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I think a big part of why the current system is ultimately important is just that it seems to be how the game is going to grow. New models only have so much value in existing crowded factions and new factions are pretty unrealistic to birth fully formed at this point. Half factions that graft on to existing factions make a lot of sense.

It's not even particularly unique to 40k. Warmachine and Infinity are essentially going the same route. I suspect Malifaux will see the value in it in a few years as well.

I mean malifaux has a lot of cross faction stuff now, but you either pay more for it, or require certain characters, so it is easier to balance.

Breng77 wrote:
I mean malifaux has a lot of cross faction stuff now, but you either pay more for it, or require certain characters, so it is easier to balance.

\

Most of the 10 thunders are exactly that, and there is at least 1 cross faction master in each faction, sometimes more.

I miss the good old days when this thread was about LVO. There were so many cool things about this LVO lke creative lists.

GW are now chasing balance and I'm convinced(with no proof) that they are not testing 8th edition in matched play formats internally and relying on tournaments and external testers to do this. The meta won't be truly evolved until the time comes when all codices have been released. But this Soup thing has me worried.

Fingers crossed for a separate Grot codex with army wide BS4+

 Nithaniel wrote:
I miss the good old days when this thread was about LVO. There were so many cool things about this LVO lke creative lists.

GW are now chasing balance and I'm convinced(with no proof) that they are not testing 8th edition in matched play formats internally and relying on tournaments and external testers to do this. The meta won't be truly evolved until the time comes when all codices have been released. But this Soup thing has me worried.

Fingers crossed for a separate Grot codex with army wide BS4+

That's exactly what they are doing. GW are making changes based solely on ITC perceptions, because they feel for some insane reason that if you aren't playing in a tournament, you are not using Matched Play. So this results in changes being done that affect huge swathes of the game just because they effect a very tiny percentage of tournament players who by their nature are looking to abuse it. They are chasing their tail. The "Meta" is always one step ahead of them, and they are relying on these people to dictate the direction they balance things while constantly ignoring the underlying problems that are allowing this to crop up. If they remove the ability to spam things, a lot of issues go down (bring back actual restrictions). If they didn't let you take multiple detachments and get the bonuses that apply to each, problems go down. If soup lists couldn't have their cake and eat it too, problems go down. None of these things will be fixed by just looking at tournament results and saying "Dark reapers are everywhere, time to nerf them" which is thus far how GW has "balanced" competitive play; by hitting things that are abused at tournaments with the nerf bat, just making all the tournament players go to something else that hasn't been abused yet. Fix the underlying issues that let people abuse it in the first place.

They don't know what to hit until it has been abused. Pretty obvious to me. There are no "underlying issues", just miscosted units.

Wayniac wrote:

 Nithaniel wrote:
I miss the good old days when this thread was about LVO. There were so many cool things about this LVO lke creative lists.

GW are now chasing balance and I'm convinced(with no proof) that they are not testing 8th edition in matched play formats internally and relying on tournaments and external testers to do this. The meta won't be truly evolved until the time comes when all codices have been released. But this Soup thing has me worried.

Fingers crossed for a separate Grot codex with army wide BS4+

That's exactly what they are doing. GW are making changes based solely on ITC perceptions, because they feel for some insane reason that if you aren't playing in a tournament, you are not using Matched Play. So this results in changes being done that affect huge swathes of the game just because they effect a very tiny percentage of tournament players who by their nature are looking to abuse it. They are chasing their tail. The "Meta" is always one step ahead of them, and they are relying on these people to dictate the direction they balance things while constantly ignoring the underlying problems that are allowing this to crop up. If they remove the ability to spam things, a lot of issues go down (bring back actual restrictions). If they didn't let you take multiple detachments and get the bonuses that apply to each, problems go down. If soup lists couldn't have their cake and eat it too, problems go down. None of these things will be fixed by just looking at tournament results and saying "Dark reapers are everywhere, time to nerf them" which is thus far how GW has "balanced" competitive play; by hitting things that are abused at tournaments with the nerf bat, just making all the tournament players go to something else that hasn't been abused yet. Fix the underlying issues that let people abuse it in the first place.

Actual restrictions, I've played since 3e and there has never been a case where I couldn't take 3 units of Dark Reapers
limiting multiple detachments doesnt stop me from taking 3 units of Dark Reapers
Limiting soup lists doesn't stop me from taking 3 units of Dark Reapers
Dark Reapers are everywhere because 3+ unmodifiable to hit, good range, good str, good ap, multiple damage with a 3+ save should cost more points.

That isn't to say GW shouldn't take a look at detachment/soup abuse but I don't get the blame being put on Competitive players for wanting a more balanced game. That benefits everybody.
Whether its undercosted Reapers, or moral immune guard or any of the other things GW has 'nerfed' is for the benefit of all.
I don't want to have to work to create 'bad' lists so I can play my buddies and have a fun game.

Soup exists in a couple of different ways: At the detachment level (soup units still granting Battleforged status), and at the army level (soup detachments still granting Battleforged status). Consequent to this is improved efficiency when attempting to min/max synergies, which is where the problem, from a competitive-balance perspective, lies.

If we're talking about restricting detachment-level soup (mixing units); I support that idea. If we're talking about restricting army-level soup, I'm not particularly for that. I'm not arguing that army-level soup is 'easier to balance' than detachment-level soup, rather that an army comprised of an Eldar detachment, a Dark Eldar detachment, and a Harlequin detachment has the potential to be super-cool from a hobbying/theme perspective. So, restricting players to mono-faction (mono-codex) armies for the sake of competitive balance would sacrifice something I see as more valuable.

DCannon4Life wrote:

If we're talking about restricting detachment-level soup (mixing units); I support that idea. If we're talking about restricting army-level soup, I'm not particularly for that. I'm not arguing that army-level soup is 'easier to balance' than detachment-level soup, rather that an army comprised of an Eldar detachment, a Dark Eldar detachment, and a Harlequin detachment has the potential to be super-cool from a hobbying/theme perspective. So, restricting players to mono-faction (mono-codex) armies for the sake of competitive balance would sacrifice something I see as more valuable.

I largely agree with this. I think most armies are getting a special rule strong enough to provide a good penalty for taking detachment level soup though. The outstanding issues seem to be mostly stuff that has yet to get these bonuses from a codex and a decent number of HQs that don't benefit much from army bonuses (or don't have them) and pile into supreme commands pretty trivially.

A game should be balanced with competitive play in mind. Casual games largely take care of themselves, and the tournament meta will filter down to all these tables. Most of the people reading this forum are so eager to post lists and discuss tactics of what is good and what isn't, and to absorb knowledge from tournament players. As an example there is a discussion in the Tyranid tactics thread about the quality of units and how they perform, with those of us who have played them in tournaments sharing our experiences. There are absolutely casual players in that thread reading it and absorbing the knowledge. I would assume this happens as well in the Eldar, and Guard threads, as well. So you have casual Jake going online and buying reapers because competitive Bill said they won him a tournament. So if you want the game to not be balanced around tournaments, find a group of like minded players who don't ask for advice or do research into what works and what doesn't. Ultimately you'll come to the same conclusion, it will just be a longer, more circuitous (and expensive) path to the truth.

On the second note, GW simply doesn't test with Reaper spam - or any spam - in mind. For one *model* to reshape how the entire meta functions is really difficult to accept. It's simply not healthy for the game to have people bringing as many units of the same thing as possible. When lists have like 10 units of dark reapers in them, that's a problem. When lists can soup various different factions and still have all the same buffs and tricks despite having different Craftworlds, for their soupy reapers, that's a problem, too.

For a codex like Tyranids, or an Index like Orks/Tau, you have a different spam problem. The only way to get even remote success right now is to spam one model, because a lot of the codex/index doesn't hold up. Tyranids, spam Flyrants, you won't do well, but you will do better than if you don't; Orks, spam boyz, same reason; Tau, spam commanders, same reason. I refuse to play spam because (a) it stands to reason it will get 'patched' and (b) at some point you have to play for enjoyment.

I would like 40k to be more than, "is the best unit in your codex better than the best unit in my codex?"

I'd like to take that further. I'd like 40k to be more than "is your spreadsheet coefficient larger than mine". I'd like it to be "can you maneuver and engage and withdraw and prioritize objectives better than I can"

 auticus wrote:
I'd like to take that further. I'd like 40k to be more than "is your spreadsheet coefficient larger than mine". I'd like it to be "can you maneuver and engage and withdraw and prioritize objectives better than I can"

Try the new ITC missions, they really take a major step in this direction. Even in casual play they are fantastic.

I'll look into that. I've been doing Open War cards. Those have also been fun.

 auticus wrote:
I'll look into that. I've been doing Open War cards. Those have also been fun.

I found them to be pretty fun, but also created games where it was a non-starter.

 Marmatag wrote:
A game should be balanced with competitive play in mind. Casual games largely take care of themselves, and the tournament meta will filter down to all these tables. Most of the people reading this forum are so eager to post lists and discuss tactics of what is good and what isn't, and to absorb knowledge from tournament players. As an example there is a discussion in the Tyranid tactics thread about the quality of units and how they perform, with those of us who have played them in tournaments sharing our experiences. There are absolutely casual players in that thread reading it and absorbing the knowledge. I would assume this happens as well in the Eldar, and Guard threads, as well. So you have casual Jake going online and buying reapers because competitive Bill said they won him a tournament. So if you want the game to not be balanced around tournaments, find a group of like minded players who don't ask for advice or do research into what works and what doesn't. Ultimately you'll come to the same conclusion, it will just be a longer, more circuitous (and expensive) path to the truth.

On the second note, GW simply doesn't test with Reaper spam - or any spam - in mind. For one *model* to reshape how the entire meta functions is really difficult to accept. It's simply not healthy for the game to have people bringing as many units of the same thing as possible. When lists have like 10 units of dark reapers in them, that's a problem. When lists can soup various different factions and still have all the same buffs and tricks despite having different Craftworlds, for their soupy reapers, that's a problem, too.

For a codex like Tyranids, or an Index like Orks/Tau, you have a different spam problem. The only way to get even remote success right now is to spam one model, because a lot of the codex/index doesn't hold up. Tyranids, spam Flyrants, you won't do well, but you will do better than if you don't; Orks, spam boyz, same reason; Tau, spam commanders, same reason. I refuse to play spam because (a) it stands to reason it will get 'patched' and (b) at some point you have to play for enjoyment.

I would like 40k to be more than, "is the best unit in your codex better than the best unit in my codex?"

I try to tell myself that, but having been trying to do even decently with orks since the 6th edition ork codex and now the awful index.... I just can't enjoy losing every game turn 2 never reaching the enemy unless they are also an assault army and then they stomp me in cc. I built and love my speed freaks army, 50 ork bikers, some nobz etc. they just vaporize before doing much of anything. the only way to even chance with them is spaming ork boyz, still will nto beat imperial soup but hey I get to be wiped in turn 4 instead of turn 2.

on the lvo portion though chess clocks totally should be a thing, and GW should do digital codexes and modify them to adjust points as things are proven to be too weak/strong. no need to wait a full year to adjust dark reapers or Leman Russes in the next chapter approved, or to bring up the power level of underperforming units like commisars or ork biker boyz, just do it digitally or release an errata and correct it.

I hate the chess clock idea so much.

But I do like digital codexes.

I would much rather pay a yearly subscription to the rules, and have digital searchable access to every codex and every rule, than have to buy a book once per year. Included in this subscription would be a sanctioned list builder that would limit illegal lists.

"Can i see your list?"
"Yeah here, enter my ID, and then click 'send list to opponent.'"
"Ok, done. Ok, I see yours."
"Great, all the rules are here."

I mean why this isn't a thing is beyond me. GW is one of the only companies i've seen that seems to openly reject the digital age.

 Marmatag wrote:
Try the new ITC missions, they really take a major step in this direction. Even in casual play they are fantastic.

Agreed, my regular play group use these pretty consistently, partially because they help us prep and plan for the next ITC tournament, but also because they create some really interesting decision dynamics over the course of the game. They can also make a pretty big difference in deciding to go first or not. However, ITC is not perfect, it encourages some levels of aberrant list construction as people try to avoid building lists which provide full secondary objective points, but this is honestly pretty nit-picky on my part.

Open War deck is pretty interesting also, but I think it only scratches the surface, while the ITC missions tend to provide significantly more nuance.

 Marmatag wrote:
I hate the chess clock idea so much.

But I do like digital codexes.

I would much rather pay a yearly subscription to the rules, and have digital searchable access to every codex and every rule, than have to buy a book once per year. Included in this subscription would be a sanctioned list builder that would limit illegal lists.

"Can i see your list?"
"Yeah here, enter my ID, and then click 'send list to opponent.'"
"Ok, done. Ok, I see yours."
"Great, all the rules are here."

I mean why this isn't a thing is beyond me. GW is one of the only companies i've seen that seems to openly reject the digital age.

Corvus Belli's system is far and away the best I've worked with; though I'd like an official app instead of a web page so internet access is less of an issue. Malifaux's new app has some excellent communication ideas but is pretty flawed from a playability standpoint. War Room 2 definitely converted me to digital only in general though. It's UI is a huge step up from its predecessor, though its got some challenges in sharing info. Overall though I will be very happy when War Room 2 is the baseline for the industry and not an exception.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Try the new ITC missions, they really take a major step in this direction. Even in casual play they are fantastic.

Agreed, my regular play group use these pretty consistently, partially because they help us prep and plan for the next ITC tournament, but also because they create some really interesting decision dynamics over the course of the game. They can also make a pretty big difference in deciding to go first or not. However, ITC is not perfect, it encourages some levels of aberrant list construction as people try to avoid building lists which provide full secondary objective points, but this is honestly pretty nit-picky on my part.

Open War deck is pretty interesting also, but I think it only scratches the surface, while the ITC missions tend to provide significantly more nuance.

Agree, reaper is probably the dumbest one. It should just be 1 point for 10+ models, end of story.

I like Open War for the twists, some of the weirdo deployment maps, and the advantage cards that don't come with a win condition.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The Tyranids are the only outlier, though without knowing how many showed up, it's hard to tell if they're a real outlier. If only like, 3 people showed up with them, then 0 in the top 50 is expected, whereas if there were 50 or 60 players, that's a bigger deal that they didn't make a showing.

Just for reference, it looks like they finally fixed the faction listings on the best coast pairings site. There were apparently 35 tyranid players.
https://www.bestcoastpairings.com/r/q09y1gw9

So returning to the topic of the LVO, I think i've shown fairly well in the other thread that the average game length at the LVO was just shy of 4 turns. That's not great, because I don't feel like an average game length of four turns is not sufficient to get to end game conditions, and a four round game makes a concessions way more valuable they they should be. An average of five turns would probably be the right goal, which means games need to happen at about 125% of the speed of current games.

Once again two ways we can do this, we can try to make the game faster via clocks, threats of forfeit, and judges slapping players hands with rulers. However I don't think the competitive scene needs to be more stressful, and none of those idea to make 2k work make the game better.

The other option is to reduce points at tournaments which will make games faster by stint of there being less going on. It will also make a lot of the problem lists we see at 2k much harder to pull off. Reducing points to 1500 would be a 25% reduction, and that's certainly my vote, but to be fair I don't think it's necessary to go all the way down to 1.5k to fit in a two hour window.

I think 1750 will get us close enough, because a reduction in points also comes with a reduction in other time taking aspects of the game, that's a hunch though, so we would definitely want to test that. I also think the current meta could survive a change to 1750 without too many upsets, and it wouldn't play like a completely different game.

Reducing the points is not a good idea. You still have to spend a significant amount of time in movement on turns 1 and 2 to protect your lines from the deep strikers. This won't change magically by reducing the points. You have to look at where the time is being spent. The nature of 8th edition is that turns 1 and 2 will take a lot longer than 3-5. Games are generally decided by turn 4 anyway, so the need to go to turn 5 is pretty rare.

Also, if you were to drop the points from 2000 to 1750, that's a reduction to 87.5% of the points. If that had the same percentage effect on a 2 hour, and 15 minute game, you're effectively adding ~20 minutes to the game time.

A better solution is to simply increase the max game time to 3 hours, and set games to end at turn 4 rather than turn 5. To be completely honest i would be fine if the game was changed to end at turn 3, going to turn 4 only if there is a tie or the game is reasonably close. The need to see turn 4 and 5 is wholly overblown.

Increasing the max game time would work.

In a perfect world we'd have unlimited game time, but of course that's absurd.

Sadly, however, it's the situation Warhammer 40k is written for.

See, I think players should just mark turn (not game) time on score sheets. Players who chronically don't make it to Turn 5 AND take more than half the time of the whole match on their rounds should get a negative points modifier. Done and done.

You lower point values and you're going to make elite armies like Imperial Knights and Custodes almost impossible.

I get the impression people advocating for clocks, and time adjustments, have never played a horde army. They take time to set up, they take time to move, they take time to shoot, fight, etc.

Dropping my points would change none of this. I would simply have less of the same problem. Dropping a squad of Boyz for instance by 5 models each is not going to magically double the turns that army sees.

I feel like you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. We started with slowplaying, and then now we're in reducing points and adding clocks. Thank god this forum isn't in charge of tournament formats.

I feel like the game could certainly benefit by having its conclusion tinkered with. The turn 5 ending isn't particularly important to the cadence of the game and its generally a pretty anti-climatic turn in general. A 4 turn game could certainly work, but I think to do so scenarios need to be worked into something more decisive. It's a good train of thought in general though.

Also, for whatever reason my brain hates 1750 as a number. If more than 1500 was desirable (and I think it is) I'd vote for 1600 or 1800 first.

 LunarSol wrote:
I feel like the game could certainly benefit by having its conclusion tinkered with. The turn 5 ending isn't particularly important to the cadence of the game and its generally a pretty anti-climatic turn in general. A 4 turn game could certainly work, but I think to do so scenarios need to be worked into something more decisive. It's a good train of thought in general though.

Another positive to ending at turn 4: Armies that generally play slower wouldn't be a such a disadvantage compared to armies that can see later turns.

And seriously, I play a horde army, and I make it to turn 3 at least in every game. Just cap the turns at 4 and give us an extra 30 minutes.

 Marmatag wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I feel like the game could certainly benefit by having its conclusion tinkered with. The turn 5 ending isn't particularly important to the cadence of the game and its generally a pretty anti-climatic turn in general. A 4 turn game could certainly work, but I think to do so scenarios need to be worked into something more decisive. It's a good train of thought in general though.

Another positive to ending at turn 4: Armies that generally play slower wouldn't be a such a disadvantage compared to armies that can see later turns.

And seriously, I play a horde army, and I make it to turn 3 at least in every game. Just cap the turns at 4 and give us an extra 30 minutes.

I'm not sure I fully buy the "but horde armies" argument. I'm not saying all horde players engage in intentional slow play (or even are slower than your average 40k player), but I feel we, as a community, don't stress speed and efficiency enough for tournament play. When I was at NOVA last year, I only had one game take over two hours in the whole GT I think. The speed record was a 5 round match that started and concluded in approximately forty-five minutes (Ynnari Vs. Ultramarines).

I think we can hold players to a reasonably decent speed standard without ending the world and we can do that by artificially lowering scores of players who routinely take more than 1.5 hours in a 3 hour match and still don't make it to turn 5. That means you're not finishing games AND you're eating up your opponent's share of the match time.

The current standard already punishes horde armies. There is no reason to punish them further.

The example of slowplaying was someone playing an army that is FAST TO PLAY. Not a horde. Seriously you guys are trying to create rules to stop slowplaying but in doing so you'd ruin Orks, Tyranids.

You want to solve the slowplaying problem? Have judges enforce the rule. End of story.

 Marmatag wrote:
The current standard already punishes horde armies. There is no reason to punish them further.

The example of slowplaying was someone playing an army that is FAST TO PLAY. Not a horde. Seriously you guys are trying to create rules to stop slowplaying but in doing so you'd ruin Orks, Tyranids.

You want to solve the slowplaying problem? Have judges enforce the rule. End of story.

Another thing that would help would be to drop the tournaments down to 4 rounds instead of 6, you could still do two longer games each day (~4 hour time limit instead). There would be more chance of ties in overall scores, but it shouldn't wildly skew things in that regard.