Why is Chaos getting a bad reputation in 40k at the moment?

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**Jancoran**

Martel732 wrote:
Maybe i need to go to more tournaments, .

You should. Its fun.

**Abanshee**

Pouncey wrote:
I haven't played 40k recently or kept up on most developments, but I will say this with absolute certainty from my 15 years of off-and-on 40k gaming and also my 15,000 hours in World of Warcraft.

When it comes to selecting your army that you will invest your time into, do not concern yourself whatsoever with how powerful an army is. Select the army you like the most, by the criteria you use to determine your personal preferences. This can be the looks of the models, the background lore of the faction, literally anything whatsoever that you consider most important for your army to have, except how powerful it is.

The reason I and most other veteran gamers will urge you to ignore how powerful an army is, is because an army's power ranking is a temporary situation. Due to the ongoing updates to the game's rules, just because an army is powerful today, is no guarantee it will be powerful in the next update. And similarly, just because an army is weak today, is no guarantee it will be weak the next time the rules change. Buffs and nerfs come and go, but the aesthetics and the lore are fairly solid things that are unlikely to change. And, perhaps most importantly, the constantly shifting power rankings mean that if you always want to play the most powerful army, you will be buying a new army very frequently, which is a crazy-expensive thing to do in 40k.

So the simple answer is to play the army you like best, and do not concern yourself with how powerful it is. Frankly, as a newbie you are still learning the rules and will likely lose a lot of games regardless of how powerful your army is. Personally, I started playing 40k in 2001, and did not win a single game I ever played for my first three years.

This. This. This. This.

**Table**

Martel732 wrote:
Jancoran wrote:
Table wrote:

Ill never understand the pushback on forgeworld. Most of their stuff is far more balanced than GW proper
.

hehehe. That would be where we might differ a bit.

Is there anything in FW more unfair than a scatterbike?

On the chaos side of things? If you bring in apoc units to non apoc games that can get stupid fast. But outside of a warhound titan you can not really do that. You could argue the Greater Brass Scorpion is to good for its 700 point cost, and it would be if it did not have a AV 10 rear. Eldar players may throw fits over Sicarins mulching scatbikes and some could say rapier batteries are to good for the points. But none of it outside the Apoc stuff is as unreasonablle as storm surges and wraith Knights. FW tends to cost a lot of points but it fills a REALLY large gap in the CSM codex. Simply put our demon engines are not enough to warrant the loss of so much tank tech. IA 13 fixs that. It also gives us super expensive drop pods, which should have been in our main codex in the first place. I honestly feel IA 13 should never be refused to a CSM player. But thats me and I am a bit biased.

As far as what FW impact on ITC is, I thinknk Jan and a few others know far better than I.

Edit : In the end of it all, most FW stuff is 40k legal as much as anyhting GW proper. The only time you could refuse a FW model, RAW is if it does not carry a imperial sanction or has experimental rules. Other than that its releases have as much validity as say, scatter bikes. Altho if a tournament or a player group hax house ruled against FW then its best to let it slide. Maybe calmly argue in favor of overturning such a house rule. But in the end its better to play a fun game than to argue with people. But as far as GW is concerned FW is 100% legal as long as it is in a IA book or has a approved stamp.

**Gunzhard**

Jancoran wrote:

Never seen a 1650 tournament...and i attend a ton.

Well both the Midwest Conquest GT and the Renegade Open GT, which are just regional ITC's, but still fairly large and well-known; they both went 1650 this year and the concept has apparently caught on because games actually finish on time and it's easier for TO's to manage.

**Jancoran**

Table wrote:
Martel732 wrote:
Jancoran wrote:
Table wrote:

Ill never understand the pushback on forgeworld. Most of their stuff is far more balanced than GW proper
.

hehehe. That would be where we might differ a bit.

Is there anything in FW more unfair than a scatterbike?

On the chaos side of things? If you bring in apoc units to non apoc games that can get stupid fast. But outside of a warhound titan you can not really do that. You could argue the Greater Brass Scorpion is to good for its 700 point cost, and it would be if it did not have a AV 10 rear. Eldar players may throw fits over Sicarins mulching scatbikes and some could say rapier batteries are to good for the points. But none of it outside the Apoc stuff is as unreasonablle as storm surges and wraith Knights. FW tends to cost a lot of points but it fills a REALLY large gap in the CSM codex. Simply put our demon engines are not enough to warrant the loss of so much tank tech. IA 13 fixs that. It also gives us super expensive drop pods, which should have been in our main codex in the first place. I honestly feel IA 13 should never be refused to a CSM player. But thats me and I am a bit biased.

As far as what FW impact on ITC is, I thinknk Jan and a few others know far better than I.

Edit : In the end of it all, most FW stuff is 40k legal as much as anyhting GW proper. The only time you could refuse a FW model, RAW is if it does not carry a imperial sanction or has experimental rules. Other than that its releases have as much validity as say, scatter bikes. Altho if a tournament or a player group hax house ruled against FW then its best to let it slide. Maybe calmly argue in favor of overturning such a house rule. But in the end its better to play a fun game than to argue with people. But as far as GW is concerned FW is 100% legal as long as it is in a IA book or has a approved stamp.

Forge World is prolific in ITC tournaments although generally its just an add on unit or something here or there to gear something to ridiculous mode in some way. I havent seen many whole sale Forge World armies do anything in competitive play but the inclusion of a unit or two can make a really big difference. Eldar and Tau in particular. i saw a guy uise the Tau'Nar suit and that model is enormous. I was more than pleased that he lost two games and quit.

But in both games, he didnt go first which played big. So....

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gunzhard wrote:
Jancoran wrote:

Never seen a 1650 tournament...and i attend a ton.

Well both the Midwest Conquest GT and the Renegade Open GT, which are just regional ITC's, but still fairly large and well-known; they both went 1650 this year and the concept has apparently caught on because games actually finish on time and it's easier for TO's to manage.

Its as good a total as any i suppose. I personally liked 1500 just fine but the Formations thing really made that a stretcvh...but then I can see a loto f value in NOT allowing that stretch in the first place and seing more normal armies at 1650. So... Could be good? I did

**Gunzhard**

Jancoran wrote:

Josh Sands Blood Angels

Formation: Angel's Fury Spearhead Force (34#, 1155 pts)

230pts 1 Stormraven Gunship (Hurricane Bolters)

200pts 1 Stormraven Gunship

200pts 1 Stormraven Gunship

9 Tactical Squad, 146 pts = 9 * 14 (base cost 14) + Meltagun 10 + Heavy Flamer 10
1 Sergeant, 29 pts = (base cost 14 + Melta Bombs 5 + Combi-Meltagun x1 10)

9 Tactical Squad, 146 pts = 9 * 14 (base cost 14) + Meltagun 10 + Heavy Flamer 10
1 Sergeant, 29 pts = (base cost 14 + Melta Bombs 5 + Combi-Meltagun x1 10)

9 Tactical Squad, 146 pts = 9 * 14 (base cost 14) + Meltagun 10 + Heavy Flamer 10
1 Sergeant, 29 pts = (base cost 14 + Melta Bombs 5 + Combi-Meltagun x1 10)

: Combined Arms Detachment (Primary Detachment) (18#, 845 pts)

175pts 1 Mephiston

185pts 1 Librarian Dreadnought (Meltagun + Increase Mastery Level x1)

4 Scout Squad, 52 pts = 4 * 13 (base cost 11 + Camo Cloaks 2)
1 Sergeant, 13 pts = (base cost 11) + Camo Cloaks 2

4 Scout Squad, 52 pts = 4 * 13 (base cost 11 + Camo Cloaks 2)
1 Sergeant, 13 pts = (base cost 11) + Camo Cloaks 2

4 Terminator Assault Squad, 175 pts = 4 * 40 (base cost 40) + Thunder Hammer & Storm
Shield x3 15
1 Terminator Sergeant, 45 pts = (base cost 40) + Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield 5

1 Furioso Dreadnought, 135 pts = (base cost 125 + 2x Blood Talons 10)

Ahh the White Dwarf formation... it's has some nice bonuses if you can field 3 Stormravens. This is also a 2000 points list, and none of it is from the Angel's Blade stuff.

And for the record I loved 1500 point games, but the Blood Angels codex just doesn't scale well until much higher points.

**Jancoran**

This was October 2015. That formation was pretty big deal then. Several formations since then have done it better but at the time it was a super hard counter to wraithknights and a really good counter to scatter bikes. So there was a lot to be said for it. The missions also definitely favor all comers lists, or to say ir more clearly, representative lists. ITC missions usually benefit alpha strikes hard core. But these missions sometimes do and sometimes dont...as it should be. So you see the list of Ambassadorial entourages people brought and a lot more representative than maybe you normally get to see.

**Table**

I sure hope tournaments dont go down to 1650. That would throw balance even more out of whack. I couldnt imagine fielding a CSM force of any flavor under 1850. And in all the new publications formations are getting even more bloated. It seems its GWs way of telling us to go up to 2k standard. I feel the only time a 200 point difference extends games to a unmanageable level is when those two hundred points are spent on horde armies. Other than that its one maybe two extra units max, which should not be breaking time limits. IMHO as a casual observer returning to 1500 or 1650 will only further compound balance issues. I doubt GW is going to reduce the formation bloat any time soon if ever. It is in their best interests to raise point totals and they will do so with formation bloat.

**koooaei**

Stuff generally becomes cheaper. So, it's logical to lower the point limit a bit cause 5 hour games are a bit ott. Well, sure, not cheaper for everyone emidiately but it's a trend.

**ChazSexington**

DarkStarSabre wrote:
ChazSexington wrote:

This sums up 20 man squads. Going beyond 10 men does nothing for you. Nothing. No extra special or heavy weapons and it starts to become disproportionately more expensive with stacking costs from Marks. Furthermore, the squad loses its ability to be transported (because for some reason CSM Land Raiders are capped at 10 capacity while Imperials get access to 12/16 capacity Land Raider variants. Thanks GW), takes up a bigger footprint and pretty much becomes harder to tuck away into safety.

Now, if we got say, 1 special weapon per 5 CSM and the option of 1 heavy per 10 CSM then bigger blobs might pick up some value. Or, if we got 30k rules like the Tacticals have then maybe we would see bigger CSM units....

But really, nah. We have no reward for going beyond 10 men. Paying 30 points for a marked unit is already pricy, especially when you figure that if we want our army special rule equivalent and want to kit them up we're adding another 20 points on top....doubling that? Well, that's just silly. That's half the cost of another unit right there.

Veeeeery late reply, but I use them as ablative wounds (mostly) than can run over non-deathstars. Honestly, too expensive for what they do, but eh. It's what we have.

**Jancoran**

Table wrote:
I sure hope tournaments dont go down to 1650. That would throw balance even more out of whack. I couldnt imagine fielding a CSM force of any flavor under 1850.

You'd do fine I'm sure.

**Table**

Jancoran wrote:
Table wrote:
I sure hope tournaments dont go down to 1650. That would throw balance even more out of whack. I couldnt imagine fielding a CSM force of any flavor under 1850.

You'd do fine I'm sure.

Well, it would force me to get better at list building, that is for sure. Some bloat would need clipping.

**Jancoran**

so clipiityy clip clip away. Adversity strengthens us all. I played Tau in 3rd, 4th and 5th Edition. I know what adversity is. hehehe.

**Gunzhard**

Well in 3rd edition Tau were beardy as heck though. I'll give you later editions, excluding 7th of course.

Really though, excluding codex Space Marines and 6th/7th ed Eldar I'd say most other armies saw more adversity through that entire time period till now.

**Jancoran**

Gunzhard wrote:
Well in 3rd edition Tau were beardy as heck though. I'll give you later editions, excluding 7th of course.

Really though, excluding codex Space Marines and 6th/7th ed Eldar I'd say most other armies saw more adversity through that entire time period till now.

they were not beardy in 3rd. Third still allowed the Pac-Man mechanic so it was two rounds of shooting and then four rounds of dying en masse, the enemy killing two Tau units per every unitthey got across. Yikes.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

koooaei wrote:
Jancoran wrote:
I expected a message back from you. We were going to do it 10 am Our time I think, last Saturday the 3rd?

I think i did pm on saturday - check the mail box. Can do it this saturday.

MIGHT have figured it out for our match tomorrow. I do have to move it to 11:00 though since my employee moved a client over to a 9:00 appointment. So I have to be in the office at 9AM and will likely be home in time for an 11:00 AM PST game instead. Getting up early on a Saturday...You should just never do it.

BTW, anyone who gives a fig can watch if they want.

**Jancoran**

Thanks for the game koooaei. I saved it. It would be the top of three and the Biker commander, Kharne and company are locked in MORTAL COMBAT with my Repentias, the Canoness, Uriah and the bitch queen Mistress of Pain.
I thought I would give you a picture to remember the blood shed so you can post it on your "Skull for the Skull Throne" collection.