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Traditio wrote:

Akiasura wrote:In this case, can does equal must.
I must take dire avengers for 13 points. I can chose not to take them, but I don't get to take them for 4 points or 45 points.

The bolded was the only point that I was making. Again, what you're ultimately responding to is my objection to another poster who claimed that there are GW lists. There are no GW lists. They don't make army lists. You disagree? Then show me one. Direct me to the relevent codex. I would love to see that.

By definition, any list taken in 40k is a GW list. They define what point costs are, what goes in what lists, formation requirements and bonuses for every army out there, minus house rules.
See every codex ever created, and army creation rules in all of the GW books.

Traditio wrote:

My point is that GW defines what armies are legal, not I. They are involved in army construction through several means, like unbound being legal and the ally matrix.

As I said, yes: they provide the ingredients and the general limitations on how you can put those ingredients together. But ultimately, what recipe you come up with is your responsibility, not GW's.

Yes and no. Is it my fault that I don't use 1k sons? They are beautiful models, very fluffy, and I do own some.
However, GW has decided to make them awful for the point costs. They have made other codexes a lot stronger then my own. They have decided that taking 1k sons is a bad decision in this game.
Against certain formations, I could not take a 1k sons army list and expect to have any game.

So while I may decide what ingredients I chose, GW decides to limit my ingredients to just 3-4 options out of everything in my kitchen. To continue your analogy, GW also decides what kitchenware I own via list design, so not all recipes are possible.

Traditio wrote:

I will, of course, agree with a previous poster: to an extent, it is GW's fault for making it possible to "break the game," so to speak. But the players are even more to blame. They're like that one guy who plays a video game knowing full and well that there is a glitch that will crash the game at x part of the game. He's playing with a group of friends. He activates the glitch. His friends get super annoyed at him: "Hey, don't blame me! Blame the game designers! They made it possible for me to do that!"

His friends, of course, would be perfectly in the right to refuse to play said video game with him ever again.

As others have pointed out, this was an awful choice, so I'll skip going over why this is wrong.

Traditio wrote:

Did you have a point?

Supra.

I'm a science professor at a state university. So, yes? I have?
Did you skip over the part where I mentioned a pre-med? You can't do what you did for that major, you must take calculus and statistics as your math credits.

I suggest you quote the entire passage.

I skipped over the pre-med thing because it didn't strike me as relevent. Whether or not you get into med school is immaterial to whether or not you are satisfying the general education requirements. At any rate, you're putting too much into my analogy. My only point is that just as general education requirements indicate that you must take x, y and z kinds of things, but do not specify that you must take this or that in particular, so too, the codices indicate that, if you wish to take a formation, you must take x, y and z kinds of things, but not this or that in particular.

I'm pretty sure that there is no formation in the Eldar codex that says that you must spam scat bikes.

This is where you are wrong again. If you want a pre-professional biology degree, there are education requirements you must fill. You can not take trig and logic and get a degree in many programs. You MUST take calculus and statistics, to the point where matrix theory, a harder math then either of those, doesn't work. So yes, what degree you have is slightly important for the general education requirements. People with science, professional, and engineering degrees have to do a lot more work and have less options. A lot of these classes must be taken in a certain order as well. You made an analogy and it was incorrect. It wouldn't be the first time, this is the danger of making analogies when your experience is limited to programs that count logic as a math credit. Many are stricter then that, especially in my department.

There are formations that indicate you MUST take certain units and WILL get certain bonuses. Many of these, and not just for eldar, push a good codex to broken. Often, there is little to no reason not to take them. The models are common. I can run a lot of them myself since I owned a biel-tan and ulthwe army. I'm sure a lot of eldar players who have played since 3rd are in my position.

Traditio wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Toofast wrote:
My entire eldar collection consists of a WK, jetbikes, wraithguard and wave serpents. I spend a lot of time painting my models to a high standard. Now you're going to tell me I can't use my WK I spent 20 hours painting because GW can't write balanced rules? The onus is not on the player to make a balanced game, that falls on the game designers. If they fail, it's bad game design. Luckily I never have anyone turn down my list because I'm in a competitive meta.

Why does your entire collection consist of a WK, jetbikes, wraithguard and wave serpents? Because, I assume, you copy/pasted a cheesy internet tournament list and wanted to get all of the best units that everyone said are brokenly good, that will gaurantee you a victory.

You must pardon me if I don't pity you. You are probably TFG. Good luck in 8th edition and/or the next Eldar codex 2-5 years down the line. Your current army will probably be useless, and you'll have to spend a bunch of money on the next broken thing.

Yeah, I mean waveserpents and wraithknights have been terrible forever now. It's not like for 2 editions in a row they were really strong.
It's not like I haven't heard that the eldar codex will be balanced next edition cycle since 3rd, and rarely has it been true.
I'm sure my 1k sons will be fine next time

Doesn't the whole premise of this thread boil down to "don't blame GW for making a broken game, it's our fault for taking advantage of it?"

Again?

This blame the community attitude really needs to stop. The job of the rules is not to allow reasonable people, which I am totally confident represents the majority of players, to play a game where the various imbalances, vagaries and incompatibilities can be worked through, it is to provide a tight structured and fair framework where someone from the depths of the Australian outback could theoretically play a complete stranger from the heart of New York City and both players would be playing the same game and both players could give their all and reliably have a tight and competitive game.

You do not write rules for reasonable people, you write rules for the ultra competitive douchebag who will twist any vague wording to try and gain an advantage, because then everyone benefits. Writing rules that are tight enough to prevent a WAAC TFG ruining someone else's game is far more important than any hippy dippy 'be excellent to each other' bs.

GW are making a poor quality product. It is not the customer's job to fix that product, much more constructive for the community at large to either not pay for the poor product to encourage them to fix it, or at the very least complain to them so they know you're not happy.

The problem with "be decent human beings" is that different people have different ideas of what's fun, and there's often such a large discrepancy between power levels that it's almost impossible.

If someone like Jetbikes, why shouldn't they take it? Now yes if they suspiciously all have Scatter Lasers it's an indicator the person might be a WAAC type but if it's a variety, maybe they like Saim-Hann. On the flip side a person who likes CSM and wants to field them without pretending the Mark of Nurgle is something else gets screwed because CSM are too weak.

That's a problem with game design, not the players choice. Rules that cost more than every other set of rules out there has no business being so poorly written and with such poor balance.

Azreal13 is exactly right. This "blame the community" nonsense needs to stop because the problems with 40k are a direct result of GW's lack of caring, nothing else. GWs rules are poor because GW doesn't care about the rules despite putting out more and more rules for a game that is supposedly secondary to the miniatures and yet is the primary reason people even know of or pick up the game in the first place. It shouldn't be on the community to fix bad rules.

 Rippy wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
What's with the super preachy mood on Dakka lately? I've never seen so many people pontificating about the most idiotic stuff. Like there is some sort of moral crisis because an OP codex was released. It's completely off-putting. Sign of the times, I guess.

It's because I'm secretly the pope.

Pope? Religion? Reasonable? What mockery is this?

Go back to r/atheism

I for one, used to enjoy the challenge of army building, I would pick a theme, and then work very hard to convert my theme into a list that not only made me enjoy the game, but i believed would be powerful. I then enjoyed playing against opponents who also worked hard to make lists they felt were powerful.

Now however that entire aspect of the hobby is gone, because the power divide between 'competitive' and 'casual' is so massive, you cannot forge for yourself lists which can go toe to toe with the big boys, without compromising and selecting the same level of power.

If I choose to try hard, and build a competitive list. Then I should have a decent advantage in a game vs a noobie, and be of a roughly comparable power level to anyone who has been in the hobby for more than a year. I shouldn't be feeling bad if my opponent brought space marines, and feeling like i need to limit my list building in order to match the capabilities of the race I'm facing. Heck Id rather have predesigned lists, than have that level of guilt in list design.

I like to win, I like to feel like I have earned victory, But I hate the concept that I have to handicap myself, in order to have a fun game. I hate the thought that it will be expected of players.

How do you appraise skill if you're forever having to tailor your list until your opponent has a roughtly 50% win record vs you (its self dumbing). Its pointless, we might as well not play a game and instead flip a coin.

There was a thread on Warseer talking about how "typical" armies can deal with the current stuff. By "typical" army they meant like what GW sells in boxes e.g. Adeptus Astartes Strike Force with a balanced force, like a couple of tactical squads, maybe a terminator squad in a land raider, regular stuff.

People were actually arguing that not only can they not, but that's a good thing and the game has moved away from it. It was ridiculous.

These outlier armies should be just that, outliers. A normal force should be balanced and well representing the army, you know all that "spirit of the game" gak that GW has spouted out for 20 years. It just goes to show that they really don't give a gak about the game despite all the "forge the narrative" and "beer and pretzels" garbage.

That's the biggest part of the problem. If I play Space Marines for example, I may not want to spam bikes. I might want to have a fluffy Battle Company as depicted in the source material. That army should not just get steamrolled by basically everything else and my recourse shouldn't be to spam bikes or IKs or some weird allied 3-4 army detachment nonsense.

WayneTheGame wrote:
There was a thread on Warseer talking about how "typical" armies can deal with the current stuff. By "typical" army they meant like what GW sells in boxes e.g. Adeptus Astartes Strike Force with a balanced force, like a couple of tactical squads, maybe a terminator squad in a land raider, regular stuff.

People were actually arguing that not only can they not, but that's a good thing and the game has moved away from it. It was ridiculous.

These outlier armies should be just that, outliers. A normal force should be balanced and well representing the army, you know all that "spirit of the game" gak that GW has spouted out for 20 years. It just goes to show that they really don't give a gak about the game despite all the "forge the narrative" and "beer and pretzels" garbage.

That's the biggest part of the problem. If I play Space Marines for example, I may not want to spam bikes. I might want to have a fluffy Battle Company as depicted in the source material. That army should not just get steamrolled by basically everything else.

This so much this!

It all boils down to GW lets you pick models of certain types, in a certain way, from given armies at a given points value.

Many units are not comparable for what they do for the points given.

I really am at the point where the days of "picking a balanced list" is long over.

You simply will have no idea what you will face and "scale" accordingly: it literally is a roll of the dice of what you face to what power levels

GW has allowed so many combinations and options that any limitations that could exert some balance or control is well and truly gone.

Don't blame the players for what they are allowed to do by rules as written, agreeing to be "decent human beings" is only applicable to decent behavior while playing.

What Wayne said.

However, it would be fun if a mounted White Scars list were possible. And currently it is. It would be better if it didn't trounce my demi company UM decendents quite so handily. But at least its possible.

I don't think I truly understand how a 'reasonable' meta is possible. But it is. I am fortunate enough to have one. I do what I can to keep myself from ruining it (I'm a TFG at heart).

That certainly included no longer taking my pair of Serpents in the last dex (with 10-mans inside, so switching to Falcons didn't really work). It also means that, in any of my armies, I try not to spam anything but troops. And try to have a mix of AV and infantry. And some MCs. Maybe a flyer. The onus really is on the individual, in a reasonable meta, to create a meta-appropriate list. Sure, someone could come through and stomp any of our regular lists. But if they kept at it, they might have trouble finding a game.

In the last Eldar dex, there were problems, but they were easily spotted, IMO (let's not get too into it in this thread). WKs, more than one Serpent, Bikespam, Demon Factory, or Seer Council. The thing was, even without those, the old Dex could do a lot of reasonable fun (Swordwind, Black Guardian warhost, mixed Sam-Hainn, WK-free Spirit Hosts, or mixtures thereof).

With the new Dex, almost every list got more powerful. My old Swordwind was 1500, is now 1407, and is more powerful at that. It was easy to make a reasonable list in 6th. I think it is possible in 7th, but will be much harder.

Not sure how, but I'll find a way to be reasonable. I assume other members of the meta will too. The one other Eldar player I don't think has touched his Eldar since the codex dropped. I'll probably play my SM and Tau more frequently, and/or include more Harlequins and Corsairs in my lists than I used to. I even started assembling some of my Dark Eldar, but I just can't get into them.

The meta will hopefully survive. There are ways.

What the OP suggests is pretty much the only thing you can do to try to salvage 40k, but let's not be apologists for GW. They made this bed, and now we have to sleep on it.

WayneTheGame wrote:
If I play Space Marines for example, I may not want to spam bikes. I might want to have a fluffy Battle Company as depicted in the source material. That army should not just get steamrolled by basically everything else and my recourse shouldn't be to spam bikes or IKs or some weird allied 3-4 army detachment nonsense.

I feel that. I want to play an army of ground-pounders with flamers and meltas, but I feel like a chump when bike force of equivalent points can do the flamer/melta thing so much better. GW advertises this as being a game about making a fluffy army and forging a narrative, but their ruleset punishes players who do that. The core of this issue is:

 Azreal13 wrote:
GW are making a poor quality product. It is not the customer's job to fix that product, much more constructive for the community at large to either not pay for the poor product to encourage them to fix it, or at the very least complain to them so they know you're not happy.

I really like playing 40k, because I do have a group of friends who are willing to work with the game's terrible rules to try to make it a good time (I've said it in other threads, but 40k is the hobby I spend the most time on and have the most fun with). But every other tabletop gaming thing I do - Magic, Chess, X-Wing, Board Games, Warmachine - are like a paragons of exquisite game design by comparison. It's embarrassing for GW, and it's the reason I steer new players towards X-Wing or Infinity.

I relied on pick up games of 40k at the LGS and it was a total nightmare. Living in a small city I don't have the number of players to turn down hoping to play someone else. So you take what you can get if you want to get a game in. Was not having much fun so I quit playing the game balance is just to much between the different armies

 Chute82 wrote:
I relied on pick up games of 40k at the LGS and it was a total nightmare. Living in a small city I don't have the number of players to turn down hoping to play someone else. So you take what you can get if you want to get a game in. Was not having much fun so I quit playing the game balance is just to much between the different armies

I have had the opposite experience. I find playing games at the LGS pretty enjoyable. I typically come with a few lists at different point levels. when I am matched up with another player i generally say what I have at the different point levels and we agree to a game. work out pretty well usually. Usually the same folks are around all the time so you get to know what kinds of list they can build. i try to match up the "level" of my list to theirs. if I beat them soundly last time we played i bring lower powered lists next time. if I get beat, then I try something a bit stronger next time. I try to be matched up as best as possible without specifically list tailoring so it will be fun for both sides and the outcome is not basically pre-detirmined based on lists.

I guess this comes down to what the OP said, "Just agree to be decent human beings." This motto works pretty well in the groups I play with. Maybe I am just lucky?

Loborocket wrote:
This motto works pretty well in the groups I play with. Maybe I am just lucky?

You are. You're lucky that your group doesn't want to play a competitive game, but are happy to just field some models and roll some dice, and you're lucky that's what you want from the game too.
I'm not WAAC, but I want to try to win. I also want my opponent to try and win. I want to lock horns and see who comes out on top.
Right now, an Eldar player is like Lucifer himself locking horns with a baby ram if he faces anything but another Eldar or a Necron player.

Loborocket wrote:

 Chute82 wrote:
I relied on pick up games of 40k at the LGS and it was a total nightmare. Living in a small city I don't have the number of players to turn down hoping to play someone else. So you take what you can get if you want to get a game in. Was not having much fun so I quit playing the game balance is just to much between the different armies

I have had the opposite experience. I find playing games at the LGS pretty enjoyable. I typically come with a few lists at different point levels. when I am matched up with another player i generally say what I have at the different point levels and we agree to a game. work out pretty well usually. Usually the same folks are around all the time so you get to know what kinds of list they can build. i try to match up the "level" of my list to theirs. if I beat them soundly last time we played i bring lower powered lists next time. if I get beat, then I try something a bit stronger next time. I try to be matched up as best as possible without specifically list tailoring so it will be fun for both sides and the outcome is not basically pre-detirmined based on lists.

I guess this comes down to what the OP said, "Just agree to be decent human beings." This motto works pretty well in the groups I play with. Maybe I am just lucky?

It's just the attitude at the shop that I played at. Everybody spammed the most op units and just tried to table you by turn two. Faced a lot of trip tides, lots of SH and lots of wave serpents with my Orks. Did not really cared if I lost but I was not having any fun. Found a group to play with at my buddies house but they all quit playing so it was back to pick up games at that shop I described. New ork codex came out and I thought maybe I can run with the big dogs now? Boy was I disappointed

Lot of posts to read, but I had to make a comment after reading a statement that someone made about Wraith spam and being TFG.

In 6th ed they came out with a Wraith army kit that I've been working on for a while. I picked up Eldar in 6th, was planning on picking them up for a while since I've played Tau back in 5th and wanted to run some fun allies when 6th dropped. Then when the 6th ed codex hit I feel like crap because here I am with a Tau/Eldar army.

I picked up one unit of jet bikes because I needed a mobile troop and Wraithguard. Now Wraithguard are slow, so I needed some way to get those short range weapons the enemy and of course the only real option is the WaveSerpent.

Then they release the Wraithhost kit and I ended up getting that since I love the wraith models. I'm still working on them now, kind of lost motivation once 7th dropped. But I have my WK built and painted, magnetized the model for all weapon options. I even magnetize the wraithguard to use all weapon options available if I wanted.

Now I read some posts on here and see how I'm apparently TFG because GW sold a whole box set and then changed the rules so every single model has weapons that used to only be found on super heavies.

Now I'm of limited funds, and even more limited motivation. I do try to make smart purchases and put my heart and soul into the modeling and painting, though my results won't win any prizes. When I go to make a purchase for Tau if I'm looking for something to add to the fast attack slot I'll generally use marker drones or Piranha. Drones come extra with everything and Piranha are relatively cheap and fun to build. I don't want to go purchase Vespid to use, because I don't like the models and I couldn't figure out how to use them as a game other than hoping they take shots instead of something I care about. This is a problem that is built into the game, not on purpose but it's there. It's not the players who made this problem. I have nothing to do with GW decisions. I just bought what they were selling and tried to make an army they allowed me to use on the table top.

If the simple game design can take a player making a fluffy list and make him almost indistinguishable from a TFG to you, then you may want to realize there is a major problem with the game design.

And this is why people say it is the casual players that get hurt most.

A competitive player just orders a couple of dozen Jetbikes, the likes of yourself (and how you describe your army building approach sounds similar to mine, so me too) are the ones that get screwed when either the project they've spent months on either gets nerfed into the ground or boosted beyond reason in the time between inception and completion.

Loborocket wrote:
I guess this comes down to what the OP said, "Just agree to be decent human beings." This motto works pretty well in the groups I play with. Maybe I am just lucky?

That works, to a point. But it's so, so subjective. For example, can you give me a hard limit as to how many jetbikes & Wraithknights put me over that limit? A hard number, where having x means I'm okay, but x+1 means I'm a WAAC TFG? Of course not, nobody could, because everyone will have different answers to that question.

Wouldn't it save so much aggravation if the rules just did what they said they did (points value = how good they are in play)? Yes, reasonable people can haggle out how many Wraithknights make you a bad person before the game, but doesn't that feel like a waste of gaming time? Imagine for a moment that you could just take a list because you like the models, like the lore, want to try out a combo that mathematically should be good, or want to try a quirky list. And you could just play the game without worrying that you've crossed a fuzzy line of "too good" and will be judged for it?

There are games out there that already do this, or at least do it much better than 40K--and most of them haven't been using fundamentally the same system for around 16 years. It's not an impossible dream, as has often been implied here.

I think there might be some misunderstanding here? My reading of it is that a lot of people acknowledge that pre-game negotiation and self-restraint are needed to avoid breaking the system and producing funless games--but that many of them would like for that to be unnecessary through better rules and points costs that actually relate to how good something is. They want to show up, put their models down, and enjoy the actual game with no time wasted on negotiation.

 Chute82 wrote:
I relied on pick up games of 40k at the LGS and it was a total nightmare. Living in a small city I don't have the number of players to turn down hoping to play someone else. So you take what you can get if you want to get a game in. Was not having much fun so I quit playing the game balance is just to much between the different armies

This experience mirrors my own.
I relied on PUG's, still do, and 40k just became unplayable for that.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I relied on PUG's, still do, and 40k just became unplayable for that.

This is where the 40k rules fall down the most.
They still work with my friends and we agree to "terms of engagement" but with strangers, a tighter game like X-wing or Warmachine seems more appropriate.
It always feels like you start off well getting to know someone with a more equal footing.

Scrubs are actually the WAAC TFG. The rules of the game are the rules of engagement. Scrub mentality dictates that these rules need to be changed so that they are "fair and balanced" so they have equal chance of fun; fun meaning an equal chance of competition.

That's not to say 40k isn't a broken mess in the least. However, realize that you bought that broken mess. And complaining about it and trying to fix it is the textbook "Scrub" thought. And labelling someone WAAC is a misnomer. Everyone wants a shot to win, that's why people label other WAAC... Totally hypocritical.

The best thing to do is play with friends and stop buying GW products. Fix your rules in time, correct them and enjoy. Introduce the new models with the new rules and fix them to fit your house rules. The key thing is to stop supporting the garbage. Or, better yet, play any other game that actually treats their customers with respect and actively cultivates and maintains their games for fairness. There are many, just not one that's "40k".

So stop being TFG by belly aching a GW rules release is busted. Either step up your game and play as the rules were written, do something about it (which includes stop paying for broken rules if you think they are), or move on to something more productive.

The TFG is the guy who does the least to ensure his opponent enjoys the game. In a competative environment, that could be the scrub. In a noncompetitive environment, it is rarely the scrub.

Did you never enjoy games with relatives when you were a little kid? Do you never enjoy games with your little siblings/cousins/nieces/nephews? Even with major imbalances, fun can be had.

I, for one, don't see my personal enjoyment level as a responsibility of my opponent. They are there to OPPOSE me, hence the term OPPONENT.

If empty platitudes could fix everything, then we'd all be living like the Culture by now.

Bharring wrote:
The TFG is the guy who does the least to ensure his opponent enjoys the game. In a competative environment, that could be the scrub. In a noncompetitive environment, it is rarely the scrub.

Did you never enjoy games with relatives when you were a little kid? Do you never enjoy games with your little siblings/cousins/nieces/nephews? Even with major imbalances, fun can be had.

Yes, I did. We played various dominos, euchre, hearts, and the like. We trashed bad games like Monopoly because, as written, its a terrible board game. Now I play much better made board games which cater to either entirely silly chance (Kings of Tokyo) or well designed balance.

You can't compare games of sub $100 investment or tried and true rules to wargames as they're a significant and time sink. By buying the rules and models to a new game, you're agreeing to play X game. Not Bob's variant of X game.

Like TooFast, I played in a highly competitive 40l setting and that's where I learned the game. Then I moved to much lesser one and I was labelled the bad guy... I was still playing the same lists and the same game, but suddenly I'm a jerk? Nope, that's just 40k. It's the only wargame I've experienced that relies very heavily on community house rules and expectations vary from location to location.

 TheKbob wrote:

Bharring wrote:
The TFG is the guy who does the least to ensure his opponent enjoys the game. In a competative environment, that could be the scrub. In a noncompetitive environment, it is rarely the scrub.

Did you never enjoy games with relatives when you were a little kid? Do you never enjoy games with your little siblings/cousins/nieces/nephews? Even with major imbalances, fun can be had.

Yes, I did. We played various dominos, euchre, hearts, and the like. We trashed bad games like Monopoly because, as written, its a terrible board game. Now I play much better made board games which cater to either entirely silly chance (Kings of Tokyo) or well designed balance.

You can't compare games of sub $100 investment or tried and true rules to wargames as they're a significant and time sink. By buying the rules and models to a new game, you're agreeing to play X game. Not Bob's variant of X game.

Like TooFast, I played in a highly competitive 40l setting and that's where I learned the game. Then I moved to much lesser one and I was labelled the bad guy... I was still playing the same lists and the same game, but suddenly I'm a jerk? Nope, that's just 40k. It's the only wargame I've experienced that relies very heavily on community house rules and expectations vary from location to location.

As someone who moves around quite a lot, I agree. Local metas can differ quite a lot. I go from one place where tac termies are played against Khorne 'Zerkers to one where every army has at least one IK.

It amazes me how the GW apologists seem to think everyone is aware of the levels of imbalance in the game of 40k, and have the time and funds to amend their choices to suit their player group.

What about 2 fresh faced new players , who love the fluff and have lovingly crafted their first 40k army.
One gets told he is TFG and everyone refuses to play his 'WAAC over powered list'.And the other player gets kerb stomped every game ...

How can these young /inexperience players be judged on their character?
They are perfectly nice people who have forged their narrative and got a back story for their army ,and painted everything to the best of their ability.

These are GW perfect customers are they not?

Yet GW plc has let them down horribly with such poor game balance that just gives them negative experiences.
And the GW apologists want to say its the players fault?

Lanrak wrote:
And the other player gets kerb stomped every game ...

And now I have American History X as portrayed by Kerbals in my mind this morning. Thank you.

Lanrak wrote:
It amazes me how the GW apologists seem to think everyone is aware of the levels of imbalance in the game of 40k, and have the time and funds to amend their choices to suit their player group.

What about 2 fresh faced new players , who love the fluff and have lovingly crafted their first 40k army.
One gets told he is TFG and everyone refuses to play his 'WAAC over powered list'.And the other player gets kerb stomped every game ...

How can these young /inexperience players be judged on their character?
They are perfectly nice people who have forged their narrative and got a back story for their army ,and painted everything to the best of their ability.

These are GW perfect customers are they not?

Yet GW plc has let them down horribly with such poor game balance that just gives them negative experiences.
And the GW apologists want to say its the players fault?

Warhammer 40k has always been a fundamentally imbalanced game, and the rules are meant to be guidelines for play. That said, the onus should not be on the player or gaming group to fix the rules themselves; GW should provide a framework for games that is relatively balanced. In this case, it's a matter of amending the rules in a more radical way.

It amazes me that people think that this problem of competitive vs. casual armies is unique to 40k. The same things happen in MTG, Warmahordes, X-Wing, and other tabletop games: there are people who optimize to play at a very competitive level, and there are the people who play to win but still want to have fun with their opponent.

For the OP, a lot of what constitutes a reasonable list depends on the local meta. Same gaming groups are more casual, and some are more competitive. It's a simple matter of what people enjoy playing. People wouldn't run the really nasty tournament lists from other armies in a more casual-minded group, so the same rules should apply to Eldar.

Peregrine wrote:For the reasons already mentioned: fun is subjective and different people have different ideas about what is fun, shaming people for taking powerful stuff instead of fixing the rules directly is a terrible approach to game design, people very rarely agree on what the appropriate power level for a list is, etc.

There is a disparity in opinion about what's fun. That's fine. There's less disparity about what's fair.

Do you think that a 295 point base model wraithknight is fair, both in relationship to the Eldar codex and in relationship to the other units and codices currently in the game? The general concensus, I believe, is: "No. That unit should cost roughly 50 points more."

Do you think that scatbike spam is fair? The general concensus is: "No. Either the rules should say that you can only bring 1 scatter laser for every 3 bikes, or else, each scatter laser should cost 15 points, not 10 points, extra."

Do you think that a 2++ rerollable save is fair? I'm pretty sure that the general consensus is "no."

Are there certain lists that you could bring against which a TAC list of a different codex would have much less than a 50% chance of winning? Is that fair? "No," you answer? Then don't run that list. It would not be a fair match-up.

Let's set fun aside, and consider fairness. You and I have different views about fun (for me, what's fun is pretending that my sternguard are actually megacity-1 judges who are using lawgivers. So instead of saying "kraken rounds: rapid fire," I'll say "armor piercing: rapid fire!" (This is also part of the reason that I won't even consider putting my combimelta sternguard in a drop pod...that's not how judges travel; they travel either on bikes, patwagons, landraiders (I kid you not; check out the Cursed Earth saga) or H-wagons.) You clearly like to min-max your codex and win the vast majority of your games. That's fine. You can have your conception of fun, and I'll have mine.

But a 295 point wraithknight is not fair, given the current configuration of the game, and I don't think that anybody disputes this.

And you'll tell me: "But the rules themselves aren't fair!" That's basically what the gentleman from Alabama basically said. That's fine. But nobody says that you have to take advantage of unfair rules. Everybody agrees that it's unfair to spam scatter lasers, or else, they should be 5 points per model more expensive? Then let your conception of fun be what it may, but play in a way that everybody considers fair: Either only equip every 1 in 3 bikes with scatter lasers, or else, when you write your list, pretend as though your bikes are 5 points per model more expensive. Pretend your wraithknight is 50 points more expensive. And don't use the 2++ rerollable invuln.

Will you have fun playing that 800 points list (which should be 1000 points) against a 1000 points list of a different codex? Maybe. Maybe not. But nobody will claim that it's an unfair match-up, and there's no rule that says that you have to bring 1000 points to a 1000 points game. And if you're a decent human being, you should value "fair" over "fun." Always.

I'm sure that you can see the general point that I'm making, and I'll leave it to you and to my other readers to abstract this point and see its application to other points of the game.

Except it isn't, because they're two separate things. You proposed option #1, voluntarily avoiding the overpowered stuff.

All that I said, the only conclusion that I drew, which, strictly speaking, followed from premises 1 and 2, is that the players themselves must come up with a way of fixing the game and making it more balanced.

I pointed out that there's a second option, where you change the overpowered thing so that it isn't overpowered anymore and nobody has to avoid it.

Which would still be the prerogative of the player, no?

That doesn't make any sense. "Exploit" implies that you're doing something dishonest and breaking the intent of the rules, but that's not happening here. It's clear that the rules say what they do because of deliberate intent from GW. People aren't spamming Eldar jetbikes because there was a typo in the codex and they cost 5 points per model, they're spamming them because GW deliberately gave them powerful rules.

"Exploit" may be the wrong word. My point is that he admits that the rules are bad and unfairly bias the game in his favor...and specifically purchased the model(s) for that reason. That's basically what he said. But if you dispute my use of the word "exploit," then replace all previous instances of the word "exploit" with "take advantage of."

 TheNewBlood wrote:

It amazes me that people think that this problem of competitive vs. casual armies is unique to 40k. The same things happen in MTG, Warmahordes, X-Wing, and other tabletop games: there are people who optimize to play at a very competitive level, and there are the people who play to win but still want to have fun with their opponent.

Oh yes, but none of them have it to such an acute degree as 40K. It's probably not possible to get perfect balance, but it's also not necessary--it can be done much better than it is in 40K--which, again, has been running for 16 years on the same basic system.