-1 to hit army traits...What are they thinking?

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**ERJAK**

andysonic1 wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
It's really just sad we have to go through all this nonsense to play the game we love. I could write a balanced rule set for this game in a day. Literally a day. It's just so obvious to me that they aren't trying.
Then why haven't you? Fan rules, if good, are accepted. Just look at ITC and how they structure their rules and missions in an attempt to support diverse army lists. These rules are accepted because they work.

As for your main concern about -1 to hit from range army traits: I don't see the problem. It's powerful, but the other army traits are powerful if used properly as well. My +1A World Eaters don't give a fudge about -1 to hit from range because I'm attempting to lodge a Chainaxe in your face. Iron Warriors basically don't care either since you can't stack it up as much against them. There is a current balance of giving everyone something powerful if used correctly that they are trying to do, it doesn't always work but in general it's something you need to play around. You can't be all shooting and you can't be all melee, you need to balance your list to be prepared for opponents with a random assortment of traits.

Side bar to ole Xenomancer: lolololokokokok9kloloo8ooio9...wat?

No you couldn't. Because NO game is balanced. Even chess favors the side that goes first.

**CassianSol**

Xenomancers wrote:
-1 to hit army traits are pretty busted. I think they should just be mass removed from the game and replaced with something else. I'm not saying there are not other busted army traits...but -1 to hit for what ends up being most of your army completely overshadows other options. If not for 2 special characters (Cawl and Guilliman [these guys are even more busted than -1 army traits]) Every armies best faction would be -1 to hit that had access to it (obviosuly these heros need fixing too.)

-1 to hit is so obviously and statistically better than all the other defensive traits. 6+ stackable or non stackable FNP? always count in cover? Am I missing another? Not even remotely close in power level. Again - I'm not ignoring other OP army traits - the top 3 AM traits are a little too good. Kraken is a little OTT for nids. I just think they could be fixed differently. -1 to hit army traits should just be flat out replaced or at the very least (should not stack with other -1 to hits) really though - just remove them and replace with something else.

It's really just sad we have to go through all this nonsense to play the game we love. I could write a balanced rule set for this game in a day. Literally a day. It's just so obvious to me that they aren't trying.

I don't disagree with you about the -1 to hit and Gulliman being big and obvious bad balance points. I used Gulliman (with opponent's pre-consent) this weekend and it was boring and overpowered.

However your claim to be able to balance the game in a day is laughable and completely undermines your point. It is bloody difficult. There are too many units and too many options.

**Fafnir**

Yeah, GW's design team might be crap at it, but it's still a hard job, and requires some pretty rigorous testing (part of why GW's design team is so bad) to get right. Sure, there are a lot of obvious things that can be shifted around, but there's also a lot of little things that make waves.

**koooaei**

Xenomancers wrote:
I could write a balanced rule set for this game in a day. Literally a day. It's just so obvious to me that they aren't trying.

could you please share your eternal wisdom?

**morgoth**

koooaei wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
I could write a balanced rule set for this game in a day. Literally a day. It's just so obvious to me that they aren't trying.

could you please share your eternal wisdom?

It's not eternal.

When he said he could, he meant "last Wednesday".

This week, unfortunately, his wisdom isn't high enough to straight-up beat a rules-writing team with testing time but no 20/20 hindsight.

Maybe next week.

**koooaei**

Next mission would be to solve the mid-east political crysis. I bet Xenomancers could do it in a couple hours. Right after having made 40k balanced.

**morgoth**

koooaei wrote:
Next mission would be to solve the mid-east polytical crysis. I bet Xenomancers could do it in a couple hours. Right after having made 40k balanced.

I would go for -1 to hit as chapter trait for Israel tbh, it's really the only trait that is worth anything apparently.

**fresus**

I'm curious to see if GW keeps that trend with armies that have more -1 to hit.
Harlequins essentially have -1-to-hit armywide (we don't see many footslogging troupes). DE can spam venoms and flyers (which is already a pretty decent build) which both have -1-to-hit already. If either of these army gets a -1 CT, it will be brutal.
Since GW buffed the already-powerful Hemlock, while giving it access to an additional -1-to-hit, I think it's possible we'll see the same stuff for Harlies and DE.

**Xenomancers**

koooaei wrote:
Next mission would be to solve the mid-east political crysis. I bet Xenomancers could do it in a couple hours. Right after having made 40k balanced.

Wow - incredible analogy. Balancing a dice game which can be figured through statistics/math is equal to a 60 years long human relocation and battle for a holy land which has been fought over for centuries. Being an ork player I'd think you'd be the first one agreeing that -1 to hit army traits are a problem. The game is hard to balance though so...I guess we should give GW a break on that.

**Bharring**

The Hemlock got some buffs, including the -1 to hit outside 12". But at the same time, it lost the ability to give itself, and any infantry near it, -1 to hit vs all shooting.

So yes, the Hemlock got buffed, and it's stupid that you can stack the Flyer -1 with the Alaitoc -1. But one of the things that made the Hemlock OP was that it could *already* stack two -1s pre-buff. It can still stack the same number, but it trades Conceal for Alaitoc.

(It can only cast Offensive runes of battle, not Defensive ones, such as Conceal.)

**Unit1126PLL**

Maybe we should put Xenomancers on the North Korea crisis once he's finished flawlessly balancing Warhammer 40k and also solving the crisis in the middle east.

**Bharring**

I really do not expect to see a non-trivial asymetric game be truly balanced in my lifetime. I'd like it to be closer, but perfect balance is going to be nigh impossible.

On the bright side, look at some of the comparisons that keep getting bandied about. Dreadnaught vs Wraithlord are very asymetric, but very balanced. Fire Prism vs QuadLas Pred. DAs or Guardians vs Tacs. Not perfect, but so close that we can argue for days on any of those pairs, and still they seem to stack up about equal to eachother.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
(Except BA. I hope they change that streak. I fee bad for BA faithful.)

**Backspacehacker**

Deep strike and or fast attack, problem solved. I have fought armies with that trait and I just drop 10 terminators on them and laugh as I make a 9inch charge turn 1

**Xenomancers**

Backspacehacker wrote:
Deep strike and or fast attack, problem solved. I have fought armies with that trait and I just drop 10 terminators on them and laugh as I make a 9inch charge turn 1

If you did that against eldar - you'd lose all your terminators before they even got to shoot.

**Ravenor81**

As an Ork player having even a -1 to hit pretty much invalidates an entire unit in my army, Lootas. Having the ability to make that -2 completely invalidates any point investment in said unit. Things like this are why blanket -1 army wide are bad. I’m hoping this will be fixed by the ork codex...whenever that happens.

**Unit1126PLL**

Xenomancers wrote:
Backspacehacker wrote:
Deep strike and or fast attack, problem solved. I have fought armies with that trait and I just drop 10 terminators on them and laugh as I make a 9inch charge turn 1

If you did that against eldar - you'd lose all your terminators before they even got to shoot.

Would you?
Reaper Launchers:
- Big missile: 2.7 dead terminators
- Tiny Missile: 4.4 dead terminators.

So not even half against Tactical Terminators. Against TH/SS Terminators, it kills:
Reaper Launchers:
- Big missile: 1.9 dead terminators
- Tiny Missile: 3 dead terminators.

So not even a third of the squad against TH/SS terminators.

Methinks you're suffering from that rush of gak to the brain again, Xenomancers. For someone so good at math and statistics, you're awful at math and statistics.

**TwinPoleTheory**

Xenomancers wrote:
If you did that against eldar - you'd lose all your terminators before they even got to shoot.

Hasty generalization.

Dark Reapers might take out 3 Terminators with Forewarned, not likely to eliminate an entire squad, even a 5 man squad.

**Bharring**

On average dice, that Reaper squad doesn't even wipe a 10man Tac squad.

I'd still suggest combat squadding the Termies, though. In that matchup, not going to be great. But you can drop into cover or out of LOS or something - which makes things much better for you. And two squads are more likely to get 1 into CC if you're going for a turn-1 charge.

Don't undersell Storm BOlters within 12" against t3 infantry, though.

**Galef**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
Backspacehacker wrote:
Deep strike and or fast attack, problem solved. I have fought armies with that trait and I just drop 10 terminators on them and laugh as I make a 9inch charge turn 1

If you did that against eldar - you'd lose all your terminators before they even got to shoot.

Would you?
Reaper Launchers:
- Big missile: 2.7 dead terminators
- Tiny Missile: 4.4 dead terminators.

So not even half against Tactical Terminators. Against TH/SS Terminators, it kills:
Reaper Launchers:
- Big missile: 1.9 dead terminators
- Tiny Missile: 3 dead terminators.

So not even a third of the squad against TH/SS terminators.

Methinks you're suffering from that rush of gak to the brain again, Xenomancers. For someone so good at math and statistics, you're awful at math and statistics.

You beat me to it. Forewarned Reapers might kill your average 5-man MEQ squad deep-striking in, but no way it kills 10 TEQ

This pretty much high-lights a pretty obvious bias against a certain army and by extension, a bias against the -1 to hit attribute that is the subject of the thread
-1 to hit opens up so, so many list possibilities that would otherwise not be viable in 40K due to how shooting heavy the game has always been

-

**Bharring**

TRIPLE NINJA!

**Unit1126PLL**

Bharring wrote:
TRIPLE NINJA!

I am the ninja-est.

(One might even say I'm -1 To Hit with an Infiltrate stratagem...)

**Backspacehacker**

I run deathwing so I get that sweet sweet deathwing knight unit with thunder hammers that don't have a -1 to hit and a apoth to bring them back.

Again, I have never had an issue with the -1 to hit because it's only effective at 12"plus. It's not hard to deal with. Is it powerful? Yes, is it arguably the best trait? Yeah you could argue it. Is it zomg powerful hit with nerf bat? No.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Galef wrote:
Unit1126PLL wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
Backspacehacker wrote:
Deep strike and or fast attack, problem solved. I have fought armies with that trait and I just drop 10 terminators on them and laugh as I make a 9inch charge turn 1

If you did that against eldar - you'd lose all your terminators before they even got to shoot.

Would you?
Reaper Launchers:
- Big missile: 2.7 dead terminators
- Tiny Missile: 4.4 dead terminators.

So not even half against Tactical Terminators. Against TH/SS Terminators, it kills:
Reaper Launchers:
- Big missile: 1.9 dead terminators
- Tiny Missile: 3 dead terminators.

So not even a third of the squad against TH/SS terminators.

Methinks you're suffering from that rush of gak to the brain again, Xenomancers. For someone so good at math and statistics, you're awful at math and statistics.

You beat me to it. Forewarned Reapers might kill your average 5-man MEQ squad deep-striking in, but no way it kills 10 TEQ

This pretty much high-lights a pretty obvious bias against a certain army and by extension, a bias against the -1 to hit attribute that is the subject of the thread
-1 to hit opens up so, so many list possibilities that would otherwise not be viable in 40K due to how shooting heavy the game has always been

-

Also need to take into account that if it's a tac Terminator squad, they get to shoot at them then charge, so your numbers of lost terminators will be a little bit less, or a lot less depending on the load out.

**Unit1126PLL**

No no, this is before they shoot, Blackspacehacker, using the deep-strike-repellant stratagem. That's why I did a 10-man reaper squad with full loadout firing at full ballistic skill - it's certainly not Overwatch or anything.

In fact, it's a good way to draw out the stratagem. They blow the stratagem, kill a few comparatively irrelevant terminators, then you drop your Black Templar's Vanguard Veterans on their heads and murderblender their faces.

**Bharring**

(There's a CWE stratagem for 2CP that allows one unit within 6" of a Farseer to intercept reinforcements once - with all the normal shooting rules applying.)

**Backspacehacker**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
No no, this is before they shoot, Blackspacehacker, using the deep-strike-repellant stratagem. That's why I did a 10-man reaper squad with full loadout firing at full ballistic skill - it's certainly not Overwatch or anything.

In fact, it's a good way to draw out the stratagem. They blow the stratagem, kill a few comparatively irrelevant terminators, then you drop your Black Templar's Vanguard Veterans on their heads and murderblender their faces.

Oh gotcha gotcha, yeah I would just try and bait them with a more expendable squad. My rw dw list has like 2 Terminator squads, Belial, an apoth, and a banner so, just have them blow their load on the knights to soak up the wounds on 3+ then bring the rest in with no issues

**Bharring**

They can choose when to use it, but must choose immediately when you place a unit.

You needn't choose which units are arriving before setting them up.

So place them most expendable first. If he shoots, youv'e saved your less expendable units. If he doesn't, you've just deployed safely everything but your least expendable unit. He's going to have a hard choice there.

It's still powerful, but it's not autowin.

**Backspacehacker**

Hell I'm really hoping the leaked dark angels strat are real.

+3 to the charge after a deep strike
Or
Deep strike within 6 inches of a Raven wing unit even if it's less then 9 inches away from an enemy.

Yes please, minus 1 to shoot? Pfft don't help when I deep strike 3 Inches away.

**Unit1126PLL**

Bharring wrote:
They can choose when to use it, but must choose immediately when you place a unit.

You needn't choose which units are arriving before setting them up.

So place them most expendable first. If he shoots, youv'e saved your less expendable units. If he doesn't, you've just deployed safely everything but your least expendable unit. He's going to have a hard choice there.

It's still powerful, but it's not autowin.

Yeah. And there are on-the-tabletop ways to make this harder; e.g. put your most expendable units in the most tactically threatening places, like on the flanks or in their rear, or in front of his axis of advance. The Terminators can operate for a time without support, so you can place them simply to full-frontal some unfortunate part of the enemy's line.

This means they can blow the stratagem on a relatively irrelevant fight (the Terminators) to kill high-value models, or they can actually shoot at something important (the Expendables) but not kill much of value.

Then, you can pivot your army around its axis to make the Terminator's seemingly irrelevant fight into your main axis of advance, while the expendables slow down the enemy's own advance...

**Slayer-Fan123**

Xenomancers wrote:
koooaei wrote:
Next mission would be to solve the mid-east political crysis. I bet Xenomancers could do it in a couple hours. Right after having made 40k balanced.

Wow - incredible analogy. Balancing a dice game which can be figured through statistics/math is equal to a 60 years long human relocation and battle for a holy land which has been fought over for centuries. Being an ork player I'd think you'd be the first one agreeing that -1 to hit army traits are a problem. The game is hard to balance though so...I guess we should give GW a break on that.

Yeah the analogy is stupid. And there's a good point about people like us maybe having a better ability to fix balance issues in the game. I know I tried to apply for the rules team when that was available, but as I'm not local for them that didn't happen. Plus I find myself better at fixing the rules rather than trying to create them, try as I do (especially if you read my fixes for Tyranids and Orks for 7th).

That said, no fix for the game is overnight. We had people saying they could balance 7th out of anything that quickly, and I was trying to take a week with each codex and make sure they would balance with each other. I maybe got 5 or 6 done before I tossed that out because 8th was on the way.
8th is newer, but let's not pretend the fixes will be quicker because of that. I'd still take a week with each codex to make sure everything is the way it should be.

**Bharring**

It does seem simpler. But so does mid-east peace.

Go to any college campus. Start talking to the coeds about how to solve it. Half of them will have "perfect" solutions.

Imagine how relatively simpler it is to balance Chess. Then recall that Chess is not actually balanced (White has the advantage). Are you saying you could make 40k more balanced than Chess?

If you spend a lot of time in the Proposed Rules section (great place to put your balancing skills to an easy test), you'll find that most people wind up disagreeing on the finer points of balance.

If most people can't even throw in a few Proposed Rules that the majority believes are balanced, how would they rewrite 40k entirely in a way that appears balanced?

Try maintaining any sufficiently complex solution. Any given piece is simple. You an math it out. On the whole, it's a pile of crud. Its why software is always either not done or in need of a refactor. Same with company structures.

At any rate, if you want a 'put up or shut up', head on over to the Proposed Rules section.