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I've been reading about the idea of restricting or banning the big big guys at 2k tournament events. I think everyone can probably agree that not EVERY unit that you can take within the points restrictions SHOULD be able to be taken (like a Warhound in a 1500 event would just be silly) but there are also might be some units that toe the line of going over the power level restriction of 31+ proposed for the BAO that I think are probably not broken in a 2000 point event.

My initial thought was restricting models that have 30 or more wounds, since those are the truly big boys. But let's open it up to discussion on literally any model and see if we can't come up with some generally accepted list of models that absolutely should NOT be allowed in a 2k event, and some models that we think probably should be allowed in a 2k event.

So here is a list of all models with 31 or more power levels, as well as where you can find the rules:



TBH, there's not much on that list (IMO) that should be allowed in a 2k event. Most of the stuff that would be crazy silly to bring and just wouldn't be super fun for the average person to play against. I think the ones that some events might consider allowing are as follows:



What do you guys think? Should some of these models be allowed? All? None?

Feel free to discuss individual models on a case-by-case basis, or talk about how good or bad a unit is if you're familiar with it, as I'm sure some people won't be familiar with any given model. You're welcome to discuss stats and such, but please no posting complete rules for any model.

If you've made it this far, maybe you'd like to express your opinion! Here's a link to a survey that I threw together about each model. Vote and I'll totally send a copy of the responses to Reece for him to consider!

https://goo.gl/forms/9ZMGyRcst2BAWR253

I would go with none. I think allowing any opens debate about all units. For instance Big Bird is stupid powerful.

I don't disagree with you, but for example the stompa isn't even that good, and the Harridan is an active handicap. If someone wanted to bring those two units, I think almost no one would take issue with that.

But I get where you're coming from - the standpoint of if you open the can of worms, where do you draw the line?

If I remember correctly you used to be able to bring two warhounds to a 1500 game.

 NivlacSupreme wrote:
If I remember correctly you used to be able to bring two warhounds to a 1500 game.

Game, yes. Tournament? Didn't hear about many that would have allowed that.

10 man Paladin squad is 32 Pow.

Half the stuff on your list you want is easily fixed by just increasing the power level limit to 33+. A lot of things like hellhammer and wraithknight and scorpion, harridan are 31-32.
Is there anything in that range that's grossly overpowered? The greater brass scorpion is 32, but even though it's strong and fast I think it's salvageable.

Also the stompa will never be included in an approved power level limit because it's 49 power level and grossly over costed and needs to be either buffed or severely reduced in point cost.
But other then that I think the limit should be 33+

How many tournaments have armies with Power Rating 31+ units been winning? Is this an actual issue... or an imagined one? I'm guessing it's an imagined one. Generally speaking, it seems like a good idea to only put house rules in place to fix actual problems.

 Kriswall wrote:
How many tournaments have armies with Power Rating 31+ units been winning? Is this an actual issue... or an imagined one? I'm guessing it's an imagined one. Generally speaking, it seems like a good idea to only put house rules in place to fix actual problems.

this straw man needs to go. It's brought up every edition about every broken unit. There has been 2 major tournaments both won by flyer spam (aka stormraven)because all of the major tournaments decided to use the crap brb missions (which haven't changed from 7th except for the relic which they somehow made worse) instead of the tournament missions they've been using the last decade. And without layered missions flyers just go around the board mostly ignoring objectives and tableing oppponents, racking up Kill points which are awful for tournament victory point purposes. These tournaments NEVER should have played by the book missions, but for some god awful reason wanted to appease the uninformed masses and play by the book.

It is not hard to play or look at battle reports and see that certain units are flat out broken, undercosted or unbalanced. There is a reason plasma scion spam is prevalent because mathematically and playwise it's the best weapon in most circumstances. We don't need a tournament to hold our hand and tell us it's undercosted.

I think the issue is less of a game balance one and more of an anti-deathstar one. These types of units are the only true "deathstars" left in the game. Whether people win or lose against some of these types of units, the feeling of helplessness isn't something that a lot of people enjoy.

That being said, the same feeling occurs when you're against 200 brimstone horrors and the changeling, but that's just me. I welcome the tactical challenge in a tournament setting.

gungo wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:
How many tournaments have armies with Power Rating 31+ units been winning? Is this an actual issue... or an imagined one? I'm guessing it's an imagined one. Generally speaking, it seems like a good idea to only put house rules in place to fix actual problems.

this straw man needs to go. It's brought up every edition about every broken unit. There has been 2 major tournaments both won by flyer spam (aka stormraven)because all of the major tournaments decided to use the crap brb missions (which haven't changed from 7th except for the relic which they somehow made worse) instead of the tournament missions they've been using the last decade. And without layered missions flyers just go around the board mostly ignoring objectives and tableing oppponents, racking up Kill points which are awful for tournament victory point purposes. These tournaments NEVER should have played by the book missions, but for some god awful reason wanted to appease the uninformed masses and play by the book.

It is not hard to play or look at battle reports and see that certain units are flat out broken, undercosted or unbalanced. There is a reason plasma scion spam is prevalent because mathematically and playwise it's the best weapon in most circumstances. We don't need a tournament to hold our hand and tell us it's undercosted.

Understood. Power Rating 31+ units have not been winning tournaments. You're attempting to fix something that has not yet presented as a problem.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 luke1705 wrote:
I think the issue is less of a game balance one and more of an anti-deathstar one. These types of units are the only true "deathstars" left in the game. Whether people win or lose against some of these types of units, the feeling of helplessness isn't something that a lot of people enjoy.

That being said, the same feeling occurs when you're against 200 brimstone horrors and the changeling, but that's just me. I welcome the tactical challenge in a tournament setting.

I get the anti-deathstar comment. I also feel that if the meta shakes out that these giants are on top, that other lists will naturally change to be able to deal with giants. We'll see more high damage weapons, etc. Why can't we just wait and see what happens with the meta?

I constantly see people panic about Warhound Titans potentially crushing entire tournaments and yet I've never seen a Warhound Titan crush a tournament where it was allowed to participate.

Again... is this a real issue?

The issue isn't what's winning tournaments, as good players win tournaments over lists everything It's more what's making the upper third of the tables unfun to play.

 MasterSlowPoke wrote:
The issue isn't what's winning tournaments, as good players win tournaments over lists everything It's more what's making the upper third of the tables unfun to play.

Ok... so... this isn't a balance issue? It's a fun issue? Why wouldn't players just pick a different game that is more fun? Serious question. You're basically saying that Power Rating 31+ units aren't a balance issue and have no real impact on the outcome of a tournament. You're really saying that you want to make the game less fun for players who like taking PR 31+ units so that the game can be more fun for people who don't like when others take PR 31+ units. How is that not just shuffling the lack of fun from one group to another?

gungo wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:
How many tournaments have armies with Power Rating 31+ units been winning? Is this an actual issue... or an imagined one? I'm guessing it's an imagined one. Generally speaking, it seems like a good idea to only put house rules in place to fix actual problems.

this straw man needs to go. It's brought up every edition about every broken unit. There has been 2 major tournaments both won by flyer spam (aka stormraven)because all of the major tournaments decided to use the crap brb missions (which haven't changed from 7th except for the relic which they somehow made worse) instead of the tournament missions they've been using the last decade. And without layered missions flyers just go around the board mostly ignoring objectives and tableing oppponents, racking up Kill points which are awful for tournament victory point purposes. These tournaments NEVER should have played by the book missions, but for some god awful reason wanted to appease the uninformed masses and play by the book.

It is not hard to play or look at battle reports and see that certain units are flat out broken, undercosted or unbalanced. There is a reason plasma scion spam is prevalent because mathematically and playwise it's the best weapon in most circumstances. We don't need a tournament to hold our hand and tell us it's undercosted.

What two MAJOR tournaments have been won by flyer spam?

MasterSlowPoke wrote:The issue isn't what's winning tournaments, as good players win tournaments over lists everything It's more what's making the upper third of the tables unfun to play.

This is simply not true. Good players with good lists win tournaments.

Since this is an ITC change it's based on the last two MAJOR itc events. http://bloodofkittens.com/itc-major-gt-event-tracker-2017-season/
Feel free to look at the lists here: http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2017/06/26/results-8th-edition-gt/

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kriswall wrote:

gungo wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:
How many tournaments have armies with Power Rating 31+ units been winning? Is this an actual issue... or an imagined one? I'm guessing it's an imagined one. Generally speaking, it seems like a good idea to only put house rules in place to fix actual problems.

this straw man needs to go. It's brought up every edition about every broken unit. There has been 2 major tournaments both won by flyer spam (aka stormraven)because all of the major tournaments decided to use the crap brb missions (which haven't changed from 7th except for the relic which they somehow made worse) instead of the tournament missions they've been using the last decade. And without layered missions flyers just go around the board mostly ignoring objectives and tableing oppponents, racking up Kill points which are awful for tournament victory point purposes. These tournaments NEVER should have played by the book missions, but for some god awful reason wanted to appease the uninformed masses and play by the book.

It is not hard to play or look at battle reports and see that certain units are flat out broken, undercosted or unbalanced. There is a reason plasma scion spam is prevalent because mathematically and playwise it's the best weapon in most circumstances. We don't need a tournament to hold our hand and tell us it's undercosted.

Understood. Power Rating 31+ units have not been winning tournaments. You're attempting to fix something that has not yet presented as a problem.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 luke1705 wrote:
I think the issue is less of a game balance one and more of an anti-deathstar one. These types of units are the only true "deathstars" left in the game. Whether people win or lose against some of these types of units, the feeling of helplessness isn't something that a lot of people enjoy.

That being said, the same feeling occurs when you're against 200 brimstone horrors and the changeling, but that's just me. I welcome the tactical challenge in a tournament setting.

I get the anti-deathstar comment. I also feel that if the meta shakes out that these giants are on top, that other lists will naturally change to be able to deal with giants. We'll see more high damage weapons, etc. Why can't we just wait and see what happens with the meta?

I constantly see people panic about Warhound Titans potentially crushing entire tournaments and yet I've never seen a Warhound Titan crush a tournament where it was allowed to participate.

Again... is this a real issue?

No the majority of 32+ pl units are a problem however lack of layered balanced missions are a bigger problem. Stop trying to straw man out of the point!! Let it play is an awful way to balance this game. It always has been and always will be regardless of how many times people bring it up when they want to play with their broken toys. It didn't work last year when people wanted to play with 4+ wraithknights in the itc. And when a tournament like the ATC allowed it. They completely dominated the entire event!!!

gungo wrote:
Since this is an ITC change it's based on the last two MAJOR itc events. http://bloodofkittens.com/itc-major-gt-event-tracker-2017-season/

I understand that. There has only been one MAJOR tournament since 8th dropped. In the UK. The next major will be BAO.

mhelm01 wrote:

gungo wrote:
Since this is an ITC change it's based on the last two MAJOR itc events. http://bloodofkittens.com/itc-major-gt-event-tracker-2017-season/

I understand that. There has only been one MAJOR tournament since 8th dropped. In the UK. The next major will be BAO.

In the U.K......there was 1 flyer spam list winner... in the USA there was another
http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2017/06/26/results-8th-edition-gt/
Boise list is there....

Just to add the UK Caledonian GT didn't use pure book missions, it uses a blended system where you simultaneously play Eternal War, Maelstrom and Kill Points.

Flyer spam didn't win on objectives, it won by sheer dakka dakka, I believe.

gungo wrote:
Since this is an ITC change it's based on the last two MAJOR itc events. http://bloodofkittens.com/itc-major-gt-event-tracker-2017-season/
Feel free to look at the lists here: http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2017/06/26/results-8th-edition-gt/

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kriswall wrote:

gungo wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:
How many tournaments have armies with Power Rating 31+ units been winning? Is this an actual issue... or an imagined one? I'm guessing it's an imagined one. Generally speaking, it seems like a good idea to only put house rules in place to fix actual problems.

this straw man needs to go. It's brought up every edition about every broken unit. There has been 2 major tournaments both won by flyer spam (aka stormraven)because all of the major tournaments decided to use the crap brb missions (which haven't changed from 7th except for the relic which they somehow made worse) instead of the tournament missions they've been using the last decade. And without layered missions flyers just go around the board mostly ignoring objectives and tableing oppponents, racking up Kill points which are awful for tournament victory point purposes. These tournaments NEVER should have played by the book missions, but for some god awful reason wanted to appease the uninformed masses and play by the book.

It is not hard to play or look at battle reports and see that certain units are flat out broken, undercosted or unbalanced. There is a reason plasma scion spam is prevalent because mathematically and playwise it's the best weapon in most circumstances. We don't need a tournament to hold our hand and tell us it's undercosted.

Understood. Power Rating 31+ units have not been winning tournaments. You're attempting to fix something that has not yet presented as a problem.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 luke1705 wrote:
I think the issue is less of a game balance one and more of an anti-deathstar one. These types of units are the only true "deathstars" left in the game. Whether people win or lose against some of these types of units, the feeling of helplessness isn't something that a lot of people enjoy.

That being said, the same feeling occurs when you're against 200 brimstone horrors and the changeling, but that's just me. I welcome the tactical challenge in a tournament setting.

I get the anti-deathstar comment. I also feel that if the meta shakes out that these giants are on top, that other lists will naturally change to be able to deal with giants. We'll see more high damage weapons, etc. Why can't we just wait and see what happens with the meta?

I constantly see people panic about Warhound Titans potentially crushing entire tournaments and yet I've never seen a Warhound Titan crush a tournament where it was allowed to participate.

Again... is this a real issue?

No the majority of 32+ pl units are a problem however lack of layered balanced missions are a bigger problem. Stop trying to straw man out of the point!! Let it play is an awful way to balance this game. It always has been and always will be regardless of how many times people bring it up when they want to play with their broken toys. It didn't work last year when people wanted to play with 4+ wraithknights in the itc. And when a tournament like the ATC allowed it. They completely dominated the entire event!!!

Last year was an entirely different edition of the game... so not relevant to the current discussion. The units have almost universally been changed and re-balanced. How many 2k games have you played against Warhound Titans? How many 2k games have you personally witnessed being played against Warhound Titans? How many of the major 8th edition tournaments (all 1-2 of them) have been won by Warhound Titans? Yeah... so maybe Warhound Titans aren't an auto-take, auto-win unit that needs to be nerfed? Maybe we wait for enough events to occur to know what 8th's issues are? Preemptively nerfing things that haven't demonstrated the need for a nerf feels a bit whiny on the part of the players calling for the nerf.

It's not a strawman argument to point out that you have yet to demonstrate that the units you say are problems are actually problems. Instead, it sounds like you only like part of the game. That's cool. I'm a Necron player. My buddy plays Tau. My other buddy plays Black Templars. We don't really enjoy playing against armies with psychic powers. I think maybe we should just preemptively ban psychic powers. After all, psychic powers negatively impact the fun level of a portion of the player base. This is what the argument sounds like. Jetbikes move too fast. That's not fun. Get rid of it. Tau shoot too much. Get rid of them. Orks choke the battlefield with models. Get rid of them. Take this to the ludicrous extreme and you end up with Marines on foot fighting Marines on foot in every game... you know... 30k. Maybe people who don't enjoy the variety 40k has to offer should stick to 30k?

You keep missing the point. I keep bringing up examples. But you keep missing it.
Let it play!!! We don't know unless we have 6+ months of tournament data is an awful way to balance the game. It has NEVER worked. And As you can easily see from tournament data already or the hundreds of battle reports... this edition is NOT balanced. Oh but it's a NEW unbalanced and broken edition doesn't really make a difference. People already know which units are the most powerful and broken. The idea is to fix those extremely broken units. Either change the missions, ban the units, or change the rules for those units is the way to go. GW claims they will eventually do it themselves. We will have to wait and see how quickly this happens for now limiting the playing field by removing titan equivilant units is a good way to limit the issues considering it appears fw put very little thought into pricing most of those units with every single weapon option costing the same 0 points.

You can argue that a flat 32+ PL ban isn't quite fair to every unit however arguing that certain units are not broken is flat out wrong.

gungo wrote:
You keep missing the point. I keep bringing up examples. But you keep missing it.
Let it play!!! We don't know unless we have 6+ months of tournament data is an awful way to balance the game. It has NEVER worked. And As you can easily see from tournament data already or the hundreds of battle reports... this edition is NOT balanced. Oh but it's a NEW unbalanced and broken edition doesn't really make a difference. People already know which units are the most powerful and broken. The idea is to fix those extremely broken units. Either change the missions, ban the units, or change the rules for those units is the way to go. GW claims they will eventually do it themselves. We will have to wait and see how quickly this happens for now limiting the playing field by removing titan equivilant units is a good way to limit the issues considering it appears fw put very little thought into pricing most of those units with every single weapon option costing the same 0 points.

You can argue that a flat 32+ PL ban isn't quite fair to every unit however arguing that certain units are not broken is flat out wrong.

And you're missing my point. Why preemptively ban X, Y and Z when it might actually be A, B and C that are causing problem? My point is that while you may be all powerful and all knowing, the rest of us don't know exactly which units are issues or why. I'd rather allow the meta to mature past the 2 event mark and see what happens.

I think 'wait and see before making an informed decision' is far better than 'arbitrarily decide' when it comes to your reason for making balance changes.

You do realize majors and GT are not the only events?
BCP makes it easier then ever to see every tournament and list. It's NOT 2 events. It's 2 majors and almost a hundred other participating events.

gungo wrote:
You do realize majors and GT are not the only events?
BCP makes it easier then ever to see every tournament and list. It's NOT 2 events. It's 2 majors and almost a hundred other participating events.

I'm not really interested in small events. They don't give you the same information that a major does. Majors and GTs are what we should care about.

My buddy who plays Orks has won 3 out of the last 4 events at my local shop. Granted, those events were small and the rest of us never take anything that can deal with hordes, but I think the clear answer is that Orks are overpowered and should be nerfed across the board. After all, they're winning 75% of the time and the rest of us don't enjoy the top table games.

In terms of raw data, majors like LVO, NOVA, AdeptiCon, etc. will provide you with more outcomes from a table-to-table perspective than smaller events, but I don't think it takes months to figure out where balance pain points lie.

GW's just much more active than before at soliciting, digging for, and acting on community feedback, so I would give them some time for that before too many sweeping modifications or restrictions to what is or isn't allowed in events.

But if you're trying to talk about volume, NOVA should have about 800 games played in just the GT this year. A 16-person local RTT will have 24 games played. LVO at 512 players and 9 rounds could have as many as 1,500-2,000 games played depending on drops and such. This isn't counting all the side events and what-not, but you get a lot more people bringing real lists they've been willing to invest in and getting in literally thousands of game results. So ... one should be interested in all events, but the majors are certainly a bit more valuable from a data gathering perspective.

MVBrandt wrote:
In terms of raw data, majors like LVO, NOVA, AdeptiCon, etc. will provide you with more outcomes from a table-to-table perspective than smaller events, but I don't think it takes months to figure out where balance pain points lie.

GW's just much more active than before at soliciting, digging for, and acting on community feedback, so I would give them some time for that before too many sweeping modifications or restrictions to what is or isn't allowed in events.

But if you're trying to talk about volume, NOVA should have about 800 games played in just the GT this year. A 16-person local RTT will have 24 games played. LVO at 512 players and 9 rounds could have as many as 1,500-2,000 games played depending on drops and such. This isn't counting all the side events and what-not, but you get a lot more people bringing real lists they've been willing to invest in and getting in literally thousands of game results. So ... one should be interested in all events, but the majors are certainly a bit more valuable from a data gathering perspective.

Yeah. You also have the fact that players at events like NOVA or LVO tend to take the competitive games a little more seriously than everyone might at a local store event. Small store events can easily be skewed by players who don't care about winning or others who care A LOT about winning. In other words, the NOVA/LVO meta is much more representative of the current state of the game than the meta at your local FLGS. It makes more sense to make balance decisions off NOVA/LVO results than it does to make decisions off a similar number of small store games.

 Kriswall wrote:

gungo wrote:
You do realize majors and GT are not the only events?
BCP makes it easier then ever to see every tournament and list. It's NOT 2 events. It's 2 majors and almost a hundred other participating events.

I'm not really interested in small events. They don't give you the same information that a major does. Majors and GTs are what we should care about.

My buddy who plays Orks has won 3 out of the last 4 events at my local shop. Granted, those events were small and the rest of us never take anything that can deal with hordes, but I think the clear answer is that Orks are overpowered and should be nerfed across the board. After all, they're winning 75% of the time and the rest of us don't enjoy the top table games.

Where do you think people who play these events go to test out these lists?
Do you honestly think players on the north east are flying out to Boise to test out thier list for nova?
No they play at smaller events like connecticon or battle for salvation.
Your position is nieve at best. Events with 20-25 people are just as informative in large data segments as GTs that are 75+attendees.

So... Khorne Lord of Skulls. Tournament this last weekend, a guy had one. Never made it past turn 1. Player ended up dead last.

This is why I hate the idea of banning models. It's the player that makes them work, not the model itself.

I didn't know Razorwing flocks had such a high power level. ;D

gungo wrote:

Where do you think people who play these events go to test out these lists?
Do you honestly think players on the north east are flying out to Boise to test out thier list for nova?
No they play at smaller events like connecticon or battle for salvation.
Your position is nieve at best. Events with 20-25 people are just as informative in large data segments as GTs that are 75+attendees.

It really depends on the event. There are some events that have been won by mono khorne daemons in 7th edition, and then there are RTT events where 5 out of the top 10 players at a GT might attend. Been to both of those events. Both are subsets of the player base that you might see at a larger event. They just finish in very different places at the end of day 2.

That being said, to any big event, the opinions of both of these player bases is just as important to a large event like the BAO, etc. Because if the top 15 players all love the event and have a great time, but the bottom 150 players are upset at having to play against Big Bird, they have a problem on their hands. And of course, the opposite is true as well (bottom 15 players love it but top 150 are sad). They play to the numbers, which is why a popular vote is often how the ITC settles these types of things among their attendees.

True however that's why you look at the entire dataset not individual results. It also helps tournament players who put a lot of emphasis on itc rank attend a lot of events of all sizes but especially gt, majors and a lot of larger events that are 25+. You can't win a single gt to be the top ranked player in your army you generally need a lot of smaller but mid to large events.

Point being there is a reason why the dataset tends to be accurate with regards to win percent. And smaller event data is useful to see which armies and which units tend to be the strongest