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I'm enjoying this discussion as well, so I'll throw in my 2 cents.

I think a truly balanced game should be, as said before, about 20% list building, 70% gameplay/tactics, and 10% dice.

Warmachine/Hordes does a pretty good job of this. My evidence would be to point to all the prime version of warlocks and warcasters that came out over a decade ago and are still used and relevant in the game.

On the flip side, there are horribly unbalanced models and rules. Easy example, there is a 2 point solo who can completely incapacitate just about anything it gets in range of up to and including 19 or 20 point models (Gorman vs. a colossal). But that actually does stay balanced in the game, as they provide counters against those 19 or 20 point models for armies or lists that might not be available otherwise. This is also because things like that (that are individually unbalanced) are not spammable and with just a bit of tactics, any TAC list can counter.

The other reason I think Warmachine is really balanced is because of the way they set up their tournaments. All tournament games can be won by scenario or assassination. You're encouraged (or required) to take 2 or 3 different lists, allowing you to counter or cover different skews and situations. I say this balances the game more because you can have an all melee army vs. an all ranged army and force players to move around and fight where it might not be to the strength of their army.

I also think the lack of deathstars shows balance. There are units and combos that synergies amazingly well, but everything is counterable. And the counter isn't just "force saves". You can even build a list that is fluffy and be rewarded, via theme lists, where you get bonuses for only taking or using certain units.

On the other end, with Malifaux, as mentioned you pick the schemes you want to play and then build your list. Some games having fast units or ones that can trip up the enemy do way more for you then an army of beat sticks.

One thing both systems have in common is allowing you to have a pretty good idea of the chances of success, and to modify them in some way. Whether it's putting fixed buffs on, adding a die to a roll, or generally increasing or decreasing the potential result, you give players a chance to plan an action, while still retaining a chance for a longshot success or crazy stupid miss.

40k's answer for balance is to add more randomness that the player can't control (charge distance, powers, warlord traits) and to mix and match armies (allies and unbound) to fill in the holes that they're unwilling or unable to fix in a codex. I really feel like every codex should be able to stand on its own merits and not require or be broken by adding stuff from other codexes.

 Ailaros wrote:
If you don't have weaker units you necessarily don't have stronger units, and if all units are roughly equal in power, then you've taken all skill and meaningfulness out of the decisions you make when you choose what to bring to the table. There's no real strategy to it anymore if everything is functionally the same with regards to the outcome of the game.

Oh FFS, how many times do people need to tell you that this is wrong? Making all units equal in power doesn't remove the importance of list-building decisions because units can vary in power in different situations. Unit A is better in dense terrain, unit B is better when you're also using unit C, etc. Even if A and B are both equally powerful on some abstract power scale you still have to make intelligent choices about which one of them will be more effective in your strategy.

And the other half of this is that 40k-style imbalance where unit A is just plain better than unit B doesn't produce meaningful choices, it removes choices. A game where unit A is simply better than unit B is really a game in which unit A is the only option and unit B doesn't exist. Your version of 40k is still a game in which everything is equal in power, it just has a lot fewer choices available.

The strongest guard list, for example, isn't THAT much stronger or weaker than any other army list, for example.

And that completely ignores the importance of internal balance. The strongest IG list might be competitive with all the other best lists, but the strongest IG list is going to absolutely dominate a lot of other IG lists, and not just ones that are deliberately badly designed. Half (or more!) of the options in each codex might as well not exist because they're so terrible, and that's incredibly bad game design.

I think it's easy to look at the extremely vocal minority who decry bad game balance and then completely fail comprehensively to come up with balance. Put a tau player and someone who's lost a game against tau once in a room and have them decide what true, objective balance should look like and the two would likely starve to death before coming up with an agreement.

You're right, balance is hard, and it's not really surprising that random players don't do a very good job of it. But random players aren't getting paid to design games. We have every right to expect better from so-called professional game designers, and GW doesn't even come close to meeting those expectations.

So long as you're not a powergamer who must play with the absolute strongest possible list at any given moment, there's no real problem here.

Yeah, no problem at all if the units and strategies you want to use have no hope of winning unless your opponent generously weakens their own army to play at your level...

One of the things I always find interesting about discussion of balance as well is that 40k can be 100% perfectly balanced with no changes whatsoever in the rules. Just show up to the game with the exact same list as your opponent, and voila, instant balance. Just like chess.

...

Seriously? We don't want to arrange symmetrical games in advance because we want to be able to build our own armies. We want to be able to use a model that we like, or a unit that we think might be an interesting addition to our strategies and not have to make sure that our opponent also brings the same unit, or have to feel like we're hurting our chances of winning by taking something other than the clear best list. Balance is about increasing the number of options in list building, not removing them!

But nobody seems to do this. Most people would rather the game be imbalanced so that they could think about things and take different units to be able to have an edge on their opponents. Plenty of people also decry balance openly - you don't need to go any further than "at that tournament, it was just everybody playing X" to see how much people don't really want balance, but would rather have meaningful imbalance in the game.

Holy you have no idea what you're talking about. "Everyone is playing X" isn't balance, it's the result of a completely unbalanced game where X is the obvious dominant option and if you don't play X you have very little chance of winning. A balanced game would have lots of different armies because there would be a wide range of viable options and different players would have different opinions about the best way to gain an advantage over their opponents.

If you do want balance, though, then seriously, only ever play mirror matches. All your problems are solved. It's only a matter of time before you get bored with balance and want to have meaningful decisions about what you bring to the table again. Just like everybody else.

BALANCE IS NOT SYMMETRY.

Balance is about having A, B and C be viable options, not having a game where A is the only "choice" and B and C don't exist at all.

 Peregrine wrote:
BALANCE IS NOT SYMMETRY.

Balance is about having A, B and C be viable options, not having a game where A is the only "choice" and B and C don't exist at all.

It shouldn't be that hard to understand.

Direct example from starcraft:
Each race has a "tier 1" unit. Zerg have zerglings, 25 minerals each, Terran has marines, 50 minerals each and Protoss have zealots at 100 minerals each.

4 unupgraded zerglings will trash an unupgraded zealot in the open. One zealot will hold a choke against 8 zerglings when they come at him one at a time. Marines need to be stutter stepped to make up for their squishiness but get the ability to shoot air units and in general have range which is nice. All 3 fulfill the roll of a "mineral dump" but vary in use depending on stage of the game and your build vs your opponents build. Zerglings are useless engaging headon against a protoss death ball, but their speed still lets them be used for hit and run on reinforcements or to do economic damage. Marines likewise get eaten by AoE but they're good all rounders and can be brutal with drop play. Zealots are great tanks for protoss to absorb damage but you need to be careful with them as they're relatively expensive and can be easily wasted.

3 completely different units which need to be played differently but are all worth using, more or less depending on builds and stage of the game.

The same can be said for raven/infestor/templar or marauder/stalker/roach, phoenix/viking/muta. All have different playstyles individually and overall result in different playstyles and priorities for the factions. Zerg often need to trade inefficiently repeatedly in order to keep the 'toss death ball from happening, 'toss likewise can generally get by a lot better on two bases compared to zergs 3-4 which is good because they can find extra bases harder to defend. I could go on but hopefully the idea of balance = symmetry being silly should be obvious. SC2 isn't perfectly balanced, but it's very close - so much closer than 40k it's not funny, and imo it does a better job of asymmetry too.

 novaspike wrote:
I'm enjoying this discussion as well, so I'll throw in my 2 cents.

I think a truly balanced game should be, as said before, about 20% list building, 70% gameplay/tactics, and 10% dice.

Warmachine/Hordes does a pretty good job of this. My evidence would be to point to all the prime version of warlocks and warcasters that came out over a decade ago and are still used and relevant in the game.

On the flip side, there are horribly unbalanced models and rules. Easy example, there is a 2 point solo who can completely incapacitate just about anything it gets in range of up to and including 19 or 20 point models (Gorman vs. a colossal). But that actually does stay balanced in the game, as they provide counters against those 19 or 20 point models for armies or lists that might not be available otherwise. This is also because things like that (that are individually unbalanced) are not spammable and with just a bit of tactics, any TAC list can counter.

The other reason I think Warmachine is really balanced is because of the way they set up their tournaments. All tournament games can be won by scenario or assassination. You're encouraged (or required) to take 2 or 3 different lists, allowing you to counter or cover different skews and situations. I say this balances the game more because you can have an all melee army vs. an all ranged army and force players to move around and fight where it might not be to the strength of their army.

I also think the lack of deathstars shows balance. There are units and combos that synergies amazingly well, but everything is counterable. And the counter isn't just "force saves". You can even build a list that is fluffy and be rewarded, via theme lists, where you get bonuses for only taking or using certain units.

On the other end, with Malifaux, as mentioned you pick the schemes you want to play and then build your list. Some games having fast units or ones that can trip up the enemy do way more for you then an army of beat sticks.

One thing both systems have in common is allowing you to have a pretty good idea of the chances of success, and to modify them in some way. Whether it's putting fixed buffs on, adding a die to a roll, or generally increasing or decreasing the potential result, you give players a chance to plan an action, while still retaining a chance for a longshot success or crazy stupid miss.

40k's answer for balance is to add more randomness that the player can't control (charge distance, powers, warlord traits) and to mix and match armies (allies and unbound) to fill in the holes that they're unwilling or unable to fix in a codex. I really feel like every codex should be able to stand on its own merits and not require or be broken by adding stuff from other codexes.

This, minus a few key points. I think these are all great examples of balance except the bolded part. I feel that charge distance, powers, and warlord traits allow enough randomness to account for great battles. Powers, do you roll several dominions or go with Primarus powers? Same with Warlord traits, what table do you choose? They're not meant to be game changing, but to add an edge to an army. Charge distance especially, as it is just as important as rolling to hit or to shoot.

Other than that, I absolutely agree with you that each codex should stand on its own merits, without being absolutely broken. I feel this could be accomplished by rolling several chapters into existing codices (daemons and CSM into one, I would even take BA, SW, and DA rolled into SM if it gave the overall game better balance.)

I have to disagree with you about randomness for setting up my army and base performance. While it can be exciting or interesting, I don't really want key parts of my strategy to be unknown beforehand (especially if I want to be in a competitive environment). Not knowing what powers I'm going to get, or how my warlord trait will effect my army are things you can't really count on and you havent even put models down yet.

As for random charge distances, that's somewhat of a personal disappointment since I tend to play melee heavy armies. I mean, how would you feel if every round before you shot any gun you had to make a random roll for range of the weapon?

Balance is when my army wins and my opponents army loses. If his army loses hard, we get perfect balance.

One thing I think that's missing from 40k and is very importent to a successful game balance is having evry faction(codex/ army) be designed to play the games design.

If the game wants to be shooting then all the army's need to be designed to play that sort of game, with there own differences to it thrown in.
If objectives are are being pushed then evry army has to be able to play that efetcively.
A fluffy army should always be taking what that army would take into that situation.

If the design is good you should be able to change up your army quick to suit a mission with a bit of gear change and maybe a few units changed.

Another thing that this should be used is that an army should be able to play the game without causing unneeded stress and frustraition in both players.

The fact that people feal they need to say no to certen game eliements to play in some cases is a design failure to balance I feal.

 novaspike wrote:
I have to disagree with you about randomness for setting up my army and base performance. While it can be exciting or interesting, I don't really want key parts of my strategy to be unknown beforehand (especially if I want to be in a competitive environment). Not knowing what powers I'm going to get, or how my warlord trait will effect my army are things you can't really count on and you havent even put models down yet.

As for random charge distances, that's somewhat of a personal disappointment since I tend to play melee heavy armies. I mean, how would you feel if every round before you shot any gun you had to make a random roll for range of the weapon?

Fair enough, but if charge is always guaranteed, thats not fair to shooting then, since charging would be superior in terms of always succeeding. What would you think of charge modifiers, in terms of getting bonuses to distance?

Also, I agree that it sucks having certain parts be unknown, but thats the point of war. Certain things are always a mystery, and I don't think allowing people to pick whatever warlord traits and powers they want is necessarily fair.

In general, I like to think that it should fall under "A typical "take all comers" list another from any codex should have an even chance to beat a similar list from any other codex." with the caveat that every unit in a codex should have a viable place in any take all comers list.

Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.

But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

But nobody seems to do this. Most people would rather the game be imbalanced so that they could think about things and take different units to be able to have an edge on their opponents. Plenty of people also decry balance openly - you don't need to go any further than "at that tournament, it was just everybody playing X" to see how much people don't really want balance, but would rather have meaningful imbalance in the game.

Holy you have no idea what you're talking about. "Everyone is playing X" isn't balance, it's the result of a completely unbalanced game where X is the obvious dominant option and if you don't play X you have very little chance of winning. A balanced game would have lots of different armies because there would be a wide range of viable options and different players would have different opinions about the best way to gain an advantage over their opponents.

I did a double-take when I read that as well. There's no skill involved in simply checking a forum and duplicating a netlist that can autopilot itself to victory, unless you lose by pure chance. It's a sign the game has degenerated and been "solved", and that a big chunk of the options (or even factions!) might as well not exist.

In a balanced game, I consider "What do I want this army to be good at, and what weaknesses do I have to cover for? Do I have a counter for this locally popular option, and is it still useful if I don't run into that option? Would X be better for a certain role, or would it be worth paying more points for Y, and cutting Z out to make room?" In an unbalanced game, I take the obvious best choice as much as I can, and the only limiter is "How likely is my opponent to think less of me if I spam, and does that matter?" "Fluffy" lists are also more viable in a balanced game, because you don't have to worry about the units that fit your theme being too weak (or strong).

Going back to Warmachine for a moment, one thing that's often fascinating is how top-flight tournament players both play a wide variety of lists, but often take options (Mountain King, Assault Kommandos or Dahlia & Skarath), that are traditionally considered weak or overlooked. It suggests it's much more about how you can use what you have vs letting the army play itself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jasper76 wrote:
Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.

But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)

I think it's a red herring to say you need perfect balance. You don't, you just need "good enough" balance, that skill is always the determining factor.

Also, getting the first turn isn't always that important. Its importance in 40K is disproportionate because of the wide variety of things that can do massive damage to the other side of the table before they eyen get to move a model. Other systems either limit the turn 1 alpha strike through low weapon ranges, heavy terrain being explicitly enshrined in the rules, or from having an alternating unit activation rather than "one army goes, then whatever's left of the other goes".

 jreilly89 wrote:

 novaspike wrote:
I have to disagree with you about randomness for setting up my army and base performance. While it can be exciting or interesting, I don't really want key parts of my strategy to be unknown beforehand (especially if I want to be in a competitive environment). Not knowing what powers I'm going to get, or how my warlord trait will effect my army are things you can't really count on and you havent even put models down yet.

As for random charge distances, that's somewhat of a personal disappointment since I tend to play melee heavy armies. I mean, how would you feel if every round before you shot any gun you had to make a random roll for range of the weapon?

Fair enough, but if charge is always guaranteed, thats not fair to shooting then, since charging would be superior in terms of always succeeding. What would you think of charge modifiers, in terms of getting bonuses to distance?

Also, I agree that it sucks having certain parts be unknown, but thats the point of war. Certain things are always a mystery, and I don't think allowing people to pick whatever warlord traits and powers they want is necessarily fair.

Ill admit that I've been spoiled with charging into assault in other games. I think the best system is to have a fixed charge distance based on what the unit does (so eldar banshees can charge pretty far, but terminators not so much) with modification for terrain. I also like the idea of overwatch, but don't think the roll should be modifiable outside of twin link.

So going back, a good melee unit should in a vacuum, destroy a good ranged unit in assault (baring crazy rolls). The counter is that the ranged unit gets more chances to destroy the melee one while trying to close distence. Arms race wise, transports become a concern for both sides, but that's the nature of a wargame.

It's also doable to add more ways for a ranged unit to extract themselves from melee, allowing survivors more chances to shoot.

Anyway, I really don't mind random rolls for terrain, objectives and things not having to do with my army, since that can represent the fog and unknowns of war. But I should have a good idea of baseline stats important to how my models will play. Sorry if I missed anything, using my phone at the moment.

40k should be "balanced" brokenness meaning . . .



An optimized TAC army constructed from each codex should have some favorable matchups, some unfavorable matchups, and no unwinnable matchups.

The top tier should not be a god tier and the bottom tier should not be a dog tier. An overall meta of Tier 1 to Tier 2.5 is okay. Any metas with a Tier 0 and/or a Tier 3 are not okay.

Occasionally, the rules should jostle things around (e.g by buffing assault) so that the codexes that are hugging the bottom swap places with the codexes that dominate the top. Each codex should have its day in the sun.

To me, balance simply means that any unit when used in its proper role is as equally useful for it's points as any other unit.

That doesn't mean take whatever you like and you'll have equal chance of beating whatever other army your opponent brings... you still have to construct your list carefully to weigh the pros and cons of each unit in the context of your battle plan.

Unfortunately, even in a balanced game, there will be some problems with fluffy lists or spammy lists vs TAC lists. This is because 40k is still, at its core, a rock/paper/scissors game. Currently it's an unbalanced rock/paper/scissors, but even if it were balanced it would still be rock/paper/scissors.

This means if you have a fluffy and/or spammy list, you're beefing up on only one aspect of the rock/paper/scissors, so you're naturally going to have issues if you picked an army that revolves around rock and you come up against an opponent that revolves around paper and you'll dominate a game where your opponent brought mostly scissors.

Unfortunately this is made even worse by the fact 40k is expanding the rock/paper/scissors game to, IMO, have far too many facets.

So even if you balance the units within codices and across codices, you're still not going to have a game where a fluffy/spammy/TAC lists can happily coexist.

To do that, you'd need to rewrite the rules to be less rock/paper/scissors. At least IMO. WHFB, again IMO, is a less rock/paper/scissors game (it still has large elements of it, but no where near as much as 40k), so you do have more flexibility in what you can take and still be competitive.

So even if you balance the units within codices and across codices, you're still not going to have a game where a fluffy/spammy/TAC lists can happily coexist.

That is where Generalship comes in. You might be playing a fluffy list against a spammy list, but if you know how to run your Fluffy list properly, you have an at-least-equal chance of winning in a balanced game. If you are the better General, then you know how to mitigate the chances for bad rolls (to the extent that you can) and you know how both the game and the armies function to maximize your chances to win.

 Psienesis wrote:

So even if you balance the units within codices and across codices, you're still not going to have a game where a fluffy/spammy/TAC lists can happily coexist.

That is where Generalship comes in. You might be playing a fluffy list against a spammy list, but if you know how to run your Fluffy list properly, you have an at-least-equal chance of winning in a balanced game. If you are the better General, then you know how to mitigate the chances for bad rolls (to the extent that you can) and you know how both the game and the armies function to maximize your chances to win.

To an extent, but you're still going to have lists that are fluffy but mismatched. Occasionally you'll have a fluffy list that simply lacks the high volume of high S low AP attacks to deal with an armoured battlegroup. You might take lots of monstrous creatures and be able to deal with that armoured battlegroup but then be lacking against an army of superheavy walkers. With the rules the way they are, things like melta guns and plasma guns are popular because in the rock-paper-scissors game they have a wider range of enemies they are very useful against. So you could make them more expensive or make the lesser weapons even cheaper, but that would still create a problem if you went heavily on those weapons and your opponent brings a low T high save horde.

In a game so heavily dominated by rock-paper-scissors as 40k that also has a wide open force selection mechanism, it's hard to avoid imbalance between spammy lists unless you either try and tone down the rock-paper-scissors aspect OR reign in the army selection so those spammy lists can't be quite so spammy.

To me balanced should mean that if you have a 100 pt tank I should be able to buy 5 20 point tankbusters to beat it from any army as an example. If I spend those 100 pts on riflemen than I get ran over. Every list does not need to be balanced with every other list. There just needs to be no list from one army that doesn't have a list from every other army that is equal to it. Part of the game is dreaming up the list that beat what the other guy keeps bringing.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

So even if you balance the units within codices and across codices, you're still not going to have a game where a fluffy/spammy/TAC lists can happily coexist.

That is where Generalship comes in. You might be playing a fluffy list against a spammy list, but if you know how to run your Fluffy list properly, you have an at-least-equal chance of winning in a balanced game. If you are the better General, then you know how to mitigate the chances for bad rolls (to the extent that you can) and you know how both the game and the armies function to maximize your chances to win.

To an extent, but you're still going to have lists that are fluffy but mismatched. Occasionally you'll have a fluffy list that simply lacks the high volume of high S low AP attacks to deal with an armoured battlegroup. You might take lots of monstrous creatures and be able to deal with that armoured battlegroup but then be lacking against an army of superheavy walkers. With the rules the way they are, things like melta guns and plasma guns are popular because in the rock-paper-scissors game they have a wider range of enemies they are very useful against. So you could make them more expensive or make the lesser weapons even cheaper, but that would still create a problem if you went heavily on those weapons and your opponent brings a low T high save horde.

In a game so heavily dominated by rock-paper-scissors as 40k that also has a wide open force selection mechanism, it's hard to avoid imbalance between spammy lists unless you either try and tone down the rock-paper-scissors aspect OR reign in the army selection so those spammy lists can't be quite so spammy.

All viable design options. Establishing balance in 40K is going to require a complete re-write of the rules, it will not be something that can be done quickly or easily by fans.

 Psienesis wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

So even if you balance the units within codices and across codices, you're still not going to have a game where a fluffy/spammy/TAC lists can happily coexist.

That is where Generalship comes in. You might be playing a fluffy list against a spammy list, but if you know how to run your Fluffy list properly, you have an at-least-equal chance of winning in a balanced game. If you are the better General, then you know how to mitigate the chances for bad rolls (to the extent that you can) and you know how both the game and the armies function to maximize your chances to win.

To an extent, but you're still going to have lists that are fluffy but mismatched. Occasionally you'll have a fluffy list that simply lacks the high volume of high S low AP attacks to deal with an armoured battlegroup. You might take lots of monstrous creatures and be able to deal with that armoured battlegroup but then be lacking against an army of superheavy walkers. With the rules the way they are, things like melta guns and plasma guns are popular because in the rock-paper-scissors game they have a wider range of enemies they are very useful against. So you could make them more expensive or make the lesser weapons even cheaper, but that would still create a problem if you went heavily on those weapons and your opponent brings a low T high save horde.

In a game so heavily dominated by rock-paper-scissors as 40k that also has a wide open force selection mechanism, it's hard to avoid imbalance between spammy lists unless you either try and tone down the rock-paper-scissors aspect OR reign in the army selection so those spammy lists can't be quite so spammy.

All viable design options. Establishing balance in 40K is going to require a complete re-write of the rules, it will not be something that can be done quickly or easily by fans.

I agree with that. I don't think what people consider balance in 40k is even possible with the current rules.

Imbalance is written in to the very nature of the game and GW haven't done themselves any favours on the balance front by completely opening up the game with multiple FOCs, allies, unbound and the ability to have such a huge slab of your points tied up in a single model/unit. On top of that, IMO at least, things like the AP system and cover system are naturally unbalancing. In general, a game with modifiers is easier to balance than a game with all-or-nothing systems (and I know some people disagree with me on that one).

One possible idea that might help balance (or maybe not, I only just considered it) is having a fixed portion of your army list that you create not knowing what your opponent will bring and then a flexible portion that you tailor upon knowing your opponent's list. The would keep the rock-paper-scissors element on the table itself, but reduce it in the list building stage, which might get closer to what many people hold as an ideal for balance. Just a thought... maybe not useful at all

One possible idea that might help balance (or maybe not, I only just considered it) is having a fixed portion of your army list that you create not knowing what your opponent will bring and then a flexible portion that you tailor upon knowing your opponent's list. The would keep the rock-paper-scissors element on the table itself, but reduce it in the list building stage, which might get closer to what many people hold as an ideal for balance. Just a thought... maybe not useful at al

That, though, does not address the "PUG" style of play that is common to people in stores, or people who travel (to, say, gaming conventions).

You guys have been great provoking some thought.
The StarCraft examples are VERY good since when playing the game the balance "feels" right (economics vs. capabilities).

I think the path is correct where the "auto-include" and the "put on the shelf" is the symptoms of balance problems with a given model / unit.

"Auto-Include" is a combination of too cheap in points vs a take on all comers capability. If the unit fits all rolls on the cheap, why take anything else? Riptides and Necron croissants spring to mind.

"On the shelf" is points too high vs limited capability. It may be so limited in its specialty, usefulness is hampered. The IG/AM new Hydra, CSM Helbrute and Sisters Penitent Engine (as previously mentioned) have some issues.

Every unit should have some trade-off for the style of play, some classic stereotypes I can think of:
1) Artillery = Pro: Hard hitting from a distance Con: Too weak in armor for return fire and not maneuverable.
2) Fast Attack / Cavalry = Pro: Fast Moving, Hits hard up close (or on the charge) Con: Weak in durability, cannot survive when bogged down, mobility is key.
3) Heavy Mobile Armor = Pro: Highly Durable, Hits hard in mid-range combat, Con: Slow and could be overrun, usually expensive / limited in number.
4) "Standard units" = Pro: Least Expensive, Plentiful, holds objectives Con: Not durable, limited capability dealing with heavy armor and little or none for artillery.
5) Aircraft = Pro: Harder to hit, devastating firepower Con: usually more specialized in role: fast = less sustained attack, harder to hit, fragile Slow/hover = sustained attack, easier to hit, better armor.
6) Naval (Space/Water, assuming in off-table artillery role) = Pro: Devastating firepower, Expensive, Con: Inaccurate, chance of friendly fire.

But every single thing listed above could be made auto-include or shelf if the balancing of cost is not achieved.

I would expect the equal cost of Artillery VS fast or heavy to have similar odds of success.
I would expect an equal points value of heavy armor vs fast attack to have an equal chance of success against each other.
I would expect an equal points value of infantry to be sufficient against Artillery (enough to weather getting there), Fast Attack (lucky shots as they charge-in or snipe within range) and Heavy Armor (standard guys ground down as the supplemental weapons get "lucky" shots to cripple the armor).

Yes, a wee bit of "rock, paper, scissors" is perfectly fine if you get to choose the right target and moment to deploy them on a unit by unit basis.
An entire army dependent on RPS is just silly and promotes rage-quits (rather than face a 2 hour game of being pummeled).

Am I speaking madness? Or maybe too much old school Napoleonics?

"Perfect Imbalance" is just shifting the goal posts, "hey I get to win with style until they change things again! we all get a turn! we all get to be winners!!".
No, no, I cannot, shall not, believe in it or support it.

I really like that observation of make a model / unit and it remains un-changed, new synergies are developed as the "upgrade" but the essential essence of the unit / model does not.
That would also REALLY help with the observed "Which rules change / codex did it do what again???". That would be so full of win for GW.

Thanks All.

To me balance is when I can take my favourite list and my opponent can take his favourite list and it's about skill and not about being lucky with your Codex.

The obvious things should be kept in mind:
If I take a list without any synergy, I should lose.
If I refuse to take anti-Vehicle weaponry, I should lose if the opponent plays vehicles.

But that was external balance.
Internal balance is when I can pick a unit of Sanguinary Guard without feeling bad about it because I know they will suck.
I don't want to expect to win tournaments with them, because I understand that not every unit can be tournament-level material.

Seems it's quite hard to describe balance.
But what it comes down to is that when I love a tactic or unit, I want to build a list around that and I want to have a roughly 50/50 chance of winning against an equally skilled opponent.

True balance is hard outside of symmetry, now some of us have a fetish for screaming "SYMMETRY ISNT BALANCE" however symmetry is the easiest way to achieve balance. For example, look at dzc or chess.

Symmetry can create balance.

 Swastakowey wrote:
In a perfect game, each unit should have a role which makes it useful and give you a reasonable chance to win against an enemy unit provided it has been played correctly.

I think.

That is what I would call balance.

Of course, there would also be units that have no function until they are put with a related unit (tech priest with a tank, CCS with IG squads, etc), but that fits under correct usage.

 novaspike wrote:

Ill admit that I've been spoiled with charging into assault in other games. I think the best system is to have a fixed charge distance based on what the unit does (so eldar banshees can charge pretty far, but terminators not so much) with modification for terrain. I also like the idea of overwatch, but don't think the roll should be modifiable outside of twin link.

Quick small tangent. Random charges is so you can't keep walking back and staying outside 12" (which was the standard distance a unit could engage in combat with move + assault) and shooting. 6th brought this in because you could premeasure now, guaranteeing this distance between units, and guns generally got more mobile, allowing them to still shoot to almost full effect.

I'll grant that maybe they should rethink how random charge works to make it less all or nothing, but having it be random is important.


OT:
The principle of balance I would like to see is mostly internal. Units within a codex should be choices that I make based on what I like and what I plan to do, not 'I'm playing Chaos therefore I need Plaguemarines and a Heldrake, maybe some Spawn to run with my Nurgle Biker Lord.' Some of this is points cost of the units, the rest would seem to me to be really thinking through the role the unit is supposed to fulfill and not giving it too many shiny rules. Making Raptors and Bikers have specfic tasks they can complete that the other can't. At the moment, it's very seldom that people want to take Raptors, let alone Warp Talons. How can they be tweaked to make them an alternative to Bikes?

There is a between codex balance as well, but I have to say that I think GW is doing alright with this overall. Though I've seen plenty of vocal complaints, on the whole the battle reports and tactics conversations seem to show most armies since the arrival of 6th are doing okay.

 jasper76 wrote:
Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.

But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)

How is chess not balanced? The only thing more balanced than that is checkers.

I think the second part, while not mandatory for game balance, would be a good Beta testing statistic for game designers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 novaspike wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 novaspike wrote:
I have to disagree with you about randomness for setting up my army and base performance. While it can be exciting or interesting, I don't really want key parts of my strategy to be unknown beforehand (especially if I want to be in a competitive environment). Not knowing what powers I'm going to get, or how my warlord trait will effect my army are things you can't really count on and you havent even put models down yet.

As for random charge distances, that's somewhat of a personal disappointment since I tend to play melee heavy armies. I mean, how would you feel if every round before you shot any gun you had to make a random roll for range of the weapon?

Fair enough, but if charge is always guaranteed, thats not fair to shooting then, since charging would be superior in terms of always succeeding. What would you think of charge modifiers, in terms of getting bonuses to distance?

Also, I agree that it sucks having certain parts be unknown, but thats the point of war. Certain things are always a mystery, and I don't think allowing people to pick whatever warlord traits and powers they want is necessarily fair.

Ill admit that I've been spoiled with charging into assault in other games. I think the best system is to have a fixed charge distance based on what the unit does (so eldar banshees can charge pretty far, but terminators not so much) with modification for terrain. I also like the idea of overwatch, but don't think the roll should be modifiable outside of twin link.

So going back, a good melee unit should in a vacuum, destroy a good ranged unit in assault (baring crazy rolls). The counter is that the ranged unit gets more chances to destroy the melee one while trying to close distence. Arms race wise, transports become a concern for both sides, but that's the nature of a wargame.

It's also doable to add more ways for a ranged unit to extract themselves from melee, allowing survivors more chances to shoot.

Anyway, I really don't mind random rolls for terrain, objectives and things not having to do with my army, since that can represent the fog and unknowns of war. But I should have a good idea of baseline stats important to how my models will play. Sorry if I missed anything, using my phone at the moment.

Sold, buy out GW and fix it.

 Selym wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
In a perfect game, each unit should have a role which makes it useful and give you a reasonable chance to win against an enemy unit provided it has been played correctly.

I think.

That is what I would call balance.

Of course, there would also be units that have no function until they are put with a related unit (tech priest with a tank, CCS with IG squads, etc), but that fits under correct usage.

Good point, roles dont necessarily mean offensive roles. Support roles need to be taken into account, such a tech priest repairing things etc.

I'm a fan of the Metagame Clock used to describe how Magic Decks are balanced against each other, regardless of format. It works out a lot like Rock Paper Scissors, with the exception that you are able to play multiple parts of the clock at different times, this seems closer to how 40k lists are built than mere RPS. A rock list could run some scissors units to deal with the paper that usually would beat it, aiming to have a favorable matchup against scissors, while not auto-losing to paper.

The fact that 40k uses a point system shows that balance was attempted for the game. What is the purpose of a point system if it is wildly inaccurate?

 jreilly89 wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.

But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)

How is chess not balanced? The only thing more balanced than that is checkers.

If both players are of equal skill and make no mistakes during play than white will win every time because they have the first turn. Chess is balanced because the scenario described is almost impossible set up if humans are involved. I suppose two computers could manage it.