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A friend of mine is on the verge of quitting 40k. The balance is all over the place, now more than ever, and with exclusive rules and now formations of detachments of formations with ridiculous bonuses the game is increasingly being decided by who goes first. Which is even worse if somebody seizes.

Whoever goes first can pretty much cripple the other guy without him ever being able to do gak about it and can pretty much determine the game before he even get his first turn.
With my group that's made even worse by playing 2v2 teams of 1k each. It's happened that one player has all but been wiped off the board turn 1.

And it looks like power creep is going completely nuts at the moment, so I'm not really sure what to tell him. All I can think of right now is to change our games to play apocalypse with 2k armies for each team member. I get the impression that the more points you play the less impact all these imbalanced units and rules have. A wraithknight at 1k points could pretty much take on an army all by itself depending on the list. And at 2k you start getting points for void shields or bunkers n stuff that lessen the strain too.

Would that help? or do you have any good arguments that might convince to stay.

The balance does seem to improve at apocalypse levels, but then apocalypse is *not* for everyone as it can be a bit of a slog.

Honestly if the balance etc are big issues for your friend maybe he shouldn't stay. In the meantime, maybe try playing "casual" - first turn doesn't matter if nobody takes gak that can shoot you off the board that quickly

Might help if you list what army he plays and who he is generally facing. Also if a single Wraithknight is dominating at 1000pts. then there is more problems then that, something like that should be easy to take out at that point level.

Try spicing up how you play. For instance, put restrictions on unit selections, invent new missions or characters, recruit some people and do a campaign.

Is he unhappy because of the competitive meta, or your group's meta? There's nothing you can do on the global scale, but if he's unhappy with the games in your own local group, then there's probably a list imbalance going on, where some people are bringing way more serious stuff than others. Try narrowing the balance.

Maybe let him leave.

The reasons are valid and hurt enjoyment for many people in the long run, so might as well cut the losses now. Instead, why not suggest to your group that you all pick up another game to play, in addition to 40k. Convince your friend to not sell their 40k army, but instead see if enough people would be interested in starting a second (or third, or fourth) game and pool money for a bunch of starter sets.

Most other games have incredibly low buy ins for starter sets, and playable/competitive sized armies aren't much more.

It'd probably be better for your group anyways to have more than one game on the go for variety's sake.

40k's in a rough spot right now for a lot of people. Balance isn't getting any better, power creep is very real, rules are increasingly more expensive and fractured into multiple sources, and miniature prices are still the highest in wargaming. I wouldn't convince anyone to stay if they feel like it isn't worth it.

I think what your group needs to do is decide how you want to play going forward; if your current 2v2 setup doesn't work so well, then change it, and play 1v1 at 1500 points. If you are getting armies blown away on T1, throw down some more LoS-blocking Terrain or add in Night Fighting. Heck, you could even go so far as UK change the rules entirely, addi g something like 'both Deployment Zones count as Void Shielded for the first turn', or 'each player may make a move with each of his units before the game starts, so long as they move no more than 6" from their Deployment Zone'.

Basically, have a chat, decide what you want from the game as a group, and don't be afraid to change the rules if you need to to get that!

Also, remember that unless he's selling his 40k stuff, there's nothing that precludes him from playing 40k in addition to any other game. If he's got an army, then it's not going to vanish just because he buys an Infinity team or a Malifaux crew.

Are you and your group building extreme competitive lists? Attempting to do maximum damage right from turn one?

How much terrain do you have on your tables? And what sorts?

Since you seem to have a handle on the 'problem', why don't you and your friends self regulate?

In my group we play with lots of terrain, and 1v1 games are 1500pts or less. Topping out at 1500pts seems to work for helping balance between armies. Players often talk about codex power creep, but don't speak about the ever increasing points value games adding to that problem. For example, when I first started reading Dakka the apparent 'standard' points for a game was 1750, not you will see that it has crept up to 1850; sometimes even beyond that.

Of course you have stated that your playing 2v2 at 1000pts, so that would seem to be self limiting. Which isn't a bad thing.

In the end, perhaps your friend is looking for a different style of play; and you may not be able to reconcile those differences.

Provide more details about your games and I am sure folks will give you lots of good suggestions for making your games more fun for everyone. Best of luck sorting it out.

If you're issue is that whoever rolls first turn wins, then you've got a deeper issue than balancing. I regularly go second because I feel it gives my specific army an advantage!

As stated, check these things:

#1 - Is one or two of you playing just the top-tier lists (Decurion, Eldar Scatbikes, Knights, Flyrant Spam, etc.)? While playing the top tier lists can be a lot of fun, you need to take a break now and then to do something silly. When I've had enough of throwing special rules at each other, I bust out the Green Tide and ask an opponent to bring a "balanced" list to fight it off, or I play a few games of Kill Team, or we say "okay, vehicle-only mega-battle!". Do something really wild. If all you do is play the "silly" lists, then do something really different like each bringing your A-game and seeing who really has a better list and generalship.

#2 - Is there enough terrain, and is there any NEW terrain? The more terrain you put down, the better it gets imho. You need a healthy mix of ruins and LoS blocking terrain. A really big central terrain piece that fully blocks line of sight is good. Plan out your terrain a bit more to help craft the kinds of battles you want. During our "vehicle-only mega-battle" I placed two huge hills on opposite sides of the board, then an open area in the middle. It created a "kill-zone" that was faster to move through, and two alleyways that were safer but slower to move around.

#3 - Are you playing to have fun, or just playing to win? If you're playing to win, then perhaps you should consider Magic instead of 40k. Magic is faster paced, with greater rewards for doing well. It still costs quite a bit of cash to keep up to speed, but if you're consistently winning it's less expensive to do so. Otherwise, check your ego at the door and roll some dice! Every codex that gets released will have you sweating about how over powered it "could" be, and the internet's a bad place to look to see how fun things are. The scary story always rise to the top, while the majority of regular games get lost. You'll find the same knee-jerk reactions in every game out there, because no one likes to think that "goodness" is being taken away from them and given to someone else.

Another point that just came to mind. Are you playing the same lists over and over?

I know some players don't have large collections of models, so have no choice but to play with what they have.

If you're all playing with Alpha strike lists, with limited or no options to change things up, then your games are going to slant towards 'who goes first'.

3k points with Maelstrom missions and I have never noticed a balance problem. WE allow everything from everything and nothing has ever been overpowered at that level. Average game takes betwen 2-4 hours. depedning on how much BSing we do.

Also... if the other army has a shooty heavy list. then only deploy 2 units out of line of siight and leave the rest of the army in ongoing reserves. That prevents turn 1 annihilation. Also night fighting.

And as others said .. Terrain! looks at the GW and FW publications for a good representation of terrain quantity.

@OP: I think more Line of Sight blocking Terrain would benefit your games greatly. First off if done right it'll stop a fair amount of the first-turn carnage, and furthermore can make the match a lot more interesting, as the terrain will offer a lot more in the way of tactical options than an open field.

I know the feeling about balance and bad rules writing. I'm working on a Balance Errata for 40k and each codex, maybe give it a whirl and see if it helps some of the problems your group is seeing. It's a bit early, but it's coming along.

Also, there are some good suggestions up above.


And to whoever said a Wraithknight couldn't dominate a 2v2 at 1k each, many armies just don't have an answer for one, and definitely not at the casual level. I mean, even a Tau Gunline or Astra Militarum lack the firepower to readily drop one.

I got out of the game many years ago(5th edition), due to no shops near me at all and no one I knew in GA, playing 40k. I sold all my stuff :( I have been reading this forum for a long time, but havent joined until recently because I started playing again.
My FLGS that is near me is pretty awesome. They have a great friendly group of 40k players that are active. No one takes crazy hard lists, or overpowered armies. Everyone is there to have fun. I mean some lists get changed for tourneys I hear, but for the most part everyone is all about making the game fair and fun. I would tell your friend to wait and see how other army lists releases go and decide. I know people say Eldar are way overpowered and the NECRONS, but more releases may change things. If he does quit tell him not to sell his stuff, like I did. He may one day get back into after a break

Roknar wrote:


Would that help? or do you have any good arguments that might convince to stay.

NHaving a open mind and trying out other games with a open mind. No really, I mean it he is your friend, he has played 40K. Now try what he wants as you both already play 40K and he likely still only play becouse you do, show him the same friendship.

 gmaleron wrote:
Might help if you list what army he plays and who he is generally facing. Also if a single Wraithknight is dominating at 1000pts. then there is more problems then that, something like that should be easy to take out at that point level.

You know what Gargantuan Monstrous Creature does, right?

In your situation I would suggest retain the models and either modify the ruleset, stats and point values to what you find acceptable within your group, or use a completely different ruleset altogether, there are plenty out there.

Oh my lol, when I went to get my car checked I wasn't expecting this many responses.

I think I'll start by describing my group a bit.
We are only a small group, just a bunch of friends that play friday nights. There is no club involved and we have no intention to change that, so new players are basically out. We're mostly on the same page of what constitutes cheese. And generally play at a similar level assuming we have similar lists. Which are rarely competitive lists, which isn't to say we don't care about winning. But our lists vary WILDLY and per player too. Before I go on about that though, you should know that none of use allies or fortifications. We only use fortification rules if they happen to be part of the terrain. Forgeworld is allowed. We play by the books if at all possible, so no fan made stuff. And we all enjoy principally enjoy 40k, it's just that it's becoming more and more silly and lower points costs in our opinion, but we don't have the time right now to play big games. WE play maelstrom exclusively.

So, lists. We play team games like I said, but we don't coordinate before and we don't know what the opponent will be taking. Which is a gripe of mine, but that's how it is and I won't be able to change that. Somebody mentioned list imbalance, and that is most definitely a factor. Our main armies are orks(soon to be replaced by necron for a long time), csm, tau and eldar. So the ork player might use a full mechanized list one day and then a green tide the next followed by a biker army and then a balanced list and then list consisting mostly of dakka jets. There is no way at all to know whats coming. When one of them got a nid biotitan he just wanted to test it and same with a baneblade. Of course if you then decide you want to run a thousand son fluffly list, your going to have a bad day. This may cause huge disparities , like one most weapons being useless against the titan and then ofc you get two players focus firing the possibly small elite army you have, not because they're waac, but there simply isn't anything else to shoot at. We've had as weird armies as an assasinorum execution force with a flyer and a moritat or non forge world grot lists to 1 spartan with kharn and some berzerkers. Or a farseer list to summon demons, for no other reason than the lulz (he got curbstomped, but it was kinda funny) It's bad enough to take a tank list against a tank hunting list....but here a second player may have a tank hunting list and be your opponent while your team member is mostly in reserves. Now your doubly screwed. This is an extreme example but still.
It's hardly ideal, but especially beginning of 7th when they were toning down a lot of stuff it was fine most of the time and maelstrom still allowed you to win despite getting your ass handed to you. But with the latest power creep it's getting a little out of hand, since those formations are powerful and yet fluffy and totally fit into 1000 points. It may be a tight fit but it works. CAD bases lists seem to be less destructive in that regard.

I attached some pictures of what our terrain might look like. We build the terrain up to resemble some city or outpost or whatever, put 1 objective on each board and only then decide who deploys where. That's about the amount of terrain we have, occasionally more, rarely less. We're currently trying to get more of an industrial sector thing going. I for one, being csm don't like leaving stuff in reserve as I favor combat, and going into reserves means I have to wait until turn 3, F that. But we generally dislike putting stuff into reserves as it makes for an incredibly boring first turn. Except ofc fro some unit outflanking or whatever, just not the whole hiding thing.

At least two of us would like to play apocalypse (including said friend) but that would require some changes we can't do right now. Though if it meant that the game is more balanced then it would certainly help push to make that change. I imagine that at those higher points costs, chances are the lists will be more similar in power level, even if you want to try some derpy combination. After all none of us play to win first. If you want to try that new fist of khorne, your kinda limited in options for the rest of the army at 1k. at 2k that still leaves a lot of air to breathe.

As for other games. We're currently playing Relic with the nemesis expansion and are waiting for the next expansion. We already play magic, just not right now. We usually have a draft whenever a new block comes out though. And that's about it. I can't think of any other game that would work. The skirmish games are out either for the nature of those games or for aesthetics. Nobody wants to touch a historical game with a ten foot pole. And we're all kinda meh towards fantasy tabletops. (although I got a vamp count army cuz we were gonna try fantasy, but then everybody else got cold feet -_-...so now I'm sitting on shitton of zombies). And we want games that we can play together. Like 2v2 or cooperatively. They have to be games that all 4 like, or at least 3. I tried dungeon command, which I really liked, but it didn't stick with them.

We had the odd game 1v1 of 40k and those went pretty well generally, even won with a TSons fluffy list against deathwing. But it's kinda awkward to be playing two 1v1 games simultaneously on the same table. It would be fine in a club, but we all come together to..well..play TOGETHER. Not side by side. 3 player free for all games are horrible. The always end with two people ganging up on whoever is the greatest threat, which really sucks if your that guy. The problem with 1k +1k game is that as a player your basically facing 2k points of fire power depending on the teams and lists. For example if one is playing daemonkin and the other tau, then the daemonkin will invariable take the brunt of that fire power, reducing his own army quite fast, although not necessarily impacting the game as a whole too much.

Except for me, houserules are shunned upon (le sigh). They only occasionally slip through, like walking through a wall of a ruin with a walker, because dynamic entry! My Chaos Legion Formations are basically only for playtesting against myself though XD. Which is going to be noticeable if we get teams of necron + eldar against csm and I dunno...nids with nothing but the main codex, so epic formations vs none at all. Not to mention general power level. Again, apocalypse seems to help here offering some interesting formations to factions that have none. Even my sisters get some formation love there.

I hope I that covers most of it lol, sorry for the long read, but thanks for the answers
So far what I'm getting is, either houserule the gak out of the game ( I wish), play another game and/or wait for them to finish the other codexes or try larger points games aka apocalypse Apocalypse being the easiest for me as it also introduces stuff like stratagems which we have never really used so far, except in one or two games of planetstrike which we decided not to play again outside of a possible campaign...which nobody wants to manage or has the time to do. And city of death would take too long to play.


One possibility I can think of though, is that the ork player is currently not playing until he gets his necron done, I was wondering how you could run a campaign with 3 players, while engaging all 3 each time. As I said 3 player free for all is meh, at least in terms of pitting armies against each other. Maybe something like a 3 lane table to get some relic or so at the end? But that might cover one night. Hardly something to do every time. Assume you go 1v1, then how would you occupy the third guy.
Something like this might work, but I'd have to present it to them in a fairly complete form and I'm not sure how to keep 3 players busy. At least we would have a GM of sorts though. We don't really have time to make one, but it will take a while for those necrons to be done, so time isn't that much of an issue in this particular case.

I think you got some great terrain, but having a wide diversity is also very good. Perhaps try to create some hills and forests so you can have battles in wilderness areas.

I would DEFINITELY suggest opening yourselves up to allied detachments! They allow for a lot of awesome stuff. As soon as my group started using allies 40k got a whole new breath of air to it.

Take some time to try other formats too. There's the standard missions, Maelstrom (my personal favourite right now), Kill Team, Combat Patrol, and Apocalypse. Each of them rewards very different play styles. Or come up with your own! I like playing "Cleanse", which is an old mission from 3rd edition where you effectively cut the table into quarters, then score each quarter as an objective.

Perhaps start a campaign, maybe an escalation campaign.

If your friend feels that balance is what's killing the game for him, try out some of these other things that can radically shift that balance.

If your friend don't want keep his armies then buy their armies and keep their chapter. I have Dark Angel and Ork from my long friend who like play along with me. 10 years ago we both have a warhammer night, Now we are 600 miles apart... he just give me Dark Angel, Chao daemon and Ork but he keep Sister of Battle. So once a year he come over and play warhammer like old time.

And my other friend who like play warhammer but refused to pay models to play, so I buy extra armies for my friend to use for warhammer night or head to club or GW to play random game. we all have a great time.

That why I have too many factor!

Play nicer list? I play with a friend who is new and I always play list that are balanced and fun to play. try to convince your friends not to spam D weapons or absurd detachments... its hard but a least its fun for the other player.


Also let him win a couple times it sucks to just lose over and over can really demoralize a player

Roknar wrote:
I was wondering how you could run a campaign with 3 players...

We ran a day of three player games last Saturday. Was great fun. Happy to share the beta rules we used.

As for the terrain, how much direct los can you get from one end to the other?

Edit #1: And you can always go Unbound. You all get one of each unit. For variation and letting people play different units.

or buy yourself Imperial knight and let him use it as allies.

give yourself a challenge!

I create list for my friends so we are balance - me as veteran player use weak list and my friend have strong list but bad tactic.

hard battle ever!

He's not a new player. That isn't the issue here. We're all about the same as far as that is concerned. We've started in 5th up to 6th, then pretty much skipped that and started again with 7th. I played in 3ed but that's so long ago it's irrelevant. All that did was net me some chaos marines.
He also already has a knight. And a scout titan.

And yea, Shane. I'd like to have a look at those rules.

And to Yarium, what's combat patrol? I've never heard of that before.

Roknar wrote:
And to Yarium, what's combat patrol? I've never heard of that before.

I haven't done it yet myself. It's a version of the game played at 500 points or less. Similar restricts as Kill Team (nothing higher than AV12, no creatures with 4 or more wounds, no Fliers, etc.), but you still take squads, just that those squads are half-sized (rounded up). I'm sure you can find rules on the interweb, but I hear from a lot of people that it's a blast!

I still say ask your friend what game he like to try then give the game he picks a fair chance. Most games you can even proxy the model you have already.

I find Baseball boring as all hell, but I have fun going to games because the fun I have with my friends makes up for the boring stuff on the field. But , if we are at a Football game, I would not only be having fun with my friends, I be watch a sport I enjoy. So we do both.

You friend most like is just board with 40K and the best thing you can do is try other games. Or he could become burned out and just drop 40K altogether.

I second the notion of taking a break from 40k and trying some of the outstanding games out there.
A change of pace could be a good thing.

Infinity's rules are free on line to check out.

Roknar wrote:
A friend of mine is on the verge of quitting 40k. The balance is all over the place, now more than ever, and with exclusive rules and now formations of detachments of formations with ridiculous bonuses the game is increasingly being decided by who goes first. Which is even worse if somebody seizes.

Whoever goes first can pretty much cripple the other guy without him ever being able to do gak about it and can pretty much determine the game before he even get his first turn.
With my group that's made even worse by playing 2v2 teams of 1k each. It's happened that one player has all but been wiped off the board turn 1.

And it looks like power creep is going completely nuts at the moment, so I'm not really sure what to tell him. All I can think of right now is to change our games to play apocalypse with 2k armies for each team member. I get the impression that the more points you play the less impact all these imbalanced units and rules have. A wraithknight at 1k points could pretty much take on an army all by itself depending on the list. And at 2k you start getting points for void shields or bunkers n stuff that lessen the strain too.

Would that help? or do you have any good arguments that might convince to stay.

Try out some ITC tournament missions. Going 2nd is actually a very strong advantage, since their maelstrom points are at the end of each game turn, and not player turn. (And they're not full of random BS missions like "cast a psychic power.")

Is he wanting to quit because he's losing all the time, or is he wanting to quit because of what he reads on the internet and is worried about what he might face?

Where could I find those? The ITC missions that is.

Roknar wrote:
And yea, Shane. I'd like to have a look at those rules.

Playing CS so here come the quick bulletpoints.

We agreed some core rules for each mode before we started. There are still tweaks to be made.

Circle Pit

3 deployment zones - width ways - two corner and one middle (in a semi circle)
loads of los blocking terrain
roll for deployment; lowest deploys first
roll for turn order; highest goes first
highest is after lowest
middle is after highest
lowest is after middle
no seize; no first blood/linebreaker/warlord
kill points but you only get points for units of your targeted army; no matter who killed them
2 VP for a warlord kill and this is open to whoever killed them
variable game length

We discussed afterwards that we will try rolling for first go each turn.


King of the Hill

3 deployment zones - length ways - 2 corners and one middle - complete los blocking terrain to divide the two armies deploying on close corners
hill with statue (or something similar) in the middle; it is normal terrain (not difficult)
if at the end of your turn you have any modesl/units on the hill you get a point
at the end of the game the player with majority models/units on the hill at that time gets D3 points
variable game length
no kill points/first blood/warlord/line breaker

There's some photos of it in action on my Twitter from last Saturday if visually seeing it helps (@35on40k).