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Having rubbished Breton earlier - I think in this case he has an argument that collecting the models isn't easy.

I.E. if I wanted 2*5 Infiltrators I could go and buy a box tonight. If I wanted two tactical squads with MMs, thunder hammers and combi-meltas, and I was strict on WYSIWG I'm not entirely sure how I'd go about doing it. Or at least not vaguely cost effectively. I'm sure given time people will print their own extra weapons.

Breton wrote:
You may need to tweak that calculator if a gun that can kill entire armies - and literally not figuratively - this one gun deletes all but a few possible opposing armies every turn.

The weapon stats are not meant for actual play of course. Just thought it would be funny as a thought excercise. I think it speaks for it to be able to handle any kind of silly profiles

Going by the meta monday post it's 3 marines in the top 5 across 3 events and winning 1 of them.

The one winner was blood angels which by all accounts were one of the least benefitting of the changes.

Win rate by marine faction
BT - 60
BA - 44
SW - 60
DA - 65
DW - 0

Generic marines compiled - 47
IH - 52
IF- 33
S - 54
UM - 41
RG - 40
WS - 38

If were going to kneejerk then buff Votann! 39%

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Anti-tank, action fodder, movement blocking, etc. 40k is a shallow game but it still has plenty of room to create a bad list even if the individual units in that list are balanced.

Anti-tank is also anti-3W infantry. Action fodder could also be used for movement blocking and units only taken to be cheap and useless probably aren't healthy for the game anyway. Movement blockers should probably end up as decent melee units so your screening unit has at least some teeth.

If you work at making it so all units can do a couple of different things and nerfing/buffing the outliers you start seeing fewer single-use units.

That's worthless data though. "Did they use the sideboard" tells you nothing of value because you can't distinguish between "didn't use the sideboard because they are committed to not changing their list" and "didn't use the sideboard because the main list was better suited to that matchup". Nor can it even tell if the player had an effective sideboard.

It's just another way to filter data and try to understand why there was a blowout in any given game.

It's common knowledge

It was once common knowledge that disease was caused by bad smells so excuse me if I'd like hard data.

I'm not going to do a bunch of data analysis to prove that water is in fact wet, especially since "bad list" isn't even a quantifiable term and you'll just argue about whether the criteria I set were correct.

You could show a bad list by showing that lists that take [insert unit or units] tends to do worse than the average list for that faction

Cutting the lists that start 0-2 is equally bad for all of those things!

What? You look at the data with 0-2 starts removed as a lens, not as a thing you apply the other lenses to... It's like you have no clue how to analyze data.

a_typical_hero wrote:

Breton wrote:
You may need to tweak that calculator if a gun that can kill entire armies - and literally not figuratively - this one gun deletes all but a few possible opposing armies every turn.

The weapon stats are not meant for actual play of course. Just thought it would be funny as a thought excercise. I think it speaks for it to be able to handle any kind of silly profiles

Spoiler:

From a technical "actually" POV, the unit would kill a single enemy unit per turn. In a very gruesome way. And then the rest of the remaining 326k points on the other side would be able to retaliate. At this point, the gun might be horrible overpriced from a meta point, as killing something 100x over is not different from killing something 2x over. But you waste alot of points for it. If you think about it, a game this size with that theoretical weapon might not be as one sided as it seems on first glance.

the imaginary unit is equipped with 20 of these guns.... so it kills 20 units per turn, i don't know how many armies can survive such an alpha strike

Every army that can buy more than 20 units for the calculated 300000+ points. Which should be even possible if you go unbound and only bring LOWs.

To be honest I thought split firing is per "same kind of weapon", as that's how I ruled it. It only changes the equation from killing one unit really well to killing 20. At the end, you only need to have something standing afterwards to kill that lonely and weak model (if they go first).

Dudeface wrote:
Going by the meta monday post it's 3 marines in the top 5 across 3 events and winning 1 of them.

The one winner was blood angels which by all accounts were one of the least benefitting of the changes.

Win rate by marine faction
BT - 60
BA - 44
SW - 60
DA - 65
DW - 0

Generic marines compiled - 47
IH - 52
IF- 33
S - 54
UM - 41
RG - 40
WS - 38

If were going to kneejerk then buff Votann! 39%

Blood of kittens reported more games

Adelaide, 2nd Place
WTC: 1st and 3rd
Toronto Winter Open: 1st.
Fantasianorth Store Championship: N/A

So 4 AoO tournaments, 2 first place finishes, a 2nd and a third. Win/Loss ratio jumped to 60%+ for multiple sub factions of Marines.
https://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2023/01/22/arks-of-omens-has-arrived-warhammer-40k-tournament-results/

Yes, it is FAR too early to make judgements calls on whether this trend will continue, but for someone to come in and say that this is evidence that Marines aren't dominating the meta is a bit....silly. Again, extremely small sample size, but they are winning 50% of the tournaments atm

a_typical_hero wrote:
Every army that can buy more than 20 units for the calculated 300000+ points. Which should be even possible if you go unbound and only bring LOWs.

To be honest I thought split firing is per "same kind of weapon", as that's how I ruled it. It only changes the equation from killing one unit really well to killing 20. At the end, you only need to have something standing afterwards to kill that lonely and weak model (if they go first).

To be frank, that uber model would lose every single game if he was 2000 points.

Tabling isn't a winning condition, so you just have to put something in reserve.

SemperMortis wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Going by the meta monday post it's 3 marines in the top 5 across 3 events and winning 1 of them.

The one winner was blood angels which by all accounts were one of the least benefitting of the changes.

Win rate by marine faction
BT - 60
BA - 44
SW - 60
DA - 65
DW - 0

Generic marines compiled - 47
IH - 52
IF- 33
S - 54
UM - 41
RG - 40
WS - 38

If were going to kneejerk then buff Votann! 39%

Blood of kittens reported more games

Adelaide, 2nd Place
WTC: 1st and 3rd
Toronto Winter Open: 1st.
Fantasianorth Store Championship: N/A

So 4 AoO tournaments, 2 first place finishes, a 2nd and a third. Win/Loss ratio jumped to 60%+ for multiple sub factions of Marines.
https://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2023/01/22/arks-of-omens-has-arrived-warhammer-40k-tournament-results/

Yes, it is FAR too early to make judgements calls on whether this trend will continue, but for someone to come in and say that this is evidence that Marines aren't dominating the meta is a bit....silly. Again, extremely small sample size, but they are winning 50% of the tournaments atm

Custodes made to top 3 at 3 of them and won one, necrons placed twice and won one of them, 2 aeldari in 2nd places and an honourable tau. So it looks like it's a custodes meta as much as a marine one, with a sprinkling of elf bs and necrons getting some teeth back maybe.

In all likelihood a lot of people won't have pivoted fully in or with the meta until after LVO, the early data is interesting but we need nephilim to rotate out fully I think. It doesn't look to be marines so much as a "multi wound 2+ save" meta.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Anti-tank is also anti-3W infantry. Action fodder could also be used for movement blocking and units only taken to be cheap and useless probably aren't healthy for the game anyway. Movement blockers should probably end up as decent melee units so your screening unit has at least some teeth.

If you work at making it so all units can do a couple of different things and nerfing/buffing the outliers you start seeing fewer single-use units.

You keep nitpicking the details of how you would prevent the specific example from happening and avoiding the actual point: that even if every unit in a codex is balanced individually not every combination of those units will be balanced. An all-tank list that takes no screening infantry will struggle. An all-infantry list that takes no heavy or special weapons will struggle. A list that refuses to take any buff characters will struggle. A list that doesn't take any action fodder will struggle. Etc. Unless you completely homogenize the entire game so that the only difference between units and armies is aesthetic you will always have the possibility to pick combinations of units that do not work well together and do not have a coherent plan for winning the game. And the people who deliberately do this will always skew your data away from 50% win rates even if the game is perfectly balanced.

It's just another way to filter data and try to understand why there was a blowout in any given game.

But how does it help you understand? Unless you go through each game individually and analyze the specific choices that were made, something that is not practical in large-scale data analysis, the filter tells you nothing of value because it can't distinguish between multiple situations.

You could show a bad list by showing that lists that take [insert unit or units] tends to do worse than the average list for that faction

Except it's not just single units. For example a single 6-man storm trooper squad is an excellent choice for a guard list. It's cheap and it can deep strike so it's excellent action fodder. Deep strike in, score RND, score a table quarters objective, and who cares if it dies after that because it has already done its job. Taking ten of these units would be a bad idea because you don't need that much action fodder and they aren't good at anything else. So there's no way to simply filter by "had a storm trooper squad" and learn anything of value. You'd have to set far more complex search criteria and then argue about whether or not something is really a "bad list" and I'm not doing all that work just to prove that water is in fact wet. If you won't listen to direct statements from the people who run major events then nothing is going to change your mind about this.

What? You look at the data with 0-2 starts removed as a lens, not as a thing you apply the other lenses to... It's like you have no clue how to analyze data.

Lolwut. How does removing 0-2 starts tell you anything without also looking at "faction prevalence, average points per battle, average placement at the end of tournaments, list diversity with that faction, etc"? Removing 0-2 starts is not a metric, it's a modification to the data set. Without looking at one of the metrics you listed (or win rate, TIWP, etc) you have learned literally nothing. If I have a set of numbers {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10} and I remove everything below 3 I get {3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10} but until I apply some kind of metric to the data all I have is a meaningless list of numbers.

And the reality is that most metrics will be skewed by removing 0-2 starts, with the exception of those that already only look at the top of the standings (top 4 count, TIWP, etc). You can not get accurate results if you start by removing the data that contains a disproportionate share of the balance problems!

Aecus Decimus wrote:
And the people who deliberately do this will always skew your data away from 50% win rates even if the game is perfectly balanced.

Only if they only play specific factions and never play mirrors. You also never showed your evidence that they're a large enough fraction of players to have an impact on the data.

But how does it help you understand? Unless you go through each game individually and analyze the specific choices that were made, something that is not practical in large-scale data analysis, the filter tells you nothing of value because it can't distinguish between multiple situations.

If you see trends in lists that always get blown out and see that lists that get blown out tend to sideboard less often than average it can help to understand if there's a balance issue or a player issue.

Except it's not just single units. For example a single 6-man storm trooper squad is an excellent choice for a guard list. It's cheap and it can deep strike so it's excellent action fodder. Deep strike in, score RND, score a table quarters objective, and who cares if it dies after that because it has already done its job. Taking ten of these units would be a bad idea because you don't need that much action fodder and they aren't good at anything else. So there's no way to simply filter by "had a storm trooper squad" and learn anything of value. You'd have to set far more complex search criteria and then argue about whether or not something is really a "bad list" and I'm not doing all that work just to prove that water is in fact wet. If you won't listen to direct statements from the people who run major events then nothing is going to change your mind about this.

Ignoring that there would always be trends in which lists do well and which lists do poorly. It might be that more than one 6-man stormtrooper unit is an indicator of a lower-than-average win rate, or that a specific loadout on a unit is underperforming. It shouldn't be that hard to understand what a bad list is by examining the data.

You run tournaments now because I haven't seen you post any direct statements from anybody.

Lolwut. How does removing 0-2 starts tell you anything without also looking at "faction prevalence, average points per battle, average placement at the end of tournaments, list diversity with that faction, etc"?

You pull the 0-2 starts to get a better look at what skilled players are doing and to filter out the worst lists. You then apply a weight to that data set, then you might look at the set that has the 5-0 and 4-1 lists removed to see what average players are doing.

And the reality is that most metrics will be skewed by removing 0-2 starts, with the exception of those that already only look at the top of the standings (top 4 count, TIWP, etc). You can not get accurate results if you start by removing the data that contains a disproportionate share of the balance problems!

You seem hung up on a single method of filtering data while missing the fact that you'd want to slice up data in many different ways while looking at as much of it as possible. You'd hopefully be able to spot balance issues within the data set pretty easily and might even be able to make a heuristic for what will cause a faction an x% WR bump or cause a unit to appear in x% more lists. This is basically what the League team is able to do by looking at data at different skill brackets and with their system that picks champions for small buffs each patch to generally keep things balanced.

I want to get 40k to that same state and that will take a massive amount of data gathering and analysis.

TLDR; GW needs to do a deep dive into 40k results and find patterns in their data that allow them to cull lists and play patterns that would otherwise poison their data. My specific ideas may not be the best way to do that but I don't believe that such analysis is impossible even if I do think that it would be very difficult and likely beyond GWs scope and skill level to implement. There are also issues of simply not gathering enough data (only looking at sanctioned tournaments) and there not being enough games of 40k played to generate the required data. I think this gap could be filled by AI who could likely be trained to play 40k at least as well as the current playtesting team and at a far quicker rate too.

SemperMortis wrote:
Yes, it is FAR too early to make judgements calls on whether this trend will continue, but for someone to come in and say that this is evidence that Marines aren't dominating the meta is a bit....silly. Again, extremely small sample size, but they are winning 50% of the tournaments atm

It's too early to say what the results will be, but it's a terrible idea because GW has no idea what the effect will be, that and the bad game design principles it's based on is enough to say the change shouldn't have been made. If the meta somehow turns out fantastic it'll have been pure luck.

 vict0988 wrote:
If the meta somehow turns out fantastic it'll have been pure luck.

Yea, I agree with that statement. I don't think they would have had time to test these changes enough for things to be "good" with confidence. We're definitely going to see some messy gak.

The next month or three is going to be indicative of home these changes effect the meta and again, based on my analysis of the buffs and this first 4 GT sized events, I'm thinking my prediction that SM's are going to dominate the meta. And as a reminder, when I say SM I don't mean SM as a whole, but specific chapters are going to excel.

SemperMortis wrote:
The next month or three is going to be indicative of home these changes effect the meta and again, based on my analysis of the buffs and this first 4 GT sized events, I'm thinking my prediction that SM's are going to dominate the meta. And as a reminder, when I say SM I don't mean SM as a whole, but specific chapters are going to excel.

Care to add some nuance, which ones and why?

SemperMortis wrote:
The next month or three is going to be indicative of home these changes effect the meta and again, based on my analysis of the buffs and this first 4 GT sized events, I'm thinking my prediction that SM's are going to dominate the meta. And as a reminder, when I say SM I don't mean SM as a whole, but specific chapters are going to excel.

With space marines it's always a few chapters that are doing very well in tournaments. Just like with every other faction and their subfactions. Even if they're all good there will be optimum ones to take. So that's what people go for.

That said, the important thing here is that marines are doing extremely well so I guess that people will be tooling against space marines even more than normal. And, very importantly, I fear that marines being this strong really won't be fun on a more local and less competitive level.

Dudeface wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
The next month or three is going to be indicative of home these changes effect the meta and again, based on my analysis of the buffs and this first 4 GT sized events, I'm thinking my prediction that SM's are going to dominate the meta. And as a reminder, when I say SM I don't mean SM as a whole, but specific chapters are going to excel.

Care to add some nuance, which ones and why?

DA seem to be the front runner right now. My best guess would be that Iron Hands get some mileage from this as well. Blood Angels got a lot less from this than others but still seem to be doing well (way to early to be sure though). I don't pretend to be an expert on all things SM so we will see when the competitive SM players start developing their new lists. I'm looking forward to this weeks tournament results though.

"Free stuff" = more power. Film at 11. I got your back Semper.

The Meta is out for AoO games for the past weekend and it's a bit of a mixed bag, but marines definitely shining in many areas, but only winning 2 out of 7.

Results are definitely sloppier than Nephilim. Codex Warfare getting nerfed to 1 point per kill for Devastator doctrine kills would probably take a lot of steam away from IH. At present scoring that is just so stupidly simple and it seems pretty clear that whomever wrote the secondaries was not talking to the person who decided to lift the doctrine restrictions.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
The winning IH list is as follows:

Lieutenant
Techmarine
2x5 Infiltrator
1x5 Incursor
3x Redemptor - Plasma
Contemptor - Volkite
2x5 VV LC & SS
2x Suppressors
2x5 Devs - 2x MM 2x Grav
1x Pod

Free gear total: Neo-volkite ( 15 ), 2x Helix ( 20 ), Mine ( 10 ), 3x OGCs ( 15 ), 3x Pods ( 15 ), 8x LC&SS ( 64 ), 2x PF ( 16 ), 4x MM ( 80 ), 4x Grav ( 40 ), 2x TH on Devs ( 30 )

Items in red are the only real things of consequence, which comes to an extra 230 points.

So I don't think it's free points making IH strong, but rather Codex Warfare and all game Devastator.

I admit I'm always confused when they put Codex Space Marines as a different faction and it is clearly not a congregate of all Marine subfactions.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Free gear total: Neo-volkite ( 15 ), 2x Helix ( 20 ), Mine ( 10 ), 3x OGCs ( 15 ), 3x Pods ( 15 ), 8x LC&SS ( 64 ), 2x PF ( 16 ), 4x MM ( 80 ), 4x Grav ( 40 ), 2x TH on Devs ( 30 )

Items in red are the only real things of consequence, which comes to an extra 230 points.

So I don't think it's free points making IH strong, but rather Codex Warfare and all game Devastator.

Don't forget that some units got cheaper per model as well, which we should include when talking about how Marines fare after the update. I would not brush off 230 extra points from wargear alone. With your regular Marine at 18 points a pop you are looking at ~12 MEQ bodies less on the board to soak damage, do actions or engage enemy units otherwise.

While it definitely helps, it does seem IH and Dark Angels (and potentially IF) are on an entire different tier of their own, with all other Marine subfactions being far far behind.

140 points actually.

Devs got increased by 5 points.

MM still cost 10 points each.

I would push that to 160 though, since the Helix are hella useful.

 Tyran wrote:
I admit I'm always confused when they put Codex Space Marines as a different faction and it is clearly not a congregate of all Marine subfactions.

Probably because of the different impacts the Super-Doctrines can have?

Out of interest, how many weeks of sub-40% results for LoV before people will admit they got over-nerfed?

 Dysartes wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
I admit I'm always confused when they put Codex Space Marines as a different faction and it is clearly not a congregate of all Marine subfactions.

Probably because of the different impacts the Super-Doctrines can have?

Out of interest, how many weeks of sub-40% results for LoV before people will admit they got over-nerfed?

To quote some posters "I hope they go too far and don't sell to teach GW a lesson for at least a year" was in the pre-nerf thread.

a_typical_hero wrote:
Don't forget that some units got cheaper per model as well, which we should include when talking about how Marines fare after the update. I would not brush off 230 extra points from wargear alone. With your regular Marine at 18 points a pop you are looking at ~12 MEQ bodies less on the board to soak damage, do actions or engage enemy units otherwise.

There's certainly a handful of other savings, but the community focus has been on free wargear so it's going to be important to distinguish what parts are really driving the wonky results. So far I don't think it's primarily points. Or, if it is points, then it ties in with how the rules interact.

For IH I think it's mostly rules stacking along with a very favorable secondary. For DA I think it's points along with their rules to create super tough and cheap termies.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
There's certainly a handful of other savings, but the community focus has been on free wargear so it's going to be important to distinguish what parts are really driving the wonky results. So far I don't think it's primarily points. Or, if it is points, then it ties in with how the rules interact.

For IH I think it's mostly rules stacking along with a very favorable secondary. For DA I think it's points along with their rules to create super tough and cheap termies.

I guess you can say it matters for determining what to change (if anything) - but its always going to be a package.

I'm going to keep holding out for example that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with White Scars rules - its just that the alternatives are better.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
marines definitely shining in many areas, but only winning 2 out of 7.

In Related news The Chicago Bears are looking up with an 84 Ranked Running Back, and the top overall pick in the Draft, but closed out the season with a 3-14 record. The Houston Rockets had three players named to the Jordan Rising Stars event but will be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs shortly after the midseason All-Star Break. Its a bold prognosticator that decides looking like Michael Irvin right before a Cowboys Game is going to improve his credibility.

Lieutenant
Techmarine
2x5 Infiltrator
1x5 Incursor
3x Redemptor - Plasma
Contemptor - Volkite
2x5 VV LC & SS
2x Suppressors
2x5 Devs - 2x MM 2x Grav
1x Pod

Free gear total: Neo-volkite ( 15 ), 2x Helix ( 20 ), Mine ( 10 ), 3x OGCs ( 15 ), 3x Pods ( 15 ), 8x LC&SS ( 64 ), 2x PF ( 16 ), 4x MM ( 80 ), 4x Grav ( 40 ), 2x TH on Devs ( 30 )

Last I checked, Devastators went up in PPM, and still pay (but less so) for MM meaning the MM are not free, and definitely not 80 points worth free. Likewise Vanguard Veterans not only still pay for Jump Packs, Lightning Claws, Stormshields and other things, they still pay the same at least for the Lightning Claws and Storm Shields. They still pay for power fists.

Items in red are the only real things of consequence, which comes to an extra 230 points.

So I don't think it's free points making IH strong, but rather Codex Warfare and all game Devastator.

I was going to ask if you were having an honesty or an accuracy problem but given that your 230 points of "freebies" is off by 114+ or more out of your 230 claimed points, I'm not sure if makes a difference. If you can't get basic facts like the two biggest chunks of what you're going to call free gear aren't actually free and still cost points, how much credibility will your analysis get?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

a_typical_hero wrote:

Don't forget that some units got cheaper per model as well, which we should include when talking about how Marines fare after the update. I would not brush off 230 extra points from wargear alone. With your regular Marine at 18 points a pop you are looking at ~12 MEQ bodies less on the board to soak damage, do actions or engage enemy units otherwise.

Don't forget that repeating something that is not true does not make it true. Wanting a thing to be true does not make it true. People who tell you what you want to hear does not make it true. 5 minutes with the official PDF would have also told you this was not true. Willfully ignoring almost a month of people telling you it wasn't all free, and it wasn't free everywhere doesn't make it true. He's off at least 114 points, and an argument could be made for being off by 164 or more.

Breton wrote:

Don't forget that repeating something that is not true does not make it true. Wanting a thing to be true does not make it true. People who tell you what you want to hear does not make it true. 5 minutes with the official PDF would have also told you this was not true. Willfully ignoring almost a month of people telling you it wasn't all free, and it wasn't free everywhere doesn't make it true. He's off at least 114 points, and an argument could be made for being off by 164 or more.

You can try not to forget to not be a dick about it as well. I don't have a horse in this race as I'm not even playing 9th edition -> I don't really care if Marines are better because of x or y. I was simply pointing out that wargear cost alone is not the full picture if model costs changed as well.

a_typical_hero wrote:

Breton wrote:

Don't forget that repeating something that is not true does not make it true. Wanting a thing to be true does not make it true. People who tell you what you want to hear does not make it true. 5 minutes with the official PDF would have also told you this was not true. Willfully ignoring almost a month of people telling you it wasn't all free, and it wasn't free everywhere doesn't make it true. He's off at least 114 points, and an argument could be made for being off by 164 or more.

You can try not to forget to not be a dick about it as well. I don't have a horse in this race as I'm not even playing 9th edition -> I don't really care if Marines are better because of x or y. I was simply pointing out that wargear cost alone is not the full picture if model costs changed as well.

And yet, as I pointed out after nearly a month of people pointing out wargear isn't free everywhere even for Marines, we still have people trying to say it is. For not having a horse in the race, you're sure running the narrative.