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Plumbumbarum wrote:
This thread title is so wrong. You can't have too balanced game (and say that as sth negative about the game) and perfect balance, though unachievable should be what you aim for.

Totally agreed.

The term "too balanced" is a true oxymoron

Also, a true balanced gameplay is more enjoyable.

 pwntallica wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:

 pwntallica wrote:
the other thing I liked is no one at my FLGS accused me of power gaming for playing DA. I had numerous friends playing armies that when buying a new codex were accused of being TFG or a power gamer because they were playing the newest codex even though they were playing them long before the new codex.

Yeah flavour of the month gaming doesn't really work anymore

And I for one am happy it is

Lucky you I was accused of Power gaming with the 4th Edition codex in 5th Edition. People were telling me that Terminator armor was overpowered.

Oh well now they just fear the reaper.

 captain collius wrote:

 pwntallica wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:

 pwntallica wrote:
the other thing I liked is no one at my FLGS accused me of power gaming for playing DA. I had numerous friends playing armies that when buying a new codex were accused of being TFG or a power gamer because they were playing the newest codex even though they were playing them long before the new codex.

Yeah flavour of the month gaming doesn't really work anymore

And I for one am happy it is

Lucky you I was accused of Power gaming with the 4th Edition codex in 5th Edition. People were telling me that Terminator armor was overpowered.

Oh well now they just fear the reaper.

Hm, I can relate

Everytime I've faced orks in 6th I get told my Land Raider is OP. We play at 1500-2000 points.

 captain collius wrote:
Oh well now they just fear the reaper.

The seasons don't fear the reaper....

 Castiel wrote:

 captain collius wrote:
Oh well now they just fear the reaper.

The seasons don't fear the reaper....

Nice

I think the 3 new armies, are on par, with the most powerfull book's of 5th edition. They are not more powerful than them, or weaker than them. And that's how it should be, I don't mind this level of power, being the standard that eventually get's passed to all the armies.

The CSM Codex has great internal balance?

I must be imagining all those identical Heldrake lists then.

 Kerrathyr wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
This thread title is so wrong. You can't have too balanced game (and say that as sth negative about the game) and perfect balance, though unachievable should be what you aim for.

Totally agreed.

The term "too balanced" is a true oxymoron

Also, a true balanced gameplay is more enjoyable.

I disagree. On both points.

Perfect balance makes the hobby aspect of the game, i.e. what army you pick, etc.. meaningless. If I can just throw darts at the army list on the wall and whatever I hit is equally valid, the entire point of "building" your army becomes moot.

The entire point of pouring over a codex and trying to find the "best" combination (which implies there are worse-than-the-best combinations in there) pivots on the idea that they are NOT all balanced.

Moreover, 40K (like virtually all collectable/hobby games) works to create (an evolving) metagame, precisely by keeping things moving.

(nearly) balanced games - such as chess - are stagnant. They don't evolve. They don't move. They relegate "top-level-play" to a few highly talented, full-time pros.

Imbalanced games with a "healthy" meta-game evolve and, crucially, mitigate the importance of player skills (as in, a less-skilled player with a better list can (potentially) beat a more-skilled player with a worse list, even from the same Codex) to make the game itself accessible and constantly evolving, keeping the "entry barrier" for serious play at a manageable level (again, unlike Chess).

Not specifically 40K, but the same subject




I for one enjoy 40K much more than Chess, precisely because I don't have the time, patience, will and, quite likely, skill to dig full-time into a balanced game like chess.

I also enjoyed 5th Edition books that "changed things up", such as Grey Knights or Necrons, a lot more than the 3 stale 6th Edition books. The latter didn't really add anything new to the game (except Heldrakes perhaps) that made you re-think your game, tinker on your list and try to adapt.

The problem with what you describe is that you then end up with the good players taking the good lists and you go straight back to being 'perfectly balanced' against each other because there's no way to police why people are taking any given unit... and you end up in the situation of "paying for advantage", where the rich prosper and the less rich languish (because lets face it, the only poor 40k player is one who used to be rich).

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The problem with what you describe is that you then end up with the good players taking the good lists and you go straight back to being 'perfectly balanced' against each other because there's no way to police why people are taking any given unit... and you end up in the situation of "paying for advantage", where the rich prosper and the less rich languish (because lets face it, the only poor 40k player is one who used to be rich).

Not really. As long as things are unbalanced, there's always the possibility of finding "a better solution", so you'll be motivated to keep tinkering. You have no idea of knowing if you actually found "the best" list in a "non-perfectly-balanced" environment.

It's also the reason why Codexes shouldn't be externally balanced (perfectly). If they were, you could immediately benchmark the "best list" of a new Codex by assessing that it is perfectly balanced against the "best list" of a very old Codex, where that has been established.

As long as things are off and vague, you have a hobby of tinkering, trying and improving.

Not to mention that an element of "rock-paper-scissors" helps to keep things lively. And even in the event of a big screw-up - as arguably happened with Chaos 3.5. or the neigh unbeatable 4th Edition Eldar Falcon (both several times worse than anything seen in 5th or 6th), you'll only have to suffer until GW can release a counter-balance.

 Chumbalaya wrote:
The CSM Codex has great internal balance?

I must be imagining all those identical Heldrake lists then.

Lots of armies have a slot where there is only one good choice. It's usually the FA slot. You can't have 12 distinct armies with multiple choices per slot and have them all be unique and equally useful.

Also, free anecdote:
I had a game the other day with my Adepticon teammates. We wanted to run two of our lists against a hypothetical flyer spam list. The opponents came up with a helldrake and two vendettas.

Of the anti-air we had, we had 1 stormraven, a psyfledread, a las/plas razorback, and a handful of psycannons.

We managed to knock the helldrake and a vendetta out of the sky. Probably not incredibly likely, but the point of my anecdote is that those types of lists aren't immediate auto-win lists. Luck (and a little skill, but mostly luck) is still the greatest modifier to the game, no matter how much we want to pat ourselves on the backs for those "clever" wins.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The problem with what you describe is that you then end up with the good players taking the good lists and you go straight back to being 'perfectly balanced' against each other because there's no way to police why people are taking any given unit... and you end up in the situation of "paying for advantage", where the rich prosper and the less rich languish (because lets face it, the only poor 40k player is one who used to be rich).

Which is why one of the best GK lists you could run in 5th and early 6th edition consisted of about 25 models you coudl buy for roughly $250.

Truely, 40k is the diversion of the bourgeois.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The problem with what you describe is that you then end up with the good players taking the good lists and you go straight back to being 'perfectly balanced' against each other because there's no way to police why people are taking any given unit... and you end up in the situation of "paying for advantage", where the rich prosper and the less rich languish (because lets face it, the only poor 40k player is one who used to be rich).

Except thats not really the case.

If it were, the most powerful armies would also be the most expensive.

Horde orks and IG would be the dominate armies.

Power armor and TDA would be poor to bad.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Kerrathyr wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
This thread title is so wrong. You can't have too balanced game (and say that as sth negative about the game) and perfect balance, though unachievable should be what you aim for.

Totally agreed.

The term "too balanced" is a true oxymoron

Also, a true balanced gameplay is more enjoyable.

I disagree. On both points.

Perfect balance makes the hobby aspect of the game, i.e. what army you pick, etc.. meaningless. If I can just throw darts at the army list on the wall and whatever I hit is equally valid, the entire point of "building" your army becomes moot.

The entire point of pouring over a codex and trying to find the "best" combination (which implies there are worse-than-the-best combinations in there) pivots on the idea that they are NOT all balanced.

Moreover, 40K (like virtually all collectable/hobby games) works to create (an evolving) metagame, precisely by keeping things moving.

(nearly) balanced games - such as chess - are stagnant. They don't evolve. They don't move. They relegate "top-level-play" to a few highly talented, full-time pros.

Imbalanced games with a "healthy" meta-game evolve and, crucially, mitigate the importance of player skills (as in, a less-skilled player with a better list can (potentially) beat a more-skilled player with a worse list, even from the same Codex) to make the game itself accessible and constantly evolving, keeping the "entry barrier" for serious play at a manageable level (again, unlike Chess).

Not specifically 40K, but the same subject




I for one enjoy 40K much more than Chess, precisely because I don't have the time, patience, will and, quite likely, skill to dig full-time into a balanced game like chess.

I also enjoyed 5th Edition books that "changed things up", such as Grey Knights or Necrons, a lot more than the 3 stale 6th Edition books. The latter didn't really add anything new to the game (except Heldrakes perhaps) that made you re-think your game, tinker on your list and try to adapt.

Hello, I'm an old french 40K player that stop playing every year to come back three years after. I'm in my period when I can't control myself from the desire to buy so I just read dakka instead, just wanted to react to that post because I think the video is really wrong. Tell me if I should present myself somewhere before posting.

Contrary to the video, league of legend is actually a game that is designed toward the research of perfect balance. It is actually known for that in comparaison to other MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) like Hon or Dota 2. They are seeking this balance through constant nerf of everything that is supposed to be imbalanced or OP, every champions being made viable to play for their attributed position, while other games tend to let imbalances and compensate by introduicing other type of imbalances. Here is a picture used by people to make the comparaison between games design (Riot refer to League of legend, Blizzard Starcraft and Valve Dota 2) :


On the contrary, Starcraft is actually designed around the idea of perfect imbalance : there are some units that are designed to roflstomp others, in a way that people often make the comparaison between starcraft and rock paper scissor : for exemple, "Vultures" deal a lot on damage on small units, and almost no damage at all against other type of units.
Why is it possible for starcraft to be a game designed toward "perfect imbalance" ? You can't have a restricted point of view regarding this question (unlike what the video supposed). The simple idea of perfect imbalances makes optimal strategies possibles : this unit can come, if I play in the most optimal way, at X minute, while it is supposed to kill everything except this counter unit, that will only be able to arrive in the game at X+1 minute, which gives me enough time to get an advantage or just flat out win the game. In this regard, the game is all about execution : you have to click a lot, and learn how to click the most efficient way, which is not the exact definition of fun for a lot of people. It's not strategy but planification in this regard.
But the strategies still varies because there are a variety of unit that can be made, and a variety of maps : optimal play does not only change with unit imbalances, but also with maps differences, such as distance between main and expansion, distance between you and your opponent, etc. It also works mainly because armies are to be built, which leave a lot of time for player to gather informations and react according to it before any actual fight : collecting information is a huge part of the game, and although execution is important, good players should be able to see, with "scouts", what type of unit their opponent intend to build, and change their plans (which is the idea of strategy) to win the game.

Why perfect imbalance cannot work in W40k :
There is no information gathering in warhammer, since units and armies are set in stone before the start of the game and open for everyone to see. You can only react to what your opponent is supposed to play by guessing before making your army list (which is dumb) or play accordingly to the meta.
The only reason why perfect imbalance "could" work in W40k is because maps are always differents, hence optimal plays always changing.
What is the meta ?
The video is completly wrong about what is the meta. The meta has little to do with the game - it is what it said it is : the meta game is beyond the game. The meta game is an expression that refer to the human part of the game (or more exactly the social part of each game), in relation to our inability to find out the most efficient way to play by ourselves, and the tendancies we have to copy each other and to diffuse our own received ideas toward the game and the quality of units to others through discussions. In Starcraft or in LoL, the meta is a huge part of the game (with people always copying what pros do) because there is a pro scene with "professionnal players" playing against each others and diffusing their strategies through streams and videos. So it has to do with the medium through which strategies are diffused in the gaming scene and not with how the game is designed. It has come to a point where some people are banned because they don't play what "the meta" teach them to play : in lol, you have to pick a AP mid, a support and adc bot, a jungler and a top. Try picking a hero that is labelled as "support" to go top, and you will suffer the wrath of your team.

It's true that imbalanced games are interesting in the beginning because you have to find the most efficient way to play and everything change at a rapid pace. But after a while it all rigidify itself around a specific number of optimal way to play.


On the other side, I don't think anyone actually think "perfect balance" means that there is no differences at all (or no imbalances), but that the game is designed so that everything is made viable. If you build W40k in a way that every units are viable, then it all comes down to how you play, considering that every units can't be played the same way against every type of army : you can't play a (balanced) tyranid army the same way against a balanced necron army and a balanced ork army, even if you have the possibility, because it is balanced, not to play two tervigon with termagaunts - because yeah that's what is good. The game would be about picking the army you want and learning how to play it in different situations, and not picking the army you need to win.

I'm somewhat old now (in comparaison with other League or SC players), but I used to play a lot. This post sounds so geek I'm ashamed of myself.

I dont think that TOO balanced really exists! Maybe if they got rid of armies other than vanilla sm? lol I like the idea of every codex having multiple VIABLE options. I want to be able to build an all comers list and stand a reasonable chance agains ALL opponents. I dont want to have to hope that my broken unit is better than your broken units...

Though i wont lie. Im kinda wishlisting while i await the new Tau codex

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The problem with what you describe is that you then end up with the good players taking the good lists and you go straight back to being 'perfectly balanced' against each other because there's no way to police why people are taking any given unit... and you end up in the situation of "paying for advantage", where the rich prosper and the less rich languish (because lets face it, the only poor 40k player is one who used to be rich).

Hasn't 40k always been "Paying for advantage?" I can't imagine most players being able to shill out the $1200 it would take to make a maxed out IG Vendetta list...

The "Pay for advantage" argument doesn't work with 40k. Its already an expensive hobby that can easily run you a $1000ish to get a complete army.

the $ price of a model rarely correlates with its table top effectivness.


Compare all the different Flyers.

Dark Talon/Nephilim: $75

Helldrake: $74

Stormraven: $82.50

Stormtalon: $45.50

Valkyrie: $66

Vendetta: $66+a few bits(you don't have to buy the $24 Forge World kit)

Razorwing Jetfighter: $45.50



The Vendetta is unquestionably the best Flyer in the game. But its not the most expensive. its not even the second most expensive. Its cheaper moneywise than 4 of the other flyers.

The most expensive Flyer, the Stormraven, is good, but its not brokenly so. Its expensive point cost in game means you rarely see more than one at a time.

The Stormtalon is better than the Dark Talon and Nephilim, but its cheaper.

The Razorwing is a pretty good flyer, but its pretty cheap.


So no, you really don't pay for effectiveness.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The "Pay for advantage" argument doesn't work with 40k. Its already an expensive hobby that can easily run you a $1000ish to get a complete army.

the $ price of a model rarely correlates with its table top effectivness.


Compare all the different Flyers.

Dark Talon/Nephilim: $75

Helldrake: $74

Stormraven: $82.50

Stormtalon: $45.50

Valkyrie: $66

Vendetta: $66+a few bits(you don't have to buy the $24 Forge World kit)

Razorwing Jetfighter: $45.50



The Vendetta is unquestionably the best Flyer in the game. But its not the most expensive. its not even the second most expensive. Its cheaper moneywise than 4 of the other flyers.

The most expensive Flyer, the Stormraven, is good, but its not brokenly so. Its expensive point cost in game means you rarely see more than one at a time.

The Stormtalon is better than the Dark Talon and Nephilim, but its cheaper.

The Razorwing is a pretty good flyer, but its pretty cheap.


So no, you really don't pay for effectiveness.

Dude, your argument is heavily flawed based on the simply fact that you can only take 3 Stormravens/Talons/Razorwings per primary detachment, one per FA/HS slot but you can take up to three vendettas in the same slots, for a total of NINE. maybe even more if you go double FoC. Paying for nine vendettas will be at least $600, possibly as much as $900. Just for Vendettas, no other part of the army. But nine Vendattas will utterly destroy any other flyers your opponent brings, even if he maxes out his FA/HS slot and brings 3 of them. So please tell me, how is someone who buys 9 Vendettas not paying for advantage?

Thats just one reason why the Vendetta is one of the best flyers in the game.

And no, that doesn't invalidate my argument at all.

9 Vendettas is almost 1200 points. With the rest of the army you probably looking at a 2k game, which means double FoC.


And you don't need flyers to counter flyers. That 9 vendetta list will lose hard to a high body count army. Just kill the very few points of fragile IG on the table and The vendettas will be reduced to shooting lascannons at grunts.

Play for the scenerio. Thats the weakness of Flyer spam lists. Which itself makes flyer spam ineffective all things considered.


What gives flyer lists an advantage is the opponent panicking and flapping around a fish out of water. If he calmly keeps playing the game he still has a good chance of winning as all those flyers can't hold objectives.

WhiteDog wrote:


On the other side, I don't think anyone actually think "perfect balance" means that there is no differences at all (or no imbalances),

Wait... what?



I would think that "perfect balance" is kinda the definition of "no imbalances". Am I missing something?

WhiteDog wrote:

but that the game is designed so that everything is made viable.

Exactly. And everything is only equally viable, if all imaginable armies picked by random number generators just picking units, characters and equipment nilly-willy would all have (in the long run) a perfect 50% chance of winning any game against any other possible combination..

If the above is not true. you will always have the problem that combination X is more powerful than combination Y in any given codex.

In short, if the above is not true, you have by definition "imbalance" at least within each Codex, and thus the potential for "mis-matched" games in mirror-matches of the same Codex (i.e. a better list vs. a not-so-good-list).

Once you accept imbalanced within a single Codex, you can approach the "external balance" in largely two ways.

1. You make sure that the most powerful list in every Codex is perfectly balanced against all other "most-powerful lists" from all other Codexes out there. It would fix the "maximum" so to say. Game Designers would start from the most powerful list they want and make sure all other options are equal or inferior. The problem is, that it would make the work of "figuring a codex out" a very quick affair, especially in this day and age of the internet. A new Codex is released, everyone would be looking for that one (or perhaps two or three) lists that are "balanced" against older "most-powerful lists". It probably wouldn't take long.

2. You don't set a top limit, but rather allow power-levels of different Codexes to fluctuate a bit, working rather from something like a balance of a "median-army" or "typical army", acknowledging that extreme builds might of course create extreme results that are "imbalanced" in a fair few ways. It has the advantage that no Codex is quickly "figured out", perhaps not even by the Game Designers who write them. It has the downside that there are always stronger and weaker Codexes (which, as pointed out, isn't a bad thing actually for a collectible hobby-game):

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:


Dude, your argument is heavily flawed based on the simply fact that you can only take 3 Stormravens/Talons/Razorwings per primary detachment, one per FA/HS slot but you can take up to three vendettas in the same slots, for a total of NINE. maybe even more if you go double FoC. Paying for nine vendettas will be at least $600, possibly as much as $900. Just for Vendettas, no other part of the army. But nine Vendattas will utterly destroy any other flyers your opponent brings, even if he maxes out his FA/HS slot and brings 3 of them. So please tell me, how is someone who buys 9 Vendettas not paying for advantage?

I can safely say that, in the 5 years I've played this game, I've never seen a situation where, post game, I've thought to myself as a guard player, "Man, I totally wish I had 1170 worth of Vendettas on the table. I would have won that game for sure."

In regards to the 6th edition codecies, I'm beginning to see a running theme.

These armies seem pretty balanced against eachother, and for the most part you can just pick a theme, run it, and stand a pretty good chance of winning. This seems to be a good way to bring balance to the force... *ahem* game.

They also seem to each have a random element. These are the game-changers and unbalancers that force players to reassess their tactical situation.
In a way,this makes the game even more balanced. Random chance can screw you over, or give you and advantage. The first, you must compensate for, the second you must sieze. Failure to do those will make the game harder to win.

I don't see these codecies as being "too balanced", because they so far all have different strengths and weaknesses. They have a way of dealing with each kind of unit, to varying extents. And randomness affects them all.

So far, they seem "balanced enough" to me.

All I want is that all army units in a book are able to be chosen as balanced. I want perfect balance within the book at the very least.

Mutiliators? Oh they are pretty good, just priced well, though they aren't good against certain things

Possessed? Interesting choice, but can do very well.

Rather then them being total crap that's pretty much a newb-trap.

 daedalus wrote:
Lots of armies have a slot where there is only one good choice. It's usually the FA slot. You can't have 12 distinct armies with multiple choices per slot and have them all be unique and equally useful.

Also, free anecdote:
I had a game the other day with my Adepticon teammates. We wanted to run two of our lists against a hypothetical flyer spam list. The opponents came up with a helldrake and two vendettas.

Of the anti-air we had, we had 1 stormraven, a psyfledread, a las/plas razorback, and a handful of psycannons.

We managed to knock the helldrake and a vendetta out of the sky. Probably not incredibly likely, but the point of my anecdote is that those types of lists aren't immediate auto-win lists. Luck (and a little skill, but mostly luck) is still the greatest modifier to the game, no matter how much we want to pat ourselves on the backs for those "clever" wins.

It's not an auto-win, not even close. What drives me bananas is that every tourney CSM list is pretty much identical, because the book has such godawful internal balance. Compare to Necrons with a handful of bad units (Flayed Ones, C'tan, Praetorians), GK (some assassins, Land Raiders, Bro Caps) and so on.

I'm not even asking that every unit be useful. I'd just like to see more than one good CSM list in a tournament.

Selym wrote:
So far, they seem "balanced enough" to me.

This about sums it up. GW games will never be balanced, not the way people want. But they seem to be going for 'balanced enough' with 6th edition 40k and 8th edition Fantasy. They're not designing the games for a tournament setting though, just so, when you're sitting with a bunch of friends with a few drinks, someone bringing their Tau won't be taking more shots of bourbon than the Space Marine player.

 Zweischneid wrote:
Perfect balance makes the hobby aspect of the game, i.e. what army you pick, etc.. meaningless. If I can just throw darts at the army list on the wall and whatever I hit is equally valid, the entire point of "building" your army becomes moot.

I think there is a definition problem here of 'balanced'. You are implying that every unit should be balanced to the other units. Other people think that 'balanced' is each codex to the other. You can still pour over a codex to find the "best" combination -- just don't be surprised if the "best" combination is not any better than the previous codex.

Even if the codex's are ever "balanced" games will not be 100% equal. This is because there is some intentional rock/paper/scissors/lizard/spock put into the game.

 Zweischneid wrote:
(nearly) balanced games - such as chess - are stagnant. They don't evolve. They don't move. They relegate "top-level-play" to a few highly talented, full-time pros.

If you attend national events, you will see that there are a few highly talented players who are constantly winning tourneys. If 40k were big enough to have a pro circuit, these guys would be professionals. Just because the game is not perfectly 'balanced' does not mean that skilled players always rise to the top.

 Zweischneid wrote:
I also enjoyed 5th Edition books that "changed things up", such as Grey Knights or Necrons, a lot more than the 3 stale 6th Edition books. The latter didn't really add anything new to the game (except Heldrakes perhaps) that made you re-think your game, tinker on your list and try to adapt.

I think we might have some definition problems. GK did not 'change things up'. Instead it made the game 'play GK or your likely to lose'.

I think your selling the new books short man. There are some good builds out of them. It takes months for people to start exploiting all of the builds out of books. Were only starting to see some of the nasty DA builds come out. We have not even scratched the surface of what the CD codex can bring.

Wait until you run across your first "Crusader - Bolter banner" army. That will make you rethink your plan of infantry based-armies! What about the CD player who brings 7 FMCs at 1850? I think as time passes we will see even more combos arise.

 Chumbalaya wrote:

It's not an auto-win, not even close. What drives me bananas is that every tourney CSM list is pretty much identical, because the book has such godawful internal balance. Compare to Necrons with a handful of bad units (Flayed Ones, C'tan, Praetorians), GK (some assassins, Land Raiders, Bro Caps) and so on.

I'm not even asking that every unit be useful. I'd just like to see more than one good CSM list in a tournament.

I find that GK LRCs are actually really awesome in 6th edition. They get cheap psybolt ammo, and it seems few armies are actually built to deal with AV14 anymore. It's a pretty slick suckerpunch.

I can appreciate that you feel like CSM only has one obviously solid tournament list. I think they're a bit better than that, but the only time I've seen them in a tournament setting with the new codex with allied with old codex Daemon cheese.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
All I want is that all army units in a book are able to be chosen as balanced. I want perfect balance within the book at the very least.

Mutiliators? Oh they are pretty good, just priced well, though they aren't good against certain things

Possessed? Interesting choice, but can do very well.

Rather then them being total crap that's pretty much a newb-trap.

Have you ever tried putting invisibility on a unit of three nurgle mutilators? I took on two hive tyrants with that one unit in the same game, although I did get lucky enough to ground both of them.

On topic, I am with the crowd who has high hopes for 6th, and not just because of the high prices ;-) it seems to me that a delightful level of balance is now being fed into the game that provides a level playing field for both tourney and casual play. It truly is exciting to see from my perspective

 l0k1 wrote:
After looking over the CSM, DA, and Daemon books I can't help but notice a distinct change in power level that was so very clear in the 5th edition rulebooks. Don't get me wrong they're playable but they don't have the firepower of GK, SW, Necrons or IG. I also noticed the 6th books seems so....meh. Just uninspiring. Not one grabbed me and says this is a cool idea.Anyone else get this feeling?

I haven't seen the daemons book yet, since all my time is spent on Warmachine lately, but the Dark Angels codex was far more interesting than Chaos (which is a colossal failure IMO, and the main reason why I'm not playing 40K at the moment. Anyone saying it is well-balanced internally is a fool.). I think it stands up well enough to those four, or is maybe half a tier below.

Still, if you are concerned about the power of the other books you've mentioned, at the rate GW is going, they will be updated soon enough. IG have already popped up on the list of books that are being worked on, along with Eldar, Orks and Black Templar (Tau being the next book).

 Omegus wrote:

I haven't seen the daemons book yet, since all my time is spent on Warmachine lately, but the Dark Angels codex was far more interesting than Chaos (which is a colossal failure IMO, and the main reason why I'm not playing 40K at the moment. Anyone saying it is well-balanced internally is a fool.). I think it stands up well enough to those four, or is maybe half a tier below.

Define interesting?

The Dark Angel book is one of the most boring books ever.

New DA flyers? Pointless.
DA Relics? Pointless.
Fluff? As dry as it gets.
Spelling? One of the poorest showings yet (rapis fire.. ? seriously?)
Characters? Ezekiel is now a close-combat-dude (while sucking at it?)

It's "interesting", alright, but not in a good way.





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 labmouse42 wrote:
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 Zweischneid wrote:
(nearly) balanced games - such as chess - are stagnant. They don't evolve. They don't move. They relegate "top-level-play" to a few highly talented, full-time pros.

If you attend national events, you will see that there are a few highly talented players who are constantly winning tourneys. If 40k were big enough to have a pro circuit, these guys would be professionals. Just because the game is not perfectly 'balanced' does not mean that skilled players always rise to the top.

Name a single person who won two tournaments with at least 50 people attending back-to-back.

It doesn't exist.

Go to Rankings HQ and you'll find all kind of oddities. The guy who won Adepticon places only 50 or so in a much smaller tourney a few weeks later, etc..

The only reason the same names keep cropping up is because the tourney-scene is so small. There is no "skill advantage" as you would see with people like Tiger Woods or Roger Federer (against a far, far larger pool of "pros")

40K doesn't do that precisely because "skill" doesn't matter (enough) in determining the outcome of games, precisely because it has an evolving meta that constantly "invalidates" acquired skills and knowledge.

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Omegus wrote:

I haven't seen the daemons book yet, since all my time is spent on Warmachine lately, but the Dark Angels codex was far more interesting than Chaos (which is a colossal failure IMO, and the main reason why I'm not playing 40K at the moment. Anyone saying it is well-balanced internally is a fool.). I think it stands up well enough to those four, or is maybe half a tier below.

Define interesting?

The Dark Angel book is one of the most boring books ever.

New DA flyers? Pointless.
DA Relics? Pointless.
Fluff? As dry as it gets.
Spelling? One of the poorest showings yet (rapis fire.. ? seriously?)
Characters? Ezekiel is now a close-combat-dude (while sucking at it?)

It's "interesting", alright, but not in a good way.

I don't particularly disagree, but that just speaks to the bland turd that is the Chaos codex.