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yeah the Khorne Lord of Skulls shows clearly that points are not really used with forethought, as its cost is clearly fluffy. Also simply put Pyrovores and Mandrakes both got new models at one point and terrible rules, or Helbrutes etc.

Beyond that Perfect balance is borderline impossible. Better balance is easily doable, especially with GWs new digital releases. Simply release free beta test rules to the public and process the feedback about unit performance.

Oh I agree with you Blacksails- all evidence points to GW playing darts with the rules, or at least making decisions solely off what the staff think is important. It explains all the inconsistencies, and why GW can't seem to hit projects that people have been clamoring for over many years (i.e. Adeptus Mechanicus [now getting attention from Forgeworld], Genestealer cults, etc.)

As far as the End Times stuff goes, I can't say. Given last year was a noticeable drop even with all of the biggest-and-best being deployed, I feel like even an improved project (in terms of the Ends Times) isn't enough to pull enough people back in. The costs are just too high, starting up WHFB comes with a huge risk if you're not able to find players. 40k at least has the popularity going for it, but I feel like GW has put significant dents in that, as the negative attitudes towards the game seem to be everywhere I go (that and significantly decreased sales/floor space/focus/etc.).

Mhmm.

Its unfortunate really, because a lot of the fixes are fairly simple. No one is going to agree 100% on everything, but you can get a whole lot closer balance wise, and still achieve even fluffier crunch through better rules. There's no reason why Unbound should be a thing if GW even thinks their game is remotely along the line of being narrative oriented. Then again, Unbound is pretty universally awful for just about anything.

I dunno. Its hard to take them seriously when you read the fluff about say, Space Marine elite choices. Your termies, Sternguard and Vanguard are all described as being totally awesome and badass, and how they're dropped behind enemy lines or in the thickest fighting to secure an important objective.

Yet they don't score/have objective secured. But your scouts do.

As far as I'm concerned, that's a pretty big disconnect between fluff and crunch.

The more I think about 40k, the more I find problems with it. Between the balance, the sloppy writing, and the weird crunch meets fluff awkwardness, it just gets you down a little. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy rolling dice with friends, but nothing about the game itself really strikes me as particularly enjoyable.

One thing I'm sure of though, is that it has nothing to do with the players and everything to do with the creators.

I look back at 40k like this:

Rogue Trader - Fascinating, but unplayable. Material spread out all over the place.

2nd Edition - Finally a comprehensive set easy for everyone to start. Colorful. Spent a lot of time playing this game WITH FRIENDS. Usually playing with friends is a lot more fun than playing with strangers.

3rd Edition - Was like, WTF for years. But looking back, understood that it needed to happen, but maybe it swung too far from 2nd. BUT, it had the greatest number of years of support, and the most expansion of new armies of any other edition, while the latest versions don't really survive long enough to re-do all of the codexes for that edition. That says something. I think 40k blew up in popularity during this time. And it went totally dark too, and hasn't gone back.

4th Edition - I don't really know. Started losing interest.

5th Edition - I dropped out entirely.

6th Edition - Got me interested because of the DV set. Still think its great. But I look at how ambitious GW is with all of the models they are producing and the rules are buckling from trying to stuff them all in there.

7th Edition - Even more of the same above.

I think part of the issue is that everyone has different play styles, what they deem logical for models to do and how they would act, and the rules themselves. If you flip back through 2nd Edition or 3rd Edition rulebooks, you'll see its very light on the rules. I never had an issue working out disagreements with friends (and with 2nd Edition we had a little bible noting our final house rules). But the last two editions are pretty complicated rules for your average gamer to enjoy. Nothing is worse than doing something, then forgetting something that would have affected your decision, if you knew it at all.

GW has done some brilliant things. Sometimes that gets lost on the mess its created. But they keep trying to push the envelope on what they can do with 40k and keep players excited, but for those who enjoyed simplier times, its easy to complain.

I have no interest in buying or playng against Wraithlords, Forge World models, etc, not just do to cost, but also the scope within the game. I mean, I am pretty sure the Baneblade model is over 12 inches long, which means my model with a bolt pistol cannot shoot the length of it. I have issues with things like that, and the smaller the game, the easier it is to forget these things, but in bigger ones, the ones GW encourages, I just find myself shaking my head over.

And I look at the models GW has released since everything got upgraded in 3rd Edition and how well the Land Raider, Space Marines, etc have stood the test of time and its amazing. I see no reason to replace the Land Raider III, its brilliant as is. I think thats cool. However, the mechanics the model is played in is just silly sometimes.

I have no real answer though. With the number of models and stats back in RT-2nd Edition, a six-sided dice was probably fine. But now, I just think the system needs to move to a d10. I know many wont like that idea.



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I also want to add that, when a codex is designed during a current ruleset, the balance and costs for units is associated with what the rules are at the time. When the next edition comes out, if could have an effect on units who may now be over/under priced, which sucks.

So imagine a ruleset that favors CC. A CC model is worth 10 points. Its a great CC unit. Now you move to a new ruleset where CC is harder to get into and maybe even win, and shooting has the advantage, but you are still paying 10 points for the model which is now less effective, when it prob should get knocked down a couple of points. This is what I think bothers me the most with GW pumping out new editions. Just take your time, do it right, promise you'll update the armies, and keep it alive for awhile.

I have no interest in buying 7th. I have no faith this edition will survive any longer than 6th, and when it doesn't, and I see all the newer 8th Edition limited edition rulesets go up, I'll wonder how the guys who bought the previous versions feel.

insaniak wrote:

Speaking of things that were said in old White Dwarf articles... When Epic 40K was released, the studio guys explained the new 'firefight' mechanic as being repesentative of what was essentially a 40K battle happening in the middle of the overall conflict. The idea was that your games of 40K aren't intended to necessarily reflect the whole engagement. They're just a snapshot of a small part of it. The Epic battle was the full shebang.

Within that context, it's perfectly reasonable for a 1500 point army to include nothing but Wraithknights. They're not the only units in the whole battle... just the only units currently taking part in the part of the battle being represented by your current game of 40K.

I suppose, technically, that makes sense...

WayneTheGame wrote:

40k doesn't have that. Most superheavies require you to actually build an army to deal with them, or they will walk all over you because, to quote a popular video game meme, you are not prepared.

The blame for that lies 100% on GW for not balancing them correctly because they have this cool idea that a superheavy should demolish anything it's set against, and make it like that.

Very doubtful. The Baneblade was, reportedly, a liability until a big points reduction, and a joke about it still is the page image for TVTropes' "awesome but impractical" article.

Also, the Space Marine scale (as in the game Space Marine, because the internet ruined the word "epic" permamently) was/is three infantry platoons = about 10 battle tanks = three superheavies = one titan. Armies can easily field three battle tanks, so superheavies are technically perfectly to scale. (Titans aren't though) .

AnomanderRake wrote:The thing I miss most about earlier editions is the internal balance within Codexes, really. In 3e and 4e (I didn't play 2e, can't remark there) your basic Troops units were reasonably efficient (if not the most efficient) ways to accomplish certain goals, with a lot of the new kits that showed up in 5e/6e it feels like somewhere along the line taking two minimum Troops units so you can take more Monstrous Creatures/Flyers stopped being the WAAC/munchkin thing to do and started being an accepted normal way to play the game.

Very true. I suspect the basics began to slip; until 5th, twin-linked BS4 was quite rare outside Lascannons (which gained roughly one extra hit over six turns) and Heavy Bolters (minimal impact), whereas the BS2 Orks had everything twin-linked because sticking another gun to their gun is an Ork's idea of improving their aiming skills. Now twin-linked BS4 is so common it's questionable how useful "to hit" rolls actually are. Armour saves have a similar problem.

Talys wrote:
Because it's really hard to have that in a very complex game that caters to the veterans, who are more likely to have with vast (unit) resources.

'It's really hard' is not an excuse for supposedly professional games designers to do a half-assed job.

Seriously, if you buy something other than a wargame and discover that it doesn't word properly, would you dismiss the problem on the basis that making that thing is hard?

Why should we accept it for 40K when we wouldn't accept it for anything else?

You can't have a game with THOUSANDS of possible playing pieces ranging in size from Gretchin to Imperial Knights, from powerful Psykers to lumbering units with the intelligence of "Hulk, Smash" and perfectly balance them in every scenario.

Then the answer is to either hire new writers who can do that, or narrow the focus of the game to something that the existing writers are capable of doing properly.

Again, excusing shoddy product on the basis that it's hard to do it properly is not the answer. Particularly not for the company that claims to be the best at what it does.

We don't even need perfect balance in every scenario, some things can be excused or overlooked, no wargame is perfect. But there are just so many issues that are either huge or longstanding, or both, with numerous easy solutions, that have largely been ignored, all the while GW keeps finding new things by constantly expanding the scope and scale of the game.

That's the problem, there's no good attempt to fix many issues (and lots of others that never should have made it in that are plainly obvious to most players at a quick two second glance), while they constantly add new issues.

This is to say nothing of GW's lame FAQ/Errata, where they give the appearance of actually going out of their way to put out junk.

It's hard is not a excuse, if it was no one would complete a project ever.


If a computer programmer can create Dawn of War and through time fix it so that it works well.

Then there is no reason that the Developement team cannot balance their own game.

 Blacksails wrote:
I would buy the theory about them changing rules to promote sales if they were consistent about it. With things like the Heldrake and Maulerfiend both being new kits, but one being dramatically better on the table shows that GW really just plays darts with rules and points cost.

I could believe (not saying it's true, just I could believe it) that the rules writing is a lazy well to sell more models.

Yes, new things often have poor rules, however one thing about GW models is they don't go down in price, so as long as a new codex prompts people to buy something it doesn't massively matter to them.

Things like video games and movies there's great motivation to sell them quickly on release, because that's when the price is the highest. Most things you want to sell out within a certain time so it's not taking up floor space in stores, that's not really true of 40k where (these days at least) models can go 10+ years without an update.

So when a new release drops, the consumers who see something new and shiny and must have it will buy the new models early on without even thinking how it'll perform on the table, the people who want to stay on the cutting edge of the competition will buy whatever models (new or old) will let them do that. Of course, as I mentioned, it's lazy because I doubt they actually put any effort in to strategically shuffling the balance, but it wouldn't surprise me if they understand that shuffling the balance can make them more money.

Not saying that's definitely what's happening, just saying it's easy enough to assign malicious intent if you want to do so and it wouldn't surprise me if GW know they can make money off shuffling rules instead of improving rules.


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 insaniak wrote:

Talys wrote:
You can't have a game with THOUSANDS of possible playing pieces ranging in size from Gretchin to Imperial Knights, from powerful Psykers to lumbering units with the intelligence of "Hulk, Smash" and perfectly balance them in every scenario.

Then the answer is to either hire new writers who can do that, or narrow the focus of the game to something that the existing writers are capable of doing properly.

Again, excusing shoddy product on the basis that it's hard to do it properly is not the answer. Particularly not for the company that claims to be the best at what it does.

A large point of an abstract rules system is to allow you to balance the range of scales you can have within a game.

Even something like gretchin and imperial knights COULD be balanced against each other. They can't in the current rules because the IK can't be hurt by gretchin. But if you changed the rules so that gretchin could hurt the IK, but the IK just had a bucket load of wounds then you could balance them against each other. That's actually somewhat how Epic 40k balanced hordes vs super heavies.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Even something like gretchin and imperial knights COULD be balanced against each other. They can't in the current rules because the IK can't be hurt by gretchin. But if you changed the rules so that gretchin could hurt the IK, but the IK just had a bucket load of wounds then you could balance them against each other. That's actually somewhat how Epic 40k balanced hordes vs super heavies.

Why should they be?

Why should an army of farmers with pitchforks be able to defeat a military unit whose armor can't be damaged by pitchforks? Why should a ground infantryman with a pistol have even a fractional chance against a gunship beyond the pistol's range?

Why must a game system force balance, and take away the possibility of asymmetric warfare, when that adds rich complexity? Maybe the farmers need to distract the tank platoon, and win if they a unit is able to destroy a fuel depot. Maybe the infantry need to reach and hold a fortification until reinforcements arrive.

All I'm saying is, just because model A is 10 points, and model B is 500 points doesn't mean that in every case, 50 of A can defeat 1 of B. Case in point: how many infantry does it take to sink a submerged nuclear sub?


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 insaniak wrote:

Talys wrote:
Because it's really hard to have that in a very complex game that caters to the veterans, who are more likely to have with vast (unit) resources.

'It's really hard' is not an excuse for supposedly professional games designers to do a half-assed job.

Seriously, if you buy something other than a wargame and discover that it doesn't word properly, would you dismiss the problem on the basis that making that thing is hard?

Why should we accept it for 40K when we wouldn't accept it for anything else?

You can't have a game with THOUSANDS of possible playing pieces ranging in size from Gretchin to Imperial Knights, from powerful Psykers to lumbering units with the intelligence of "Hulk, Smash" and perfectly balance them in every scenario.

Then the answer is to either hire new writers who can do that, or narrow the focus of the game to something that the existing writers are capable of doing properly.

Again, excusing shoddy product on the basis that it's hard to do it properly is not the answer. Particularly not for the company that claims to be the best at what it does.

As a system tries to allow for more freedom, more possibilities of imbalance occur. I will take the freedom, in exchange for playing with adults that responsibly use this to create interesting battles rather than jerks that just want to say, "haha you suck".

I accept imperfection in practically all video games now. Can we say Diablo 3 and Battlefield 4? There was never a s buggy a game than BF4.... I accept imperfection in government, in bad movies and in takeout food. I accept imperfect relationships, family, and business dealings. Actually... life is pretty much just a tradeoff of pros and cons, and I just happen to think that the 40k world and crappy GW policies, happen to have enough marks on the plus side for me to enjoy their product and keep throwing them money. As I said... this is the case with so many video games I love now that it isn't even funny.

Talys wrote:
Why should they be?

Because it's a game and games should be balanced. There's no point to a game where you show up and have zero chance of competing. Also I'm not saying gretchin should be the perfect balance of imperial knights in a brawl, just that I think gretchin should be able to hurt an IK.

Why should an army of farmers with pitchforks be able to defeat a military unit whose armor can't be damaged by pitchforks? Why should a ground infantryman with a pistol have even a fractional chance against a gunship beyond the pistol's range?

Lets keep things in context here. There's no farmers with pitchforks. Even gretchin have guns, some are probably wandering around with blow torches. Even the lowliest models in 40k are well above "farmers with pitchforks". And we also aren't talking about gunships, I'm talking about Imperial Knights. A gunship that is beyond the pistol's range should not (and does not) take part in the scale of battle that 40k occurs at.

No, a gretchin should not be able to hurt an emporer class battle ship... but then in the context of a 40k game a gretchin will not be shooting at an emporer class battleship so the comparison is not necessary.

I've always found it odd that something like an Imperial Knight could walk in to a swarm of 100 hormagaunts and emerge unscathed. Surely the hormagaunts would start climbing up the Knight and start clawing at the exposed cables and hoses, they'd start scratching at the panel seams to try and get in and kill the pilot.

There's a whole heap of practical and realistic reasons why small things should be able to hurt big things. It's just 40k has chosen the system where an IK has 6 "wounds" but can only be wounded by heavy weapons. You could just as easily make an argument for an IK having 60 wounds but can be hurt by anything (except heavy weapons do more wounds per hit).

You need to think outside the box 40k has created and realise the way 40k does things is not the only way to achieve giant robots fighting against a horde of infantry.

Why must a game system force balance, and take away the possibility of asymmetric warfare, when that adds rich complexity?

One, I never said to force symmetric balance. Two, I don't think the extreme unbalanced rock-paper-scissors of 40k actually adds "rich complexity".

Maybe the farmers need to distract the tank platoon, and win if they a unit is able to destroy a fuel depot. Maybe the infantry need to reach and hold a fortification until reinforcements arrive.

I didn't mean to imply "balance" had to mean "equal chance of killing each other". Of course, infantry should be better at holding ground, heavy armour should be like mobile bunkers. I simply offer the suggestion that moving to a system where little things can, to some extent, hurt big things, would improve the overall balance of the game. So if someone showed up with a spammy armour army and someone else showed up with a spammy horde army you actually have an interesting game. Especially since the way 40k rules are going is to encourage spammy lists.

Case in point: how many infantry does it take to sink a submerged nuclear sub?

Your case in point is not representative of a game of 40k. The submerged sub is like a battleship in orbit... they do not interact directly with infantry on the ground so your case in point is irrelevant.


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Talys wrote:
As a system tries to allow for more freedom, more possibilities of imbalance occur.

Only if the designers let it.

Talys wrote:
I accept imperfection in practically all video games now. Can we say Diablo 3 and Battlefield 4? There was never a s buggy a game than BF4.... I accept imperfection in government, in bad movies and in takeout food. I accept imperfect relationships, family, and business dealings. Actually... life is pretty much just a tradeoff of pros and cons, and I just happen to think that the 40k world and crappy GW policies, happen to have enough marks on the plus side for me to enjoy their product and keep throwing them money. As I said... this is the case with so many video games I love now that it isn't even funny.

Nobody is asking for perfection. What they're asking for is some sign that GW are making some sort of effort.

After 20+ years and 6 revisions (6 and a half, if you count the Trial Assault and Vehicle rules from 3rd ed), it's not unreasonable for players to expect that by now the majority of the kinks should have been worked out of the system.

Instead, 7th edition happened.

 insaniak wrote:

Talys wrote:
I accept imperfection in practically all video games now. Can we say Diablo 3 and Battlefield 4? There was never a s buggy a game than BF4.... I accept imperfection in government, in bad movies and in takeout food. I accept imperfect relationships, family, and business dealings. Actually... life is pretty much just a tradeoff of pros and cons, and I just happen to think that the 40k world and crappy GW policies, happen to have enough marks on the plus side for me to enjoy their product and keep throwing them money. As I said... this is the case with so many video games I love now that it isn't even funny.

Nobody is asking for perfection. What they're asking for is some sign that GW are making some sort of effort.

After 20+ years and 6 revisions (6 and a half, if you count the Trial Assault and Vehicle rules from 3rd ed), it's not unreasonable for players to expect that by now the majority of the kinks should have been worked out of the system.

Instead, 7th edition happened.

We have several examples of games on the market now with rulesets that are in their 2nd edition and have been for a long time because there is no need to change anything, or who are moving into their 3rd editions and are making tweaks to the game which they are talking openly to fans about and they are getting only positive responses from because they are simply identifying the problems and fixing them rather than GW's method of shift a bunch of stuff sideways.

Now these game still do have minor problems but they are just that, minor. The argument that nothing will ever be perfect only holds up if you're seeing the majority of your customers and potential customers completely satisfied.