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Been playing off and on for a decent number of years and have basically been hearing the same thing since I started that the game.
That is, “The balance is terrible”.
Don’t really have a dog in the race since I’m casual, but I was wondering does the community have a definition of what a balanced 40K would play like?

This is more a side consideration but would that balanced state favor Casual play or Competitive play?

One where one faction isn't running around with 60-70% winrate and others 30-40% would be good start

tneva82 wrote:
One where one faction isn't running around with 60-70% winrate and others 30-40% would be good start

There will always be people who complain about perceived imbalances because they personally find it unbalanced, but there's more factors in winning and losing that most people are willing to admit, its easier to just blame the rules.

The best solution really is to make each faction more unique in what they do, and limit allies somewhat.

I split balance into three components:

1) External balance - I define this as balanced when all books are played proportionally (e.g. if there are 20 factions, then each faction should be played in roughly 5% of games), and the winrate for every faction is between 45% and 50%. The optimal winrate for a balanced game is much closer to 48%, leaving 2% for draws. This is across the entire playerbase, in an attempt to compensate for skill.

2) Internal balance - this is much harder to quantify, given that units should be split into roles. However, if pressed, I would say this is two things:
a) subfaction balance - of the 5% of all games that this faction is involved in, each subfaction should be represented equally (e.g. if there are 5 subfactions of Chaos Space Marines, then roughly 20% of the total Chaos Space Marine games, or 1% of all games, should be played using a given subfaction's rules).
b) unit balance - this is the struggle. Units have different roles and themes; for example, a Vindicator fits well with Iron Warriors but less well with World Eaters, so I can't slap a number down. But the desire would be specifically to eliminate trap choices, which are choices that are strictly worse to take than an alternative available to the same army.

3) narrative balance - this is the least important form of balance to me, but basically, it is a mechanism by which armies lean into their strengths and avoid their weaknesses. Once the game is balanced internally and externally, subtle and VERY SMALL tweaks can be made to encourage certain builds. Sub-faction rules are a great place to do this, but basically, this is where armies are encouraged to lean into their narrative structures. So if a guard sub-faction specializes in conscripts, for example, then there should be subtle ways that subfaction buffs conscripts. If a CSM faction emphasizes close combat, then that subfaction rule should subtly influence players to lean into finding melee solutions to their problems.

If you wish for an example of a book which I think is rather well balanced, look at the Adepta Sororitas book. Not enough data has been gathered to estimate the overall winrate of the book in the External Balance category, but indications are that internal balance and narrative balance is quite good.

Making each army more equal to each other. Right now some armies lose over 1/2 their games and some win over 1/2. That is terrible no matter what. You don't need the community to agree on it when we have raw data showing this. No army should have a win/lost rate worst than 45/55% If the worst army vs the best is only 10% that is fine. Right now its more like 20-25% difference sometimes.

A lot of the balance issues are mostly b.c 8th core rules are terrible (even GW said this on twitch.. lol, they didn't say its terrible, but they said to few core rules lead to problems). Some things points just can not change, b.c its all or nothing in 8th. Look at Orks, if they were 5ppm you'd see 120 on the table, at 6-7ppm you see almost zero.

There is also enteral codex balance. This would mean there is a lot more room to bring more units and not be so extreme in what is worth it and what isn't (not talking about friendly lists, i'm talking about the extremes).

 Sim-Life wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
One where one faction isn't running around with 60-70% winrate and others 30-40% would be good start

There will always be people who complain about perceived imbalances because they personally find it unbalanced, but there's more factors in winning and losing that most people are willing to admit, its easier to just blame the rules.

Lol how lame attempt at white knighting.

There is no definition and it's unlikely to be able to define one with significant detail.

However, in general, most people would like all units to be able to function in their intended role and not feel like dead weight for their points investment (and not have units like Vanquishers or Deathstrikes that simply don't function effectively) on a consistent basis, and armies to generally have similar win rates in tournaments as close to 50% as possible. Beyond those vague general concepts, I don't think there's much that can be defined in any meaningful way.

Win rates are a fair measure, but not entirely reliable.

In a time limited game, such as in a tournament environment, it’s something the rules aren’t balanced for.

So armies that tend to make quick gains have advantage over slower, possibly more resilient forces which make their gains later on, say around turn 5-6.

That is not a drawback of the game design, but on inherent to strict time limited games. It could be that turns 5&6 can be wrapped up in 30-40 minutes, so still comfortably within an afternoon or evening.

That time limit also discourages certain possible builds. For instance, a Green Tide type affair, with dozens and dozens of foot sloggers. If we argue, for sake of example and example alone, that such a force is the natural counter to ‘top tier’ stuff - the rock to their scissors - we’re just not going to see it, as it’s not a practical build when you know you’ve a set time to get stuff done in.

There’s also the argument of jerks ‘playing for time’ to slow down what they can and run down the clock. Now that absolutely does happen. Give a jerk something to be a jerk with, and they’ll be a jerk. But from what I’ve heard and read about tournaments, I’m not persuaded it’s particularly common. Heck, out of the three, maybe four tournament type things I’ve attended I’ve seen it done once.

The upside of tournament stories is they can largely be verified - so we can place weight on the results/ reports of broken stuff. When it’s someone reporting about a game behind closed doors? Well, we kinda need to treat those with more caution. One litmus test is just how awful their luck actually was. If they’re claiming everything went against them, it’s probably a bit dodgy.

Now, in terms of actual balance? Go play Chess, where it’s almost entirely down to who is the better player. In GW games? There are hundreds upon thousands of different factors in play. Not just stats, buffs, unit abilities etc. The lay of the terrain also factors in, and that’s not really something one can account for.

We also need to consider the impact of ‘meta gaming’ - as in, those chasing The New Hard.

In short, it’s a tricky game to play, Meta is. Because with GW’s release structure, there’s new stuff coming out all the time. New Codecies, expansions like PA, FAQs, Errata and Chapter Approved. All can make or break a given Meta List.

It could be the ‘exploit’ a list relied upon is fixed/changed. Maybe a small point adjustment means you can no longer fit in all the elements that make your list work. Heck, if a key Stratagem goes up in CP, that can break your list’s trick.

Many take such changes in good grace, knowing that some lists are exploiting issues which will, sooner or later, be patched. Others kind get arsed off and cry foul.

Wow you guys are quick!

@MadDoc
I’m personally pretty ok with the general imbalance of the game, that’s why I was wondering what the individuals in the community think. It’s interesting you mention chess for balance as it is something I often have in mind thinking of this. In chess white is favored to win due to the advantage of going first. Im no chess pro and when I first studied the topic it was said to be above 52% and a quick google has it at 52-56% which diminishes in under certain criteria. That is in a system of total symmetry something 40K could never actually achieve due to the extra factors you mentioned. That’s why this is more of a "What would you wish to see" sort of thing.

@Vaktathi
I like where you were at when you mentioned "all units to be able to function in their intended role and not feel like dead weight for their points investment". I personally think the feel is more important than the win rate (I play necrons ) But I have to respectfully disagree with the sentiment that balance can’t be defined in a meaningful way. It sort of has to be defined if you are going to build it into a system with deliberate intent, imo.

To be clear: winrate is the most measurable consequence of good balance. It is not, in itself, balance.

Every army has an equal chance of winning - The dice decide the game and not if your models are wearing power armour or not.

 Halfton wrote:
Wow you guys are quick!

@MadDoc
I’m personally pretty ok with the general imbalance of the game, that’s why I was wondering what the individuals in the community think. It’s interesting you mention chess for balance as it is something I often have in mind thinking of this. In chess white is favored to win due to the advantage of going first. Im no chess pro and when I first studied the topic it was said to be above 52% and a quick google has it at 52-56% which diminishes in under certain criteria. That is in a system of total symmetry something 40K could never actually achieve due to the extra factors you mentioned. That’s why this is more of a "What would you wish to see" sort of thing.

And while that is true, in tournaments the player has to be white and black at times. So the players have the same equal chances. And in many events the "better player" (they have ranks tied to them) will start as black for the first round.

Without those details those stats sounds bad. But chess is always looking to mitigate that as much as possible, where in 40k thats not possible.

Finally if the top army was only a 56% winrate, that would be AMAZING for 40k, normally its 60% or even higher. I'd say 55% would be perfect number to shoot for.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Argive wrote:
Every army has an equal chance of winning - The dice decide the game and not if your models are wearing power armour or not.

Ok, so if 1 army has a way to mitigate bad dice rolls and the other army doesn't. That would mean 1 army is better b.c of better RNG. Thus making the rules of an army important. Are you going to stop trolling this topic now? Or at least add something of importance please.

I feel determining balance based purely on win percentages leads you down a peculiar road. I think the only way you can get there is severely curtain player choice - typically by making the outcome of the game much more dependent on luck than decision making.

Its very hard to think of a world where list building doesn't matter - and so the meta doesn't matter. Which isn't to say its a game entirely about list building - but as a rule, good players bring good lists to play with. There isn't much point turning up to a tournament you want to win with a list you know is worse than another you could bring.

Since there is a link between "really wanting to win (and so learning, practising etc)" and "optimising your list" - I'm not sure "good lists" will ever be reduced down to say a 55% win rate.

As said - what you want to avoid is players looking at units and going "this is blatantly too good/too bad for its points compared with the general state of everything else." This has generally been the cause of bad balance in GW games and its usually quite obvious. Some people dislike mathhammer - and I think it can be misused - but if something is the same points as something else, and does 20% less damage, with no other obvious upside, its probably a bad unit and you shouldn't take it. A few simple mathhammer calculations should pick up obvious howlers - and leave units more

Due to the CA points changes, I think 8th has been a better edition for this - certainly miles and miles better than 7th - and major balance issues have been due to bad rules interactions that have themselves usually been changed.

But that isn't to say it can't be better. Iron Hands were obviously ludicrous - and releasing rules that require essentially a day 1 nerf is bad design. Marines in general probably didn't need a 6 month reign to "prove" certain combinations were much better than the average. At the same time GW responding in 6 months is better than going "just hope we change it in 4 years, bye."

There are as many definitions as there are people.

For me, balance is the ability to win for an army 50% of the time, and having different winning strategies available to them.

It's easier to define unbalance however when an army dominates the competitive scene, and many units are so bad that no one want to field them, you know there are problems.

Tyel wrote:
I feel determining balance based purely on win percentages leads you down a peculiar road. I think the only way you can get there is severely curtain player choice - typically by making the outcome of the game much more dependent on luck than decision making.

Its very hard to think of a world where list building doesn't matter - and so the meta doesn't matter. Which isn't to say its a game entirely about list building - but as a rule, good players bring good lists to play with. There isn't much point turning up to a tournament you want to win with a list you know is worse than another you could bring.

Since there is a link between "really wanting to win (and so learning, practising etc)" and "optimising your list" - I'm not sure "good lists" will ever be reduced down to say a 55% win rate.

As said - what you want to avoid is players looking at units and going "this is blatantly too good/too bad for its points compared with the general state of everything else." This has generally been the cause of bad balance in GW games and its usually quite obvious. Some people dislike mathhammer - and I think it can be misused - but if something is the same points as something else, and does 20% less damage, with no other obvious upside, its probably a bad unit and you shouldn't take it. A few simple mathhammer calculations should pick up obvious howlers - and leave units more

Due to the CA points changes, I think 8th has been a better edition for this - certainly miles and miles better than 7th - and major balance issues have been due to bad rules interactions that have themselves usually been changed.

But that isn't to say it can't be better. Iron Hands were obviously ludicrous - and releasing rules that require essentially a day 1 nerf is bad design. Marines in general probably didn't need a 6 month reign to "prove" certain combinations were much better than the average. At the same time GW responding in 6 months is better than going "just hope we change it in 4 years, bye."

The issue with "bad" and "good" lists is that they also restrict player choice. You're saying "The rules restrict player choice is bad!" but if the gameplay balance restricts player choice, then that's just as restrictive...

...except its worse, because then you have units you love and that are published and exist but you can't use because they're bad. In a tighter rule-set, trap units wouldn't exist. You couldn't fall in love with Salamander Scout Vehicles if they simply weren't an option (or if they were an option, taking them wouldn't actively harm your chances of winning).

Essentially you're saying "The players should be able to take whatever units they want" while also saying "Players who take any but the most optimal units deserve to lose lol"

Siegfriedfr wrote:
There are as many definitions as there are people.

For me, balance is the ability to win for an army 50% of the time, and having different winning strategies available to them.

It's easier to define unbalance however when an army dominates the competitive scene, and many units are so bad that no one want to field them, you know there are problems.

I think this is fairly basic way to put as a definition of ballance. Each codex being able to win to a reasonable % with equal skill.

But I do think GW has a far bigger ballance issue, that makes there main ballance much harder. That is, every codex should be able to interact with every phase of the game in a meaningful way. And every army should be required and able to interact at all scales of the game as presented at default. With player choice being how that is changed in each army.
In both of those points I think it’s the creative teams that are letting the game down, with often just Cool being the deciding factor and letting though gaps for the rules teams to create good rules around.
A lot of 8th was probably trying to account for these issues, and have lead to a game that I think is fairly simple to get to even the ballance it is at today.

I think Unit's 3-pronged definition is a pretty good one.

In 40k, the two main issues standing in the way of balance are:

1) rules that affect balance are made based on the fiction of this imaginary universe. The biggest difference here is Allies: Imperial and Chaos factions have the most access to the Allies system, Eldar and Tyranids have some, and Orks, Necrons, and Tau have no allies.

If allies bring you any kind of gameplay advantage, then the latter three factions will always be underpowered as compared to the factions that have access to allies.

2) Rules that affect balance are tied to models produced by games workshop.

Space Marines have orders of magnitude larger model range and therefore more rules than any other faction in the game. Trying to balance a chess game where one player gets 2 rooks, 2 bishops and 2 knights vs a player who only gets 6 bishops is going to be extremely difficult.here is

Another honorable mention to consider is that Games Workshop produces EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE models that cost real-world money as well as in-game points. If you have an army that is sold in a 100$ box set for a full 2k point competitive army, and another competitive army that includes only models sold in 50$-per-10 boxes and those models are 1 point each, theoretically that is a balanced situation, but the player who wants to use the second army has to spend 10,000$ on their army vs 100$ for the other army.

Yes, there is a commonly-accepted definition of 'balance'.

It means that the army I like to play should be buffed and the army that beat me needs to be nerfed, the army that I beat is fine as it is.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

The issue with "bad" and "good" lists is that they also restrict player choice. You're saying "The rules restrict player choice is bad!" but if the gameplay balance restricts player choice, then that's just as restrictive...

...except its worse, because then you have units you love and that are published and exist but you can't use because they're bad. In a tighter rule-set, trap units wouldn't exist. You couldn't fall in love with Salamander Scout Vehicles if they simply weren't an option (or if they were an option, taking them wouldn't actively harm your chances of winning).

Essentially you're saying "The players should be able to take whatever units they want" while also saying "Players who take any but the most optimal units deserve to lose lol"

Maybe I'm expressing myself badly.

As said - I think points should be tweaked so trap options shouldn't exist. If Salamander Scout Vehicles are bad at X points, they would be better "less than X" points. At some point you would reach the standard.

But my point is that to get a perfect 50/50 win rate, you would have to have list building have no impact on the probability of you winning a game. Taken to extremes - this means list tailoring, either against your friend's collection, or the broad meta, shouldn't be possible.

So for example, lets say I knew the "top list" right now was Eldar Flyer spam. I should have units in my codex which are better or worse at dealing with flyers than other units. If I include more of those units that are good at it, I should increase the odds of winning those games versus not taking them. If there is a good chance that when going to a major tournament 2 or 3 of my 5-6 games will be against Eldar Flyer Spam, then taking them is going to skew my overall win percentage - and that of my faction. Now if I don't have such units that is bad design. If I do have those units, but they are "bad", due to being too expensive for their points and therefore not working - then that's bad balance.

Basically what I am saying is that if rock/paper/scissors exists - in whatever form - then you can't go into every game thinking you have a 50/50 chance to win.

The issue with 40k is the balance tends to be rock/paper/scissors/lightning. The top lists crush a lot of lists - and therefore theoretically restrain player choice as you say - but just as importantly they have no bad matchups. You don't see metas really evolve in 40k. There are some who say this is because GW no longer giving players enough time to explore - but I think its safe to say there was no secret Necron, Dark Eldar whatever list that had a 75% win rate against IH Dreads, RG Cents, or going a bit further back the Castellan+Smash Captain+Guard etc. There were lists that could maybe get you towards 50/50 split against these top lists - and so the meta becomes about those lists and their interactions, while they brush aside everyone else.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that I don't think you should be able to bring *any* list to *any* table and feel you have a 50/50 chance to win. Because if you turn up and your opponent has only tanks, and you have no anti-tank, you should be more in trouble than if you did.
And since that applies to individual games, I don't see how it can't equaly apply to faction win rates across the whole competitive 40k scene. This might not perhaps be the case if all factions were infinitely mutable - but if you assume say Tau are likely to play something of a gun line, certain factions (and builds within those factions) are likely to be able to deal with that better than others.

That's exactly why I put all 3 kinds of balance being important.

1) is the most basic, and is winrate related.

2) is more complicated, and is disconnected from winrate somewhat more.

3) is what you are talking about (armies leaning into certain builds based on how they should look narratively). That's much more complicated.

I do think we should compromise 3 to achieve 1 and 2 first, as poisonous trap options are a much worse problem than any list being able to win any game would be.

I like most of the answers given here. I have 2 points to add:

- I feel the closest thing to 'balanced' is when people bring TAC armies. Having a bit of everything instead of just doing X or Y super-well and everything else is unimportant. However, it also makes armies more similar to each other. I don't think it's possible to have a real shot on balancing the game AND making every army real unique, as 1-army-only rules are much harder to balance than shared rules.

- I don't think balance will come as frequently as we'd like to until rules become 100% digital. Although there are Big FAQs twice a year, only with Chapter Approved the big changes really happen (like points). With 100% digital rules, GW could wait for big tourneys to happen (conveniently spaced for that), analyze their data and apply the fixes way faster.
Digital rules also make easier for people worldwide to compare rules and give their input.

I feel like we're over-complicating this (Dakka over-complicate? ... NEVER!)? When you're talking about army vs army balance, any time I've seen that brought up, it's essentially meant that the players want every army to have a fighting chance against every other army (assuming equal, or as close to equal player skill as possible). When you're talking about balance within a codex, they just want to be able to pick any unit and have it perform reasonably well (instead of, for example, having CLEAR LOSERS like Mutilators, etc.).

IMO, I've played since the end of RT and the closest we've come to this was index 40k at the start of 8th. It wasn't perfect, but there weren't any Iron Hands level "easy buttons" or anything like that. My memory is on the foggy side now, but I think part of 5th was pretty decent too prior to some of the later releases (Grey Knights and Dark Eldar for example). It was also boring, but for a time, I remember it being relatively well balanced. Am I recalling that wrong? I feel like I might be.

- I don't think balance will come as frequently as we'd like to until rules become 100% digital. Although there are Big FAQs twice a year, only with Chapter Approved the big changes really happen (like points). With 100% digital rules, GW could wait for big tourneys to happen (conveniently spaced for that), analyze their data and apply the fixes way faster.
Digital rules also make easier for people worldwide to compare rules and give their input.

The way GW has been shown to work, I don't think going 100% digital will make a big difference here for two reasons:

1. If/when they eventually go 100% digital, updates will still likely only occur on the same schedule they've previously followed. The FAQ is already 100% digital and they only update a few times a year anyway.

2. They need to completely change out their current team and completely revamp their process. Using the current team and process, they've shown time and time again that they are incapable of avoiding bloat and imbalance. When this edition released, there was no question that they had cut a ton of bloat (I was very vocal in defending them at the time), but a few short years later, even the "streamlined" 8th edition is a bloated mess. They have fallen right back into all the traps of 7th. Going digital isn't going to help a rules team that, regularly fails to understand its own rules at a fundamental level, uses a process that regularly allows them to miss major issues that most regular players would spot right away, and that regularly misunderstands its own customer base. Going digital won't help a team that appears incapable of learning form its own mistakes.

Very broadly speaking, if you collect and practice with any two given factions you shouldn't find yourself at a huge advantage playing one against the other.

From a single codex perspective there should not be units that are simply irrelevant - for example in the most recent sisters codex there is no particular mechanical reason to ever take crusaders or death cultists, as even if they were fantastic compared to other books they don't do anything that you wouldn't be better off taking arcos for.
At the other end of the same problem you'll have one unit that is so good that all other comparable options are inferior - and it doesn't mean they are bad compared to the rest of the game, just redundant

Rock/paper/scissors/lizard/spock design - that is to say something that is crushingly powerful if it doesn't meet an appropriate counter (i.e. flyers at the start of 6th) is increasingly poor design as you more variants but also goes the other way when you take away the meaning of army composition (anti-infantry anti-tank weapons in 8th). A fair bit of balance comes down to having known targets and expectations which is to say that if you know your opponent will have up to three heavy tanks/monsters then you as a place choose how much to commit to that threat, but without that limitation you can just run blindly into unbalanced fights.

Extra randomness is not balance.

Extra complexity is not balance.

One faction having ten or more times as many options are another is not necessarily unbalanced, but it makes it highly likely given GWs occasional 'throw a dart to determine power level' You just get more chances.


With all that having been said this is DakkaDakka, so most 'the balance is terrible' threads you see probably revolve around someone suggesting a unit from their faction should be twice as powerful for no extra points, because they are the worst unit in the game and definitely so much worse than (insert actually worse unit here).

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Win rates are a fair measure, but not entirely reliable.

I'd agree with that as armies can have various barriers that make them more or less likely to be taken outside of their strength.
Examples would include the various marine factions being heavily represented even when not at the top of the power curve (and resultantly having many low placers pulling down their win rates), and also factions that are expensive or otherwise awkward to take - discontinued forgeworld, etc.

So far it’s been pretty consistent, basically

- Top lists having a ~ 50 - 56% winrate
- All units within each respective codex being playable. In this case I will say “Breaking Even” (Pt Investment is roughly equivalent value-gained). Either other extreme being a point of failure.

The winrate being misleading as many have pointed out. Matchup win-rate is different than the aggragate. That being said, presumabably the winrate of any individual codex matched with any other individual codex should range 46% - 56%.

Tournaments compound fairness issues due to restrictions of the format (timing, lack of multiple games played, unable to fields from a pool of armies, etc).

Although I mostly agree with you @Unit1126PLL I will say that 2-a seems to me to be a non-factor. If the above two qualites are satisfied it dosnt really matter how much representation you see of subfactions as it then just boils down to personal prefrences regarding taste (fluff, colorscheme, etc)

 Halfton wrote:
That being said, presumabably the winrate of any individual codex matched with any other individual codex should range 46% - 56%

Yes, assuming similar skill and uptake.

You'll probably find big tournaments where the average position of marines was lower than a minor faction like sisters - at the same time with marines securing multipletop 16 spots without the minor faction getting close to the final rounds. It can be difficult to separate win rate from skill when you might have one die-hard minor faction player familiar with all their tricks and hundreds of casual players dragging down the average of what is the stronger but also much more widely played codex.

 Halfton wrote:
So far it’s been pretty consistent, basically

- Top lists having a ~ 50 - 56% winrate
- All units within each respective codex being playable. In this case I will say “Breaking Even” (Pt Investment is roughly equivalent value-gained). Either other extreme being a point of failure.

The winrate being misleading as many have pointed out. Matchup win-rate is different than the aggragate. That being said, presumabably the winrate of any individual codex matched with any other individual codex should range 46% - 56%.

Tournaments compound fairness issues due to restrictions of the format (timing, lack of multiple games played, unable to fields from a pool of armies, etc).

Although I mostly agree with you @Unit1126PLL I will say that 2-a seems to me to be a non-factor. If the above two qualites are satisfied it dosnt really matter how much representation you see of subfactions as it then just boils down to personal prefrences regarding taste (fluff, colorscheme, etc)

to me, the real problem with 2a is that there are serious issues caused by subfactions as they are currently implemented into the game.

This is something that gets brought up whenever a particular army is clearly overpowered - take Eldar for example. one of the eldar subfactions (Alaitoc) was so strong and so clearly better than all other options that practically no other subfaction existed within any kind of competitive play. When people proposed reducing the power of a lot of eldar stuff, the counter to that was "only Alaitoc is OP - you never see any Biel-tan lists or Ulthwe lists placing well!"

The same exact thing happened with the bonkers new marines - inflated by the fact that now not only does a marine subfaction come tied with an army wide rule, but also with special doctrines, a psychic power list, 20ish stratagems, relics, wl traits...etc.

it was impossible to tell whether IH had a 70% competitive winrate and UM had a 50% competitive winrate because all the serious competitive players were picking IH, which was clearly the best subfaction, or whether that meant UM were perfectly fine and IH were the only ones who were overpowered, so any balancing measures should only be done to the IH rules.

Agreed. The reason I included point 2a is because you could have the following hypothetical situation:

Codex Hypothetes has a 48% winrate overall, and all the units inside of it are viable...

...but only in one sub faction. The 48% overall winrate is achieved by 3/4 of the subfactions having like a 30% winrate and the remaining 1/4th have a ludicrous winrate.

this is bad for the game, as it makes the 48% winrate of the entire codex misleading (since it's an average of a few badly variant subfactions; I pity all the players that have to play against the subfaction with a super high win rate!) and it makes the less powerful subfactions a trap choice for new players or player who like their narrative.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Halfton wrote:
Wow you guys are quick!

@MadDoc
I’m personally pretty ok with the general imbalance of the game, that’s why I was wondering what the individuals in the community think. It’s interesting you mention chess for balance as it is something I often have in mind thinking of this. In chess white is favored to win due to the advantage of going first. Im no chess pro and when I first studied the topic it was said to be above 52% and a quick google has it at 52-56% which diminishes in under certain criteria. That is in a system of total symmetry something 40K could never actually achieve due to the extra factors you mentioned. That’s why this is more of a "What would you wish to see" sort of thing.

And while that is true, in tournaments the player has to be white and black at times. So the players have the same equal chances. And in many events the "better player" (they have ranks tied to them) will start as black for the first round.

Without those details those stats sounds bad. But chess is always looking to mitigate that as much as possible, where in 40k thats not possible.

Finally if the top army was only a 56% winrate, that would be AMAZING for 40k, normally its 60% or even higher. I'd say 55% would be perfect number to shoot for.


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 Argive wrote:
Every army has an equal chance of winning - The dice decide the game and not if your models are wearing power armour or not.

Ok, so if 1 army has a way to mitigate bad dice rolls and the other army doesn't. That would mean 1 army is better b.c of better RNG. Thus making the rules of an army important. Are you going to stop trolling this topic now? Or at least add something of importance please.

Haven't you sort of pointed out what I was getting at?

I.E both armies NOT having an equal chance of winning BECAUSE one army has a way of mitigating rolls and one DOES NOT...

If you equalize that (re-rolls and modifiers) than all that's left is dice rolls and maneuvering.

Of course you are welcome to disagree but certainly wasn't a troll post on my part.

This does not go to say each army should be equal in all of the phases al of the time but they have to be comparable or the facade of fairness breaks. Its best to flat out accept the concept of balance will never exist and there are some faction which will be just better than others.

I think in the end, it’s like that statement about porn - “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”

Sometimes, things just seem off from prior experience. Other times, you have to look at overall performance (win/lose can be deceptive to identify individual unit problems, and can be prejudiced by meta-based unit selection)