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Eldenfirefly wrote:
I think this all depends on your local meta really. If your meta is less competitive and more into painting and modeling, then when they design an army list and field it, its based on the "rule of cool".

If your meta has competitive players (not necessarily tournament attending players), but they read the internet and are highly aware of the meta, then you will see and face much more competitive lists.

Of, it was a competitive enough Drukari wich/raider list. Probably not top tourney caliber but definitely not just "Rule of Cool".
I will say that I'm not really familiar with all the DE subfactions, strats, etc though. So I have no idea if he could've picked something better or used what he had better/different in that regard.

40k is balanced in a few senses of the word (a large percentage of Codexes are capable of competing at the tournament level, and a wide range of lists are capable of competing at the tournament level). It is not at all balanced in the definition of the word I usually use, which is all units and options in the game are worth using. I stopped playing 40k with the current rules because I found myself getting tabled in 2-3 turns in casual games against people I'd asked to bring soft lists, and getting told both in person and here on Dakka that the fundamental problem was that I'd bought the wrong models and if I went out and spent more money I could have a good time.

Sure, it's great for GW that the community has internalized that message to such a degree that they'll gatekeep other players' participation with it, but to me the fundamental bar in whether I consider a minis game "balanced" is whether I can use models I like without worrying about whether I'm signing up to lose every game by buying the wrong models, and on that front I find GW has completely failed. (Before you tell me "yeah, but just wait for your 9e Codex!" I've a) tried that and it really didn't work (AdMech are super hardcore if you buy 100% different models from anything I own, and Deathwatch fell flat on their face and remain a slightly more complicated way of playing Space Marines with no Chapter Tactics), and b) I equate "you can play for half to a third of every edition depending on when your Codex is released, unless you buy different models!" to "if you want to keep playing buy different models!")

 the_scotsman wrote:


That's true. I'm just pointing out the fact of the matter: Armies that aren't marines will be fighting marines a huge percentage of the time. Stuff gets compared to marines because the single most common scenario setup in 40k is 'you have to kill a bunch of space marines.'

Becuase space marines are nearly half of the armies that exist in the game, and a couple technically not marine armies (sisters, custodes, necrons to some extent) work similarly enough mechanically to marines that the weapons that work vs marines also work vs them.

It's part of why the drukhari codex hit the meta like a sack of bricks. Nobody was prepared for them. Nobody was taking transports, nobody was taking t3 melee infantry, nobody was taking weapons for T6 4+ 5++ vehicles. they're crazy OP as hell and NOBODY has any of the tools to counter them.

Only if you're referring to casual gaming against strangers.

If you know in advance what you're going to face you compare to that specific faction, regardless of how popular SM are. If you are a tournament player you choose an army that can defeat the factions with the highest WRs, like the ork player that tabled the drukhari one. Rock/paper/scissor attitude is a gamble, which has always been a thing at events, while TAC lists (aka anti marines lists, as the most common opponent to face) only exist in a limited environment.

Now SM aren't the top dogs so at tournaments many players are tailoring their lists to counter ad mech or drukhari, not SM because they need the chance to beat those while against SM they'd still have a chance with their "tailored against T3 bodies and T6 vehicles" list.

Everyone had the tools to counter drukhari, they just were unprepared in the first place as long as the codex was new and after that they decided to avoid tailoring against them for many reasons, the easiest one being the desire to design their lists to counter the most common factions rather than the most powerful ones.


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 AnomanderRake wrote:

It is not at all balanced in the definition of the word I usually use, which is all units and options in the game are worth using.

I don't think it's realistic to expect that when some armies have 100-150 or even more datasheets. In 3rd the armies with the largest rosters had something like 30, and all named characters banned outside fun games that required the opponent's permission. People want super heroes, flyers, tanks, super tanks etc... now, possibily multiples of them. It's sad and the only reason why I may prefer an older edition but it's the reality.

Some warmachine factions have 100 seperate sheets.
Even the smallest faction is doing well for faction variety and probably better than the smallest ones for 40k.
And they still manage a more satisfying balance than 40k has.

Balance itself also should include factions having access to all the elements to run a balanced army.
Something 40k fails at without even factoring in a pure balance on the table top.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It is not at all balanced in the definition of the word I usually use, which is all units and options in the game are worth using. )

Youre not wrong but you are using a harsh metric Rake. I think its a bit self defeating personally but I think it's evident we both come from different experiences.

Personally I also find it a bit misleading. As I see it, context is key. Something can be incredibly broken in one context and utterly useless in another.

My take on it would be Not all units and options in the game are worth using all of the time, against every opponent/list variation and under all circumstances. And I'm OK with that. Ttgs are limited systems, thru can only hold so much weight.

It's why I value game-building and the collaborative approach so highly.

Balance can mean very different things and players use it in very different ways.

MtG is considered a balanced game by its players, and yet 40K makes a 1000% better work at balance than it.

Different expectations.

Spoletta wrote:
Balance can mean very different things and players use it in very different ways.

Absolutely- happy to acknowledge this.

Some folks want to turn up to a game 'blind' and have it work right out of the box.

Totally fair.

Personally I think no game can accommodate the players. Our approach is generally 'what stuff would we like to use/do we think would lead to an interesting match up' and then build the game/scenario around that to accommodate the stuff we want to take. And whatever front end stuff is required is generally stuff we're happy to do. Ymmv.

Spoletta wrote:
Balance can mean very different things and players use it in very different ways.

MtG is considered a balanced game by its players, and yet 40K makes a 1000% better work at balance than it.

Different expectations.

Thanks for the bolded part, I needed a laugh this morning.

 Dysartes wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Balance can mean very different things and players use it in very different ways.

MtG is considered a balanced game by its players, and yet 40K makes a 1000% better work at balance than it.

Different expectations.

Thanks for the bolded part, I needed a laugh this morning.

You are welcome, thanks for confirming my point

Spoletta wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Balance can mean very different things and players use it in very different ways.

MtG is considered a balanced game by its players, and yet 40K makes a 1000% better work at balance than it.

Different expectations.

Thanks for the bolded part, I needed a laugh this morning.

You are welcome, thanks for confirming my point

Pretty sure WotC playtests Magic cards that come out. And they listen to feedback-GW fails at one of those two.

As for Anomander's point, I'll expand on it with my own thoughts.

A well-balanced 40k would not mean that any list of X points has a 50/50 chance of beating any list of X points. Obviously, player skill should be a factor, even if nothing else is.
But if 40k was at least approaching good balance, every unit would have use in SOME list. There wouldn't be any units where the response is "Don't take that," or "Always take that."

My ideal 40k would have a perfectly optimized list have a 60% win rate at most against a list built with basic competency. List-building can be a part of the game, but it should virtually never be a deciding factor.

Deadnight wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It is not at all balanced in the definition of the word I usually use, which is all units and options in the game are worth using. )

Youre not wrong but you are using a harsh metric Rake. I think its a bit self defeating personally but I think it's evident we both come from different experiences.

Personally I also find it a bit misleading. As I see it, context is key. Something can be incredibly broken in one context and utterly useless in another.

My take on it would be Not all units and options in the game are worth using all of the time, against every opponent/list variation and under all circumstances. And I'm OK with that. Ttgs are limited systems, thru can only hold so much weight.

It's why I value game-building and the collaborative approach so highly.

Part of the problem is that GW feels that for something to work in 40k it has to be able kill stuff. If it can't kill or make other things kill better then it has no use.

If (for example) they turned Venomthropes into a pure utility unit and concentrated entirely on their ability to obscure friendly models from enemy fire while making them dangerous to approach it would make them a really interesting unit if done correctly and would give them more options to balance a unit outside of outright damage potential. Loads of armies have units that SHOULD be a utility unit but have weapons strapped onto them they have no use for.

ccs wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

That's true. I'm just pointing out the fact of the matter: Armies that aren't marines will be fighting marines a huge percentage of the time. Stuff gets compared to marines because the single most common scenario setup in 40k is 'you have to kill a bunch of space marines.'

Becuase space marines are nearly half of the armies that exist in the game, and a couple technically not marine armies (sisters, custodes, necrons to some extent) work similarly enough mechanically to marines that the weapons that work vs marines also work vs them.

Those weapons that work so well vs SM? They do just fine vs anyone who's not a SM. If I can kill a SM I can kill whatever you've brought....

The point he was making was about efficiency. Take a Leman Russ for instance since it has a mountain of options. The Executioner Plasma Cannon will be far more efficient at taking out marines at Heavy D6, Str8 AP-3 D2, whereas something like the Punisher Gattling Cannon at Heavy 20 Str5 AP0 D1 will be better at taking out T3 low Sv single wound models. If you're too kitted out to take on High Save multi wound models across your entire army, you loose a lot of efficiency/value at removing low tough, low sv, single wound models.


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 AnomanderRake wrote:

Sure, it's great for GW that the community has internalized that message to such a degree that they'll gatekeep other players' participation with it, but to me the fundamental bar in whether I consider a minis game "balanced" is whether I can use models I like without worrying about whether I'm signing up to lose every game by buying the wrong models, and on that front I find GW has completely failed. (Before you tell me "yeah, but just wait for your 9e Codex!" I've a) tried that and it really didn't work (AdMech are super hardcore if you buy 100% different models from anything I own, and Deathwatch fell flat on their face and remain a slightly more complicated way of playing Space Marines with no Chapter Tactics), and b) I equate "you can play for half to a third of every edition depending on when your Codex is released, unless you buy different models!" to "if you want to keep playing buy different models!")

While I don't disagree, I think there is at least one fairly sizable contributing factor to this that GW can't really do anything about and that is game length. Here's what I mean:

I referenced this before, but back when I played magic competitively, I would homebrew all my own deck and did very well with them even though they were seen nowhere else in the meta. This is because you could knock out a game of magic in about 15 minutes most of the time, that meant I could play a dozen or so games in an evening. I could test my idea over and over, refining how it worked and how to execute it, over a few weeks I could play against friends who had meta decks to see how it stacked up against the field and tweak it accordingly until it hit the perfect sweet spot that I was happy with.

In 40k, you can't really do this. Games are so long that you can usually only get a single game in a night, unless you're a hardcore tournament grinder, who has the time to play so much 40k that you could do this much practicing and tweaking of your army/build? Coming up with my Kroot list that just happens to be really good was just as much luck as skill, I went with an idea that I thought sounded fun and studied the gak out of it and what it could do to make the best possible version I could, and it happened to work out really well; but I wasn't experienced enough to know for sure that it would. A lot of people want to go for the "sure thing" they don't want to loose over and over again to finally figure out how to get the version of the army they want to play to work when by the time they do, there are probably 4-6 new codices out, a bunch of FAQ's, buff and nurfs, and suddenly everything has changed putting them back to square one.

Sadly I can't think of a way that this could change as the length of the game is a fundamental part of 40k itself.

 Tawnis wrote:
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 AnomanderRake wrote:

Sure, it's great for GW that the community has internalized that message to such a degree that they'll gatekeep other players' participation with it, but to me the fundamental bar in whether I consider a minis game "balanced" is whether I can use models I like without worrying about whether I'm signing up to lose every game by buying the wrong models, and on that front I find GW has completely failed. (Before you tell me "yeah, but just wait for your 9e Codex!" I've a) tried that and it really didn't work (AdMech are super hardcore if you buy 100% different models from anything I own, and Deathwatch fell flat on their face and remain a slightly more complicated way of playing Space Marines with no Chapter Tactics), and b) I equate "you can play for half to a third of every edition depending on when your Codex is released, unless you buy different models!" to "if you want to keep playing buy different models!")

While I don't disagree, I think there is at least one fairly sizable contributing factor to this that GW can't really do anything about and that is game length. Here's what I mean:

I referenced this before, but back when I played magic competitively, I would homebrew all my own deck and did very well with them even though they were seen nowhere else in the meta. This is because you could knock out a game of magic in about 15 minutes most of the time, that meant I could play a dozen or so games in an evening. I could test my idea over and over, refining how it worked and how to execute it, over a few weeks I could play against friends who had meta decks to see how it stacked up against the field and tweak it accordingly until it hit the perfect sweet spot that I was happy with.

In 40k, you can't really do this. Games are so long that you can usually only get a single game in a night, unless you're a hardcore tournament grinder, who has the time to play so much 40k that you could do this much practicing and tweaking of your army/build? Coming up with my Kroot list that just happens to be really good was just as much luck as skill, I went with an idea that I thought sounded fun and studied the gak out of it and what it could do to make the best possible version I could, and it happened to work out really well; but I wasn't experienced enough to know for sure that it would. A lot of people want to go for the "sure thing" they don't want to loose over and over again to finally figure out how to get the version of the army they want to play to work when by the time they do, there are probably 4-6 new codices out, a bunch of FAQ's, buff and nurfs, and suddenly everything has changed putting them back to square one.

Sadly I can't think of a way that this could change as the length of the game is a fundamental part of 40k itself.

Well, GW could increase points values across the board so that 2000pts involves fewer miniatures. They could cut back on rolls/re-rolls to speed up each turn. They could actually change the length of the game directly (after all, it's not an unspoken convention that the game ends after 5 rounds). This'd be a bit more difficult to enforce, but they could also try to "focus" the game down from 2000pts to 1500 or 1000 or something as well. Granted, most of those are things that would need further work to ensure it doesn't break the game or that people just ignore the changes, but I'm not sure how you can say that game length is somehow immutable and that GW can't do anything to influence it.

I've been playing 9ed with a friend and we're only playing Open Play, usually around 1000pts. So, no Stratagems, no Command Points, no Secondaries, and with armies we already own full of whatever models we like the look of that week.

It's swingier than previous editions, but it's fine. Nobody is tabling anyone in Turn 1, nobody is trying to optimise the army, nobody is searching for the best combo. We're just playing Warhammer like it's meant to be played - have a beer, move your models around, make cool stuff happen.

In my opinion, playing a game like this 'competitively' is fething stupid. All you end up doing is breaking the game. If you play casually (and I mean casually), then it's fine.

 waefre_1 wrote:

Well, GW could increase points values across the board so that 2000pts involves fewer miniatures. They could cut back on rolls/re-rolls to speed up each turn. They could actually change the length of the game directly (after all, it's not an unspoken convention that the game ends after 5 rounds). This'd be a bit more difficult to enforce, but they could also try to "focus" the game down from 2000pts to 1500 or 1000 or something as well. Granted, most of those are things that would need further work to ensure it doesn't break the game or that people just ignore the changes, but I'm not sure how you can say that game length is somehow immutable and that GW can't do anything to influence it.

True, and I certainly think that's a good direction to go, but over the years we've been seeing the opposite. Longer games, more points, more dice.

Even if they did all that though, say it reduced the game length by half (a very optimistic estimate) that would still not create the vast replicability required to do serious list testing without a massive time investment.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I've been playing 9ed with a friend and we're only playing Open Play, usually around 1000pts. So, no Stratagems, no Command Points, no Secondaries, and with armies we already own full of whatever models we like the look of that week.

It's swingier than previous editions, but it's fine. Nobody is tabling anyone in Turn 1, nobody is trying to optimise the army, nobody is searching for the best combo. We're just playing Warhammer like it's meant to be played - have a beer, move your models around, make cool stuff happen.

In my opinion, playing a game like this 'competitively' is fething stupid. All you end up doing is breaking the game. If you play casually (and I mean casually), then it's fine.

Sure. The only question I'd have is just like... if you're not using Stratagems, Command Points, or Secondaries, then what does the 9th edition of the game actually add for you? Stratagems, secondaries, relics, traits...all that is almost all of what sets 9th apart from any other edition.

 Tawnis wrote:

ccs wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

That's true. I'm just pointing out the fact of the matter: Armies that aren't marines will be fighting marines a huge percentage of the time. Stuff gets compared to marines because the single most common scenario setup in 40k is 'you have to kill a bunch of space marines.'

Becuase space marines are nearly half of the armies that exist in the game, and a couple technically not marine armies (sisters, custodes, necrons to some extent) work similarly enough mechanically to marines that the weapons that work vs marines also work vs them.

Those weapons that work so well vs SM? They do just fine vs anyone who's not a SM. If I can kill a SM I can kill whatever you've brought....

The point he was making was about efficiency. Take a Leman Russ for instance since it has a mountain of options. The Executioner Plasma Cannon will be far more efficient at taking out marines at Heavy D6, Str8 AP-3 D2, whereas something like the Punisher Gattling Cannon at Heavy 20 Str5 AP0 D1 will be better at taking out T3 low Sv single wound models. If you're too kitted out to take on High Save multi wound models across your entire army, you loose a lot of efficiency/value at removing low tough, low sv, single wound models.

What leads you to think I wouldn't have put enough Dakka on that Russ (or its companions) via sponsons, the hull mount, & the pintel? Or that I wouldn't run a mix of say 2 Executioner plasmas & 1 Punisher? And of course there's the rest of the army/infantry....

 the_scotsman wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I've been playing 9ed with a friend and we're only playing Open Play, usually around 1000pts. So, no Stratagems, no Command Points, no Secondaries, and with armies we already own full of whatever models we like the look of that week.

It's swingier than previous editions, but it's fine. Nobody is tabling anyone in Turn 1, nobody is trying to optimise the army, nobody is searching for the best combo. We're just playing Warhammer like it's meant to be played - have a beer, move your models around, make cool stuff happen.

In my opinion, playing a game like this 'competitively' is fething stupid. All you end up doing is breaking the game. If you play casually (and I mean casually), then it's fine.

Sure. The only question I'd have is just like... if you're not using Stratagems, Command Points, or Secondaries, then what does the 9th edition of the game actually add for you? Stratagems, secondaries, relics, traits...all that is almost all of what sets 9th apart from any other edition.

Hmm no, I have to disagree there.

8th/9th has first of all a very peculiar damage/wound system which really sets it apart from other editions.

Other features of those editions are:

- Vehicles based on thoughness
- Different Look out Sir rules
- Different morale rules
- Different cover system
- Move characteristic
- Different initiative system
- Different wound table
- Very different AP system
- ... and many more

8th/9th edition are really night and day compared to previous ones.
Now, one could say that there is very little difference between 8th and 9th if you remove stratagems, detachments and objectives.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I've been playing 9ed with a friend and we're only playing Open Play, usually around 1000pts. So, no Stratagems, no Command Points, no Secondaries, and with armies we already own full of whatever models we like the look of that week.

It's swingier than previous editions, but it's fine. Nobody is tabling anyone in Turn 1, nobody is trying to optimise the army, nobody is searching for the best combo. We're just playing Warhammer like it's meant to be played - have a beer, move your models around, make cool stuff happen.

In my opinion, playing a game like this 'competitively' is fething stupid. All you end up doing is breaking the game. If you play casually (and I mean casually), then it's fine.

Play warhammer how you want to play it because there is no "meant to be played". GW actually makes new stuff better so it will sell more so I think that GW is actually more focussed on the competitive players.

I like playing competitive because it is not challenging to simply roll some dice around. There is a reason that people are more into chess then into monopoly. Saying that competitive play is stupid is really weird because then you don't get..well... "people" I guess. We are competitive by nature and for good reason.

This kind of discussion always pops-up on forums and it get's tiresome at some point.

Deadnight wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It is not at all balanced in the definition of the word I usually use, which is all units and options in the game are worth using. )

Youre not wrong but you are using a harsh metric Rake. I think its a bit self defeating personally but I think it's evident we both come from different experiences.

Personally I also find it a bit misleading. As I see it, context is key. Something can be incredibly broken in one context and utterly useless in another.

My take on it would be Not all units and options in the game are worth using all of the time, against every opponent/list variation and under all circumstances. And I'm OK with that. Ttgs are limited systems, thru can only hold so much weight.

It's why I value game-building and the collaborative approach so highly.

Maybe it's a harsh metric, but in my experience everyone else making miniatures games has gotten there way better than GW has, by the simple expedient of doing edition changes only when they need to, rather than on a regular rotation because it's part of their business model.

I also want to stress that I don't think units shouldn't have bad matchups, they absolutely should. I think everything should be useful at least some of the time, and there's a lot of stuff in 40k that's never useful under any circumstances.


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 Blackie wrote:
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 AnomanderRake wrote:

It is not at all balanced in the definition of the word I usually use, which is all units and options in the game are worth using.

I don't think it's realistic to expect that when some armies have 100-150 or even more datasheets. In 3rd the armies with the largest rosters had something like 30, and all named characters banned outside fun games that required the opponent's permission. People want super heroes, flyers, tanks, super tanks etc... now, possibily multiples of them. It's sad and the only reason why I may prefer an older edition but it's the reality.

Infinity does a lot better with ~80 datasheets per main faction (and much more complicated rules). Warmachine does a lot better with ~80-90 cards plus mercs/minions per main faction.

I think it's perfectly realistic to expect the game to continue functioning with Flyers and Superheavies when we've seen GW make them function perfectly fine before. The problem has never been that Flyers exist, the problem has always been that GW chose to introduce them as Skimmers in 5th and gave them appropriate statlines/costs for that role (e.g. 12/12/10 Valkyrie as a Skimmer for 100pts, when it was 11/11/10 and 175pts as a Flyer in 4th), and never bothered to correct back when they brought in the Flyer rules, so the Flyers have the statlines of tanks. The problem has never been that Superheavies exist, the problem has always been that GW's determined to shoehorn them into too-small games. Superheavies in 30k (outside the Knights list, yes, I know that still exists) where they're subject to the 25% rule and you get one in your army period end of discussion (before you point out the Leviathan detachment that's explicitly permission-use) are perfectly fine, trying to make a Knights Codex function in 1,000pt games has never been remotely fine.

The game is imbalanced by nature/design I would say. A casual player with a 500pt list is going to lose to a Meta list of Custodes, no matter what the casual does.

GW tries to mask this by stating the almighty d6 decides, not the list. And that is partially true. A player who rolls statistically unlikely numbers of 6s will win against a meta list who rolls an unlikely number of 1s.

But in the long run, Metas will always beat casual. Thats baked into the game.

 the_scotsman wrote:
Personally, I've been struggling with trying to figure out how to have a fun game against a friend of mine who's (very understandably) quite excited with the powerful new rules that his brand new adeptus mechanicus army has gotten after slowly buying and building it up over months. This is a guy who commits to a theme and deals with it no matter how poorly it plays and for two editions dealt with extremely unsatisfying, lackluster performance from a guard all-tanks army and a CSM all daemon engines army, so to build up his all-skitarii army and lo and behold it's now the super powerful mega codex of your dreams, it's tough to hold it against him.

But it is, regardless, EXTREMELY hard to set up a scenario or to pick an army against him that allows me to get anything out of the game that I want to get out of it.

If I play one of my less competitive armies, I get absolutely hosed off the board by turn 3. If I pick one of my more competitive armies, we both get absolutely hosed off the board by turn 3. There's no 'telling a story about the cool gak that this unit or that unit did over the course of the game' because simply nothing survives longer than taking a single action.

I'm going to be bringing just the absolute toughest most durability-skewed list I can possibly come up with to try and face him - thousand sons Rubrics and scarabs with all the durability spells paired with a Tzeentch daemon allied contingent featuring a big block of splitting horrors, Changeling, and the unkillable ultra-chicken with the durability warlord trait+relic+exalted trait.

Is this, strictly speaking, imbalanced? Theoretically no, because I could actually win and I know of other folks who have been able to beat him with less than tournament-quality lists (albeit other lists that have fared quite well with recent codexes) and I know I could probably set something up to beat him if I went more cutthroat with my Drukhari.

But it's really tough to find the fun. What secondaries should I take? Who cares, the game will be decided by turn 3. How should I try to deploy? Anything not set up behind Obscuring is dead turn 1, guaranteed. What parts of the list should I target? I MUST target this unit, then this unit, then this unit in order or they will instantly make their points back in a single round of attacks.

The shoe was on the other foot with him for such a long time (especially with that poor tank list that would just get these 200pt models instantly kersploded with a single lucky roll from a D6 damage weapon, or just perma-stunlocked if even one single model touched it in close combat) so I really really don't want to take away from the enjoyment of him having a period of getting to have a powerful army that gets to win games. I just wish GW would show just a modicum more restraint and try to pretend once in a while that the game isn't on a constant, rotating merry-go-round where if you've recently purchased a codex book, you're supposed to get to win your next 5-10 games, and if you've had your codex book for 2 years you should basically never get to win.

Could see if you can get a third player and play a match of KTD600. At least you can play smaller lists and make him split his shooting and strategy up.

KTD600:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/801635.page

ccs wrote:


What leads you to think I wouldn't have put enough Dakka on that Russ (or its companions) via sponsons, the hull mount, & the pintel? Or that I wouldn't run a mix of say 2 Executioner plasmas & 1 Punisher? And of course there's the rest of the army/infantry....

It was just an example. When list building you have to balance how much of what type of weapon you need to take on various threats. It's a delicate balance and even if you hit it right like what you said with 2 Executioner's / 1 Punisher, your Executioners will still be killing far fewer points value of models against 3T, low Sv 1W units than it would against something like Space Marines. That's all that was being said.

That is one of the factors that has helped me a lot with my Kroot, the bigger guns just aren't very efficient against my army.

Thread question, the answer is yes. The datasheets in codexes are imbalanced against each other. The codexes are imbalanced against each other. 2,000 points on 60"x44" matched play is the least imbalanced game type. 500 and 1,000 points on any board size are extremely imbalanced.

The hidden thread question. No Tawnis you are not the 40k messiah. You have 12 games of 9th per your own posts and at least 5 of those have been at 750~1,000 points using an infantry spam skew list. Your opponents were woefully unprepared for the "gear check" you gave them. All you have really done is highlight how badly imbalanced the list building step of the game can be and as a result how easy it is to show up for a game against a random opponent that you can't win, as well as reaffirm how badly imbalanced small points games are.

Question for you. If you played any of those five opponents again using the same lists on both sides and for statsitical purposes say you played a further 9 games against each one, what do you think your win/loss record would be? 50-0? If you cloned yourself to ensure the player skill on both sides was equal and then played a further 50 games would the kroot skew win another 50? Does that sound like a balanced game?

Yeah I was kind of confused by the dual premise:

"My army has a 100% win rate, therefore 40k may be balanced!"

EightFoldPath wrote:
Thread question, the answer is yes. The datasheets in codexes are imbalanced against each other. The codexes are imbalanced against each other. 2,000 points on 60"x44" matched play is the least imbalanced game type. 500 and 1,000 points on any board size are extremely imbalanced.

The hidden thread question. No Tawnis you are not the 40k messiah. You have 12 games of 9th per your own posts and at least 5 of those have been at 750~1,000 points using an infantry spam skew list. Your opponents were woefully unprepared for the "gear check" you gave them. All you have really done is highlight how badly imbalanced the list building step of the game can be and as a result how easy it is to show up for a game against a random opponent that you can't win, as well as reaffirm how badly imbalanced small points games are.

Question for you. If you played any of those five opponents again using the same lists on both sides and for statsitical purposes say you played a further 9 games against each one, what do you think your win/loss record would be? 50-0? If you cloned yourself to ensure the player skill on both sides was equal and then played a further 50 games would the kroot skew win another 50? Does that sound like a balanced game?

Yeah, I wasn't saying anything like that. I've been very clear about how small a sample size is for this, it was an oddity enough to make me curious how everyone else thought about it and what experiences they had.

Okay, but how do you distinguish that from different units having varied strengths and weaknesses? If every unit in every army is equally good against everything, sure that would be balanced, but it wouldn't be fun. Perhaps your right and this is all indicative of poor list building / bad matchups, that's one of the things I was wondering about. The other questions was, I guess a roundabout way of asking how much stock do you put in what units are expected to be good / bad? People would always say "oh Kroot are terrible, their total dumpster tier, never take them" but in this thread now that I've actually won a few games with them, it's all "oh well of course you won, those armies were all bad." Well, if the army I'm playing is bad and the army they're playing is bad, shouldn't that be more-less balanced? One of the things I highlighted in a previous post was that this isn't some magic super list, there are a lot of tactical and strategic decisions that effected the outcome of those games. Yeah, the Guard matchup was all list, that was super imbalanced as my army was essentially the perfect counter to his, but not so with the other 4.

I'm not sure, if I had the time, I would honestly love to find out. If I had to guess, against the guard player 10/10, like I said, that was a horrible matchup for him. Does that make the Guard vs Tau matchup in general horribly imbalanced, no I don't think so. If he'd taking a bunch of infantry instead of two or three of those tanks, I'd say it would have been much closer. The others, yeah I think once they'd learned how my list played and how I liked to play it, I think they would be much closer as well.

My point was never that Kroot were super powerful, it's that every time I've ever done well with a "sub-par" army, all I ever hear is "oh, you just got lucky," or insert any other dismissal of it being relevant because it's contrary to what is accepted as the norm. So this time I provided some evidence that an army that is considered very underpowered could do well against the field and asked the question, is it simply because I'm playing casual and not competitive that things seem more balanced. (Again I say balanced because even though I'm 5-0 I do attribute a lot of that to the fact that no one has seen the list before and don't adapt fast enough on the fly to what I'm doing.)

So in your opinion, what does it take to prove a point about something balanced or imbalanced? How many games, how much evidence. Is it even something a single person could ever possibly provide? It's not exactly easy to get mass metrics outside of competitive environments. Hence this thread and the question.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah I was kind of confused by the dual premise:

"My army has a 100% win rate, therefore 40k may be balanced!"

As I said above, I attribute the win rate to as many things that are related to the list as not. My point was that it's something that everyone said is terrible, horribly underpowered, everything else is so much stronger. Yet here I am doing well with it. So how much stock should be put in what is "understood" to be balanced or imbalanced? Is it list based, is it X factor based, is there some other bias, or is it actually imbalanced? I thought asking around would help determine that.

Yes it is unbalanced, but the fallacy is in people implying it is any less balanced than prior editions. When in fact even the worst ninth edition codex, Necrons, is still a much more satisfying codex to play than Sisters of Battle 5e WD or the Tyranids codex. And unlike every prior edition but 8th, every army will actually get a codex this edition. I'm not saying that better balance shouldn't be pushed for.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Yes it is unbalanced, but the fallacy is in people implying it is any less balanced than prior editions.

Is it a fallacy? I don't know of many editions where one side can be wiped from the board turn one on multiple occasions.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Yes it is unbalanced, but the fallacy is in people implying it is any less balanced than prior editions.

Is it a fallacy? I don't know of many editions where one side can be wiped from the board turn one on multiple occasions.

Not only that. Shouldn't we expect some progress as well? GW have more resources than ever, more ways to track data and they also have DECADES of more experience so saying it was equally bad as earlier editions is setting the bar so low you need to dig a hole in the ground to find it. If old editions were so bad then the game now, decades later, should be at a point even the biggest critics of the game would laugh at trying to defend the current edition by saying "it was bad 20 years ago as well".

It is like saying we shouldn't speak out when billion dollar video game companies make gakky and buggy games because back when games were on floppy disks and had a single developer there were also bugs. My standard is higher now than it was when I started this hobby and so it should be for everyone.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Yes it is unbalanced, but the fallacy is in people implying it is any less balanced than prior editions.

Is it a fallacy? I don't know of many editions where one side can be wiped from the board turn one on multiple occasions.

In 7th and especially 8th it was much easier than now, as lethality in the shooting phase was definitely higher in those editions. In 5th and 6th could have happened as well thanks to some codexes that were incredibly more powerful than the average ones and mechanics that allow things to be instant killed: even a land raider could blow up to a single shot.

In fact a turn 1 tabling (or something close to it) never happened in one of my 9th edition games so far, but it happened a lot in 7th, 8th and a couple of times in 5th. Never played 6th.