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This is kind of rule/game mode suggestion...

When I first read about unbound, I thought this was something that GW might (or rather should) do. Basically, it's the opposite of an unbound list. It's a selection matched armies which are completely predefined (or with very few options to change anything). It could even be sold in one box.

The idea is to have armies (for every race) which are more evenly balanced (and play tested) for competitive and tournament play. There is no list building, or hard countering, you just bring along an army which conforms to one of the "approved" bound lists, and you'll always be guaranteed a fun fair match-up (hopefully).

 Smacks wrote:
This is kind of rule/game mode suggestion...

When I first read about unbound, I thought this was something that GW might (or rather should) do. Basically, it's the opposite of an unbound list. It's a selection matched armies which are completely predefined (or with very few options to change anything). It could even be sold in one box.

The idea is to have armies (for every race) which are more evenly balanced (and play tested) for competitive and tournament play. There is no list building, or hard countering, you just bring along an army which conforms to one of the "approved" bound lists, and you'll always be guaranteed a fun fair match-up (hopefully).

Gee-dubs (GW) used to do something like that, or so I've been told.
It does sound kind of like a good idea, but it also takes from each army (and list) being unique.
As a third option for playing, then I 100% support it.

That's a nice suggestion, but isn't AoBR, and Dark Vengeance, Sanctus Reach: Stormclaw, and Battle for Maccrage all evenly matched? Still, they could make un-starter set sets that are matched up like that with point values like two thousand (that would cost a lot), one thousand or stuff like that.

Ond Angel wrote:but it also takes from each army (and list) being unique.

That is certainly true. On the flip side though it could also promote variety, since every race would have a viable tournament list. As opposed to just a handful of the most recently updated races dominating. And people might also go a bit further to customize their army through modeling, in order to stand out from others with the same list.

I'll pass.

To me, this is very much a "baby with the bathwater" sort of situation in regards to fixing balance. More importantly for me, it kills even more thinking that goes into the game. List design is a major aspect of this and other wargames, why not fix the balance rather than make every army exactly the same?

 curran12 wrote:
why not fix the balance rather than make every army exactly the same?

Asymmetric balance is very difficult even with well defined forces. Many RTS and MMO games (for example) undergo years of fine adjustments and patching to make them fair.

I don't disagree that balance in 40k could be better, but with so many options and game-sizes and combinations available, something even remotely balanced is probably a pipe dream. The best way to balance games is to make them as simple and symmetrical as possible (including terrain). While that might not be something that appeals to your more artistic sensibilities, it is nonetheless true.

The idea was not to make 'all armies the same'. It was just to add a more competitive game mode that kept a tighter control over things like luck, list mismatches, terrain etc... so that a player's skill maneuvering their force would (hopefully) be the deciding factor.

If you prefer dreaming-up some dastardly game-breaking combination, that even the game designers never thought of. So you can trash your unsuspecting opponent in a completely one sided match. Then there is always unbound.

I think it might make for a fun tournament. Everyone playing the same army removes one aspect of the game. I’m not sure if what is left would help us determine who the best player is, or rather who’s dice were in a better mood for the game.

But I like my list building. Half my fun of the game is tinkering around in army building.

 Nevelon wrote:
I think it might make for a fun tournament. Everyone playing the same army removes one aspect of the game. I’m not sure if what is left would help us determine who the best player is, or rather who’s dice were in a better mood for the game.

But I like my list building. Half my fun of the game is tinkering around in army building.

It wouldn't have be all the same army. Just limited to lists that have been properly play-tested and balanced. I enjoy army building too, and I wouldn't want to take anything away from that side of the game. But it can also be painful, especially when you're thinking about starting a new army and you're not sure what to get, or what is not worth the points.

The last army I personally built from scratch was a Blood Angels DoA. I started out with with DC and Sanguinary Guard because I liked the models. Then everyone said DC were overpriced, and that I should do assault squads in Rhinos (5th edition). I didn't fancy that, so went with a DoA , but I ended up magnetizing the jump packs for the whole army because I obviously didn't want to commit to an army that I couldn't win any real games with.

Having bound lists would have taken a lot of the pain out of that. I could have picked a list that included Death Company, and focused on painting my army, confident in the notion that the list had been extensively playtested against other bound lists, and wins 50% of the time.

I think it would help with variety at a tournament level because lists would be balanced by performance rather than points. So (for example) an assault heavy list in 6th might be 2300 points against a 1950 points gunline force, but in games they are even. In unbound tournaments the only armies you would see (in this hypothetical case) would be gunlines because they are obviously better value for points.

What about something like Warmachine, where by including certain characters and combinations of units you receive bonuses to your army?

I came back from not posting to say that this sounds rad as hell. Never thought I'd read a good idea from Proposed Rules.

This would be a great tool for teaching new and bad players about making lists. Maybe just three core lists with relative strengths and weaknesses towards each other and each with a balanced weapons loadout could go a long way. If released officially we'd have literally every 40k blog and player giving their opinions on optimal movement planning, target priority, denial etc. in a way that applies to everyone.

The big issue with that is GW hates competitive gaming so good luck getting a consensus on these armies.

Getting the lists built and ballanced would be a nightmare. And them more you had, the harder it would be. The amount of playtesting needed would be massive.

I think this idea could be fun in theory, but putting it into practice would be rough.

lliu wrote:
That's a nice suggestion, but isn't AoBR, and Dark Vengeance, Sanctus Reach: Stormclaw, and Battle for Maccrage all evenly matched? Still, they could make un-starter set sets that are matched up like that with point values like two thousand (that would cost a lot), one thousand or stuff like that.

Sanctus reach is not even close to being ballanced. Don't know about Maccrage - can you write what's in there?

IIRC the Battle of Macragge box contained:

10 man tac squad (ML, F)
1 pilot

6 genestealers
8 spore mines
10 termegants

crashed lander
other terrain bits

I’n not sure what nids are paying these days for there units, but a basic tacitical squad with a ML/F is ~160.

164 for nids to field that list, how balanced it actually is though is up for debate.

Nevelon wrote:IIRC the Battle of Macragge box contained:
I’m not sure what nids are paying these days for there units, but a basic tacitical squad with a ML/F is ~160.

danny1995 wrote:164 for nids to field that list, how balanced it actually is though is up for debate.

Huh, that’s actually fairly balanced, at least on points. Most of the time the starter boxes are weighted significantly towards the marines.

The two forces are interesting. The flamer, frag missiles, and massed bolters can do ugly things to nids. But all it takes is one or two genestealers to get into CC and the marines are toast.

The problems I can see are :

1) Balance armies - you'd have to do extensive work to balance the armies properly so that both players have a totally fair and even chance.

2) Balance map - the other half of the coin is map shape, nature and deployment. This is often an area many overlook, but I'd wager is more critical in win/loss than sometimes the army you take. For this format you'd have to have pre-designed maps with pre-deployed positions factored into the balance.
Otherwise you could balance up the armies on paper and then find that in reality when deployed to the table one has a distinct advantage over the other, esp on certain levels of terrain or map type.

3) Perception of balance - this is more tricky, but you'd have to do a lot of marketing to ensure that players understood that the armies are balanced. Otherwise armies that are easier to play might well get called imbalanced because when matched against armies that require more finesse to use they win more than lose when dealing with less experienced players.



In theory its a neat idea, but then we hit a snag - money. GW would only do this to generate income for themselves. As a result they'd not just want to make designs and free templates, but they'd openly want to make a boxed set for each army. The problem there is that armies that are balanced against each other in points are very unlikely to have similar prices. If they are full armies so around 1K points chances are that there will be some fairly noticeable swings in the costs. A full space marine army might be cheaper than a tyranid one simply as matter of model count differences between the two.
Chances are in the effort to meet game and price balance one would lose to the other and I suspect marketing wise price balance would win over game balance.

Nevelon wrote:I think this idea could be fun in theory, but putting it into practice would be rough.

I agree, it would be incredibly difficult to implement properly, but it would still be orders of magnitude easier than trying to balance the whole game unbound.

Overread wrote:2) Balance map - the other half of the coin is map shape, nature and deployment. This is often an area many overlook, but I'd wager is more critical in win/loss than sometimes the army you take. For this format you'd have to have pre-designed maps with pre-deployed positions factored into the balance.
Otherwise you could balance up the armies on paper and then find that in reality when deployed to the table one has a distinct advantage over the other, esp on certain levels of terrain or map type.

Yeah totally, (I wonder if you're an RTS player?). Maps and terrain are super important. I think most games I've been interested in have ended up with the player-community depending more on good map design to balance the game, than they depend on the developers. For example: shooting is overpowered, so good maps are maps with dense terrain that make CC easier (and so on...).

Almarine wrote:
I came back from not posting to say that this sounds rad as hell. Never thought I'd read a good idea from Proposed Rules.

This would be a great tool for teaching new and bad players about making lists. Maybe just three core lists with relative strengths and weaknesses towards each other and each with a balanced weapons loadout could go a long way. If released officially we'd have literally every 40k blog and player giving their opinions on optimal movement planning, target priority, denial etc. in a way that applies to everyone.

i just wanted to say thank you, that was a really nice comment. I think you totally got why it would be exciting and interesting (even if it is just wishful thinking in the end).

Aye I do play a fair few RTS games as well.
And yes the whole area of building a board for gaming and of deploying forces is one that gets overlooked a lot, I feel, in many discussions on game balance. Many a game though can, to the more experienced, be clearly won or lost because the players allow the map to be unbalanced or deploy themselves poorly.

Plus there is a vast spread in how much terrain gets used from club to club - some are very scant with only a handful of terrain features whilst others are chock full of terrain. Each has its upshots and downpoints (a map full of terrain can be just as much trouble as one with too little - all those impassable and dangerous terrain areas funnel units down choke points - ideal for a shooty army to defend against and a nightmare for a close combat army.

So.... Formations that have squad sizes and options included, rather than allowing you to choose?

Yes, I'd play these, especially if they were constructed at generally used points levels, or for introducing people to the game.