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Remember how everyone said Necrons were going to dominate?

Then, after the next tourney came out and they didn't, some people said they would be fine, and others said to give it a month?

Now, are we seeing them do quite well (50% of top 8).

That does strongly suggest that this set of data is inconclusive at best. In fact, that should have been obvious before we saw the data.

(I still think CW Eldar will dominate, but it'll remain a theory - even if a strong one - for now.)

chanceafs wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's really not a question of will eldar break competitive play. There is no question that they will. They are hands down better than anything else that isn't decruion and their match-up vs decruion is laughably one sided in favor of eldar. It is not a question - it is fact. For top end tournaments where everything is expected to be painted to a pro level - it's not realistic to assume that craft-world armies are ready for competition.

If by 'fact' you mean, 'currently untested hypothesis', then yes... it is most definitely a fact.

Do you have playtesting results to back up these statements, Xenomancers?

Not being rude- just curious?

zerosignal wrote:

chanceafs wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's really not a question of will eldar break competitive play. There is no question that they will. They are hands down better than anything else that isn't decruion and their match-up vs decruion is laughably one sided in favor of eldar. It is not a question - it is fact. For top end tournaments where everything is expected to be painted to a pro level - it's not realistic to assume that craft-world armies are ready for competition.

If by 'fact' you mean, 'currently untested hypothesis', then yes... it is most definitely a fact.

Do you have playtesting results to back up these statements, Xenomancers?

Not being rude- just curious?

Play testing is not required to see stats/ weapons costing less. It's not a hypothesis. It is a mathematical certainty. Kinda like saying that a pair of kings will beat a pair of queens about 82% of the time. It's really not necessary to play the hand 1000 times to figure that out.

Its more like comparing AJ offsuit to 34 suited.

Might not be rocket science, but before you try it out, its just a theory. After you try it out its a well-tested theory.

So, a tournament with quite a few restrictions that directly limit Eldar's capability is being used to show us that Eldar aren't overpowered?

Okay...

Its kind of hard to use a tournament with any restrictions and claim that X is or isn't broken.

 Xenomancers wrote:

zerosignal wrote:

chanceafs wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's really not a question of will eldar break competitive play. There is no question that they will. They are hands down better than anything else that isn't decruion and their match-up vs decruion is laughably one sided in favor of eldar. It is not a question - it is fact. For top end tournaments where everything is expected to be painted to a pro level - it's not realistic to assume that craft-world armies are ready for competition.

If by 'fact' you mean, 'currently untested hypothesis', then yes... it is most definitely a fact.

Do you have playtesting results to back up these statements, Xenomancers?

Not being rude- just curious?

Play testing is not required to see stats/ weapons costing less. It's not a hypothesis. It is a mathematical certainty. Kinda like saying that a pair of kings will beat a pair of queens about 82% of the time. It's really not necessary to play the hand 1000 times to figure that out.

Firstly, unless there is a rule in the ELdar codex that literally says... if you but this model on the table you win the game, then the comparsion of queens and kings is completely irrelevent.

Secondly... if you've every played poker, you'd know that a pair of Queens can easily beat a pair of kings... when the person with the queens bluffs the other player into folding his kings.

If games of 40K ended in mathematical certainty there would be no point in playing... the codex is only one small cog in a very large machine that includes the actual army list, the terrrain, the tactics and skill level of the players and the dice all determine the outcome of a game. All the mathhammer and averages in the world doesn't stop you from losing terminators to lasgun fire because you rolled 5 1's on 6 dice.

Is the new codex very strong? Yes. Does it give the eldar player a more useful toolbox than his opponent? Yes. Does this mean Eldar will win 100% of their games. Not even remotely. People and dice win games, not codexes and math.

chanceafs wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

zerosignal wrote:

chanceafs wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's really not a question of will eldar break competitive play. There is no question that they will. They are hands down better than anything else that isn't decruion and their match-up vs decruion is laughably one sided in favor of eldar. It is not a question - it is fact. For top end tournaments where everything is expected to be painted to a pro level - it's not realistic to assume that craft-world armies are ready for competition.

If by 'fact' you mean, 'currently untested hypothesis', then yes... it is most definitely a fact.

Do you have playtesting results to back up these statements, Xenomancers?

Not being rude- just curious?

Play testing is not required to see stats/ weapons costing less. It's not a hypothesis. It is a mathematical certainty. Kinda like saying that a pair of kings will beat a pair of queens about 82% of the time. It's really not necessary to play the hand 1000 times to figure that out.

Firstly, unless there is a rule in the ELdar codex that literally says... if you but this model on the table you win the game, then the comparsion of queens and kings is completely irrelevent.

Secondly... if you've every played poker, you'd know that a pair of Queens can easily beat a pair of kings... when the person with the queens bluffs the other player into folding his kings.

If games of 40K ended in mathematical certainty there would be no point in playing... the codex is only one small cog in a very large machine that includes the actual army list, the terrrain, the tactics and skill level of the players and the dice all determine the outcome of a game. All the mathhammer and averages in the world doesn't stop you from losing terminators to lasgun fire because you rolled 5 1's on 6 dice.

Is the new codex very strong? Yes. Does it give the eldar player a more useful toolbox than his opponent? Yes. Does this mean Eldar will win 100% of their games. Not even remotely. People and dice win games, not codexes and math.

I feel like you have a very romanticized view of 40k.

This game is very often won and lost at the list building phase, more so than any other table top game I know. It is very easy to see who is going to win in a given situation when looking at their list, it is not 100% certainty but I would put it close to 80% of the game is played in the list building phase. Table set up has little to do with it other than skewing the game more towards shooting, which again has to do with the list being played and not player skill. Arguing that outliers, like rolling five 1's on six dice isn't an argument against a codex being more powerful than others. If I have to rely on my opponent rolling an absurd amount of bad rolls in order for the game to be balanced then we know something is horribly wrong.

The amount of player agency in 40k is marginalized constantly by the rules, we roll for our psychic powers, our warlord traits, our objectives. We can make decisions based on those things but it really boils down to some fairly simple yes/no decisions that don't require a second thought. 40k is a very fast and deadly game where unless you are playing Necrons you have to assume that killing your opponent quickly is your primary goal with holding objectives is secondary, a dead opponent can't take you off objectives for how ever many turns are left giving you free reign of tactical objectives, that are anything but really...

Finally...dice win games but math doesn't? Dice are math, it is probability and we make our decisions as players based on that probability. No one fires your mythical six lasguns at a group of terminators and expects to hit, wound, and see five 1's come up on armor rolls.

 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

Best Tau: 16th
And Tau are still considered OP. Lawl.

and again, what list was used?, who did they play against? etc etc.

There's a reason I hate this sort of "surface" data, it doesn't show you what actually happened.

nor does it tell us if said players were veterns, rookies, or Profesional tournament WAAC players. its bogus data.

chanceafs wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

zerosignal wrote:

chanceafs wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's really not a question of will eldar break competitive play. There is no question that they will. They are hands down better than anything else that isn't decruion and their match-up vs decruion is laughably one sided in favor of eldar. It is not a question - it is fact. For top end tournaments where everything is expected to be painted to a pro level - it's not realistic to assume that craft-world armies are ready for competition.

If by 'fact' you mean, 'currently untested hypothesis', then yes... it is most definitely a fact.

Do you have playtesting results to back up these statements, Xenomancers?

Not being rude- just curious?

Play testing is not required to see stats/ weapons costing less. It's not a hypothesis. It is a mathematical certainty. Kinda like saying that a pair of kings will beat a pair of queens about 82% of the time. It's really not necessary to play the hand 1000 times to figure that out.

Firstly, unless there is a rule in the ELdar codex that literally says... if you but this model on the table you win the game, then the comparsion of queens and kings is completely irrelevent.

Secondly... if you've every played poker, you'd know that a pair of Queens can easily beat a pair of kings... when the person with the queens bluffs the other player into folding his kings.

If games of 40K ended in mathematical certainty there would be no point in playing... the codex is only one small cog in a very large machine that includes the actual army list, the terrrain, the tactics and skill level of the players and the dice all determine the outcome of a game. All the mathhammer and averages in the world doesn't stop you from losing terminators to lasgun fire because you rolled 5 1's on 6 dice.

Is the new codex very strong? Yes. Does it give the eldar player a more useful toolbox than his opponent? Yes. Does this mean Eldar will win 100% of their games. Not even remotely. People and dice win games, not codexes and math.

I'm refering to texas holdem where it's likely both of these hands are ether all in before the flop or so far committed to the pot that they could not fold. It very unlikely a poket kings would ever fold their hand unless the board was suited with 4 cards of a suit he didn't have. In any case it is still extremely relevant if eldar are kings and everyone else is queens - eldar will win 80% - because that would break the competitive scene. I'm not sure what the actual power level of the eldar is over the other armies - there is no question that it is considerably higher though. That's all I'm saying.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:

I feel like you have a very romanticized view of 40k.

This game is very often won and lost at the list building phase, more so than any other table top game I know. It is very easy to see who is going to win in a given situation when looking at their list, it is not 100% certainty but I would put it close to 80% of the game is played in the list building phase. Table set up has little to do with it other than skewing the game more towards shooting, which again has to do with the list being played and not player skill. Arguing that outliers, like rolling five 1's on six dice isn't an argument against a codex being more powerful than others. If I have to rely on my opponent rolling an absurd amount of bad rolls in order for the game to be balanced then we know something is horribly wrong.

The amount of player agency in 40k is marginalized constantly by the rules, we roll for our psychic powers, our warlord traits, our objectives. We can make decisions based on those things but it really boils down to some fairly simple yes/no decisions that don't require a second thought. 40k is a very fast and deadly game where unless you are playing Necrons you have to assume that killing your opponent quickly is your primary goal with holding objectives is secondary, a dead opponent can't take you off objectives for how ever many turns are left giving you free reign of tactical objectives, that are anything but really...

Finally...dice win games but math doesn't? Dice are math, it is probability and we make our decisions as players based on that probability. No one fires your mythical six lasguns at a group of terminators and expects to hit, wound, and see five 1's come up on armor rolls.

Math and probability tell you what the dice should roll... not what the dice will roll. 86% chance of success is still a 14% chance of failure, and the dice rolling you into that 14% will lose you the game no matter what your mathammer predicted. You may not expect it to happen, but sometimes it does and you still have to deal with that outcome. Probability is math... dice are still random. That's the entire point.

And how is it that you claim that the game is won at the list building phae, and then turn around and say that player agency has little impact? Player agency is at it's strongest while you are building your list. The player chooses which units they are going to buy on the board, and they choose those units, and the upgrades to purchase, based on how they plan to use them, and how well they think (or hope or plan) those units will do.

And even then the best army in the world will lose hard, if the person running it makes the wrong decisions. Or if the dice roll against them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Call me naive, or a romantic if you will, but if the game is as cut and dry as you claim, then what is the point of putting models on the table in the first place?

I think the biggest thing everyone should take away from this is that literally every unit in the Eldar codex got a buff....except Wave Serpents. Whose nerf is realistically minor compared to previous nerfs other codex's have faced.

So without pulling out all sorts of math hammer formula's can everyone just take a second to admit that to themselves? If Eldar were good previously, and now everything in the army got better, it is only logical that Eldar will be harder to beat now. Fair enough?

 Ghazkuul wrote:
I think the biggest thing everyone should take away from this is that literally every unit in the Eldar codex got a buff....except Wave Serpents. Whose nerf is realistically minor compared to previous nerfs other codex's have faced.

So without pulling out all sorts of math hammer formula's can everyone just take a second to admit that to themselves? If Eldar were good previously, and now everything in the army got better, it is only logical that Eldar will be harder to beat now. Fair enough?

I may be wrong, but I don't think anybody is disputing that. It is very clear that GW took an already strong codex and made it stronger. What I, and many others are disputing, is the idea that this stronger codex will so completely break the game as to make 40K unplayable, or that players who happen to use the codex they were given should be shunned like lepers, whether or not they choose exploit the strongest parts of that codex.

We have scene codexes that were more powerful than anything in the meta hit before. This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last.

chanceafs wrote:


We have scene codexes that were more powerful than anything in the meta hit before. This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last.

Well, banning Eldar has been a pretty good quick-fix to mitigating some of the worst balancing-issues in most editions of the past, with 5th arguably being the exception.

Not the first time. Not the last. So keeping Eldar banned on principle from now until the end of time (simply ignoring fluke-editions like 5th) seems like a good idea

"but if the game is as cut and dry as you claim, then what is the point of putting models on the table in the first place?"

That sir - is the real question.

Wonderwolf wrote:

chanceafs wrote:


We have scene codexes that were more powerful than anything in the meta hit before. This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last.

Well, banning Eldar has been a pretty good quick-fix to mitigating some of the worst balancing-issues in most editions of the past, with 5th arguably being the exception.

Not the first time. Not the last. So keeping Eldar banned on principle from now until the end of time (simply ignoring fluke-editions like 5th) seems like a good idea

Ok, ban Eldar... now look, Necrons are more powerful then anything anybody else can bring... I guess we should ban them...

Well all of the Imperium can be Battle Brothers with each other and get access to the most silly things from every single book, to include Imperial Knights... I guess the emporer should stop exerting his will from here on out...


Shall we keep going?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:
"but if the game is as cut and dry as you claim, then what is the point of putting models on the table in the first place?"

That sir - is the real question.

And if that is a question that you can't come up with an answer too, then why are you on the forums dedicated to a game you have no interest in playing?

chanceafs wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:

chanceafs wrote:


We have scene codexes that were more powerful than anything in the meta hit before. This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last.

Well, banning Eldar has been a pretty good quick-fix to mitigating some of the worst balancing-issues in most editions of the past, with 5th arguably being the exception.

Not the first time. Not the last. So keeping Eldar banned on principle from now until the end of time (simply ignoring fluke-editions like 5th) seems like a good idea

Ok, ban Eldar... now look, Necrons are more powerful then anything anybody else can bring... I guess we should ban them...

Well all of the Imperium can be Battle Brothers with each other and get access to the most silly things from every single book, to include Imperial Knights... I guess the emporer should stop exerting his will from here on out...


Shall we keep going?

I'd just say this - tournaments don't matter at all right now unitl all book reach the power level of crons and eldar. It's rather pointless to compete against these armies.

 Xenomancers wrote:

I'd just say this - tournaments don't matter at all right now unitl all book reach the power level of crons and eldar. It's rather pointless to compete against these armies.

That's not true at all. Tournaments is exactly where the power level can actually be mitigated by using tournament restrictions.
I feel like it's in random games the power levels matter.

chanceafs wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:

chanceafs wrote:


We have scene codexes that were more powerful than anything in the meta hit before. This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last.

Well, banning Eldar has been a pretty good quick-fix to mitigating some of the worst balancing-issues in most editions of the past, with 5th arguably being the exception.

Not the first time. Not the last. So keeping Eldar banned on principle from now until the end of time (simply ignoring fluke-editions like 5th) seems like a good idea

Ok, ban Eldar... now look, Necrons are more powerful then anything anybody else can bring... I guess we should ban them...

Well all of the Imperium can be Battle Brothers with each other and get access to the most silly things from every single book, to include Imperial Knights... I guess the emporer should stop exerting his will from here on out...


Shall we keep going?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:
"but if the game is as cut and dry as you claim, then what is the point of putting models on the table in the first place?"

That sir - is the real question.

And if that is a question that you can't come up with an answer too, then why are you on the forums dedicated to a game you have no interest in playing?

It's not that I don't have interest in playing, I've invested a lot of time and money into my models and I like to play with them. The competitive side of the game is exactly as stated above. It's mostly list building and not a lot of skill involved at all. After deployment the games moves have basically already been determined and it's just a stats grinder at that point. The better stats win more than the weaker stats. I'm okay with the game being mostly about list building in competitive play I'm not okay competing against these new wave armies with old codex it's just not intended.

One of the things that tourney did show us was that *Orkz* could hold their own against Necrons (among others...)

Bharring wrote:
One of the things that tourney did show us was that *Orkz* could hold their own against Necrons (among others...)

But it didn't show us that. Because it's Swiss style. He may not have even touched a cron army, and he almost certainly didn't touch an eldar one, since none of them made it past round 2 undefeated, they were no longer possible matchups for him. It is entirely possible he danced through all the crons without playing one as well. Can anyone show us his actual opponents and their lists?

At a 6 round Swiss tourney, you don't have to beat all the other players to win. You just have to beat 6 of them. Because of the tournament style's "assumption" that your w/l record puts you above people you haven't played against, it's possible to win a 50 man tourney where 43 of the opponents would crush you. (Not likely, but possible.)

Some interesting discussions here.

I vote to ban all codex's except for Dark Angels.

That way a codex that should get some love will get some attention.

Sunhero wrote:
The results for the 50+ two day ict tournament are in with only one of the new Eldar coming in the top ten.
They will probably still prove to be a top tier army but they will not be completely dominant as some of the hysteria suggested.

Storm of Silence 2015 Results: http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Results-Storm_WLDsort.pdf

orks won. necrons and skitarii came second, with four necrons in top ten.

I understand that one data point is not a pattern but this shows you cant just turn up with 40 scatter bikes a wraithknight and some
D-Scythes and beat every one.

It was cold yesterday so Global Warming must be false!

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's really not a question of will eldar break competitive play. There is no question that they will. They are hands down better than anything else that isn't decruion and their match-up vs decruion is laughably one sided in favor of eldar. It is not a question - it is fact. For top end tournaments where everything is expected to be painted to a pro level - it's not realistic to assume that craft-world armies are ready for competition.

Sorry, but I don't agree with anything you say here. I don't think Eldar are better hands down than everything other than Decurion, and I don't think Eldar v Necron is a foregone conclusion. I have no idea how you can call that a fact. And I don't know what you mean a "pro level" of painting, but I've never heard of a tournament where someone wasn't allowed to play because their reasonably painted, table-top standard models were considered too poor a paintjob. I mean, that would be such an donkey-cave thing to say to someone: "Sorry man, you can't play, coz your paintjob sucks. LOSER!" Really? I can't even imagine it.

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's not that I don't have interest in playing, I've invested a lot of time and money into my models and I like to play with them. The competitive side of the game is exactly as stated above. It's mostly list building and not a lot of skill involved at all. After deployment the games moves have basically already been determined and it's just a stats grinder at that point. The better stats win more than the weaker stats. I'm okay with the game being mostly about list building in competitive play I'm not okay competing against these new wave armies with old codex it's just not intended.

List building is a HUGE part of the game. But there IS skill involved both before building the list and after. The only time there isn't skill is when you play one of these brainless spammy builds -- you know, park Wave Serpents against the back edge of the table with no rear armor facing the game, shoot, move wave serpents forward just out of range, shoot, move wave serpents forward just out of range, shoot.

If you think that games are determined at deployment, well, I disagree. Some games, sure. Some matchups are bad, and the odds are poor even before deployment. And if you look at two armies just taken out carrying cases, you can often see that one is hopelessly outclassed. But most competitive lists are reasonably flexible, and are designed not to auto-lose against anything. Aside from obvious factors that have a huge role (like experience, and knowing which fights you're likely to win, and which fights are a bad idea), knowing special rules and being familiar with your opponent's faction -- which is not a foregone conclusion -- you're totally ignoring special abilities like deep strike, teleportation, infiltrate, scout, and outflank; how people use psychic powers.

In the current ITC tournament format, I don't think it's **impossible** for any faction to win. In fact, I believe just about every major faction (excluding ones that people rarely play like Sisters and Harlequins) has placed in the top 3 within a reasonable period. Sure, some factions perform better than others.

Necrons are the first "Post Decurion" codex, by virtue of containing the Decurion Detachment. It's powerful. It also contains models that people, for the most part, had anyway.

Not everyone has many Wraithguard. Not everyone has their old-school JB's equipped with 100% Scatter Lasers. So while the Necrons have had some time to get their feet under them, the Eldar codex did not have that luxury at that time.

I don't know if Decurion Necrons are better than Scatter-D Eldar. I can say that I believe they're the two best codices that I'm aware of, by a wide margin. Necrons are the immovable object, while Eldar are the unstoppable force. Who wins?

chanceafs wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

zerosignal wrote:

chanceafs wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's really not a question of will eldar break competitive play. There is no question that they will. They are hands down better than anything else that isn't decruion and their match-up vs decruion is laughably one sided in favor of eldar. It is not a question - it is fact. For top end tournaments where everything is expected to be painted to a pro level - it's not realistic to assume that craft-world armies are ready for competition.

If by 'fact' you mean, 'currently untested hypothesis', then yes... it is most definitely a fact.

Do you have playtesting results to back up these statements, Xenomancers?

Not being rude- just curious?

Play testing is not required to see stats/ weapons costing less. It's not a hypothesis. It is a mathematical certainty. Kinda like saying that a pair of kings will beat a pair of queens about 82% of the time. It's really not necessary to play the hand 1000 times to figure that out.

Firstly, unless there is a rule in the ELdar codex that literally says... if you but this model on the table you win the game, then the comparsion of queens and kings is completely irrelevent.

Secondly... if you've every played poker, you'd know that a pair of Queens can easily beat a pair of kings... when the person with the queens bluffs the other player into folding his kings.

If games of 40K ended in mathematical certainty there would be no point in playing... the codex is only one small cog in a very large machine that includes the actual army list, the terrrain, the tactics and skill level of the players and the dice all determine the outcome of a game. All the mathhammer and averages in the world doesn't stop you from losing terminators to lasgun fire because you rolled 5 1's on 6 dice.

Is the new codex very strong? Yes. Does it give the eldar player a more useful toolbox than his opponent? Yes. Does this mean Eldar will win 100% of their games. Not even remotely. People and dice win games, not codexes and math.

This is a good point. A few weeks ago my friends 3++ riptide took 15 grav shots and 18 hurricane bolter shots to the face and lived. Then I shot it with a storm bolter from a drop pod and killed it.