Has GW abdicated responsibility for game balance?

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**Accolade**

Talys wrote:
Accolade wrote:

I think 3rd-5th GW had a pretense of balance because armies were still single entities, and they had to make them decent enough or risk losing sales of the whole faction. Now everything is just an ally, so GW could care less if the individual books work because it's all about maximizing sales for the one super-army.

Sorry, but this is the line of thinking just makes me shake my head. It's like people have drawn a total memory blank on things like razorback spam and Grey Knights. 3e-5e or 6e was NOT more balanced or clear. Maybe players were less extreme in a local scene. Maybe during 3e, there was less "look on the internet for an optimal build to show your friends how superior you are" -- but the rules were definitely more ambiguous, and the game had just as much imbalance (more!!!) as it has today.

40k has ALWAYS been about building a super-army and/or collecting a crap ton of toy soldiers, and showcasing it to your buddies by playing out some futuristic (laughably improbable) battle. But I mean, who didn't know that going in.

I did not know 40k was an imbalanced mess going in to 3rd, but as you said maybe there was less rules gimickyness at that point (during the great rules purge that was 3rd). But you can keep your "more knowedgable-than-thou" head-shaking to yourself, I TOO remember 5th edition Grey Knights that came at the end of 5th, yes they were poorly balanced, but I think they were indicative of where GW was taking 40k with 6th and beyond. And I don't think that Grew Knight book, which was only a tiny portion of 5th itself, has to represent that entire edition.

Armies weren't literally unbeatable the way they can be now. Now you have D-strength armies wiping out anything they encounter and whole armies of super heavies where half of your army may be entirely unable to hurt their opponents.

There is a difference between the game being unbalanced and certain armies being favored and a game where there is absolutely no concept of balance between armies, and things wildly swinging one way or the other.

And I will say this again since it bears repeating- recycling the rules at faster rates makes this unbalance much, much worse. Were GW not trying to wring you for $135 for basic rules that can last a couple years if lucky, it wouldn't matter that much. But their rules are the highest in the industry by a massive margin.

**jasper76**

Grimtuff wrote:
Peregrine wrote:
jasper76 wrote:
FW units seem designed to plug weaknesses in the corresponding army's regular 40k codex. Like, your army is no good at this? No worries! Here's a FW unit to plug that hole.

This is not true at all.

Nah, the ally rules do that function just fine.

I agree with this. Allies cheese make the added punch offered by FW units a bit less notable.

**FenixPhox**

Peregrine wrote:
You are correct about GW putting no effort into game balance. Whatever the reasons may be they very clearly do not consider balance or rule quality to be important.

I can tell you as an employee of a shop that recently started carrying GW product that when we were first talking to them they made sure to let us know that they considered themselves a miniature company, NOT a game company. To them the game played with their models is secondary to the models and sales of the models the game is played with.

**Talys**

Interestingly, I happened upon a Bell of Lost Souls article on 40k balance just now. It's actually pretty well written. I will quote two passages from it:

This is from 3e, and written by Andy Chambers in 1998 and pretty much explains the Games Workshop philosophy.

“The first and most fundamental principles of wargaming rules: They are loose, wooly affairs which never detail exactly what you want to know in any given situation. “Why” I hear you chorus, “Isn’t that your job you charlatan?” (you may want to use stronger terminology here). It’s because wargaming isn’t played on a gridded-out playing area with a set number of strictly defined pieces. Wargaming is about colour, movement and breathing life into the armies you lovingly amass and then drive headlong into your opponent. The number of variables in a normal miniatures game is simply staggering if you consider the diversity of terrain, armies, playing area, dice rolls, points values and all the rest of it.”

So – the date is 1998, and the Overlord Andy Chambers is telling you you won’t get a fully boxed off airtight ruleset. Hold that in mind – we may have forgotten that over the years…

See: it is about "color, movement, and breathing life into the armies you lovingly amass and then drive headlong into your opponent", dating nearly to the beginning of the modern game system. Stop blaming it on GW employees of today being less competent than GW employees of yesteryear, or because of corporate greed or incompetence or mismanagement. The rules are what they are because this is the vision and philosophy of 40k as set forth nearly 20 years ago, a period which people seem to look back upon fondly. You may choose to disagree or dislike it, of course, but there you have it.

The conclusion is also very good. It points out that Games Workshop actually has given players exactly what they asked for. In 5e, which some seem reminisce for, players wanted faster release schedules. Wraithknights and Imperial Knights fly off the shelf because people WANT big stompy robots, just like they wanted flyers some years back.

There is an imbalance in the codexes. If this imbalance is beyond your ability to deal without serious mental angst I haven’t got much to suggest. Have you tried using the battle missions? Have you tried planetfall? Have you thought about a fortification or an ally? Is there a super heavy that fits in your army fluff so you are not doing some unlikely fist bump with the necrons?

You see the reason I ask this is that the designers and GW seem to be doing something we wanted back at the time of 5th ed. Yes, you heard me, GW is doing what its customers wanted. We wanted a quicker release schedule, et voila. The sandbox of 40K has never been so varied so, to mix my metaphors, if you are like the French at Waterloo, and as described by Lord Wellington ‘come on in the same old way’ then in all likelihood you are going to be ‘seen off in the same old way’. If eternal war 1.5k isn’t floating your boat, change it up.

Embrace the inherent unbalance of 40K. It is not balanced, it never has been balanced and it never will be – neither is it intended to be and we were told this almost 2 decades back. But you know those square things with little dots on? Those are dice. There is a random aspect to 40K and there is a random aspect to war. The randomness and imbalance of 40K equally affects your opponent, so look for ways to mitigate and risk manage this aspect. You will find then that balance is just your starting point, to make sure bantam weight doesn’t fight super heavy weight. It is the handrail before jumping off into the grim dark future of the 41st millennium and if you can’t accept this I hope you are more fulfilled by pre-paints with 3 factions and the flat table space of a galaxy far far away, or using your super combo to kill the opposition warcaster. I for one will be trying to smash Eldar warts, D and all.

The full article is here, and worth a read.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/05/40k-deep-thought-the-more-you-try-to-balance.html

**Martel732**

Makes me want to never play this game again. Thanks.

**Accolade**

I will post the top comment from that article, since the article itself represents just Larry Vela and his opinions on 40k, which I feel largely equate to "GW can do no wrong" (he also wrote the article about "Why GW doesn't need to listen to its customers")

There is an issue if you have to start every pick up game with questions on how your opponent built their force so you know what to bring or if you should play them or not... Most games in the past when I asked pre game questions they were usually about terrain set ups or if they wanted to play a scenario. If I asked about their army it was curiosity NOT so I know which of my three forces to bring or if I should even play them (or shake their hand and say good game because I have no real hope of winning).

Like you said game balance is impossible, but a company should always try to get there... often close enough is enough to satisfy the majority of players.

Considering how much 40K players pay for their rules ($85 rule book + $50 Codex + $20-$50 supplements) GW should strive harder to make a better and more balanced game. Especially when you consider much smaller companies with much tighter and more balanced rules (IE they worked much harder on them than GW does) are giving away their rules for free.

**Wayniac**

Accolade wrote:
I will post the top comment from that article, since the article itself represents just Larry Vela and his opinions on 40k, which I feel largely equate to "GW can do no wrong" (he also wrote the article about "Why GW doesn't need to listen to its customers")

There is an issue if you have to start every pick up game with questions on how your opponent built their force so you know what to bring or if you should play them or not... Most games in the past when I asked pre game questions they were usually about terrain set ups or if they wanted to play a scenario. If I asked about their army it was curiosity NOT so I know which of my three forces to bring or if I should even play them (or shake their hand and say good game because I have no real hope of winning).

Like you said game balance is impossible, but a company should always try to get there... often close enough is enough to satisfy the majority of players.

Considering how much 40K players pay for their rules ($85 rule book + $50 Codex + $20-$50 supplements) GW should strive harder to make a better and more balanced game. Especially when you consider much smaller companies with much tighter and more balanced rules (IE they worked much harder on them than GW does) are giving away their rules for free.

Exactly right. I get that GW is trying to hearken back to the olden days of historical gaming, of Featherstone and Bath et all where they were all day affairs that you talked about and planned out and then enjoyed. I really do understand that. But 40k is too far in the opposite direction. There's no real guidance for that stuff. It's just random charts and assorted bullgak to give the illusion. For the price of the rules, they could at least be better written and at least try to get basic balance down. Sure, you can't compare a Space marine to a Guardsman, but you have problems where within the same fething book there's a unit that's so bad that only an idiot would take it, and a unit so good that you have to purposely decide to gimp yourself to not take it.

If they want the historical vibe, then they need to stop putting out freeform rules and ONLY put out campaign packs. Then they can write stuff like that to their heart's content because in the fluff the Battle for Omicron Persei VIII was three tactical squads and an Imperial Knight versus 100 Orks or whatever, and it's okay that it's unbalanced because it's a historical scenario. Except they don't do that. They try to cater to everybody and fail miserably.

Even modern historical games don't do that. Hail Caesar or Bolt Action for example, let you play imbalanced scenarios but the rules are at least good enough and there are enough victory conditions that you aren't just overwhelmed. If I wanted to play out Thermopylae, sure the Spartans are going to be outnumbered, but they don't have to beat the Persians to win the scenario. It's okay to have imbalance there if the victory conditions are like, Spartans win if they have any unit alive at the end of Turn 4, otherwise Persians win. That can still be a good game even with such an imbalance.

40k doesn't do that, and if they want to continue hyping this narrative bullgak, they need to do something like that to alleviate the problems. Give a book that has ideas for a narrative campaign, a real one not some trivial crap like the Space Wolf and Blood Angel ones they put out that were a few scenarios with the figures in the box, I mean something like the Crusade of Fire book with half the book being talking about coming up with a campaign and how they decide things, and the other half being the example campaign with the scenarios and laying everything out so it serves as an example and guide for how to do the kinds of leagues and campaigns that GW seems to want people to play. A GW-ified version of Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming or Donald Featherstone's Wargaming Campaigns, basically.

I'd even buy that just to read, even without playing.

**jasper76**

WayneTheGame wrote:
they need to do something like that to alleviate the problems. Give a book that has ideas for a narrative campaign, a real one not some trivial crap like the Space Wolf and Blood Angel ones they put out that were a few scenarios with the figures in the box, I mean something like the Crusade of Fire book with half the book being talking about coming up with a campaign and how they decide things, and the other half being the example campaign with the scenarios and laying everything out so it serves as an example and guide for how to do the kinds of leagues and campaigns that GW seems to want people to play.

I certainly wish there was more of this in 40k. Our group ends up making this kind of campaign/scenario stuff up ourselves, though we have used books like Damnos and other Apoc books for scenario ideas.

One of the things that was so cool about Lord ot the Ring SBG was the wealth of scenario material out for it, and most of them were very well designed.

**Peregrine**

Talys wrote:
Stop blaming it on GW employees of today being less competent than GW employees of yesteryear

Why? That's actually how it is. All I see in that quote from Andy Chambers is whining and crying about how nobody should point out that the rules suck instead of doing his job and making a better game. That's simply laziness and incompetence. But the main difference is that back in 1980 this might have been a bit understandable since the tabletop gaming hobby wasn't as well developed and GW didn't have as much experience with their games. Now there's simply no excuse for failing to make a better game. We know more about game design, and GW has a lot more experience with their games.

or because of corporate greed or incompetence or mismanagement.

Are you seriously denying that GW's corporate greed and incompetence have hurt their products?

In 5e, which some seem reminisce for, players wanted faster release schedules.

We wanted faster release schedules without sacrificing quality. But that's not what we got. Instead we have a faster release schedule enabled by spending minimal time and effort on writing the books, and splitting up codices into several smaller books.

Wraithknights and Imperial Knights fly off the shelf because people WANT big stompy robots, just like they wanted flyers some years back.

People wanted flyers and big stompy robots. People did NOT want those units to have utterly broken and anti-fun rules.

**Martel732**

Peregrine, there's obviously enough people who don't care to keep GW afloat. Since this hot mess is CLEARLY GW's preference, we're probably stuck.

**kb305**

Talys wrote:
Nithaniel wrote:

I came from a background of playing MtG. It is comparative to 40k in cost in terms of total spend however it is supported in competitive play. But it is also a game environment where the money bags players have the ability to dominate competitive and casual gaming scenes until the rest of the world is able to catch up. The balancing factor in this competitive environment is that a new expansion is released 3-4 times a year.

I agree completely! MtG is a perfect game to get moms, sisters, grandmas and girlfriends into. It takes almost no time to learn, and the pictures are pretty But casual and competitive decks don't mix any better than in 40k. When my aunt plays MtG, she plays with every card she owns IN ONE DECK. She insists on it because she doesn't want any card to feel bad, because you know, MtG cards have feelings too. Sometimes, she can go for 80 cards without draw a single freaking land.

But in the competitive scene, to have the "full MtG experience", you really need to have enough cards -- including extremely rare cards -- that allow you to build pretty much any deck you want, to experiment, and to have multiple playable decks all at the same time. It's actually very expensive to do. One may argue, "but you can just buy the cards you want" -- this is true, but it is not. No serious MtG player will do this, because all it lets you do is build a couple of netdecks and as the creepy guy in SHIELD said, "Progress requires experimentation".

In the same way, my girlfriend plays Orks and simply fields all the models she thinks are cool, without any regard for effectiveness. She's happy with a win, lose or draw, but if you try to curb stomp her with 5 Wraithknights, she'll just come over and knee you in the balls. She is a riot to game with, though, and all my buddies are happy to accommodate if she happens to be in the mood.

Generally speaking, in my opinion, 40k is not a good fit for people with very limited incomes or very limited time. I'm not trying to be an elitist snob. It's just that this game takes a lot of miniatures, the hobby supplies are costly, the hobby itself is time consuming, and every few years there's an army reboot in such a seismic way that you're likely to need a major reinvestment, unless you pretty much have bought everything along the way. In which case, you STILL might need to spend a bunch of money, because you suddenly need (or want) a lot more of unit X that you only had 1 of before; and unit Y that you had 30 of is suddenly poop.

Unless, of course, you play 7e Eldar -- almost everything is solid enough that not much has to go onto the shelf!

Nithaniel wrote:
This is arguable. I think most casual players are happy to come to arrangements where the rules fall down. However the rules fall down in very specific places that affect competitive gaming environments.

Well, especially regular groups. They'll just make up the rules they want, and go with it. Friendly groups tend to play rather than argue.

Nithaniel wrote:

Yes GW doesn't care. They care about their profit margins and their shareholders.

Once, I too thought this, but no more. If GW actually just cared about profit margins and shareholders, they'd design the game that the market demands.

Instead, what they actually do, is write a game and make miniatures that they think is cool, regardless of whether it is optimal for the market. GW plays 40k in a way that harkens back to Chainmail (who is old enough to remember that? ) -- roleplaying scenarios and campaigns, with miniatures. I've said it before: GW has strong AD&D roots in its DNA. GW doesn't really care if the market doesn't want it; it's confident that there is enough of a market that wants their stuff enough that they'll just do what they damn well please, and either take it and make it your own, or leave it and do something else.

Nithaniel wrote:
Find your fun

No truer words ever were said, when it comes to gaming and hobby

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Desubot wrote:
Sigvatr wrote:
GW openly considers itself a model company. Recent rules releases have, sadly, cemented that idea as GW went from trash to utterly unusuable trash. Codex: Eldar, just to name the most recent peak.

GW most likely knows that their competitors release vastly superior ruleset and thus fully stopped putting any effort in their rules department anymore.

Its sad because it could be.

The game it self isnt thaaaaaaat bad.

Meh. Like I said, I think GW just does what it wants to, the world be damned. They care more about keeping their vision for the game (which is not very tournament friendly OOB) and the people who think the way they do about tabletop wargames, than they do about making everyone else happy (and the game more profitable).

I think GW puts a huge effort into faction books. They certainly pump out enough of them, with tons of art and fluff, and well, rules, GW style. The only question is -- is that your thing, or can you or do you want to make it your own, because if you don't, you'll never be happy with 40k. I don't think in the next 7 editions there will be a set of rules that is "fair" or balanced that makes everyone happy.

It's like, the thought process is: "Eldar are supposed to be powerful. So we'll just make them powerful! Oh, well, they're more powerful than Orks? Well of course they are. THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE. They did rule the galaxy for millions of years, you know. Why should the Orks have anything but the most desparate chance?"

That actually makes for pretty good fluff and narrative (after all, they were an ancient race that could erase stars at a snap of the fingers). It just makes for a lousy game for the Ork player trying to win.

It's like building a historical recreation of Desert Shield, with US forces on one side, and Iraqi forces on the other. Where is the balance, dammit. Why do the Iraqis lose 100% of the time?!

I think it's pretty much this. The rules are made by a bunch of old british farts who dont care and are also stuck in their ways. they also probably dont have the same frame of reference younger people have (frame of reference we gained from video games and such).

**Zagman**

Pointing to Grey Knights in 5th as proof the edition was terribly balanced it a bit problematic, GK was the second to last codex of the edition followed by Necrons, both were heralds of the new edition. GK brought us the Brotherhood of Psykers, Power Weapons(Soon to be AP3) on everything, Over costed Storm Raven(BA was first, but costed appropriately as a Flyer), the Dreadknight(first 90x120mm MC), etc. One of 5th's biggest failing was GK was BA+1 and BA was SM+1 and vehicles were too durable. I still remember some of the closest, most enjoyable, and best games from 5th edition, 6th and 7th have effectively killed of 40k in my city. I really wish we would have had every codex updated for 5th edition, and not had GK and Necrons powered up for 6th.

**Deadnight**

Accolade wrote:

I did not know 40k was an imbalanced mess going in to 3rd, but as you said maybe there was less rules gimickyness at that point (during the great rules purge that was 3rd). But you can keep your "more knowedgable-than-thou" head-shaking to yourself, I TOO remember 5th edition Grey Knights that came at the end of 5th, yes they were poorly balanced, but I think they were indicative of where GW was taking 40k with 6th and beyond. And I don't think that Grew Knight book, which was only a tiny portion of 5th itself, has to represent that entire edition.

Armies weren't literally unbeatable the way they can be now. Now you have D-strength armies wiping out anything they encounter and whole armies of super heavies where half of your army may be entirely unable to hurt their opponents.

There is a difference between the game being unbalanced and certain armies being favored and a game where there is absolutely no concept of balance between armies, and things wildly swinging one way or the other.

He's right though.

Iron warriors and siren prince lists were pretty damned close to 'literally unbeatable' back in their day, and would bro fist the grey Knights and eldar for sheer over the top brutality. Iron Warriors on their own all but killed fourth edition. Other lesser contenders in fifth were things like long fang spam and imperial guard leaf blower. Fifth was pretty terrible in terms of balance, to be entirely honest.

Even further back in third, you had the lunacy of craft world eldar (ulthwe seer councils, alaitoc disruption tables, said hann ctm spam, and all with starcannonsa on everything and it's monkey), blood Angels and their 'on a 1 I go faster' assault you in the face and roll up a flank on turn 1 army lists. D-strength is kind of irrelevant - that's symptomatic of an arms race, nothing more. The fundamental imbalance was always there. Back in the day, when the biggest weapon you've got is a power fist and a lascannon, three wraithlords were the de facto equivelant. Half your army being unable to hurt anything in theirs? Yup, nothing new im afraid.

**SilverDevilfish**

Zagman wrote:
One of 5th's biggest failing was GK was BA+1 and BA was SM+1 and vehicles were too durable.

The majority of 5e may as well been called Marine Training Exercises.

**Accolade**

Deadnight wrote:
He's right though.

Iron warriors and siren prince lists were pretty damned close to 'literally unbeatable' back in their day, and would bro fist the grey Knights and eldar for sheer over the top brutality. Iron Warriors on their own all but killed fourth edition. Other lesser contenders in fifth were things like long fang spam and imperial guard leaf blower. Fifth was pretty terrible in terms of balance, to be entirely honest.

Even further back in third, you had the lunacy of craft world eldar (ulthwe seer councils, alaitoc disruption tables, said hann ctm spam, and all with starcannonsa on everything and it's monkey), blood Angels and their 'on a 1 I go faster' assault you in the face and roll up a flank on turn 1 army lists. D-strength is kind of irrelevant - that's symptomatic of an arms race, nothing more. The fundamental imbalance was always there. Back in the day, when the biggest weapon you've got is a power fist and a lascannon, three wraithlords were the de facto equivelant. Half your army being unable to hurt anything in theirs? Yup, nothing new im afraid.

With the wraithlords, were they literally unable to be harmed by weapons of certain strength, or was it just damn unlikely? It's an honest question, 3rd is something I admit I'm much more shakey on that 4th and 5th. I'm focused on the difference between "highly, highly unlikely" and "don't roll, because it is absolutely impossible."

I will concede to you and Talys that the game has always had a lot of imbalance. However, I think the scale at which we're seeing the imbalance- as you termed, with the arms race- is hitting a tipping point for people when it comes to deciding to start/continue playing 40k. I disagree that D-strength is irrelevant, it is to me the final steps of GW just completely saying "eff it" and dumping everything into their 28mm skirmish game.

The difference between the Rhino Rush of 3rd and the Knight Titan army of today is how much more freaking money it takes to build an army. You get curbstombed by a couple of wraithlords, you can buy more powerfists and lascannons, that's really not that much money. You get curbstomped by an AdLance Knight army, you have to make some really massive changes to your army to compete.

My issues always really boil down to the same thing: 40k is way too expensive. It's great that the game apparently has a collection of yacht-riding gentlemen who take the rising prices as a chance to showcase their own financial superiority, but the ubiquity of the game is being eroded at the fastest rate it has even been. Great for tabletop gaming overall, but I think it is silly to not admit that GW has these big problems that it is creating for itself.

Were the rules not (a) unbelievable expensive, and (b) on their seventh iteration, I very much doubt the complaints would be half this bad. But GW is clearly showing that their rules are a vehicle for revenue generation. And if they're going to charge an arm and a leg for them, they damn-well better be worth the cost.

**Akiasura**

Deadnight wrote:
Accolade wrote:

I did not know 40k was an imbalanced mess going in to 3rd, but as you said maybe there was less rules gimickyness at that point (during the great rules purge that was 3rd). But you can keep your "more knowedgable-than-thou" head-shaking to yourself, I TOO remember 5th edition Grey Knights that came at the end of 5th, yes they were poorly balanced, but I think they were indicative of where GW was taking 40k with 6th and beyond. And I don't think that Grew Knight book, which was only a tiny portion of 5th itself, has to represent that entire edition.

Armies weren't literally unbeatable the way they can be now. Now you have D-strength armies wiping out anything they encounter and whole armies of super heavies where half of your army may be entirely unable to hurt their opponents.

There is a difference between the game being unbalanced and certain armies being favored and a game where there is absolutely no concept of balance between armies, and things wildly swinging one way or the other.

He's right though.

Iron warriors and siren prince lists were pretty damned close to 'literally unbeatable' back in their day, and would bro fist the grey Knights and eldar for sheer over the top brutality. Iron Warriors on their own all but killed fourth edition. Other lesser contenders in fifth were things like long fang spam and imperial guard leaf blower. Fifth was pretty terrible in terms of balance, to be entirely honest.

It was doing fine until the 2 6th edition codexes came out while in 5th. When 6th launched, Grey knights, at least, were calmed down. The Bakery was still a thing though. Iron warriors were never really as strong as the siren bomb, and chaos got a 4th edition dex. Eldar have been strong for 2 dexes in a row, and were strong for most of their life.

Deadnight wrote:

Even further back in third, you had the lunacy of craft world eldar (ulthwe seer councils, alaitoc disruption tables, said hann ctm spam, and all with starcannonsa on everything and it's monkey), blood Angels and their 'on a 1 I go faster' assault you in the face and roll up a flank on turn 1 army lists. D-strength is kind of irrelevant - that's symptomatic of an arms race, nothing more. The fundamental imbalance was always there. Back in the day, when the biggest weapon you've got is a power fist and a lascannon, three wraithlords were the de facto equivelant. Half your army being unable to hurt anything in theirs? Yup, nothing new im afraid.

In every edition, a lot of dexes had strong builds. Chaos 3.5 dex was really out of control (It was called siren bomb, not prince btw. Did you mean lash prince? That was a later edition and wasn't nearly as bad), and was absurdly op. This is true.
But the rhino rush, eldar, nids, and even orks could compete against it (I didn't play other armies in 3rd, won't comment on them). Its true that, for many codexes, the internal balance was bad, leading to the one true build, but at least the external balance was closer than it is now.
Though, for eldar, I have not heard Saim Hann and Alaitoc described as good. Ulthwe seer council and Biel tan were the power builds, but you could play with any craftworld. Iyanden was a bit of a struggle but it was doable against the vast majority of builds.

In 4th, Eldar were really strong, but any dex could compete against them. Sometimes it was a 60 40 match up, sometimes slightly worse, but it wasn't 80 20 or 90 10 like you see now. This is partially due to flyer rules, and super heavies, but it's also because of the 2+ rerollable and invisibility. A 2++ was unheard of in 3-5 outside of dark eldar, who could lose it at least. And it was still considered to be really good, even with that weakness.

In 3rd and 4th, at least for marines, there was usually a hidden powerfist along with plasma guns. Wraithlords couldn't assault a group of tactical marines at full strength and expect to win, the unit had a weakness. Nids usually ran a MC swarm and could tangle with them, Nobz had klaws. Eldar, true, some units couldn't touch them but eldar are supposed to be hyper specialized so that seemed balanced.

What you are doing is, essentially, saying "every fighting game has always had top tier characters and lower tiers. It's always been the same, why complain?", but there is a huge difference between meta knight in SSBB and Diddy Kong in SSB4.

**MWHistorian**

I don't see how past failures excuse present ones.
Perhaps people are just tired of the crappy rules and terrible imbalances.
Nothing new, yes, but maybe it's just gotten old.

**Talys**

@Accolade - I'm not trying to be condescending (I also didn't write the BoLS article). I'm just pointing out that going back to Rogue Trader, and specifically quoted in 3e rules by the architect of the modern game, GW has been clear that it's about collections clashing, not about balance. I'm not asking anyone to agree with this, I'm just asking for people to stop making RT through 5e to be something that it wasn't, and to stop making it seem like GW has shifted course from 3e or 5e (or that either of those editions were any more fair).

GW may not work the way you like, but they are true to their own vision of what an enjoyable game should be about, and again, I'm not defending them or trying to change anyone's mind about 40k.

**The Home Nuggeteer**

At this point i am not even sure what GW even wants at this point, everything points in different directions.

**Blacksails**

Wasn't there a main writer on the team that drove the editions up to 5th in order to better support tournament/competitive/balanced play?

I get that RT/2nd were far more the realm of a pseudo RPG wargame, but 3rd-5th sounds like that mindset was moving away from unstructured or unbalanced gameplay in favour of making a more accessible game for all player types.

Someone with more years playing 40k or knows more about their history and people behind the company can help clarify, please and thanks!

**Talys**

Peregrine wrote:
Talys wrote:
Stop blaming it on GW employees of today being less competent than GW employees of yesteryear

Why? That's actually how it is. All I see in that quote from Andy Chambers is whining and crying about how nobody should point out that the rules suck instead of doing his job and making a better game. That's simply laziness and incompetence. But the main difference is that back in 1980 this might have been a bit understandable since the tabletop gaming hobby wasn't as well developed and GW didn't have as much experience with their games. Now there's simply no excuse for failing to make a better game. We know more about game design, and GW has a lot more experience with their games.

Well, Peregrine, I have a different perspective as you. Even going back to the 90s, I spent countless hours (at least hundred) painting my armies. Seeing as some of my armies don't see a tabletop for years while I work on them -- and I fully understand the rules might be totally different by the time I am satisfied with my battleforce -- my primary goal is not to have a supercompetitive game where I'm just out there to stomp or be stomped. Instead, I'm rather proud of my wee toy soldiers, and I'm excited to play them out with my buddies, who are also wowed by my little men. The goal is to put them in interesting scenarios, based on 40k fluff and canon; if the space marines lose a hopeless battle to the Eldar, that doesn't diminish me or my army in the least. It was still fun to do, and I do not feel diminished or an idiot for investing my time in my army.

I suspect there are other like-minded players who care more about the playing the game and reveling in the awesomeness of the models than they are in exploiting the latest, curb-stomping netlist; for these people, balance is simply not THE deciding factor on where to spend their time.

Now, to Andy Chambers balance comments: it's really, really hard to balance an ecosystem with units, terrain, and fortifications as complex as 40k, because not everyone plays the same way. Certain units may excel on foothills and be junk in a maze of city buildings. Those Eldar jetbikes? Garbage in an urban board where there are no straight lines exceeding 12". Wraithknights, Imperial Knights, and other Titans? Junk on a busy fortification-rich board, where there are very limited spaces that are large enough for a Titan base.

Granted, GW seems to be particularly bad at balancing certain factions (like Eldar and Necron). They seem to go out of their way to make these factions really strong -- which I guess, goes with the lore, that for millions of years, these species dominated the galaxy, and have technology far exceeding other younger races. But yes, I concede, this makes for bizarre gaming. After all, following the lore, the game could begin with, "Alaitoc forces teleport out and the Warhost triggers a supernova. Your army has been evaporated!". The game ends, but that would still fit the lore...

I'm happy to concede that there are lots of people (maybe even the majority) who don't share my viewpoint. That's just fine. I am not trying to convince them to play 40k, and if I ran into someone who wanted to play a tabletop wargame in competitive pickup games, I would actively try to convince them AGAINST 40k, because they probably wouldn't have a good time. Since the game hasn't been a good fit for this crowd since... well, since the game was invented, it probably won't be for another really long while, if ever. I just am baffled by the nostalgia of "40k used to be awesome and now it's wrecked".

Also: does anyone really get into 40k thinking it is balanced game, cheap game or cheap hobby? If so, I pity them.

Peregrine wrote:
Are you seriously denying that GW's corporate greed and incompetence have hurt their products?

Nah, they're as greedy as the next corporation. Which is really fine by me. I don't need corporations to be great world citizens. Ironically, however, I have made the argument before that GW is more true to its vision than it is to its corporate greed. I don't believe GW is **incapable** of better balance; I think that better balance contradicts its vision of a scifi universe in which the ancient civilizations are more powerful, and to the detriment of its corporate bottom line (because it's a customer losing position), it keeps these factions in alignment with their fluff.

Peregrine wrote:
We wanted faster release schedules without sacrificing quality. But that's not what we got. Instead we have a faster release schedule enabled by spending minimal time and effort on writing the books, and splitting up codices into several smaller books.

Books aside, a lot of people complain about how fast new models pop. This baffles me, because for any particular faction, the new models are a trickle.

Books specifically, even if every set of books were a huge improvement over the last, there would still be a huge number of people upset at the release cycle. Heck, IK is a huge improvement over the first version (which was junk, if you call a spade a spade), and people are unhappy about its release. Nobody even gives GW credit for including practically everything you need between the White Dwarf and the beautiful booklet in in the box with the new knight.

Peregrine wrote:
People wanted flyers and big stompy robots. People did NOT want those units to have utterly broken and anti-fun rules.

Evidently, nobody cares about flyers much anymore, and there are pretty good mechanisms for taking out big stompy robots with fewer points.

Most of the anti-fun comes from people who go, "Flyrants are good, so I only want to play Flyrants" -- it doesn't come from Flyrants being impossibly powerful.

**Tack**

Yeah I joined the game at the start of 5th and got hooked, but I can't deal with them seemingly merging Apocalypse and standard into one ruleset.
Nowadays I go to Casual tournaments and there's people there with full Knight armies, which are combined arms detachments- because whilst everyone has something to take out A knight, not many people are ready for 4.
This works the Least in ladder games because the single person who devotes their army to titanslaying is then completely unable to deal with any other, more normal army- yet those who field standard armies are completely unable to win against a large enough sea of superheavies.
I'm not advocating the earlier codexes- they all have had flaws, but there seems to be an upward trend in Cheese as the editions have moved forward.
4th it was just the fish of fury- now there's invisibility, superheavies, Grey Knights and unbound.

--
The thing that pisses me off the most about it is that it's done now. As much as I rant and rave and want the Knights to go back inyo apocalypse here they belong, it isn't happening because if they do, every Knight player will complain. As they should- they cost hundreds.
But like any profitable venture, GW only listen to the people buying their stuff, and the people buying their stuff LOVE the Pay2Win option.
GG, leave the hobby, find friends who'll play houserules, or go out and spend $400 to become viable.

**Talys**

Blacksails wrote:
Wasn't there a main writer on the team that drove the editions up to 5th in order to better support tournament/competitive/balanced play?

I get that RT/2nd were far more the realm of a pseudo RPG wargame, but 3rd-5th sounds like that mindset was moving away from unstructured or unbalanced gameplay in favour of making a more accessible game for all player types.

Someone with more years playing 40k or knows more about their history and people behind the company can help clarify, please and thanks!

Andy Chambers is essentially the grand architect of modern 40k. He had the final say on all things 2e, 3e, and 4e, Necromundia, and Adeptus Titanicus, and had the title of 40k Overfiend

For the last 10 years or so he has been the Creative Director of Blizzard Entertainment and worked on WarCraft, Diablo, and StarCraft.

I've been a fan since Rogue Trader, and I've always enjoyed the pseudo-RPG wargame aspect of 40k.

**MWHistorian**

In RT there were RPG elements.
After that it was a wargame.
If there are RPG elements in modern 40k, they aren't supported by the actual rules.

Also, Talys, I get where you're coming from, but you must realize that better rules would not hinder your enjoyment of the game and would actually allow far more people to enjoy the game more. It's a win win.

Yes, it might be GW's vision, but its a crappy vision.

**Talys**

MWHistorian wrote:
In RT there were RPG elements.
After that it was a wargame.
If there are RPG elements in modern 40k, they aren't supported by the actual rules.

Also, Talys, I get where you're coming from, but you must realize that better rules would not hinder your enjoyment of the game and would actually allow far more people to enjoy the game more. It's a win win.

Yes, it might be GW's vision, but its a crappy vision.

I agree with you. They should just balance the game better, fluff be damned. I agree with Andy Chambers' position that the game can't be perfectly balanced, but it can be balanced better than it is now.

By the way, interesting factiod... in the original Rogue Trader book, it actually tells you how they create point values for models (for a wargame). What throws it all out the window is the Special Rules. And psychic powers.

**Blacksails**

Talys wrote:

Andy Chambers is essentially the grand architect of modern 40k. He had the final say on all things 2e, 3e, and 4e, Necromundia, and Adeptus Titanicus, and had the title of 40k Overfiend For the last 10 years or so he has been the Creative Director of Blizzard Entertainment and worked on WarCraft, Diablo, and StarCraft.

I've been a fan since Rogue Trader, and I've always enjoyed the pseudo-RPG wargame aspect of 40k.

Right, but Chambers also worked on BFG, which was a better balanced game than stock 40k (improved significantly by the fan made 2010 FAQ, however), and 3rd through 5th marched along a clear path of better core rules and balance for the likes of tournaments and random pick up games.

I can swear I remember reading some other quotes from the big designers stating along those lines.

Regardless, 5th edition was a very, very different game than what 7th is now. I never played 4th or 3rd, but my time on the internet shows that 3rd and 4th held more in common with 5th than 6th or 7th. Considering 3rd through 5th covers 14 years of 40k's lifespan, a majority of players experienced one of those editions, and now many are left confused where GW turned everything upside down on them.

**Azreal13**

I'm pretty sure Rick Priestley would have something to say about Andy Chambers being the grand architect of anything 40K while he was working at GW, but meh, there a lot of things Talys remembers that don't quite gel with my recollection of the previous editions, so maybe it's a transatlantic thing.

**Blacksails**

Azreal13 wrote:
so maybe it's a transatlantic thing.

Damn colonials.

Wait...

**Talys**

Azreal13 wrote:
I'm pretty sure Rick Priestley would have something to say about Andy Chambers being the grand architect of anything 40K while he was working at GW, but meh, there a lot of things Talys remembers that don't quite gel with my recollection of the previous editions, so maybe it's a transatlantic thing.

Nah, I totally understand where you're coming from. There wasn't as much list abuse even though it was possible (and even though I would argue the game was just as unbalanced). I actually didn't play a ton of 3e/4e, as that was a period of my life where I was working a lot more hours than I do now

I never remembered any edition being as "competitive" in the sense that people went out of their way to abuse lists to the maximum extent possible as after some point in 5e. But hey, those are just my observations in one local meta.

I also understand the arms race resistance, while concurrently loving new, big, complicated models. Large metal models were never popular here (hard to assemble and transport), but plastic vehicles seemed alarmingly arms race-wish. A lot of people really wanted 40k to be infantry-centric, with terminators being big units and dreadnoughts being the largest sized units

Anyways, I wasn't trying to defend GW, more trying to explain them and their mindset. I think it's dumb not to evolve with the times, even if there are a subset of customers (like me) that will be happy either way.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Blacksails wrote:
Azreal13 wrote:
so maybe it's a transatlantic thing.

Damn colonials.

Wait...

**Smacks**

I had an idea a while ago that GW could include some "fixed" army lists for each race, as an alternative game "mode" to unbound. The lists would specify exactly what units and weapons make up the force, with very few options for customization. The idea being that each "fixed" list could be playtested and balanced in a more controlled way, then be "approved" for tournament play against other fixed lists (regardless of the actual points value).

While it sounds oppressive at first, it would have a lot of great benefits.

1: It would be much easier for the developers to balance (rather than trying to balance the whole game unbound, which might not even be possible).
2 It would make life much easier for tournament organizers, and for pick up gamers.
3: It would allow every race, and a much greater variety of units to be viable at a tournament level. Since every faction would have at least one (but possibly many) approved lists.
4: It would take some of the heavy focus off "list building" in strategy discussions, and get people talking about how to actually deploy and maneuver with each army.
5: It would allow players and TOs to be much more familiar with the rules and capabilities of each army. (harder to cheat)
6: It would be good for new players, since they could collect a list that includes models they like, without having to worry about it sucking.
7: It might encourage greater customization in terms of painting and modeling, as people look for new ways to make their army "unique".
8: It would remove barriers for new players (and some old) to get into the competitive scene, as they won't get instagibed by some cheese list in the first round.
9: We might see a lot more fluffy lists at tournaments.
X: I think it would be good for GW. I know I would be much more likely to buy a one click army, and even a second army if I knew there was a whole tournament scene built around that box.

It also wouldn't have to be the end of list building. You could still have something like "fixed list + 500pts" pick up games and tournaments, which would allow people to work in more units around a more balanced "take all comers" core. And of course for everything else there is always unbound.