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No.

Says 40k is an unbalanced mess. Proceeds to say it should be more like AOS.
I dont think you understand what makes a game goid for tournaments.
GW sucks at balancing points. People are eager to blame points instead of poor game design.

I'm not gonna be the first person to point this out, but some armies are obviously designed to be used as allies. In fact every Imperial army that isn't IG or SM was basically designed from the ground up to be used as supplemental allies or components of an "army of the imperium" force. The Sisters are the only other Imperial force that has ever really been fleshed out. Skitarii and Cult are designed to go hand in hand as allies, inquisitors are made to supplement grey knights and sisters, grey knights work on their own but are still pretty half-baked, Stormtroopers/tempestus have always been guys who fill in the ranks of other armies rather than fight alone. As for Imperial Knights and Assassins, need I say anything? Eldar Harlequins have basically always been available as a stand-alone army but have never, ever been marketed as such. If you don't allow allies with the full range of detachments and formations then you're really just banning a large percentage of players and punishing them for buying Citadel's latest and coolest models.

If you want to restrict ally-cheese and multiple detachment/formation cheese, just put a limit on the overall number of detachments/formations allowed. Limit it to two or three depending on game size.

As for the overall topic of this thread, don't be silly. GW games are not meant for tournaments. You want a tournament, go play Pokemon or Chess. You want to stick cool plastic robots on a table and make pew pew noises with your mouth, play 40k.

40k is a sandbox to play in.
The only way I get it to work is treat it like an RPG... ehrm, "play a scenario" with a back story and added details and environmental effects.
Everything is going towards a "we all win" style of play, the days of "rogue-like" play is not readily catered to for that nostalgic 30+yrs crowd.
Bring anything at all "efficient" on points and you will be shunned and labeled a heartless fluff killer.
There are others who cannot be negotiated with because they can take "whatever I want within the rules".
You want balance and tactics, you need to look more toward chess, at least you do not have to worry about a turn one tabling.

This is one thing I like about AoS - same balance issues, without the pretext of being a 'competitive game'.

I remember all those people back in 6th claiming that 1850pts no forgeworld one detachment was somehow remotely a healthy tournament game. Noticed they've all gone a bit quiet since then

The only way I get it to work is treat it like an RPG... ehrm, "play a scenario" with a back story and added details and environmental effects.
Everything is going towards a "we all win" style of play, the days of "rogue-like" play is not readily catered to for that nostalgic 30+yrs crowd.

The problem here is that other rulesets can do the same thing a lot faster and more efficiently, with tactics and balance to boot. 40k not only fails at game balance but the game it produces is incredibly slow and clunky, taking 4 hours to pull off what another ruleset could do in two, and generally being little more than resolving how two lists match up with little actual player input.

Best thing to do with this game is put a bullet in its head and outsource the rules design to another, more competent company.

In a decade plus of playing 40k my two cent is that I've never thought of it as competitively balanced. 4th and 5th might have been better but I say they're "meh" compared to other systems now available.

Honestly, people will complain regardless of GW "fixing" the current system or trashing it for a AoS reboot. I do have a problem with 2+ rerolls but only en masse " which I don't think I've had the pleasure of facing yet" on ICs I dont see too much of a problem but that's about it. I like where 40k is at right now, sure I havw some complaints but overall their minor and I still enjoy myself either as hobbyist or general.

Haldir wrote:
....Horrible game mechanics:
1: Summoning
2: 2 up rerollable
3: Allies is an excuse for abuse never mind CTA --- whatever my army is missing let`s take Tau
4: Physic phase takes too long and is too OP

So many others...... Come on GW -- AOS 40K!!

I find it funny that you want AoS 40K yet none of the horrible game mechanics you listed would get fixed by AoS.

OP, you need to re-evaluate how to run a tournament man. If you REALLY hate the way 7th-ed detachments work (every army can do it, and they all have their own dirty tricks), it's your event so do as you please. You don't have to run RAW to run a tournament.

-edit-
5th was balanced? Draigowing and razorspam comes to mind lol

 Robisagg wrote:
5th was balanced? Draigowing and razorspam comes to mind lol

Both of those came fairly late in 5th edition.

But no, 5th edition wasn't balanced. But it functioned much better as a tournament game than the current mess.


Winning a 6th edition game at Adepticon because the terrain ate half of my opponent's army was the final straw for me, as far as tournaments go.

jeffersonian000 wrote:Sad? 40k is in an excellent place at the moment. The only sad thing I see is the vocal minority going full re-re over the recent additions to the game.

SJ

JinxDragon wrote:Just keep reminding yourself:
Game Workshop exists to sell over-priced miniatures, nothing more.

Chute82 wrote:First thing you have to understand is 40k is not a good tournament game. Your trying to pound the square peg in the round hole. Never was meant to be played in tournaments and never will be. It is a good game with a group of friends who think alike.

Wow, I want to congratulate you guys on getting a full hat trick on one page. I do believe that is a first in a 40k rant thread. Really good job.

 Robisagg wrote:
OP, you need to re-evaluate how to run a tournament man. If you REALLY hate the way 7th-ed detachments work (every army can do it, and they all have their own dirty tricks), it's your event so do as you please. You don't have to run RAW to run a tournament.

-edit-
5th was balanced? Draigowing and razorspam comes to mind lol

5th edition wasn't perfectly balanced, it had very real issues.

In hindsight however, and I continually find myself surprised to say this, 5th was probably the best core ruleset the game has ever had. Far from perfect, but wayyyyyyyyyyy closer to the mark than what the game has become at this point.

The second paragraph says it all for me.
"I have to say that this attitude is not one I like at all.
Tournament style games have their place of course, and I have nothing against them, per se.
They are easy to set up and organise, don't require much pre-preparation,
and have the advantage of being playable against a total stranger at a club or event."

The very game attribute that allowed GW to grow into the company it is today, is the thing he wants to get rid of.
This type of game paid for his lifestyle.
His vision of 40k, would never have grown into the ubiquitous game it is today.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Sad? 40k is in an excellent place at the moment. The only sad thing I see is the vocal minority going full re-re over the recent additions to the game.

SJ

Have you played with IG in the last 2 years?


I will never understand why good game rules are bad, why making all armies playable is bad. Which people are having the most fun in w40k? Those that have books with more actualy usable units. But somehow that is also bad. In GW minds w40k games should look like this. Two 12-16year old males arrive in the same place with their 10k+ model collection and start a MTG draft style army build up. What follows is supposed beer in take , you know for those 12-16year old that are the focus of w40k sales beer is important, and pretzels, more then 2 presidents almost choked on those, and pew pew sounds and marveling how master level painted those collections are.

They are easy to set up and organise, don't require much pre-preparation,
and have the advantage of being playable against a total stranger at a club or event.

Easy to ogranise and no preparations. Well maybe if you have something like warhammer world. And somehow this dude things that playing against a stranger is not the ideal thing to do. I am sure that playing the same people over and over again, is the thing people want. Probably why those smaller WFB communities generate so many sales for them, as their happy collectors were swarming to buy new stuff to show it to their old opponents.

That Johnson guy is crazy.

 insaniak wrote:
The thing is, to a certain extent Jervis isn't wrong. 40K was designed to be a fun little game played with friends over a beer. And that's the sort of game that he wanted to write, and that he wanted to promote.

And that's fine... right up until it isn't.

Because at the end of the day, 40K is a commercial product, and needs to adapt to what the customers actually want if it is going to remain successful. GW acknowledged this by introducing tournament support, although they tried keeping things lighter and fluffier by introducing 'soft' scores into the mix. 'Ard Boys was an acknowledgement that this light and fluffy approach wasn't for everybody... and for a time, GW were offering a product that, while not perfect, at least seemed to be trying to cater to everybody.


And then sometime during 5th edition, they appear to have decided that this was all a mistake, and that they needed to wind the clock back to when 40K was just a fun game for playing with your friends.

Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do if you have market research showing that this is what the majority of customers want... and a much riskier thing to do if you do no market research and are just guessing about what those customers want.

And I think we're seeing what happens when that risk doesn't pay off...

Summarises it pretty neatly. However, I kinda think it's a cop out from Johnson (I think he reversed his views later), as you do need some way of measuring armies against each other so you can have even match up, then adjust them if you want them to be different.

Makumba wrote:

That Johnson guy is crazy.

Hahahahhahaha, Jervis Johnson's a legend. One of the good guys at GW.

Allow Formations, but ignore the formation's rules....
This allows for Harlequins and the others, but shouldn't be any different to using a CAD.

Haldir wrote:

4: Physic phase takes too long and is too OP

Ehm.. What?

Play tyranids against fcrce weapons and tell me what you think of as OP .Yes GW should AOS 40K ,mthat is provide a loose framework of rules that we the community can tweak to a much better game than JERVIS and the minions ever could. Just look at the great work being done here by people devising points for the war scrolls.
When guys playing since 2nd , with 1000's in mini's have no interest in a weekly game you know something is wrong. For the event I've run the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive . The one event I had to shut down at 20 for a sellout and could have got almost 30. Key I think is that the missions I deseigned resonated well with the players. Again by toning down the game I got guys to come out that would normally never come to an event. Does anyone not agree that for a 5-7 turn game 40K is not overtly convoluted???
Another thing is from studying the AOS Waar Scrolls , magic seems to add flavor to the game not provide an avenue for abuse and domination as 40K does. Invisibility , force , summoning 2 up re-roll , really???? Again I love playing 40K but to have a mutually enjoyable experience you have to put some serious work into tweaking the rules
I.E. -- 40K 70.00 rule book that needs tons of tweaking -- 48.00 codices with broken rules and formations that need tons of tweaking .
AOS -- loose framework of rules that needs Tons of tweaking -- FREE

Johnson clearly isn't a great games designer.

GW need to take a leaf out of WotC's book and hire some intelligent people who actually understand balanced rulesets, a decent professional development team, and some playtesters.

edit: IMHO - just my two pence. YMMV.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Sad? 40k is in an excellent place at the moment. The only sad thing I see is the vocal minority going full re-re over the recent additions to the game.

SJ

Maybe if you are an Eldar player.

Haldir wrote:
Formations are awful , I`ve seen first hand how players without any knowledge of tactics , lists , target priority etc. can show up and win with a net list. A 10 year old could show up with a net list formation and do well.

Well... only if he is playing against other ten year olds, I think you are stretching this point.

Haldir wrote:

2: 2 up rerollable

Nasty on invuns. On anything else, there are always ways round it.

Haldir wrote:
3: Allies is an excuse for abuse never mind CTA --- whatever my army is missing let`s take Tau

Have to disagree here - Allies leads to greater diversity, and it really was something I miss in Fantasy 8e. It leads on to...

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Sad? 40k is in an excellent place at the moment.

Big agreement here. The one caveat is that if you have the money...

... but, if you have the money, 40k is in something of a golden age at the moment. Regular releases, attention to the minor armies (such as with Codex spin-offs), the Mechanicus are out, the formations are giving lots of flavour above and beyond the 'standard' Codex rules, and if that is not enough for you, well, Forge World are expanding armies in all sorts of directions.

_If_ you have the money

Martel732 wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Sad? 40k is in an excellent place at the moment. The only sad thing I see is the vocal minority going full re-re over the recent additions to the game.

SJ

Maybe if you are an Eldar player.

Uh, Jeffersonian seems to be a Grey Knights player. That means that in recent years he has watched his army degenerate from broken to worthless. But you wouldn't understand since you're obviously the sort of person who only has fun at a game when he's winning.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Says 40k is an unbalanced mess. Proceeds to say it should be more like AOS.

I laughed when I read that. As in, actually laughed.
Automatically Appended Next Post:

MongooseMatt wrote:
attention to the minor armies (such as with Codex spin-offs)

... Sisters aren't updated yet tho. Damn second edition models are still being sold.

It might help if you read the text in its entirety before taking it out of context .

 Reality-Torrent wrote:

Haldir wrote:

4: Physic phase takes too long and is too OP

Ehm.. What?

Not sure about the Overpowered part, but I agree 100% that the new Psychic Phase takes too long. Its also a subgame that breaks up the flow of the game, seems very out of place like playing a game of Yahtzee in the middle of a game of 40k....its just not very fun, IMO. I preferred the 6th edition Psychic mechanics, and tbh, I wouldn't be upset if Pyschic powers were just removed from the game altogether.

Formations and superformations are awesome. It's become our favorite part of the game, and *as long as both sides have them* they can be very balanced. The special formations and Decurion-style formation-within-a-formation give you the ability to be fluffy and effective at the same time, and play iconic (or envisioned) armies without wacky combinations or repetitive units. I do wish formations were more balanced with each other; that is, some formations suck, while others are really awesome.

The Post-2015 factions (taking Harlequins as an add-on to Eldar/DE rather than a complete faction, since they're incomplete) are great, and relatively well-balanced to each other.

I'm aware some people don't like allies, but it's universally the people who don't have good allies. That's a problem with weak factions, not a problem with the system.

Sure, psychic phase can take too long if you have a lot of Psykers. But I wouldn't take them out -- they're an intrinsic part of the game, and with the new librarian and warlock conclave formations, there's interesting meat to those bones.

I can't speak for tournaments, because I'm totally disinterested in them, but from a competitive-with-friends standpoint, the game has never been better for us.

Have to disagree, psychic phase is usually the quickest phase in the entire game. It's a rare occurrence if it takes more than 10 minutes in the games I play, while I've seen people take more than half an hour just for the movement phase.

The things that bothers me most is random psychic powers, random warlord traits. I want to be able to build an army on some assurances.

Formations I don't mind, just limit them for the tournament. I think that's best for all your annoyances, limit them. All tournaments I've played at (ie nothing big and major) have had some limitations.

 jasper76 wrote:

 Reality-Torrent wrote:

Haldir wrote:

4: Physic phase takes too long and is too OP

Ehm.. What?

Not sure about the Overpowered part, but I agree 100% that the new Psychic Phase takes too long. Its also a subgame that breaks up the flow of the game, seems very out of place like playing a game of Yahtzee in the middle of a game of 40k....its just not very fun, IMO. I preferred the 6th edition Psychic mechanics, and tbh, I wouldn't be upset if Pyschic powers were just removed from the game altogether.

Well invisibility is a pain in the ass.

The psychic phase i feel is fine. i just dont like the system of pooling dice. especially against pink bubble gum hoards. seriously what are you going to do with 40 power dice...

 Desubot wrote:

Well invisibility is a pain in the ass.

The psychic phase i feel is fine. i just dont like the system of pooling dice. especially against pink bubble gum hoards. seriously what are you going to do with 40 power dice...

Another problem I have with the new Psychic Phase is it used to feel like individual models on the board were casting Psychic Powers. With this warp charge pool, it seems like the dude with the Led Zeppelin t-shirt eating Doritos across the table from you is casting Psychic Powers.

Anyway, just not a fan. I don't think it ruins the game or anything.

destrucifier wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Sad? 40k is in an excellent place at the moment. The only sad thing I see is the vocal minority going full re-re over the recent additions to the game.

SJ

Maybe if you are an Eldar player.

Uh, Jeffersonian seems to be a Grey Knights player. That means that in recent years he has watched his army degenerate from broken to worthless. But you wouldn't understand since you're obviously the sort of person who only has fun at a game when he's winning.

Yeah BA players don't understand at all....

destrucifier wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Sad? 40k is in an excellent place at the moment. The only sad thing I see is the vocal minority going full re-re over the recent additions to the game.

SJ

Maybe if you are an Eldar player.

Uh, Jeffersonian seems to be a Grey Knights player. That means that in recent years he has watched his army degenerate from broken to worthless. But you wouldn't understand since you're obviously the sort of person who only has fun at a game when he's winning.

Uh, Martel seems to be a Blood Angel player and they're in a far worse position than Grey Knights (Dreadknights are still broken). You wouldn't understand as you're obviously a poppy pants.