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Keep in mind, if you remove formations, Eldar and Daemons will utterly dominate the game. The game will become more homogenous without formations because most of the newer codices were written with formations in mind. Codex Tau is a great example, there were essentially no changes made to the units, but a ton of formations added. Space Marines, Crons, Tau, etc, would not be able to compete with by the book Eldar. And guess what, formations don't affect how good scatter bikes are, how good warp hunters are, how good wraithknights and warp spiders are (and you can still fit at least 6 squads with a double CAD of eldar...). Daemons don't care either, grimoire still exists, fateweaver exists, summoning, cursed earth. Daemons can get a 2++ rerollable with little to no effort as well as guaranteed Invis.

These threads are such a waste of time. No one is going to remove all formations from the game. Perfect balance is impossible in a game with this many choices. Accept the game for what it is or sell your models and quit playing...

 LValx wrote:
Keep in mind, if you remove formations, Eldar and Daemons will utterly dominate the game. The game will become more homogenous without formations because most of the newer codices were written with formations in mind. Codex Tau is a great example, there were essentially no changes made to the units, but a ton of formations added. Space Marines, Crons, Tau, etc, would not be able to compete with by the book Eldar. And guess what, formations don't affect how good scatter bikes are, how good warp hunters are, how good wraithknights and warp spiders are (and you can still fit at least 6 squads with a double CAD of eldar...). Daemons don't care either, grimoire still exists, fateweaver exists, summoning, cursed earth. Daemons can get a 2++ rerollable with little to no effort as well as guaranteed Invis.

Eldar already dominate the game. It might allow armies like DE, IG, Orks, CSM's, etc to have a fighting chance against Necrons and SM's however and get a greater semblance of balance, not to mention ease pickup play.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
1. kill formations with fire
2. punch some of the top units in the game with nerf gloves.
3. wait a few tournaments for a meta to settle
4. Look through results and army lists from like the top third of players. If there's a unit you see all over the place, repeat step 2. When you start to not be able to predict which armies and/or units will be in the top tables, voila, the game is now at least respectable in terms of balance!

I've never played a tabletop, board, video or card game that did not have HUGE imbalances. The only way to balance a game as large as 40k is to kill half or more of the armies and reduce choices within codices. Plus, if you are constantly nerfing and changing units, you will increase the cost to players, which will also hurt the game.

I've been playing since 5th and I find it ridiculous that anyone acts as though the game is significantly less balanced than it was in 5th or 6th.

5th was by a large margin, more homogenous than 6th or 7th. And I, personally, prefer 7th over 6th by a fair margin.

There are fixes that are easy to make that I think would help the game, but most of the suggestions ITT and in other threads of this kind are mere pipe dreams. More pragmatism, please!

LValx wrote:I've never played a tabletop, board, video or card game that did not have HUGE imbalances. The only way to balance a game as large as 40k is to kill half or more of the armies and reduce choices within codices.

This was essentially my argument in the "MAKE FORMATIONS MANDATORY" thread.

 LValx wrote:
Perfect balance is impossible in a game with this many choices.

Good thing no reasonable person expects perfect balance.

Accept the game for what it is or sell your models and quit playing...

No? God forbid somebody offer criticism of a product.

Vaktathi wrote:Eldar already dominate the game. It might allow armies like DE, IG, Orks, CSM's, etc to have a fighting chance against Necrons and SM's however and get a greater semblance of balance, not to mention ease pickup play.

If you're playing CSM or Orks, you could simply ask your opponent to run a CAD.

Not a tournament solution, but for casual games? Seems viable enough.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 LValx wrote:
Keep in mind, if you remove formations, Eldar and Daemons will utterly dominate the game. The game will become more homogenous without formations because most of the newer codices were written with formations in mind. Codex Tau is a great example, there were essentially no changes made to the units, but a ton of formations added. Space Marines, Crons, Tau, etc, would not be able to compete with by the book Eldar. And guess what, formations don't affect how good scatter bikes are, how good warp hunters are, how good wraithknights and warp spiders are (and you can still fit at least 6 squads with a double CAD of eldar...). Daemons don't care either, grimoire still exists, fateweaver exists, summoning, cursed earth. Daemons can get a 2++ rerollable with little to no effort as well as guaranteed Invis.

Eldar already dominate the game. It might allow armies like DE, IG, Orks, CSM's, etc to have a fighting chance against Necrons and SM's however and get a greater semblance of balance, not to mention ease pickup play.

Eldar, Necrons, SM, Tau, Daemons and TWC based lists are fairly well balanced against one another. What you are proposing will just increase the amount of Eldar...

Also, for all the dominating that Eldar do, I find it funny that Daemons/TWC lists are winning GTs at a very similar rate.

I don't think weakening the few armies that can challenge Eldar is a good way to increase balance, I'd argue that it would have the exact opposite effect and just further push players towards Eldar...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blacksails wrote:

 LValx wrote:
Perfect balance is impossible in a game with this many choices.

Good thing no reasonable person expects perfect balance.

Accept the game for what it is or sell your models and quit playing...

No? God forbid somebody offer criticism of a product.

Criticism is fine, but there is a new thread like this posted nearly every day, how much time are people going to waste tapping on their keyboards? You want to fix the game, get started. Re-write the codices and install a new format in your local area, test and report results. Complaining on the internet fixes nothing. I see tons of folks on here agreeing that things need to change, lamenting on the awful state of the game, yet it seems that no one is willing to do anything to fix it. I have a theory as to why that is the case, balancing games is much more difficult than the average gamer realizes and to do so with a game of this size is a herculean task. You would require a very large coordinated effort and countless hours of testing, furthermore, it would be a consistent effort that would require support throughout its life-cycle. If this were feasible, I'd think it'd have happened by now, as I have seen this same sort of complaining since I started playing the game around 10 years ago.

I've never been part of a community that spends as much time complaining about the state of their game as 40k, its a bit embarrassing to say the least.

 Blacksails wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Fixing the weak unit is the perfect way to do this.

And then you guys complain Tactical Marines don't need a fix and are perfectly fine as is.

And I've always said the solution is to make basic infantry more relevant by dramatically altering the game. Tacs aren't great, sure, but the solution isn't to keep buffing every unit forever. The big issue with Tacs is that they're outclassed by a number of other ridiculous units in strong codices.

Except we are still taking Scouts and Bikers instead. You're not defending Tactical Marines in this case.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Also I play CSM more than I do regular marines and boy do I miss atsknf when it would come in handy.

I play Dark Angels and CSM, and for my money CSM not getting Combat Squads is more of a detriment than them not getting ATSNKF. Sure, it's great to not get swept - except when you want the unit in question to get swept so you can shoot at the unit doing the sweeping. As often as not, not getting swept is a detriment, as it keeps the assaulting unit safe from your shooting for a turn.

Combat Squads, on the other hand, are what make a 10-man Tac Squad work. Being able to separate them so the special weapon and the sarge with the matching combi-weapon can go after one target while the heavy goes after another is a huge benefit, and makes an otherwise-pointless unit worth having. Admittedly, most of the Tac Squad heavy weapon options suck - about the only two I consider worthwhile are the multimelta and the grav cannon - but Tac Squads do have those, so it's not all bad. If basic CSM squads could combat-squad, that'd make them far more useful.

Traditio wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:Eldar already dominate the game. It might allow armies like DE, IG, Orks, CSM's, etc to have a fighting chance against Necrons and SM's however and get a greater semblance of balance, not to mention ease pickup play.

If you're playing CSM or Orks, you could simply ask your opponent to run a CAD.

Not a tournament solution, but for casual games? Seems viable enough.

all depends on what they brought...people often just bring models for a specific list which may or may not work in a CAD, and telling people to radically change their lists is often rather socially awkward, especially in pickup play.

 LValx wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 LValx wrote:
Keep in mind, if you remove formations, Eldar and Daemons will utterly dominate the game. The game will become more homogenous without formations because most of the newer codices were written with formations in mind. Codex Tau is a great example, there were essentially no changes made to the units, but a ton of formations added. Space Marines, Crons, Tau, etc, would not be able to compete with by the book Eldar. And guess what, formations don't affect how good scatter bikes are, how good warp hunters are, how good wraithknights and warp spiders are (and you can still fit at least 6 squads with a double CAD of eldar...). Daemons don't care either, grimoire still exists, fateweaver exists, summoning, cursed earth. Daemons can get a 2++ rerollable with little to no effort as well as guaranteed Invis.

Eldar already dominate the game. It might allow armies like DE, IG, Orks, CSM's, etc to have a fighting chance against Necrons and SM's however and get a greater semblance of balance, not to mention ease pickup play.

Eldar, Necrons, SM, Tau, Daemons and TWC based lists are fairly well balanced against one another. What you are proposing will just increase the amount of Eldar...

Also, for all the dominating that Eldar do, I find it funny that Daemons/TWC lists are winning GTs at a very similar rate.

I don't think weakening the few armies that can challenge Eldar is a good way to increase balance, I'd argue that it would have the exact opposite effect and just further push players towards Eldar...

having fewer grossly overpowered things ia easier to work around than having many, especially when it may then force pressure on TO's and/or GW to then more actively look at the remaining one big issue, and outside of tournament play it would certainly make a huge difference for the majority of games that dont include Eldar.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blacksails wrote:

 LValx wrote:
Perfect balance is impossible in a game with this many choices.

No? God forbid somebody offer criticism of a product.

Criticism is fine, but there is a new thread like this posted nearly every day, how much time are people going to waste tapping on their keyboards? You want to fix the game, get started. Re-write the codices and install a new format in your local area, test and report results. Complaining on the internet fixes nothing. I see tons of folks on here agreeing that things need to change, lamenting on the awful state of the game, yet it seems that no one is willing to do anything to fix it.

we're not professionally employed game designers working for the largest tabletop gaming company on the planet. This is a place where people come to express frustrations with a hobby, not take on another job doing what GW gets paid to do.

No game is perfectly balanced, but I cant think of any other game that has anything near the complete absense of balance that 40k has.

I have a theory as to why that is the case, balancing games is much more difficult than the average gamer realizes and to do so with a game of this size is a herculean task.

it can be, but GW isn't even making the attempt. Its one thing to have something slip through once in a while, its another whdn the game is chocked full of stuff any idiot with a brain can see is absurdly busted at first casual glance.

I've never been part of a community that spends as much time complaining about the state of their game as 40k, its a bit embarrassing to say the least.

Then clearly youve never spent time on boards for gamrs like WoW, League of Legends, Mass Effect, CoD, Battlefield, etc.

And if you dont like the conversations, nobody is forcing you to participate.

Formations worked well... in apocalypse games. They promote heavy purchases of large units, and rewarded those purchases with unique bonuses... that you had to pay points for to get. I completely agree with the OP.

Free bonuses, free transports, first turn alpha strike rules, is all ridiculous and causing the game to come to ruin. I miss building 'fluffy' lists that would still do well against most other armies. I have seen 40k nights at my flgs and at our private houses go from a 20 person group to less than six on average. Everyone's complaint is the necessity of formations, the necessity of mass spending to play (even after owning 20k points of balanced units from a faction), and the utter spam trash rules with formations.

Oh, the other issue is the use of allies. Adepticon had one player who's army was made up of 9... count it, 9 different codex books. He cherry picked the best units from different armies that could ally in any way possible. Talk about multiple death stars. This is not fluffy, makes no sense, and is utter trash. Then there was the guy who ran deathwing terminators, dante for hit and run (can't tarpit them), a brother captain and driago for psychic powers (2+ re-rollable storm shields) and hamerhand. One large trash squad that bounced around the board and smashed everything to pieces. I am a fan of the deathwing and dark angels, and have been playing them since 3rd edition, but I don't dick around like that. Why would dante, draigo, and a brother captain leave their chapters to join a 10 man squad of deathwing terminators?

I mean, WTF GW, really? Is this what 40k has become? tansport spam, deathstars, codex spam, elder warpspiders and jetbikes, and riptide spam?

I guess my next army will be made up of allies - some thunderwolf cavalry, ravenwing black knights, a riptide or two, some elder jetbikes... and a gravcannon loaded stormhammer formation. I'm sure my opponent will love that

Having fewer overpowered units fixes nothing. Formations don't make Wraithknights, Scatterbikes, Warp Hunters, Warp Spiders or Swooping Hawks good. Eldar are the army you see that is by far the most likely to run a CAD.... So once again, you wouldn't fix a single thing by removing formations, you will simply be punishing a few armies that rely HEAVILY on them (SM, Crons, Tau, DA, Skitarii/Cult all come to mind).

40k is no less broken now than it was in 5th, when even MORE codices were completely obsolete. I remember those days vividly and it was Rhinos and Chimeras everywhere at max amounts with 5 man units inside... How is 7th worse than that?

I want to see some examples of "balanced" games...

and please spare me the MTG example, because if you think that game is balanced ive got some sweet swampland to sell you...

 LValx wrote:
Criticism is fine, but there is a new thread like this posted nearly every day, how much time are people going to waste tapping on their keyboards? You want to fix the game, get started. Re-write the codices and install a new format in your local area, test and report results. Complaining on the internet fixes nothing. I see tons of folks on here agreeing that things need to change, lamenting on the awful state of the game, yet it seems that no one is willing to do anything to fix it. I have a theory as to why that is the case, balancing games is much more difficult than the average gamer realizes and to do so with a game of this size is a herculean task. You would require a very large coordinated effort and countless hours of testing, furthermore, it would be a consistent effort that would require support throughout its life-cycle. If this were feasible, I'd think it'd have happened by now, as I have seen this same sort of complaining since I started playing the game around 10 years ago.

There are also threads every day like 'who would win' or 'which chapter is your favourite'. Do you post in all of those complaining that they're too repititive and that they're wasting their time?

Further, discussing in threads like this is not mutually exclusive from also doing as you said, which, I've done in the past with my own group.

Not to mention you equally tapping away on your keyboard lamenting this thread and similar ones.

I've never been part of a community that spends as much time complaining about the state of their game as 40k, its a bit embarrassing to say the least.

Well, you and I have vastly different experiences. Every other video game community I've been in as been dramatically more toxic and bitchy.

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Also I play CSM more than I do regular marines and boy do I miss atsknf when it would come in handy.

I play Dark Angels and CSM, and for my money CSM not getting Combat Squads is more of a detriment than them not getting ATSNKF. Sure, it's great to not get swept - except when you want the unit in question to get swept so you can shoot at the unit doing the sweeping. As often as not, not getting swept is a detriment, as it keeps the assaulting unit safe from your shooting for a turn.

Combat Squads, on the other hand, are what make a 10-man Tac Squad work. Being able to separate them so the special weapon and the sarge with the matching combi-weapon can go after one target while the heavy goes after another is a huge benefit, and makes an otherwise-pointless unit worth having. Admittedly, most of the Tac Squad heavy weapon options suck - about the only two I consider worthwhile are the multimelta and the grav cannon - but Tac Squads do have those, so it's not all bad. If basic CSM squads could combat-squad, that'd make them far more useful.

They don't need Combat Squad because they get to take two Special Weapons in the squad. It is literally the only thing they have over Loyalists.

It only makes sense on Carcharodon Tacticals, as you buy (or switch out the Bolter for) 5 CCW's, grab a Melta, Combi-Melta, and Grav Cannon. Squad them after the Pod lands and it is an okay tactic. Otherwise, I find the rule to be overly pointless.

 455_PWR wrote:
Formations worked well... in apocalypse games. They promote heavy purchases of large units, and rewarded those purchases with unique bonuses... that you had to pay points for to get. I completely agree with the OP.

Free bonuses, free transports, first turn alpha strike rules, is all ridiculous and causing the game to come to ruin. I miss building 'fluffy' lists that would still do well against most other armies. I have seen 40k nights at my flgs and at our private houses go from a 20 person group to less than six on average. Everyone's complaint is the necessity of formations, the necessity of mass spending to play (even after owning 20k points of balanced units from a faction), and the utter spam trash rules with formations.

Oh, the other issue is the use of allies. Adepticon had one player who's army was made up of 9... count it, 9 different codex books. He cherry picked the best units from different armies that could ally in any way possible. Talk about multiple death stars. This is not fluffy, makes no sense, and is utter trash. Then there was the guy who ran deathwing terminators, dante for hit and run (can't tarpit them), a brother captain and driago for psychic powers (2+ re-rollable storm shields) and hamerhand. One large trash squad that bounced around the board and smashed everything to pieces. I am a fan of the deathwing and dark angels, and have been playing them since 3rd edition, but I don't dick around like that. Why would dante, draigo, and a brother captain leave their chapters to join a 10 man squad of deathwing terminators?

I mean, WTF GW, really? Is this what 40k has become? tansport spam, deathstars, codex spam, elder warpspiders and jetbikes, and riptide spam?

I guess my next army will be made up of allies - some thunderwolf cavalry, ravenwing black knights, a riptide or two, some elder jetbikes... and a gravcannon loaded stormhammer formation. I'm sure my opponent will love that

I'd love to see the army made up of 9 different codices, I do not see how that is possible with Adepticon's army building rules....

Also.. Free units/points existed pre-formations, e.g. Daemon Summoning. Free rules may not have, but you are ignoring the fact that just about every formation includes tax units. Formations make the game less homogenous by forcing players to bring units they otherwise would not. I mean seriously, if you remove the Gladius Battle Co., how often would you expect to see Tactical or Assault Marines?

How long have you been playing? 5th ed was transport spam, deathstars and missile/melta spam. 6th ed was riptides, night scythes, wave serpents, seer councils, screamerstars and fmcs. EVERY EDITION OF 40k HAS LACKED BALANCE. If the game has never been balanced, why do you expect it to suddenly become balanced?!

 LValx wrote:
Having fewer overpowered units fixes nothing. Formations don't make Wraithknights, Scatterbikes, Warp Hunters, Warp Spiders or Swooping Hawks good. Eldar are the army you see that is by far the most likely to run a CAD.... So once again, you wouldn't fix a single thing by removing formations, you will simply be punishing a few armies that rely HEAVILY on them (SM, Crons, Tau, DA, Skitarii/Cult all come to mind).

Basically you'd largely just have Eldar and a couple problem units from arouns the game to deal with, not the dizzying array of synergistic build combinations, freebies, and special rules.

Necrons would be far from crippled without Formations, likesise Tau and DA, particularly next to armies like IG, DE, CSM's, GK, etc.

40k is no less broken now than it was in 5th, when even MORE codices were completely obsolete. I remember those days vividly and it was Rhinos and Chimeras everywhere at max amounts with 5 man units inside... How is 7th worse than that?

I lived those days as well...they were *far* from perfect, but we didnt have anything like what we have now, with some armies getting hundreds of points worth of freebies over their opponents, no SH/GC units, dramatically less powerful psychic abilities, no D weapons, no allies or multiple detachments, etc. They werent perfect, and formations arent the only problem with 7th, but they were better than now and formations are heavily contributing to the mess.

want to see some examples of "balanced" games...

Dropzone Commander has extremely good balance and activrely runs errata based off tournament results. Other games like FoW, Warmahordes, Heavy Gear, Firestorm Armada, Bolt Action, etc have *far* better balance than 40k has.

and please spare me the MTG example, because if you think that game is balanced ive got some sweet swampland to sell you...

I have never played it competitively so I couldnt comment.

 Blacksails wrote:

 LValx wrote:
Criticism is fine, but there is a new thread like this posted nearly every day, how much time are people going to waste tapping on their keyboards? You want to fix the game, get started. Re-write the codices and install a new format in your local area, test and report results. Complaining on the internet fixes nothing. I see tons of folks on here agreeing that things need to change, lamenting on the awful state of the game, yet it seems that no one is willing to do anything to fix it. I have a theory as to why that is the case, balancing games is much more difficult than the average gamer realizes and to do so with a game of this size is a herculean task. You would require a very large coordinated effort and countless hours of testing, furthermore, it would be a consistent effort that would require support throughout its life-cycle. If this were feasible, I'd think it'd have happened by now, as I have seen this same sort of complaining since I started playing the game around 10 years ago.

There are also threads every day like 'who would win' or 'which chapter is your favourite'. Do you post in all of those complaining that they're too repititive and that they're wasting their time?

Further, discussing in threads like this is not mutually exclusive from also doing as you said, which, I've done in the past with my own group.

Not to mention you equally tapping away on your keyboard lamenting this thread and similar ones.

I've never been part of a community that spends as much time complaining about the state of their game as 40k, its a bit embarrassing to say the least.

Well, you and I have vastly different experiences. Every other video game community I've been in as been dramatically more toxic and bitchy.

Slow day at the office

Basically, I think all of the complaining and crying over the state of the game hurts our community, which is a bummer to me because I enjoy the community. Thread that discuss peoples favorite army/chapter or whatever don't (seem to) have a negative impact on the hobby, so I don't care about them, even if they may be redundant or pointless.

Back when I played StarCraft, there was a TON of complaining but there was also a MUCH larger playerbase. I experienced the same thing in the MTG community. But with 40k it sometimes feels as though the majority of 40k enthusiasts I meet/interact with complain more about the game/community than play it.

The level of discontent may be a good indicator that GW is not responding to the narket and their customerbase in an adequate manner, and that it is indicative of an issue with their product rather than something being wrong fundamentally with the 40k community.

@ Vaktathi, I cant speak to a lot of those tabletop games, but I've heard major complaints about both X-Wing and Warmachine's balance levels. Though I do hear both have much more involved developers which helps, no doubt. Heres my question though: Do any of those games feature ~20 distinct factions?

As to what you said about 5th, I simply don't agree. In my first ~3 years of playing 40k I never played against: Tyranids, Tau, SoB, Orks and very few times against Eldar or Daemons/CSM. If you weren't imperial you were pretty much boned because it was damn near impossible to pop rhinos/chimeras without Melta, CC was arguably even more ineffective due to needing a 6 to hit vehicles.

I think there is far more variation in lists at the top of events now than there was in 5th... I don't feel like it right now, but if someone wants to pull up some NOVA/Adepticon lists from 5th, 6th, 7th and compare, it'd make for an interesting study.

Also, keep in mind, yes armies are bigger, shootier and crazier than before, but that is a general trend in 40k that applies to every codex. Things are simply getting cheaper and more powerful every edition and so I don't think comparing the power levels of individual units between editions is useful (not to even mention the ability to ally). My bigger point is that 5th ed was more homogenous and therefore less balanced.

The freebies aren't nearly as bad as people make it out to be... How many GTs have Gladius or War Convo (the biggest abusers of freebie mechanics) won? I'm pretty sure its less than Eldar/Daemons, both of whom feature CADs very frequently in their lists...




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The level of discontent may be a good indicator that GW is not responding to the narket and their customerbase in an adequate manner, and that it is indicative of an issue with their product rather than something being wrong fundamentally with the 40k community.

I cant say that ive seen much of a change in discontent though.

In 5th I remember just about the same level of complaining/arguing/lamenting about balance, its a reoccurring thing within the 40k community.

 LValx wrote:
Slow day at the office

Happens to all of us. I'm procrastinating when I should be doing real work.

Basically, I think all of the complaining and crying over the state of the game hurts our community, which is a bummer to me because I enjoy the community. Thread that discuss peoples favorite army/chapter or whatever don't (seem to) have a negative impact on the hobby, so I don't care about them, even if they may be redundant or pointless.

I don't think most of the 'complaining' are necessarily negative. Plenty have good discussions about interesting topics in game design and potential solutions that may turn up as house rules in some groups. That alone would mean they're a net positive for the community. Perspective and all that. When emotion is removed or when you understand the person behind the words and their love of the game, you realize the primary emotion is disappointment that 40k could be genuinely great in every way with some admittedly simple fixes. The comments that consist of nothing more than "game is gak, quit, play X instead" with zero explanation or room for discussion are trash and should be treated as such. But if someone is willing to discuss at length what they dislike about the game and offer why its a problem and maybe point out potential fixes, its because that person cares about the game.

Make no mistake, 40k is still enjoyable because its still a wargame (no matter how tactically shallow) with pretty models in a universe we all love. Communities this large will always have differing opinions and things you dislike, but that's the beauty of it. It'd be boring if every thread was a repeat of "What's your favourite chapter!".

Back when I played StarCraft, there was a TON of complaining but there was also a MUCH larger playerbase. I experienced the same thing in the MTG community. But with 40k it sometimes feels as though the majority of 40k enthusiasts I meet/interact with complain more about the game/community than play it.

My time spent in World of Tanks was filled with jingoism, endless hate at the parent company, never ending balance issues, and constant whining about whatever reward or bonus was being given out on a particular weekend. EVE Online was equally polarized between pvp and pve players, on top of the standard jingoism between Russians and the rest of the world, plus the neverending stream of "EVE is failing!" threads.

However, if you find that most of your interactions with 40k players are that they're negative towards the game, it does have to make you question the quality of the game and/or the policies of the company to make such a large amount of (assumed) former happy customers into bitter players.

But I'm off topic, and I should probably stop before I drag it further.

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Also I play CSM more than I do regular marines and boy do I miss atsknf when it would come in handy.

I play Dark Angels and CSM, and for my money CSM not getting Combat Squads is more of a detriment than them not getting ATSNKF. Sure, it's great to not get swept - except when you want the unit in question to get swept so you can shoot at the unit doing the sweeping. As often as not, not getting swept is a detriment, as it keeps the assaulting unit safe from your shooting for a turn.

Yes. I'd much rather the remaining 2 tactical marines just get swept so that I can rapidfire hellfire rounds at whatever just attacked them.

In point of fact, that won't happen. They'll remain stuck in combat until my assault phase, die on my assault phase, and whatever just assaulted them is going to assault more stuff on my opponent's following turn.

Tactical marines aren't even good at dying for the emperor. IG do it better.

 LValx wrote:
40k is no less broken now than it was in 5th, when even MORE codices were completely obsolete. I remember those days vividly and it was Rhinos and Chimeras everywhere at max amounts with 5 man units inside... How is 7th worse than that?

People seem to have selective memory. In summer of 2015, people in my area were complaining of the heat even though New England had "Snowmaggedon" just a few months before.

You see the same thing here, with people selectively forgetting how out of balance things were in the past -- such as when GK were dominating in 2012 in a similar way to Eldar today.


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 LValx wrote:
I think there is far more variation in lists at the top of events now than there was in 5th... I don't feel like it right now, but if someone wants to pull up some NOVA/Adepticon lists from 5th, 6th, 7th and compare, it'd make for an interesting study.

If you dig around a little you can find the results of big events like Adepticon or Nova.

I dont think theres all *that* much selective memory going on, most of us are entirely willing to admit 5E wasnt anything near a level playing field (and I still find myself surprised to be advocating for it with all the faults it had), just that it wasn't *as* stilted as it is today.

In my experience, games are substantially more win big/lose big, more likely to end in tabling, and decided far more by the end of turn 2 than they were in 5E. 5E was a mess, but not the complete disaster 7E has turned out to be. The near collapse of pickup gaming in many people's experiences is directly related to how messy 7E is, and for all its faults, pickup gaming was not a major issue in 5E.

From my own subjective experience, playgroups are becoming smaller and my local tournaments that used to be able to pull in two dozen people in 3E/4E/5E have trouble getting enough players to use 3 tables in 7th.

Vaktathi wrote:all depends on what they brought...people often just bring models for a specific list which may or may not work in a CAD, and telling people to radically change their lists is often rather socially awkward, especially in pickup play.

If your opponent is running a battle company, he can run a CAD. He might or might not have to play at a slightly lower points level, but he can run a CAD.

A battle company is:

2 HQs
6 troops
2 heavy support
2 fast attack

Of course, I'm sure that you'll find it only fair if your opponent requests that you don't spam heldrakes or use forgeworld units.

Traditio wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:all depends on what they brought...people often just bring models for a specific list which may or may not work in a CAD, and telling people to radically change their lists is often rather socially awkward, especially in pickup play.

If your opponent is running a battle company, he can run a CAD. He might or might not have to play at a slightly lower points level, but he can run a CAD.

A battle company is:

2 HQs
6 troops
2 heavy support
2 fast attack

Of course, I'm sure that you'll find it only fair if your opponent requests that you don't spam heldrakes or use forgeworld units.

what does FW have to do with anything

That said, I dont think anyone is complaining about Heldrakes anymore since they got nerfed in their FAQ, and the only one I own (and rarely use) has the Autocannon so nobody cares anyway


Ultimately however, the issue is that telling people to change lists gets super awkward, and may not always be possible depending on what was brought, and wasnt an issue in previous editions the way it is now.

Vaktathi wrote:Ultimately however, the issue is that telling people to change lists gets super awkward, and may not always be possible depending on what was brought, and wasnt an issue in previous editions the way it is now.

True enough. That said, if you're playing CSM or orks, I personally would be so delighted that I am going to be facing a "fun," "casual" army that I'd be willing to make concessions to my opponent as appropriate.

Oh. You're playing orks? Yeah, i'll run this as a CAD, pay for my rhinos, and you see this Pedro Kantor "Feth the Orks" rule? Let's just pretend that doesn't exist.

 Vaktathi wrote:
From my own subjective experience, playgroups are becoming smaller and my local tournaments that used to be able to pull in two dozen people in 3E/4E/5E have trouble getting enough players to use 3 tables in 7th.

That's odd. In New England I've never seen 40k bigger.

I was at a local RTT at The Portal in Manchester Connecticut and 52 people showed up to play. They are expecting even more for their GT Event on May 7th.

Every area has different meta's. Maybe 40k is shrinking in yours, but it's growing here.

I'm with Labmouse, our area is as strong as its ever been. Of course im in the greater DMV area, so that may be the reason why.

I'll also say this: I think it is much harder to table people in 7th than it was in 5th. Armies are much larger now and the game takes much longer. I don't see too many tablings happening at RTTs or GTs and I attend tournaments pretty frequently.

The next thing I am about to say will be sure to draw some ire, but I feel that in 7th (remember that I only have played 5th/6th/7th) I have a better chance to compete with a low tier codex than I did in 5th or 6th ed. Mostly because I find that formations and allies allow players to fill in gaps in their codices.

But as always, YMMV, this entire conversation is subjective in nature and I don't want anyone to think that I am making statements rooted in objective principles or anything of that sort.

 labmouse42 wrote:
If you dig around a little you can find the results of big events like Adepticon or Nova.

Quick Google search:

Adepticon Top 16 per Adepticon.com

2011 (5th Edition)

1 Orks
2 Chaos Space Marines
3 Space Marines
4 Blood Angels
5 Space Wolves
6 Blood Angels
7 Imperial Guard
8 Dark Eldar
9 Orks
10 Blood Angels
11 Space Wolves
12 Blood Angels
13 Dark Eldar
14 Black Templars
15 Blood Angels
16 Orks


2012 (5th Edition)

1 Grey Knights
2 Orks
3 Grey Knights
4 Grey Knights
5 Orks
6 Grey Knights
7 Eldar
8 Dark Eldar
9 Blood Angels
10 Eldar
11 Grey Knights
12 Space Wolves
13 Necrons
14 Imperial Guard
15 Imperial Guard
16 Space Marines

2013 (6th Edition)

1 Necrons/Chaos Space Marines
2 Necrons
3 Necrons/Chaos Space Marines
4 Eldar/Dark Eldar
5 Grey Knights
6 Daemons
7 Tyranids
8 Necrons
9 Chaos Space Marines/Necrons
10 Eldar/Imperial Guard
11 Necrons/Grey Knights
12 Chaos Space Marines/Daemons
13 Grey Knights/Necrons
14 Space Marines/Eldar
15 Chaos Space Marines
16 Imperial Guard/Grey Knights

2014 (6th Edition)

1 Daemons
2 Space Wolves
3 Eldar/Dark Eldar
4 Space Marines/Space Wolves
5 Space Marines/Space Marines
6 IYN (?) /Dark Eldar
7 Tau/Space Marines
8 Tau/Space Marines
9 Dark Eldar /Eldar
10 Tau/Eldar
11 Eldar/Dark Eldar
12 Dark Eldar/Eldar
13 Daemons/Chaos Space Marines
14 Necrons/Tau
15 IG/Space Marines
16 Space Marines/Space Wolves

2015 (7th Edition)

1 Daemons
2 Daemons/Chaos Space Marines
3 Necrons/Eldar/Necrons
4 Space Marines/Dark Angels/Space Wolves
5 Eldar/Eldar/Dark Eldar
6 Tyranids/Tyranids/Tyranids
7 Necrons/Necrons/Necrons
8 Space Marines/Blood Angels
9 Necrons/Necrons/Necrons
10 Necrons
11 Space Marines/Astra Militarum/Space Wolves
12 Space Marines/Space Marines/Space Wolves
13 Grey Knights/Space Marines/Astra Militarum
14 Tau/Tau
15 Space MarinesM/Space Marines/Grey Knights
16 Tyranids/Eldar/Inquisition

2016 (7th Edition, obviously)

1 Dark Angels
2 Space Marines
3 Eldar
4 Eldar
5 Eldar
6 Eldar
7 Eldar
8 Dark Angels
9 Daemons
10 Eldar
11 Tau
12 Eldar
13 Tyranids
14 Daemons
15 Chaos Space Marines
16 Daemons


I copied these pretty much exactly as the site lists them. I can go back further if need be. They go all the way back to '03

 LValx wrote:
The next thing I am about to say will be sure to draw some ire, but I feel that in 7th (remember that I only have played 5th/6th/7th) I have a better chance to compete with a low tier codex than I did in 5th or 6th ed. Mostly because I find that formations and allies allow players to fill in gaps in their codices.

That's because the concept of "tier codex" is antiquated in 7th.

Instead we should think of "tier lists". Some codex'es can crank out more "tier one lists" than another book, but a single formation may suddenly make a new "tier list" possible, making an otherwise non-used codex useful.

Right now we see that with Eldar. You can make a lot of "tier one" lists with Eldar, but that's can change quickly. I've been playing a lot lately with the "Infernal Tetrad" list, and it's a hard counter to warp spider spam.