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Ever since Boise GT where the winning list had more Stormravens than Tactical Squads, there has been a fair bit of discussion for what this "means for the meta", and such. There have been assorted suggestions on how to rebalance the game to be less spammy, from restricting units to restricting detachments, but these are at best hacks and at worst outright bandaids. So the question is: How would you rebalance 40k, at least before breaking out the core rule rewrites? Several options:

Sideboards: Either a main army plus secondary units, or bringing two armies to swap out so you can approach a tournament with a Rock and a Scissors list. Personally I view this promotes skew even more than normal (look at WMH's history of Defense-skew -> Armorskew/Miserable Meat Mountain). That said, I could see a lesser form of sideboarding/free gear being ok, for super-situational loadouts (things like Free Transports or Free Weapons = no. Free Grapple Hooks=sure why not?)

-Extreme Counters: Rock >> Scissors >> Paper. The problem being armies mixing towards 33% of each, and the first to break the opponent's counterloop gains the advantage.

-Flatlining/Homogenization: Choice is an illusion.

-Secondary Roles: This one is my personal preference. When you have multiple units that do the same thing, only one will emerge the best. See: Markerlight Drones vs Pathfinders, Wyverns versus Mortar Teams, Scorpions vs Banshees (at least until you break out the Fire Dragons), etc. Rather than having units be only good at one thing, most unit should have some secondary utility in case their primary target isn't around! Increasing intra-unit combos and support options could be one way to encourage a mixed list instead of skew: Letting Mortars fire Smoke or Flare rounds for cover manipulation would give them a purpose against all-vehicle armies, giving Scout Bikes the ability to lay AT mines as they move, bringing back the Monolith's ability to teleport infantry or letting its Exile Gate "pull in" enemy units like a tractor beam, etc. This isn't necessarily about drowning the game in tech or gimmicks, so much as each unit should have one "purpose" depending on what sort of hypothetical skew might be encountered.

Or maybe there's some other option for rebalancing 40k. How would you rebalance armies as a whole?

Or the game is two weeks old and everyone can take a chill pill for a while.

 GreenShoes wrote:
Or the game is two weeks old and everyone can take a chill pill for a while.

Dakka is all out of that, mate. It's been years since the last shipment.

Wait. Not enough time or data yet. Wait for the meta to shake out; GW can repoints stuff if necessary.

zerosignal wrote:
Wait. Not enough time or data yet. Wait for the meta to shake out; GW can repoints stuff if necessary.

Adjusting points doesn't fix the issue of skew...

Unless you mean just favoring one type of skew over anothrr

In the examples of mortars firing smoke and scout bikes laying AT mines; the flier spam list would not care about either of those really (flying over mines and moving long distances to get around temporary cover).

The thing is that with the missions as listed, secondary battlefield roles can be largely ignored. Models need to be as fighty as possible, while being durable(or ablative) and being able to score objectives capably. This seems to be the trifecta in my mind: anything outside of that often just falls into the 'cute' category. The missions aren't really diverse enough or strategically demanding enough to warrant other battlefield roles other than killing dudes, helping to kill dudes, and moving fast.

In another thread, someone brought up Infinity and hackers within it being less useful on the field until they shine. Corvus Belli spent a lot of time developing their missions in order to make choices that stray from the 'killability per point' dynamic worthwhile to take. Even then, a good alpha strike against the opponent can be enough to outperform strategically sound armies.

 heckler wrote:


The thing is that with the missions as listed, secondary battlefield roles can be largely ignored. Models need to be as fighty as possible, while being durable(or ablative) and being able to score objectives capably. This seems to be the trifecta in my mind: anything outside of that often just falls into the 'cute' category. The missions aren't really diverse enough or strategically demanding enough to warrant other battlefield roles other than killing dudes, helping to kill dudes, and moving fast.

Agreed.

The problem in 8th edition tournaments is they are using the same terrible Eternal War missions that have been terrible for 5 years. Every single one of those missions has only one objective "kill more than you lose". There is utterly no reason to even try for the objectives in those games. Every mission is kill points.

I'll admit to not having read them yet, my group rarely uses fliers so it seemed irrelevant, but would the Death from the Skies rules help to balance the flier spam?

Is that really how US tournaments are? In the UK we play pretty much all missions as a combination of Eternal War and Maelstrom.

Also that flier list is... ok. It's not broken. I played against a copy paste of it last night and wrecked it by turn 3. Batrep.

 heckler wrote:
In the examples of mortars firing smoke and scout bikes laying AT mines; the flier spam list would not care about either of those really (flying over mines and moving long distances to get around temporary cover).

I get what you mean in this case and definitely agree that better mission formats are a good way to go too (though not necessarily valid for all pickup play). As for smoke, I always preferred the "harder to hit/the unit is defending" implementation rather than the "blocks LoS" implementation, but either way...

...the fact you can't hide from Stormravens is also notable, since the removal of weapon LOS. That was a weakness they had which is no longer a thing.

The problem with a -1 to hit role is that people will bring enough to put a blanket on their entire army, forming another bunker in the process. The same applies to LOS blocking too, but has more workaround to figure out how they could not be broken (done after movement or something).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
Wait. Not enough time or data yet. Wait for the meta to shake out; GW can repoints stuff if necessary.

Adjusting points doesn't fix the issue of skew...

Unless you mean just favoring one type of skew over anothrr

eh?

make stormravens cost double

no more stormraven spam

job done

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 heckler wrote:
In the examples of mortars firing smoke and scout bikes laying AT mines; the flier spam list would not care about either of those really (flying over mines and moving long distances to get around temporary cover).

I get what you mean in this case and definitely agree that better mission formats are a good way to go too (though not necessarily valid for all pickup play). As for smoke, I always preferred the "harder to hit/the unit is defending" implementation rather than the "blocks LoS" implementation, but either way...

...the fact you can't hide from Stormravens is also notable, since the removal of weapon LOS. That was a weakness they had which is no longer a thing.

You bring up a good point; in many games, the meta for pickup play and for tournament play are different (warmachine, infinity). In my games of 40k, at least at my shop, the meta is very close between pick-up play, league play and competitive play. Unless it happens to be a lower point game, or a game against someone new, most people are just testing out a tournament list in a pick-up game.

I think the best option for 're-balancing' 40K is to play as many games as you can and to then write suggestions on the official feedback forum that GW now has.

If other players have come to the same conclusion, I expect the GW team that's now in place will listen - sorting out personal gripes from player-base-wide issues.

zerosignal wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
Wait. Not enough time or data yet. Wait for the meta to shake out; GW can repoints stuff if necessary.

Adjusting points doesn't fix the issue of skew...

Unless you mean just favoring one type of skew over anothrr

eh?

make stormravens cost double

no more stormraven spam

job done

addressing the problem by adjusting points just makes something else the spam and invalidates an army choice.

Way way too early for this

The stormravenlist is not the problem. Missions without objectives to hold IS a problem.

Wow. Anyone who thinks we should be rebalancing anything already is dangerously close to an ignore click. Seriously?! Gamer credentials on a probationary status

One tournament doesn't constitute a trend. Most players are still figuring out how their armies play in the new edition. Give it a few months before we decide "this is the meta now".

pismakron wrote:
The stormravenlist is not the problem. Missions without objectives to hold IS a problem.

This.

Maelstrom is the way to play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 EnTyme wrote:
One tournament doesn't constitute a trend. Most players are still figuring out how their armies play in the new edition. Give it a few months before we decide "this is the meta now".

Also this.

1 tournament with 38 people.


I just don't see the need to discuss re-balancing at this juncture. It is far too early. I also *hate* the fact that the ITC has already made changes.

Very definition of knee jerk reaction.

pismakron wrote:
The stormravenlist is not the problem. Missions without objectives to hold IS a problem.

The Stormraven list will BRRRRRRR anything off the table in 3 turns tops. Tell me again how important objectives are.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
Wait. Not enough time or data yet. Wait for the meta to shake out; GW can repoints stuff if necessary.

Adjusting points doesn't fix the issue of skew...

Unless you mean just favoring one type of skew over anothrr

Or see whats winning or losing and why and points adjust from there.

then do it again and again and again and again untill there is a decent amount of diversity.

that kinda play testing takes a long time and a ton of games. and its easier to make other people do it instead of doing it in house only.

 Desubot wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
Wait. Not enough time or data yet. Wait for the meta to shake out; GW can repoints stuff if necessary.

Adjusting points doesn't fix the issue of skew...

Unless you mean just favoring one type of skew over anothrr

Or see whats winning or losing and why and points adjust from there.

then do it again and again and again and again untill there is a decent amount of diversity.

that kinda play testing takes a long time and a ton of games. and its easier to make other people do it instead of doing it in house only.

But what if the problem is synergy between units?

For example, I have a Baneblade superheavy tank. It's pretty good for it's points. If I add a 90 pt Trojan, it becomes amazing! So it starts winning every game! Here are your options:

1) Increase the points cost of the baneblade - this means you actually see less of it without Trojans, decreasing army diversity
2) Increase the points cost of the Trojan - this means you will actually see less of it without baneblades, as it will no longer be worth it to put alongside a Leman Russ, for example, decreasing army diversity.

Its early, and nobody knows what they're doing yet.

Don't change anything.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

But what if the problem is synergy between units?

I did say "and why"

It doesnt have to be a straight linear points increase. if the character and the baneblade is causing an issue then increase points between the two of them instead of just one or the other. at some point the increase will interfere with list building forcing other choices.

and you can always revert or adjust points after another round of checks.

 Desubot wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

But what if the problem is synergy between units?

I did say "and why"

It doesnt have to be a straight linear points increase. if the character and the baneblade is causing an issue then increase points between the two of them instead of just one or the other. at some point the increase will interfere with list building forcing other choices.

and you can always revert or adjust points after another round of checks.

The real answer becomes to analyze the special rules of the Trojan that make it so disproportionately good at buffing Baneblades over other models. But sure, slapping point adjustments fixes everything.

I think most tournaments should be 2 list affairs, sideboards would be nice but 40k has to large a point disparity to make that work. if power levels were better balanced it would be nice to say have the option of deploying units and marking their gear at that point/ putting model down. say you don't know what is on your opponents list but the base unit, then "ok deploying this stormraven with assault cannons, missile launcher and hurricane bolters "( may have it magnetized but as it hits the table it is not set in that gear). then opponent says "I am deploying my big mek gun squad they are traktor cannons" (then deploys big guns with that option selected)

it would be a big change but it would make for magnetizing kits to be pretty awesome or for people to buy multiple of the same model which would be good for GW bottom line. unsure how to balance completely though as obviously take something like a heavy weapons team... that 5 point mortar is worth less than that 20 point lascannon unless you buff all the options to pairity.

For most problems, a simple points reassignment will do the trick. These other things are a bit drastic.

I don't think a lot of people really know what they mean when they say "balance". Not all lists can be equally balanced against all other lists, that's not how it works.