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I've been having this discussion for the past few weeks offline and I've decided to take it online. I'll start by answering my own question: No, I do not think increasing point costs lead to a more balanced game.
For the sake of keeping bias to a minimum, I'll try to refrain from referring to units and factions as I try to explain my stance although it will probably be inevitable that some examples arise.

More often than not in the 40K ruleset, you'll come across units/options/codices that objectively perform better than others. As a result, those units get picked over other units, sometimes leading to a codex where every list is build around the same single unit(s) that has to do all of the lifting.
Oftentimes when rumors start floating around that a new codex is coming out for a faction, you see all sorts of people make all sorts of claims about what has to be changed in order to make everything balanced.
One of the most common "fixes" are simply readjustment of points for certain units or wargear options. I don't believe this to be the right approach, except for a few select cases.

The real problem in most cases lies not within the points cost but within the rules of the unit/gear itself. The reason some options are chosen and others are not is the fact that some units or options provide a solution to a broader number of situations. Options that efficiently deal with a variety of unit types will almost always be chosen over options that deal with one particular type of unit. If people bring two units that are capable of dealing with both durable single targets and blobs, they'll have a significant advantage over people who bring two niche units, one for dealing with blobs and the other for dealing with single targets.

Increasing the points cost for the all-purpose guns is not going balance out the game and make people use niche guns alongside their all-purpose guns. Either they're still going to use the all-purpose gun because it's a safer pick or they're going with niche weapons because the all-purpose guns are so expensive that they're unusable.

Prime example is Str7 weapons. More often than not they have multiple shots, allowing for a bigger wound pool compared to Str8 weapons, which only have one shot most of the time. Sure Str8 guns ID Toughness 4, but most models with Toughness 4 only have one wound anyway so Str8 weapons fill in a really small niche. What pushes people people even further into using Str7 weapons is the fact that most units that have multiple wounds are either T5 (so the Str8 is wasted since it provides no benefit over Str7) or higher (in which case the multiple shots provide more damage potential) or they hide in a bigger pool of models that have only a single wound. I know that I'm leaving AP out of the equation here, but I've come to the conclusion that the most competitive units with these stats also tend to have a 2+ save or something similar to increase their durability, making the AP of the weapons largely irrelevant, since Str8 weapons rarely have AP2. One exception would be Melta weapons, but they're really versatile aswell, often favored over plasma because... well they fill in the same role on top of being really good against vehicles.

I believe changing the rules for the equiment/unit to be a better option. Make them "good versus something" as opposed to "good versus everything".

I wonder what others think about this. I've had this discussion with a lot of people and most people tend to either totally agree or totally disagree with my notions.

S8 is fantastic against Nids: half the codex is T4 multi-wound creatures, and many of these are expensive Synapse creatures. Many very expensive HQ units are T4 too. S8 is also a little better vs vehicles than S7, able to glance even a Land Raider. You are underselling how valuable a S8 weapon can be.

Yes it would provided that you fill a certian condition. The condition needing to be met is, all unit entries across all codices need to be built from the same 'equation' or set of cost rules? In 40K I doubt they are. why? There are several old codices in circulation, different authors with different ideas on what some special rule is worth.

If all stat point cost are fixed (ie. and amount per point), then totalled and rounded up, with all special rules cost the same across all codicies, when something that is working too well or is total useless is identified an adjustment will work towards balance. now mind you the stat points could be fractions of a point.


I've said this before and many other people here on dakka, A game this complex could never be fully balanced, however it could be closer than it is.

In a vacuum, sure, changing points sufficiently in a system with enough granularity would result in balance.

In practice, no, you'd need to tweak abilties in conjunction with point costs changing.

points are a gakky way to balance a game in reality, particularly one with as many factions, elements, and variables as 40k. Due to the nature of the game, its virtually impossible for a codex to be released with perfect internal balance as well as perfect external balance against all other codecies. Its entirely possible, in fact, its inherently expected, that for any given unit x, there will be one opposing unit against which it is overeffective for its points, and another for which it is undereffective. I.E. against some units it will be undercosted, and against others overcosted.

I think this is the reason why WMHDs is relatively more balanced than 40k, in that points can be thought of more as 'brackets' rather than as a direct cost, as models tends to fall into categories 1 pt, 2 pt, 3 pt solos, 4/6 pt unit, 58/ pt unit, 6/9 pt unit, 7/11 pt unit, etc. wherein all models/units at any given cost are assumed to be roughly equivalent of one another across factions. But again, still not perfect and you still see units that are over/undercosted though for the most part it seems that Privateer Press errs on the side of caution, as most things seem to be overpriced rather than under IMO.

In any case, this is why I'm put off by the suggestion that Age of Sigmar needs a points system. In reality, I think the system (whereby opponents alternate placing warscrolls of their choice from their collection in order to hard counter one another) that GW implemented is much more balanced than any points system could be, however it is my opinion that they needed to implement a little more in the way of restrictions to make it work. If I was writing the Age of Sigmar rules, the way I would have went about it is to first impose restrictions on a players collection, something like say (pulling numbers out of my ass here): Max 20 Warscrolls, 10-15 infantry, 4-6 Heroes, 4-6 Monsters, etc. No more than 30 wounds per warscroll. Those would be the totality of models available to a player during a game, their 'army list' if you will. Then during a game, two players would agree on a game size, say we met up at the shop and showed eachother our lists, and we agreed to an 8 warscroll game. Both players would then alternate, placing 1 warscroll at a time from their respective collections. This allows players to hard counter one another until both players have placed 8 warscrolls, as in "Ah, I see you just placed known OP warscroll y. Well, good thing I have a couple of unit x available to me as a potential hard counter to it, so I'll place one warscroll x." The limitation on collection size and contents, rather than force size and contents limits abuse from the types of players you commonly hear about (but whom I doubt actually exist) who show up with 8 greater daemons, etc.

Yes it would provided that you fill a certian condition. The condition needing to be met is, all unit entries across all codices need to be built from the same 'equation' or set of cost rules? In 40K I doubt they are. why? There are several old codices in circulation, different authors with different ideas on what some special rule is worth.

If all stat point cost are fixed (ie. and amount per point), then totalled and rounded up, with all special rules cost the same across all codicies, when something that is working too well or is total useless is identified an adjustment will work towards balance. now mind you the stat points could be fractions of a point.


I've said this before and many other people here on dakka, A game this complex could never be fully balanced, however it could be closer than it is.

I think what you're missing (although for the most part you are correct) is that the value of special rules cannot be fixed, because the utility of a special rule is derived from its interaction with other rules. For example, BS3 with a Heavy 1 S2 AP- gun is not as useful as BS3 with an Assault 10 S8 AP1 gun (not that either of those weapons exist, but you see my point, yes?). A rule which requires the user to make a leadership check is worth more on a model with LD10 than it is on a model with LD5 as another example.

chaos0xomega wrote:
points are a gakky way to balance a game in reality, particularly one with as many factions, elements, and variables as 40k.

There is nothing about 40k in its size that couldn't be fixed by a dedicated team of devs and adequate playtesting.

Due to the nature of the game, its virtually impossible for a codex to be released with perfect internal balance as well as perfect external balance against all other codecies.

Good thing no one is asking for or expecting perfect balance.

Its entirely possible, in fact, its inherently expected, that for any given unit x, there will be one opposing unit against which it is overeffective for its points, and another for which it is undereffective. I.E. against some units it will be undercosted, and against others overcosted.

Almost as though no one expects any system to be perfect.

In reality, I think the system (whereby opponents alternate placing warscrolls of their choice from their collection in order to hard counter one another) that GW implemented is much more balanced than any points system could be,

Which has all the same problems (and more) of a gakky point based system.

however it is my opinion that they needed to implement a little more in the way of restrictions to make it work.

Like...a system of tested and mostly balanced point costs?

Spoiler:

If I was writing the Age of Sigmar rules, the way I would have went about it is to first impose restrictions on a players collection, something like say (pulling numbers out of my ass here): Max 20 Warscrolls, 10-15 infantry, 4-6 Heroes, 4-6 Monsters, etc. No more than 30 wounds per warscroll. Those would be the totality of models available to a player during a game, their 'army list' if you will. Then during a game, two players would agree on a game size, say we met up at the shop and showed eachother our lists, and we agreed to an 8 warscroll game. Both players would then alternate, placing 1 warscroll at a time from their respective collections. This allows players to hard counter one another until both players have placed 8 warscrolls, as in "Ah, I see you just placed known OP warscroll y. Well, good thing I have a couple of unit x available to me as a potential hard counter to it, so I'll place one warscroll x." The limitation on collection size and contents, rather than force size and contents limits abuse from the types of players you commonly hear about (but whom I doubt actually exist) who show up with 8 greater daemons, etc.

All of which is more complex than just asking for the company to do their due dilligence and provide a well written and tested product that works for all types of games in every scenario imaginable.

Options that efficiently deal with a variety of unit types will almost always be chosen over options that deal with one particular type of unit. If people bring two units that are capable of dealing with both durable single targets and blobs, they'll have a significant advantage over people who bring two niche units, one for dealing with blobs and the other for dealing with single targets.

I would have to disagree here. IMO, It's only true when you build deathstar, because you don't want it to get counter. If my list lack anti-tank, I won't pick the all-rounder which cost a bit more. I will go with the straight up anti-tank that can perform well, and is cheap. Only your core need to be ''polyvalent'', because it's your point sink. The rest need to be the best at filling the gap, for the cheapest amount of points.

S7 versus S8 is a totally different topic I feel like.

Im going to have to disagree with the OP here. Points cost is the BEST way to balance the game. I will use units from the game to prove it because it doesn't make sense otherwise.

Take Eldar, the most hated faction right now.

At the heart of this you have Scat bikes which are probably one of the most hated units in the game right now. T4 3+ with a Jink save, ohh and lets give them a S6 36in gun so nobody can ever catch them or last against a turn or two of shooting. These guys are the ELITE of the ELITE as far as bikers are concerned and honestly I wouldn't are how horribly OP they were if they had a point cost that reflected the level of ridiculousness they bring to the table. If they had a hefty points bump they wouldn't be useless but they wouldn't be an auto take.

Another prime example would be SM Terminators, They are wicked expensive but only have a storm bolter in a shooting edition. Throw in the fact that they have 1W and only a 5+ invul they tend to die pretty quickly and are to costly to bring without any real chance of doing anything. If they received a pretty significant point decrease they wouldn't be considered the laughing stock of the Elite world like they are now.

Now neither of these takes into effect an army wide Balance but it is pretty easy to see through play testing how this could be done easily and get the game a bit closer to balanced as opposed to 2-3 ELITE codex's and 2-3 fethed codex's.

 Blacksails wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
points are a gakky way to balance a game in reality, particularly one with as many factions, elements, and variables as 40k.

There is nothing about 40k in its size that couldn't be fixed by a dedicated team of devs and adequate playtesting.

Due to the nature of the game, its virtually impossible for a codex to be released with perfect internal balance as well as perfect external balance against all other codecies.

Good thing no one is asking for or expecting perfect balance.

Its entirely possible, in fact, its inherently expected, that for any given unit x, there will be one opposing unit against which it is overeffective for its points, and another for which it is undereffective. I.E. against some units it will be undercosted, and against others overcosted.

Almost as though no one expects any system to be perfect.

In reality, I think the system (whereby opponents alternate placing warscrolls of their choice from their collection in order to hard counter one another) that GW implemented is much more balanced than any points system could be,

Which has all the same problems (and more) of a gakky point based system.

however it is my opinion that they needed to implement a little more in the way of restrictions to make it work.

Like...a system of tested and mostly balanced point costs?

Spoiler:

If I was writing the Age of Sigmar rules, the way I would have went about it is to first impose restrictions on a players collection, something like say (pulling numbers out of my ass here): Max 20 Warscrolls, 10-15 infantry, 4-6 Heroes, 4-6 Monsters, etc. No more than 30 wounds per warscroll. Those would be the totality of models available to a player during a game, their 'army list' if you will. Then during a game, two players would agree on a game size, say we met up at the shop and showed eachother our lists, and we agreed to an 8 warscroll game. Both players would then alternate, placing 1 warscroll at a time from their respective collections. This allows players to hard counter one another until both players have placed 8 warscrolls, as in "Ah, I see you just placed known OP warscroll y. Well, good thing I have a couple of unit x available to me as a potential hard counter to it, so I'll place one warscroll x." The limitation on collection size and contents, rather than force size and contents limits abuse from the types of players you commonly hear about (but whom I doubt actually exist) who show up with 8 greater daemons, etc.

All of which is more complex than just asking for the company to do their due dilligence and provide a well written and tested product that works for all types of games in every scenario imaginable.

As someone who's actually worked on and playtested games, I can tell you that no amount of playtesting and dev work will ever get 40k as balanced as you would like, or as balanced as you think it could be.

A points system alone would not balance the game. Just as an extreme example, equal points of basic guardsmen will never kill a Warlord titan. Of course, there is the obvious argument that basic guardsmen should never be able to kill a titan, not without upgrading them, but isn't that the ideal of having a points system? 100pts of X should be able to kill 100pts of Y, regardless of stats, wargear, etc.? X doesn't necessary have to be good at killing Y (maybe it's better against Z), but it should still be capable of it?

chaos0xomega wrote:
As someone who's actually worked on and playtested games, I can tell you that no amount of playtesting and dev work will ever get 40k as balanced as you would like, or as balanced as you think it could be.

Ah, the good old argument from authority.

I bow to your supreme knowledge on this matt- oh wait...

I just remembered.

I've also worked on and playtested games.

I can tell you that a sufficient amount of playtesting and dev work would fix 40k to a workable level of balance most people would be happy with, that could then further be improved upon as the game grows. 40k isn't some special snowflake that excludes it from the same kind of work that goes into every other game that has managed to achieve far greater levels of balance.

Its not just 40k, its any game of this complexity and scale, including Infinity, Warmachine/Hordes, Wrath of Kings, X-Wing, Armada, Batman Arkham Minis, Malifaux, Flames of War, Bolt Action, and countless other games that I actively play or have played in the past. Yes, some are more balanced than others (and most are better balanced than 40k is), but I wouldn't exactly say that any of them seem to reach the "ideal" level of balance some people desire, but it appears we will have to agree to disagree.

Just like perfect, ideal is another nearly impossible term to define.

So saying there's no way to balance 40k to an 'ideal' level means nothing. When I say it can be balanced better, there's something tangible there. There are games out there that can be compared. Ideas and mechanics that function better, smoother, simpler, or more immersive. There are matchups that can be tallied by playing scenarios repeatedly and averaging out results. There is basic math and guidelines and baselines you can use.

All of these things can be used to make 40k better. Will it be ideal? Who the feth knows. Maybe to some, maybe not to others, maybe in some respects, maybe not in others. Not everyone will like all or some of the changes, but I'm almost certain that improving 40k's general balance by bringing up the gak tier garbage and nerfing the overpowered god level nonsense will make a lot of players happy.

If that isn't ideal, I don't know what is.

 Elric of Grans wrote:
S8 is fantastic against Nids: half the codex is T4 multi-wound creatures, and many of these are expensive Synapse creatures. Many very expensive HQ units are T4 too. S8 is also a little better vs vehicles than S7, able to glance even a Land Raider. You are underselling how valuable a S8 weapon can be.

But then again, do you really know you're going to face Nids beforehand? Certainly you don't, so would you really base your on the off-chance you're facing Tyranids? What about the game that comes after? Sure if your opponent always plays nids and always brings T4 multi-wound units, Str8 is going to be your go-to choice of weapons, but then you're just hard-countering what you know is going to be on the table. But you're not building a well-rounded list, now are you?

And I'm not even mentioning the fact that just about every one of these T4 multi-wound creatures is never used in any kind of competitive list. The only one I can think of is the Lictor in the deepstrike list. Apart from that, the entire codex relies on Flyrants to win most of the time. And again, that's because they fill in every role that needs filling.

 PandaHero wrote:

Options that efficiently deal with a variety of unit types will almost always be chosen over options that deal with one particular type of unit. If people bring two units that are capable of dealing with both durable single targets and blobs, they'll have a significant advantage over people who bring two niche units, one for dealing with blobs and the other for dealing with single targets.

I would have to disagree here. IMO, It's only true when you build deathstar, because you don't want it to get counter. If my list lack anti-tank, I won't pick the all-rounder which cost a bit more. I will go with the straight up anti-tank that can perform well, and is cheap. Only your core need to be ''polyvalent'', because it's your point sink. The rest need to be the best at filling the gap, for the cheapest amount of points.

S7 versus S8 is a totally different topic I feel like.

The thing is that the all-rounder weapons are often the same cost or cheaper than the niche guns because these guns are considered "stronger" because they counter one type of units better (at least in the 4 armies I play and 3 armies my friends play) . E.g. Lascannonos vs autocannons

chaos0xomega wrote:
Its not just 40k, its any game of this complexity and scale, including Infinity, Warmachine/Hordes, Wrath of Kings, X-Wing, Armada, Batman Arkham Minis, Malifaux, Flames of War, Bolt Action, and countless other games that I actively play or have played in the past. Yes, some are more balanced than others (and most are better balanced than 40k is), but I wouldn't exactly say that any of them seem to reach the "ideal" level of balance some people desire, but it appears we will have to agree to disagree.

Starcraft exists. You are wrong.

Ive never played any of the Starcraft games, but judging by what I have heard others say I would never consider it to be balanced.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Ive never played any of the Starcraft games, but judging by what I have heard others say I would never consider it to be balanced.

No game like starcraft/40k is ever truly balanced completely, but Starcraft is a fair amount more balanced then 40k. Nobody Picks terrans and goes into the game going "well i lost" but on the other hand, a lot of players go into a game with Orks or IG and play against Eldar/Necrons and go "well I lost the game" yes before anyone gets uppity I know thats an over simplification but the point is still valid.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Ive never played any of the Starcraft games, but judging by what I have heard others say I would never consider it to be balanced.

It's pretty damn balanced. Of course, Starcraft also has temporal methods of balancing a unit. It's a hell of a lot more fair that Protoss can't get early carriers but Eldar can slap their big fat WK on the table turn 1.

100pts of X should be able to kill 100pts of Y, regardless of stats, wargear, etc.? X doesn't necessary have to be good at killing Y (maybe it's better against Z), but it should still be capable of it?

No. Never lol. Balancing with points mean that 100pts of X guardsmen should perform as well as 100pts of X marine, while titan (let's say Y), is another variable, where 100points of Y guardmen should perform as well as 100pts of Y marines. Then, you tiddy up the system with limitation on how much X and Y you can bring to a game.

To be honest, best way to balance would be to put the fluff a tiny bit more disconnect to the game (please stop hurting stone, I'm sorry I said that!). What I mean is: take all codex (let's say 10), and design them by layers. first of all, take the troop slot. Every faction should have 2-3 choice let's say. Easy way to balance: let's make 1 shooty and 1 melee for each faction.

Then, make sure that, statisticly, 100pts of the Melee Ork should be able to win 50% of the time against 100pts of Melee Marine. Then, give them both a X points upgrade that give X % more chance to win. So if you paid the 15points to get your 5% increase chance of wiping 100pts of marine, good for you. If they also bought it, you are back at 50-50.

I know it's very simplestic, and 40k is way more complicated than that. But building from bottom to top, balancing each slot toward each slot, you would have way more balance. as for special rules, make them either available ALL the time, or never. It will help balance it out.

A balance system like this will make the game very blend; the fluff and difference between faction would be only superficial and in appearance. But, the game would be easier to build on top of while keeping balance and it would also improve on the tactical level of the game (debatable). In order to swing the melee combat in your favor instead of the 50-50, you would have to seek the support of other unit or spell, thus creating synergy.

Please keep in mind that I am not a game dev, and I only here to express an opinion.

The thing is that the all-rounder weapons are often the same cost or cheaper than the niche guns because these guns are considered "stronger" because they counter one type of units better (at least in the 4 armies I play and 3 armies my friends play) . E.g. Lascannonos vs autocannons

Then you prove it yourself: point adjustment lead to balance.

Ultimately it does. Make an underpowered unit cheap enough and it'll be better, make an overpowered unit expensive enough and it'll be worse.

Thing is, while it always TECHNICALLY works (with the exception of a few fundamentally screwed up things, even then it can probably still work if you go extreme enough), it's not always a good choice. Oftentimes the better idea is to tweak the unit itself.

That said, it's still a good option when a unit is well-designed or set up but just too cheap or expensive.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
A points system alone would not balance the game. Just as an extreme example, equal points of basic guardsmen will never kill a Warlord titan. Of course, there is the obvious argument that basic guardsmen should never be able to kill a titan, not without upgrading them, but isn't that the ideal of having a points system? 100pts of X should be able to kill 100pts of Y, regardless of stats, wargear, etc.? X doesn't necessary have to be good at killing Y (maybe it's better against Z), but it should still be capable of it?

I think your slightly off here, 100pts of troops should be roughly equal to a different type of troop.

But an equal points worth of anti-titan units should be able to take down a titan. Which you often find is never the case. You'd be hard pressed to knock out, say a Wrathknight, with anything else that is equal priced or cheaper than the knight itself.

Martel732 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Ive never played any of the Starcraft games, but judging by what I have heard others say I would never consider it to be balanced.

It's pretty damn balanced. Of course, Starcraft also has temporal methods of balancing a unit. It's a hell of a lot more fair that Protoss can't get early carriers but Eldar can slap their big fat WK on the table turn 1.

Starcraft is nothing like 40k; gameplay works by leveraging strong counters and army composition works more like a constant real-time draft.

If both players in SC simply chose their army pre-game, you can probably imagine how it would look.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
A points system alone would not balance the game. Just as an extreme example, equal points of basic guardsmen will never kill a Warlord titan. Of course, there is the obvious argument that basic guardsmen should never be able to kill a titan, not without upgrading them, but isn't that the ideal of having a points system? 100pts of X should be able to kill 100pts of Y, regardless of stats, wargear, etc.? X doesn't necessary have to be good at killing Y (maybe it's better against Z), but it should still be capable of it?

No, thats not what a point system is supposed to do. 100 points of X shouldn't be able to kill 100 points of Y if X isn't supposed to kill Y.

The assumption is that a game like this needs to have an element of rock/paper/scissors. In that there are counters, and sometimes hard counters.

So its more like you have 100 points of X can kill 100 points of Y which can kill 100 points of Z which can kill 100 points of X. But inversely, it might take 250 points of X to kill 100 points of Z.

So you really compare a unit to other units which do similar things. You compare X to X, not X to Y.

Its a very complicated scenario to be fair, but GW isn't even trying. They fail because they don't make any attempt to make the game balanced, instead just tossing in stuff they think is cool. The result is we end up with deadend units that don't have anything they can counter and thus are wastes of points(like Pyrovores) or you end up with units that don't really have a counter.

Yes, I had thought long and hard of how to get "balance" out of 40k.
A points tweak "in a vacuum" will not cut it.
Too many units with their abilities can change the performance of other models which can increase their "value".
I hate to say the "data-slate/sheet" method would work best of all if all rules and abilities can only affect the units contained so the capabilities can be limited.
There are just too many combinations to account for to be fair in any stretch of the imagination.
Plus also, GW is way too fond of creating auto-include units to boost the bottom line so this topic has little practical use.

Points cost is a very important factor for balancing the game but it isn't the only tool for doing so. As others have said the case of the Eldar scatbikes being undercosted is 100% spot on as they are a fairly standard unit (jetbike) with a fairly standard gun (no fancy rules to the weapon) but the issue is how durable the model is, how much firepower it puts out, and how mobile it is for the points cost required to bring it.

Other rules like Invisibility are beyond just adjusting points cost because the strength of the power is related to the units its interacting with. An invisible unit of assault marines aren't nearly as big of an issue as an invisible Wolfstar. Shrouded isn't inherently overpowered (look at stealth suits and say they are OP) but if you put shrouded on some ravenwing then you have 2+ rerollable jink saves on T5 bikers. 4+ rerollable save bikers isn't all that terrible when isolated but its broken when you end up with 2+ rerollable saves because of unit interactions.

In OP's initial example with Str 7 spam being better then the lower RoF Str 8 weapons is exactly an issue with broadsides with HYMP vs HRR. In this case you could balance it by making HYMP more expensive or you could change the rules for the HRR to be less terrible (make it rapid fire and we might see a lot more HRRs on the battlefield). Another thing that could be changed to make Str 8 more appealing is making vehicles more durable (armor saves please) or have more hull points so glancing to death isn't as attractive while going for a vehicle explosion is more profitable. Whatever the case their are multiple tools to fixing the problem and no one tool is ideal for every situation.

 Talizvar wrote:
Yes, I had thought long and hard of how to get "balance" out of 40k.
A points tweak "in a vacuum" will not cut it.
Too many units with their abilities can change the performance of other models which can increase their "value".
I hate to say the "data-slate/sheet" method would work best of all if all rules and abilities can only affect the units contained so the capabilities can be limited.
There are just too many combinations to account for to be fair in any stretch of the imagination.
Plus also, GW is way too fond of creating auto-include units to boost the bottom line so this topic has little practical use.

40k isn't supposed to be balanced, you're supposed to mutually cooperate to ensure a good game in terms of both list parity and rules quirks.

A lot of players take a very hard line against tailoring your game experience that way, even if it works better in practice. There's an interesting article here that shed some light for me on 40k's player issues, and how it affects enjoyment. In fact in explained a lot of the curious behaviour you tend to see on dakka.

http://fightingfantasist.blogspot.ca/2011/06/rick-priestley-talks-wisely-on-subject.html

Martel732 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Ive never played any of the Starcraft games, but judging by what I have heard others say I would never consider it to be balanced.

It's pretty damn balanced. Of course, Starcraft also has temporal methods of balancing a unit. It's a hell of a lot more fair that Protoss can't get early carriers but Eldar can slap their big fat WK on the table turn 1.

Starcraft also has the luxury of being a static video game (with updates here or there to fix the coding if absolutely needed) and with no room for human misinterpretation of the rules/mechanics outside of the basic fundamentals of constructing a base/resource management (and you can't argue over a rule misunderstanding, since if you misunderstood, you're simply WRONG because the game doesn't reason with you about the rules.), as well as having only 3 factions to balance against. Not the...what do we have now, 13 factions? Also, once Starcraft reaches that 'perfection' point, there's no monkey wrenches tossed to muck up balance like adding more factions over time/units. I wouldn't really call that a fair comparison.

It's be interesting to see 40k introduce a GM kit in 8th edition, where points become a tool for the GM to set the game up rather than a player-side strategy.

Incidentally I read 40k has 22 factions somewhere, I'm sure it depends how you count.

Melevolence wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Ive never played any of the Starcraft games, but judging by what I have heard others say I would never consider it to be balanced.

It's pretty damn balanced. Of course, Starcraft also has temporal methods of balancing a unit. It's a hell of a lot more fair that Protoss can't get early carriers but Eldar can slap their big fat WK on the table turn 1.

Starcraft also has the luxury of being a static video game (with updates here or there to fix the coding if absolutely needed) and with no room for human misinterpretation of the rules/mechanics outside of the basic fundamentals of constructing a base/resource management (and you can't argue over a rule misunderstanding, since if you misunderstood, you're simply WRONG because the game doesn't reason with you about the rules.), as well as having only 3 factions to balance against. Not the...what do we have now, 13 factions? Also, once Starcraft reaches that 'perfection' point, there's no monkey wrenches tossed to muck up balance like adding more factions over time/units. I wouldn't really call that a fair comparison.

It's just showing that it can be done. Maybe 40K can never be quite as balanced, but it's embarrassing currently.

Martel732 wrote:

Melevolence wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Ive never played any of the Starcraft games, but judging by what I have heard others say I would never consider it to be balanced.

It's pretty damn balanced. Of course, Starcraft also has temporal methods of balancing a unit. It's a hell of a lot more fair that Protoss can't get early carriers but Eldar can slap their big fat WK on the table turn 1.

Starcraft also has the luxury of being a static video game (with updates here or there to fix the coding if absolutely needed) and with no room for human misinterpretation of the rules/mechanics outside of the basic fundamentals of constructing a base/resource management (and you can't argue over a rule misunderstanding, since if you misunderstood, you're simply WRONG because the game doesn't reason with you about the rules.), as well as having only 3 factions to balance against. Not the...what do we have now, 13 factions? Also, once Starcraft reaches that 'perfection' point, there's no monkey wrenches tossed to muck up balance like adding more factions over time/units. I wouldn't really call that a fair comparison.

It's just showing that it can be done. Maybe 40K can never be quite as balanced, but it's embarrassing currently.

I agree it's embarassing. But I really doubt we could get 40k to be nearly as balanced as the majority would like. I'm more than certain the right minds with the ambition to make the game good could get it very close. They'd have to be good minds, and objective to a T when it comes to the BRB and Codecies so no favoritism goes into any of it...and it'd be hard to find that.