as a whole, was real.

Now, codecies have gotten better over time, but it's not just about packing in cheesier units. The main drawback to having an old codex that doesn't really fit with your rules edition anymore is not that your army becomes worse, but that you become more and more limited in what you can still take from your codex to put together a competitive list. Old DE wasn't a bad army, but it HAD devolved to the point where there was basically only one competitive list anymore (or so). When a new codex comes out, it makes them "better" in that most of their units become useful again, so you can start seeing a greater diversity of lists. They may fix old codices, but they don't really overpower them.

I also think most of what happens is that an army will get new stuff that nobody knows how to counter, which makes everyone scream cheese, and blow things way out of proportion, until they figure out how to stop it (at which point threads like "IG player - is leafblower still viable?" instantly spring up).

They haven't always been perfect with the game balance, but they've been pretty good. It's narrow-minded players that put two or three armies (each with exactly one build apiece) into the "cheese" camp, and everything else into "junk".

I guess it depends on people's definition of "overpowered", but for the most part I agree with the OP. I don't think anyone is arguing that you can't play fun/fluffy armies with some of the more powerful armies, but what often spoils one's opinion on an army could just as easily be the fault of player playing that army than the list.

Not to say that some armies don't have some really abuseable units and rules(Cleansing Flame...)

Blackhoof wrote:I just get annoyed when people take blatant advantage of rules or spam stuff. it annoys me and is so unrealistic.

I suppose I am lucky- the worst I have played against was a nid player with four tervigons. FOUR!

I completely agree with you Blackhoof, but I am guilty of using that list once myself.

My best mate, who is definitely a WAAC player, said, let's change things up by using spearhead deployment. I agreed with him and used my guard army against his marines, who hours before the match morphed into Blood Angels...Hmm, I pretty much had a parking lot, got stuck with turn one, no where to go and nothing to shoot. He went next and dropped five drop pods neatly around me, completely cut my army in half, out come three dreadnoughts from those special, (you can assault from them) pods and destroyed half my army with powerfists in one turn. Then, when I started getting shirty he pretty much said, settle pettle...

So, next game I pulled the Tervigon combo on him when he played guard in a big fat castle/gunline. I used the Swarmlord to outflank one of them, and had dozens of termys coming for him. Did I mention I had three broods of Ymgarl Genestealers in all his little castles on his side of the board? Well I did!

I have never won so comprehensively before in my life, it was an absolute slaughter of the worst, most justified kind and he totally deserved it. Now he fears Hive Fleet Jumangi...but I did feel dirty afterwoods...

=I= White-Wolf wrote: This is a forum not a place to make yourself feel superior to everyone else with your 'can't read this because it has bad grammer' statements (which is I aplogize for forgetting to use the enter button twice )

No, but the forum is a place with rules. It would be appreciated by all if you would take a look at number 5.


http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/354859.page

I fixed^ the OP for all you 'wall of text' sayers out there and play nice!

It is still a mess though. Proper punctuation and better composition goes a long way.

Being able to spam something is strategic common sense, not something wrong with codecies. So long as target saturation exists in 40k, it will always be better to present more of the same target class than fewer.