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 RiTides wrote:
Therion, your example of the ETC disproves your earlier argument about "once you go comp you better go all the way" because that's exactly what ETC is, and it's very unpopular with a Lot of gamers, as you point out.

It doesn't disprove anything. I'm not sure why you'd think that. I said that in my opinion it's good if both comped and unrestricted tournaments exist (because then the ones who are extreme with their views can choose the one to their liking and the ones who want to play all types of tournaments can attend everything).

So some restrictions does not equal ETC restrictions. In fact, I'd say ETC is the most extreme I know of (regarding fantasy... I don't even know if it exists for 40k so fantasy is what I'm referring to there).

Of course. Making one change to 40K, let's say banning Heldrakes, or Night Scythes, doesn't equal to ETC restrictions. That would be awful. ETC restrictions aren't bad and I'm not sure why you'd infer that from my post. What ETC restrictions do is create an altogether new game, or a gaming environment atleast, and the rules can be very hard for casual players to keep track of. Once again, I prefer to have options myself and would hate if every tournament was comped a certain way, just like I wouldn't like if no tournament was ever comped.

And again, every tournament has to make rulings, and in fact any tournament allowing FW makes a ruling in that regard

No. A tournament doesn't have to make a ruling to allow FW, just like it doesn't need to make a ruling to allow allies, or fortifications, or Eldar, or Space Marines. They're all a part of the official rules. Unless by ruling you mean a generic statement in the tournament package saying 'This is a Warhammer 40K tournament and follows Warhammer 40K rules'.

It will be interesting to see where this has gone a year from now. I'm hoping FW acceptance will continue to grow, but pushing completely unlimited FW access I do not think will accomplish that... it may accomplish the opposite, in some ways, as a reaction. But I will happily support events allowing FW in some forms, as long as it's within reason

Your view of the game is quite different from the way me and seemingly for example Yakface sees it. The bottomline is that GW does not care. They don't care about balance. They don't care about your or my tournaments. They don't care about what's legal in our games. That's why when you or me decide to make our own rules by not allowing a Warhammer 40K unit to be used in games of Warhammer 40K we're creating composition restrictions. If we go that way, like I said, why would we just ban Heldrakes, or Night Scythes? Why wouldn't we ban all the abusive units?

 Therion wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Therion, your example of the ETC disproves your earlier argument about "once you go comp you better go all the way" because that's exactly what ETC is, and it's very unpopular with a Lot of gamers, as you point out.

It doesn't disprove anything. I'm not sure why you'd think that. I said that in my opinion it's good if both comped and unrestricted tournaments exist (because then the ones who are extreme with their views can choose the one to their liking and the ones who want to play all types of tournaments can attend everything).

So some restrictions does not equal ETC restrictions. In fact, I'd say ETC is the most extreme I know of (regarding fantasy... I don't even know if it exists for 40k so fantasy is what I'm referring to there).

Of course. Making one change to 40K, let's say banning Heldrakes, or Night Scythes, doesn't equal to ETC restrictions. That would be awful. ETC restrictions aren't bad and I'm not sure why you'd infer that from my post. What ETC restrictions do is create an altogether new game, or a gaming environment atleast, and the rules can be very hard for casual players to keep track of. Once again, I prefer to have options myself and would hate if every tournament was comped a certain way, just like I wouldn't like if no tournament was ever comped.

And again, every tournament has to make rulings, and in fact any tournament allowing FW makes a ruling in that regard

No. A tournament doesn't have to make a ruling to allow FW, just like it doesn't need to make a ruling to allow allies, or fortifications, or Eldar, or Space Marines. They're all a part of the official rules. Unless by ruling you mean a generic statement in the tournament package saying 'This is a Warhammer 40K tournament and follows Warhammer 40K rules'.

It will be interesting to see where this has gone a year from now. I'm hoping FW acceptance will continue to grow, but pushing completely unlimited FW access I do not think will accomplish that... it may accomplish the opposite, in some ways, as a reaction. But I will happily support events allowing FW in some forms, as long as it's within reason

Your view of the game is quite different from the way me and seemingly for example Yakface sees it. The bottomline is that GW does not care. They don't care about balance. They don't care about your or my tournaments. They don't care about what's legal in our games. That's why when you or me decide to make our own rules by not allowing a Warhammer 40K unit to be used in games of Warhammer 40K we're creating composition restrictions. If we go that way, like I said, why would we just ban Heldrakes, or Night Scythes? Why wouldn't we ban all the abusive units?

An impasse that is NOT going to be gotten by is the simple fact that a LOT of people, from casual retailers through hardcore tourney goers, are quite certain FW is not by default official stock-standard 40k, and a LOT of people, from casual retailers through hardcore tourney goers, are quite certain FW is by default official stock-standard 40k. Neither of these things can actually be proven without a lot more clarity and firm distribution, statements, etc., from GW. No, the stamp and statement (with opponent consent even still) in a FW-produced book is not ironclad. That's regardless of my own opinion on the matter.

The thing is people like Blackmoor want no FW at all in any events whereas I am just glad to see some events allow it. Bringing the most abusive list is both a cop out and hypocritical at the same time.

 Therion wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Therion, your example of the ETC disproves your earlier argument about "once you go comp you better go all the way" because that's exactly what ETC is, and it's very unpopular with a Lot of gamers, as you point out.

It doesn't disprove anything. I'm not sure why you'd think that. I said that in my opinion it's good if both comped and unrestricted tournaments exist (because then the ones who are extreme with their views can choose the one to their liking and the ones who want to play all types of tournaments can attend everything).

So some restrictions does not equal ETC restrictions. In fact, I'd say ETC is the most extreme I know of (regarding fantasy... I don't even know if it exists for 40k so fantasy is what I'm referring to there).

Of course. Making one change to 40K, let's say banning Heldrakes, or Night Scythes, doesn't equal to ETC restrictions. That would be awful. ETC restrictions aren't bad and I'm not sure why you'd infer that from my post. What ETC restrictions do is create an altogether new game, or a gaming environment atleast, and the rules can be very hard for casual players to keep track of. Once again, I prefer to have options myself and would hate if every tournament was comped a certain way, just like I wouldn't like if no tournament was ever comped.

And again, every tournament has to make rulings, and in fact any tournament allowing FW makes a ruling in that regard

No. A tournament doesn't have to make a ruling to allow FW, just like it doesn't need to make a ruling to allow allies, or fortifications, or Eldar, or Space Marines. They're all a part of the official rules. Unless by ruling you mean a generic statement in the tournament package saying 'This is a Warhammer 40K tournament and follows Warhammer 40K rules'.

It will be interesting to see where this has gone a year from now. I'm hoping FW acceptance will continue to grow, but pushing completely unlimited FW access I do not think will accomplish that... it may accomplish the opposite, in some ways, as a reaction. But I will happily support events allowing FW in some forms, as long as it's within reason

Your view of the game is quite different from the way me and seemingly for example Yakface sees it. The bottomline is that GW does not care. They don't care about balance. They don't care about your or my tournaments. They don't care about what's legal in our games. That's why when you or me decide to make our own rules by not allowing a Warhammer 40K unit to be used in games of Warhammer 40K we're creating composition restrictions. If we go that way, like I said, why would we just ban Heldrakes, or Night Scythes? Why wouldn't we ban all the abusive units?

I would largely disagree that a tournament that said nothing on the FW front is automatically pro-FW. I think a large part of what people miss is that for Years, tournaments have been Default No FW (GW tournaments and Indiy Tournaments), it has only been a recent thing where TOs have satrted using FW on any large scale. So if a TO did not state specifically in either direction my assumption would be NO-FW not Unrestriced FW.

Edit: Whoops, ninja'ed twice but I'll leave the below post since I already typed a response:

I've quoted the relevant part of your previous post below, since you seemed to misunderstand my post. Underlined for emphasis:

 Therion wrote:
My opinion as a European GT veteran is as always that having both comped and unrestricted tournaments is a good thing, but once you go comp you better go all the way and start restricting all of the heinous stuff in the game, not just the ones you don't like personally.

As far as small councils ruling over the tournament scene and deciding what's allowed and what isn't and what's a real game of Warhammer that involves skill and what isn't goes, I could write an essay about what's happened to the European Warhammer scene. The ETC system, lauded as somehow bringing balance to an imbalanced game, in my opinion is already a barrier to entry for new players since it's essentially a different game system than the game GW is selling.

You are saying, if you put in any comp, you better go "all the way" to ETC levels... and then you bash ETC. I don't personally like ETC, and I'm not opposed to the "C" (comp) word in some small measure.

In other words, you don't have to go to ETC levels just to put in a restriction. Otherwise, in the US, most events just won't allow any FW.

As for this, in your latest post:

Therion wrote:No. A tournament doesn't have to make a ruling to allow FW, just like it doesn't need to make a ruling to allow allies, or fortifications, or Eldar, or Space Marines. They're all a part of the official rules. Unless by ruling you mean a generic statement in the tournament package saying 'This is a Warhammer 40K tournament and follows Warhammer 40K rules'.

This honestly isn't worth replying to so I'm not going to bother for the most part. It's a tired argument and the "facts on the ground", in the US at least, is that FW Imperial Armor 7 or whatever is not the same as Codex: Space Marines. If you want to view it differently, go right ahead, but most of the world disagrees with you for reasons well hashed out in this thread.

The middle ground is to get past that tired old argument and decide what to do with FW, since every tournament decides this, and clarifies one way or the other in their rules packet whether it is allowed (and if so, how much), or not allowed. There's a lot of middle ground here so I'm not going to get pulled into an argument with you on what is Official (tm) warhammer. Just not worth it, you're free to believe it's FW allowed, and most gamers are free to believe that it has to be specified one way or the other, as every single tournament in the US does.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The thing is people like Blackmoor want no FW at all in any events whereas I am just glad to see some events allow it. Bringing the most abusive list is both a cop out and hypocritical at the same time.

I'm pretty sure he said he would be fine with restricted (certain units banned) FW.

I'm just curious about the stance of a lot of people. It sounds like the anti-FW crowd is mainly against the "OP-ness" of certain FW units. Say that Thudd Launchers, Sabre Defence Platforms, and the Chief Librarian don't exist, would you switch camps, or is the "OP-ness" of FW units just one of many arguments because you simply don't want to see FW units in tourneys?

I would switch camps if

1.) Those units did not exist
or
2.) Those units were not centratlized to more or less IG.

If Thudd Guns were Tyranid units, Sabre Platforms were Eldar, The Vulture IG, Libby For space marines(with some rules tweaking), Hyperios CSM (or whatever)

I would be more ok with some OP units.

I am already considering FW with restrictions for the GT I run for next year (I already declared no FW and the event is in a month)

I can only answer for myself, in that I would like to see some FW but don't feel it's worth bothering with if all anyone takes is thudd guns.

Hence, my extreme interest in events with limitations on FW, and lack of interest in events with unlimited FW.

For me, it is not an excuse to say "I don't want to see any FW, ever". I do want to see some FW in some events. Just not all of it in every event, as some posters were trying to push... particularly Frontline Gaming at the start of 6th edition.

Different strokes for different folks, as has already been said!

 RiTides wrote:
I can only answer for myself, in that I would like to see some FW but don't feel it's worth bothering with if all anyone takes is thudd guns.

Is there any evidence this is the case? Thus far we've had a single list (AFAIK) that has placed well that included them, with no evidence that they are overrunning such events (and indeed 7 years with largely the same barrage placement rules where they were otherwise ignored). Certainly nothing like the takeover of MEQ armies we saw with Space Wolves.

There are prior examples. I believe, before the dreadclaw (drop pod that a dreadnought can assault out of) got nerfed, it was the most common item taken as the single FW allowance at the previous year's AdeptiCon team tournament.

At least, there was talk of such, but that was before I attended and last year I only faced 2 reasonable FW units. I believe that last year it was an 0-1 selection for the entire team, rather than 0-1 per FW unit... but it has been a little while!

My point is simply that, the only reason I see to allow FW is for the variety it brings (there is no "need" for it to balance the game, as put forward at the start of 6th, and if anything it does the opposite!). So, if only one unit is being taken, as a casual player I am fine with that unit being restricted, banned, etc. That's my personal view, but I'm open to a whole spectrum of things other than what was being pushed before... which was, unlimited FW as the "default" version of 40k, which just isn't reasonable imo, for all the reasons listed previously.

We should rename this thread "Warhammer 40k Politics"

IMO- The game is unbalance, the game will stay unbalanced,--> How do you sell more stuff? by making it better than other stuff while staying within the confines of it being reasonable so as not to totally P!s$ off the community. While I haven't exactly agreed with everything Yakface has said, the one statement that he did say which is absolutely correct is that this " is Gamesworkshop's problem". However I most certainly don't disagree with Blackmoor saying that" well then it's within the communities job to try and make the game as balanced as possible".

Here's where the problem persist... this is a company.. not a government. You can vote in a government and the government must comply; You can "vote" as a community member towards making change in a company but " They don't have to comply because it's their company." It's not like this is a major issue of infringing on peoples rights or something where government would step in such a case; this is a miniature toy army game, therefore from an outside community stanpoint, who the F gives a Sh!t? The company will do what it wants and after all this time; one can see they haven't really done anything to adress the issue. Unless you started some kind of union and went on strike and began starving the company of its profits I highly doubt that anything is going to change.

Gamesworkshop has all the rights to do whatever they want to do and they say you can have forgeworld in your army so that's that. To a retrospect at least there are tournaments where gamesowrkshop allows TO's to dissallow FW units and that they haven't stated any dominance in saying that you must allow players to be able to use FW in all events.

I absolutely respect the fact that their are people who want to try and make the game more balanced but the simple truth is, if the unit is good, and gamesworkshop has not disallowed it, it will be in tournaments, hence FW will be in tournaments because people want to be as competitive as possible.

At least their is a gentleman's agreement as it stands now that the community is ok with tournaments that allow FW and those which do not

 Vaktathi wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
I can only answer for myself, in that I would like to see some FW but don't feel it's worth bothering with if all anyone takes is thudd guns.

Is there any evidence this is the case? Thus far we've had a single list (AFAIK) that has placed well that included them, with no evidence that they are overrunning such events (and indeed 7 years with largely the same barrage placement rules where they were otherwise ignored). Certainly nothing like the takeover of MEQ armies we saw with Space Wolves.

Except that we haven't had seven years of the same barrage rules. In 5th, indirect fire weapons just did wounds that got dumped on scrubs. Now they butcher special weapon and heavy weapon troopers and force multiple LOS rolls on characters. For 6 years, artillery were AV10 vehicles killed by a single glancing hit. Now they're T7 monstrosities that make their crew T7, and can be given orders by a CCS, or buffed with Perfect Timing. In short, everything about artillery got better with 6th which is why there was a mad rush to IG artillery when they became an option.

So should all arty be banned then?

 grotblaster wrote:
SoB had their own codex and have been around forever. GW core rule updates in White Dwarf has a long tradition (used to be followed by free copies on their website for this very reason). They are listed on the GW website as an army and can be ordered from GW or your FLGS. Besides, haven't these players suffered enough already?

The point is not that SoB should be banned, obviously they shouldn't. The point is that the same problems of limited access to expensive rules and models apply just as much to SoB as to FW stuff. So if you really see the need to help poor players who can't get all the rules (and aren't just using it as an excuse to ban FW) then you also need to ban SoB.

"Direct order is the equivalent of Forgeworld from a FLGS perspective"
Some Direct Trade items have a lower discount than the general range. No model in the core codex is unavailable to stores at a retailers discount that I know of. The only core item I can think of that wasn't sold through stores at discount was Death from the Skies. I think this was an anomaly that came about due to the fact that people wouldn't buy it if they could see it first.

And if you're a FLGS that doesn't sell at a discount you're depending on charity to stay in business. Selling at full retail price means the only reason to buy in-store instead of from an online store offering a 20% discount (especially since direct-only items from a FLGS still take time to ship) is as a "thank you" for providing gaming space. And if you're forced to sell at a discount then "smaller retailer discount" means your profit margin is gone. Even if you're making some tiny amount of money off the direct-only item your profit-driven events should ban direct-only items in favor of "core" products you can sell at a higher profit margin.

That's fine, but I find it difficult to argue that FW is part of the core business/ruleset when no part of the GW distribution chain (online or brick and mortar) carries it.

The rules of the game and the business GW runs to sell the game are two entirely different things. The rules are (theoretically) based at least in part on what makes a good game, while the business side of it is based entirely on the best way of selling and shipping the products. So it could make perfect sense to put FW in the "core" rules of the game while simultaneously not putting the products required to use those rules into the main distribution chain.

MVBrandt wrote:
No, the stamp and statement (with opponent consent even still) in a FW-produced book is not ironclad.

How is it not ironclad? It explicitly says "these are official rules", and the only "ambiguity" is that it isn't the exact statement that certain players want to have.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The thing is people like Blackmoor want no FW at all in any events whereas I am just glad to see some events allow it. Bringing the most abusive list is both a cop out and hypocritical at the same time.

Sometimes you have to destroy what you love to save it.

 Blackmoor wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The thing is people like Blackmoor want no FW at all in any events whereas I am just glad to see some events allow it. Bringing the most abusive list is both a cop out and hypocritical at the same time.

Sometimes you have to destroy what you love to save it.

He is not the hero 40k needs, but the one it deserves!

 Blackmoor wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The thing is people like Blackmoor want no FW at all in any events whereas I am just glad to see some events allow it. Bringing the most abusive list is both a cop out and hypocritical at the same time.

Sometimes you have to destroy what you love to save it.

You've been around long enough to know there's never been balance in any of the editions of the game. Not in 40K or in Warhammer. And in all the editions there have been players who abused the rules and the army lists to their advantage as much as they could. This game doesn't want to be saved, nor could it even if someone tried.

 Therion wrote:

 Blackmoor wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
The thing is people like Blackmoor want no FW at all in any events whereas I am just glad to see some events allow it. Bringing the most abusive list is both a cop out and hypocritical at the same time.

Sometimes you have to destroy what you love to save it.

You've been around long enough to know there's never been balance in any of the editions of the game. Not in 40K or in Warhammer. And in all the editions there have been players who abused the rules and the army lists to their advantage as much as they could. This game doesn't want to be saved, nor could it even if someone tried.

Balance is a relative term measured in shades of gray, yet most people seem to treat balance like an all-or-nothing attribute. Personally, I think this game is fairly well balanced as evidenced by the variety of armies capable of succeeding in tournaments. It's not mere coincidence that the same players keep winning tournaments using a variety of different armies. If the game was anywhere near as unbalanced as you claim and rife with players looking to exploit said imbalances then you'd see the same armies winning every tournament. This is not the case.

 Danny Internets wrote:
I think this game is fairly well balanced as evidenced by the variety of armies capable of succeeding in tournaments. It's not mere coincidence that the same players keep winning tournaments using a variety of different armies. If the game was anywhere near as unbalanced as you claim and rife with players looking to exploit said imbalances then you'd see the same armies winning every tournament. This is not the case.

I would disagree with that. In a year of major GTs now we have the following winners

Nova - IG blob tailored to the mission format
FoB - White Dwarf tzeetchy demons
BOA - White Dwarf tzeetchy demons
Adepticon - Necron core with beatsticky ally
WGC - Necron core with beatsticky ally

That doesn't seem like a whole lot of variety to me. And yes, the same guys keep showing up at the top. They are the better players, but they aren't playing the same armies they were a year ago either. Codex jumping in and of itself does not make a good player, but in my experience the best players are always playing out of the best books.

 Danny Internets wrote:

Balance is a relative term measured in shades of gray, yet most people seem to treat balance like an all-or-nothing attribute.

I agree with you so far.

Personally, I think this game is fairly well balanced as evidenced by the variety of armies capable of succeeding in tournaments.

I think the game is horribly unbalanced, as evidenced by the lack of variety among armies capable of winning tournaments, compared to the number of potential armies that could exist.

I do not doubt that if you take the best units from every codex, and mix in the best allies from another codex, you can get an army that will compete with other armies created using the same mindset.

I don't see that as evidence of balance though. It's an illusion of balance because every faction can do something, but it's severely lacking in that it doesn't account for the extreme number of crap units in the game that will never make it into a competitive game.

A balanced game wouldn't exhibit the symptom that we see, where when a new codex is released, the competitive players are immediately able to write-off half the units in the book as not being worth using.

When I started playing competitively, at the end of 3rd/beginning of 4th, I was winning tournaments (and getting top-ten finishes at GTs) with a list that included one of every possible choice from my codex, except one of the three HQ options. All the units had a place. Not surprisingly, the codex was written by Andy Chambers, who IMO, was the best designer they ever had. And it wasn't just that codex, either. The tournament scene back then was so much more diverse than it is today. Part of that might be how the internet has spread net-listing and propagated the cult of Spam the Best Unit. But I believe that the game, as a whole, was better balanced back then, and that's what allowed so many different builds to work. I recall that, using the Chaos 3.5 codex, I actually faced nearly every legion in competitive (GT) play at some point. I faced Muwhe's Emperor's Children, Kenny's Deathguard, Bill Kim's Nightlords, Tony Grippando's World Eaters, some Iron Warriors and Word Bearers, though I don't recall the players. And unlike today, those lists had restrictions. Half of them couldn't spam obliterators, even if they wanted to.

The lack of balance in today's game may not exclude any faction from competing, but it excludes an awful lot of units. It excludes an awful lot of concepts. Looking at the new Eldar (and I realize this is a new codex, and so early prognosticating may turn out incorrect, but bear with me), I don't see Biel-Tan (the aspect-heavy craftworld) getting much of a chance, whereas Iyanden (wraiths), Ulthwe (Guardians/Seers), and Sam Hain (Jetbikes) all show more promise.

There's no reason for shelf-only units in a wargame. Some people love to draw comparisons to M:tG, but M:tG, competitively, is based around several different formats, and WoTC deliberately designs different cards that are good in those different formats. Sure, some cards are poor for constructed play, but those same cards can be gold in sealed or draft play, or fit into multi-player formats well. Wargaming doesn't have that excuse. There aren't different formats being supported, even Apocalypse is a constructed list format where one side fights another. A unit that's crap can be uncrapped by lowering its cost; at some point, it will become useful. That the codexes are full of these junk units should be a stain on any of these designer's professional reputation.

The point is, there's internal codex balance and external balance. External balance is VERY good right now (I don't care if they did it by accident or on purpose), in that almost any codex or codex pairing can be built to win at the highest levels, or can be built to compete and do fine in the mid-ranges at almost any GT.

The game will ALWAYS have internal balance issues, because of the size of games and the points systems used, and the design intent of GW - they like having powerful units, and fluffy units, within the same dex. It has yet to occur to them to make all of the fluffy units powerful, or all of the powerful units fluffy.

That said, that's kind of the point of those who are gunshy about adding a ton of IG units that nearly EVERY hardcore competitor willingly goes right after when legalized, shifting codices to do so (and abusing allies to do so). You take a game with codex:codex but not internal codex balance ... and give it no balance at all by overpowering basically just one dex.

I'll reiterate that the argument about FW being "official" or part of the "Core game" is an utterly pointless one, b/c neither side is going to agree, from those who've adamantly decided a position.

We'd have a hell of an easy resolution if folks simply agreed that rather than kill the extant codex vs. codex balance, just cut out or limit quantities of a small handful of IG-specific units, and voila! Magic hour. (Where's Matt McConaughey looking crazypants with an axe when you need him ...)

PS - There's something also worth reiterating - as a TO for one of the major events in the US, I look at the majority and the average a lot more closely, in terms of opinions I care about, than I do at the outliers. There are posters in this thread who want a very narrow specific style of event that suits them to be the "norm." I.E., "Well what if we give you 95% of what you want?" NO NO NO NOT ENOUGH!! RAWR!!! or, similarly, NO NO NO TOO MUCH! RAWR!

The opinions of the noisy but fractional, factional, and overly noisy minority are not nearly as important when they are professed with the ultimate in black and white non-budge. $.02 from an organizer POV

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:

 Danny Internets wrote:
I think this game is fairly well balanced as evidenced by the variety of armies capable of succeeding in tournaments. It's not mere coincidence that the same players keep winning tournaments using a variety of different armies. If the game was anywhere near as unbalanced as you claim and rife with players looking to exploit said imbalances then you'd see the same armies winning every tournament. This is not the case.

I would disagree with that. In a year of major GTs now we have the following winners

Nova - IG blob tailored to the mission format
FoB - White Dwarf tzeetchy demons
BOA - White Dwarf tzeetchy demons
Adepticon - Necron core with beatsticky ally
WGC - Necron core with beatsticky ally

That doesn't seem like a whole lot of variety to me. And yes, the same guys keep showing up at the top. They are the better players, but they aren't playing the same armies they were a year ago either. Codex jumping in and of itself does not make a good player, but in my experience the best players are always playing out of the best books.

I wrote up a much more comprehensive analysis of this recently: http://www.tourneyspy.com/2013/05/40k-mid-year-tournament-results-recap/

Apart from Necron dominance, there's fairly good representation from a number of armies. Furthermore, there's even more variety among the types of list taken from each of the represented codices.

MVBrandt wrote:
The point is, there's internal codex balance and external balance. External balance is VERY good right now (I don't care if they did it by accident or on purpose), in that almost any codex or codex pairing can be built to win at the highest levels, or can be built to compete and do fine in the mid-ranges at almost any GT.

I think external balance is important, but I think it's less important than overall balance, which is not good right now. A competitive scene that's based around the best units from roughly 10 codexes is just not that diverse. I could care less if Codex: Orks can make a viable tournament build if it's not a build I want to play, with the models I own. The idea that a codex is externally balanced simply because it can be competitive IFF built within a very narrow specification doesn't tell me that the game is in a good place, it tells me that it's in a bad place.

The game will ALWAYS have internal balance issues, because of the size of games and the points systems used, and the design intent of GW - they like having powerful units, and fluffy units, within the same dex. It has yet to occur to them to make all of the fluffy units powerful, or all of the powerful units fluffy.

You can have powerful units and less powerful units, that's the beauty of points. Less powerful units can cost less points. And, while I agree with your initial statement, it also is not a black&white issue. You can strive for perfection even as you realize that perfection is impossible to attain. I agree, also, that the biggest reason why the game is so unbalanced right now is because GW's design philosophy is deeply flawed. Balance is simply not a goal they choose to pursue. They seem to believe that a balanced game will scare away casual players. I believe the opposite - a tight ruleset and balanced units should be more appealing to the casual player, as they can pick the models they like and not get crushed by rampantly OP units.

Still, I don't have the cash to buy them out, so...

MVBrandt wrote:
The point is, there's internal codex balance and external balance. External balance is VERY good right now (I don't care if they did it by accident or on purpose), in that almost any codex or codex pairing can be built to win at the highest levels, or can be built to compete and do fine in the mid-ranges at almost any GT.

I'd dispute the former part of this statement, as we haven't seen a huge spread of armies winnings GT's of late, we see Necrons followed by 5 or 6 other armies routinely while the other half of the factions in the game largely languish elsewhere (or include as allies the aforementioned strong armies to rise higher). The mid-ranges have always been a melting pot, at least for the last several years, there's not too much new here, but it's also generally not what people care about when looking at GT performance, they look at the top spaces.

 Redbeard wrote:
I think the game is horribly unbalanced, as evidenced by the lack of variety among armies capable of winning tournaments, compared to the number of potential armies that could exist.

I do not doubt that if you take the best units from every codex, and mix in the best allies from another codex, you can get an army that will compete with other armies created using the same mindset.

I don't see that as evidence of balance though. It's an illusion of balance because every faction can do something, but it's severely lacking in that it doesn't account for the extreme number of crap units in the game that will never make it into a competitive game.

A balanced game wouldn't exhibit the symptom that we see, where when a new codex is released, the competitive players are immediately able to write-off half the units in the book as not being worth using.

When I started playing competitively, at the end of 3rd/beginning of 4th, I was winning tournaments (and getting top-ten finishes at GTs) with a list that included one of every possible choice from my codex, except one of the three HQ options. All the units had a place. Not surprisingly, the codex was written by Andy Chambers, who IMO, was the best designer they ever had. And it wasn't just that codex, either. The tournament scene back then was so much more diverse than it is today. Part of that might be how the internet has spread net-listing and propagated the cult of Spam the Best Unit. But I believe that the game, as a whole, was better balanced back then, and that's what allowed so many different builds to work. I recall that, using the Chaos 3.5 codex, I actually faced nearly every legion in competitive (GT) play at some point. I faced Muwhe's Emperor's Children, Kenny's Deathguard, Bill Kim's Nightlords, Tony Grippando's World Eaters, some Iron Warriors and Word Bearers, though I don't recall the players. And unlike today, those lists had restrictions. Half of them couldn't spam obliterators, even if they wanted to.

The lack of balance in today's game may not exclude any faction from competing, but it excludes an awful lot of units. It excludes an awful lot of concepts. Looking at the new Eldar (and I realize this is a new codex, and so early prognosticating may turn out incorrect, but bear with me), I don't see Biel-Tan (the aspect-heavy craftworld) getting much of a chance, whereas Iyanden (wraiths), Ulthwe (Guardians/Seers), and Sam Hain (Jetbikes) all show more promise.

There's no reason for shelf-only units in a wargame. Some people love to draw comparisons to M:tG, but M:tG, competitively, is based around several different formats, and WoTC deliberately designs different cards that are good in those different formats. Sure, some cards are poor for constructed play, but those same cards can be gold in sealed or draft play, or fit into multi-player formats well. Wargaming doesn't have that excuse. There aren't different formats being supported, even Apocalypse is a constructed list format where one side fights another. A unit that's crap can be uncrapped by lowering its cost; at some point, it will become useful. That the codexes are full of these junk units should be a stain on any of these designer's professional reputation.

I think there are a couple of thins here. First MTG has always had cards in any set that are just bad, no matter the format, there are just so many more cards than units no one cares. Also any particular format is typically dominated by a few particular builds at any one time. So in terms of overall balance I would say 40k is probably better off than MTG. Beyond that (because it is not really the point, it does not matter which is more balanced.) I view the desirability of balance as

1.) Everything, internal and external is balanced: This is very hard to achieve, with the current GW business model. Unless books are all playtested together, with the ruleset at one time achieving both internal and external balance is damn near impossible, because while on paper units in any one book may look useful, start throwing in other codex units, allies, etc, and top units in any book will apear due to the meta. For instance you could have a unit that is great at anti-light infantry, it is not going to be any good if the meta is all armor/heavy infantry. So given the likely hood of this ever happening in a wargame (it has not in any WG I have played or seen) the next best thing is....

2.) External Balance only. Allowing all the factions to fight evenly so long as they make strong army choices within their own book. At least this way every army is viable to play whether it can be played in the ideal way someone wants to do so is a completely different matter.

3.) Internal Balance only: Well every unit in my codex is as good as every other unit in the book, problem is they suck compared to x.... Here you end up with a variety of armies possible from each book, but only certain books will rise to the top.

4.) No Balance: Limited Builds and Limited factions see play, this is the worst. the End of 5th ed was very much in this camp, GKs ruled the land.

SO I would rather play in an environment that has external balance (without FW or with Restricted FW), than one that has No Balance (Unlimited FW)

 Danny Internets wrote:
Apart from Necron dominance, there's fairly good representation from a number of armies. Furthermore, there's even more variety among the types of list taken from each of the represented codices.

The presence of a wide variety of armies does not in and of itself equate to a balanced game. The more important measure is army representation in the top 10% of finishers.

FoB – utterly dominated by tzeentchy demons
Adepticon – utterly dominated by necron flyers.
WGC – Was actually fairly diverse. But I will say of the 3 really forge world heavy armies two of them made the 2nd day cut, and the 2nd day armies seemed to me to all be very extreme builds (flyer spam, forge world artillery spam, demon cav spam etc).

I don’t know enough about the other tournaments to really say.

But this kind of plays into whether a diverse or narrow meta game is actually better or not for the game. Funny enough, I think a narrow meta game actually gives more armies a chance of WINNING THE WHOLE TOURNAMENT than an open meta game.

The armies people are bringing right now are so diverse and so extreme only one or two books (building on a gimmicky extreme) actually have a reasonable chance of winning the tournament. Whereas in a defined meta every army has a chance to counter build, be reasonably sure of their matchups, and win the tournament.

If your goal is to give as many armies as possible a change to win a tournament, a diverse meta actually makes the game less balanced, because only one or two armies can exist in that environment without hitting an extremely bad match up and losing.

If your measurement of balance is total army diversity, then yes the game is more balanced than I’ve ever seen it. If your measurement is the diversity in the top 10%, or the diversity of armies actually winning, the game is no more balanced than 5th edition was.

 ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:

 Danny Internets wrote:
Apart from Necron dominance, there's fairly good representation from a number of armies. Furthermore, there's even more variety among the types of list taken from each of the represented codices.

The presence of a wide variety of armies does not in and of itself equate to a balanced game. The more important measure is army representation in the top 10% of finishers.

You may want to go back and actually read the article I linked. The analysis looked at a set of data composed of the top five finishers of every single GT conducted since 6th edition was released for which results were made available. (Events with less than 5 games or with less than 30 attendees were excluded.) In most cases, these five represented the top 8-12% of finishers, fulfilling what you identify as the "more important measure."

 Danny Internets wrote:
You may want to go back and actually read the article I linked. The analysis looked at a set of data composed of the top five finishers of every single GT conducted since 6th edition was released for which results were made available. (Events with less than 5 games or with less than 30 attendees were excluded.) In most cases, these five represented the top 8-12% of finishers, fulfilling what you identify as the "more important measure."

I did read it, I didn't come to the same conclusion. It appears to me that armies at the top are not that diverse, at least not any more than they were in 5th.

Plus you are combining many unlike things into one graph. A 40 man 5 round GT with a Sisters and a Tau player in the top 5 is almost meaningless compared to Adepticon’s 250+ players with no sisters or tau in the top 16. Not to mention that NOVA, DA Boyz, and I believe BFS were all conducted with only one or no 6th ed codices. You’re combining vastly different tournaments (in both size and importance) at vastly different points in the game.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'd dispute the former part of this statement, as we haven't seen a huge spread of armies winnings GT's of late, we see Necrons followed by 5 or 6 other armies routinely while the other half of the factions in the game largely languish elsewhere (or include as allies the aforementioned strong armies to rise higher). The mid-ranges have always been a melting pot, at least for the last several years, there's not too much new here, but it's also generally not what people care about when looking at GT performance, they look at the top spaces.

I would disagree with the notion that we haven't seen a huge spread of armies winning GT's as of late. I think it's been far better than it ever was in 5th edition where it was basically one book dominating the scene after another until we had the mess that was GK. People keep saying Necrons are winning everything, but I feel like that's really misleading. They definitely do tend to place well, but they really haven't dominated the tournament scene by any sense of the word and the only major GT wins from them came with very distinct allies.

- Nick won Adepticon using Necrons with the addition of Draigo & Paladins. That's extremely different than just a run of the mill Necron build and really shouldn't be lumped in because of how vastly different it works on the table.

- Ben won WGC with the addition of a Warboss and Meganobs in a Wagon, again a considerable difference vs vanilla Crons, and also not one of the standard ally combinations we see.

IIRC, Indy Open was won with some kind of Crons/CSM? Beyond those events, I don't know any major ones this year which Crons won, while plenty were won by other books as well. Pretty sure Necrons have done nothing on the west coast, and they didn't win anything else out east AFAIK. Off the top of my head we had several GTs go to either GK or GK/IG, and obviously in the fall Daemons were a thing.