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

Rule 1 is it has to meet GW's bottom line. It has to generate profits for the company. Because if it doesn't do that, then GW is not going to give a damn. And GW needs to be on board, because to date the community hasn't come up with a workable wide-scale solution. I'm not trying to give GW crap or the community crap. But it is what it is.

Rule 2 is there need to be variant missions and/or objectives. The OP is writing about units filling multiple roles. But if games come down to combat 9 out of 10 games, then combat is what armies are going to be built around. Combat combat combat combat combat. Combat is a simple formula.

That's all you need to know. Everything else is just corollaries around those two rules.

==

e.g.? points values. People can talk about point values all they want. Increase points. Decrease points. But if you make one unit less viable just by decreasing its point cost, that only changes balance regarding that one unit. Then another unit becomes overpowered when used in conjunction with other units in certain situations, and that becomes the new imbalance. Then that's fixed, then there's another imbalance. It really doesn't matter. Even if you implement something like having units cost 3.2 points instead of 3 points, rounding fractional values, or assigning additional point costs to *units* rather than just models reflecting utility of securing objectives &c - in the end it's just a lot of noise and fury over something that fundamentally doesn't make changes. If you have a two-dimensional game, it's two-dimensional.

As to specific fixes, I've seen plenty of good ideas over the years. But a lot either satisfy Rule 2 but not Rule 1, or they satisfy Rule 1 but aren't really good at Rule 2.

There *used* to be a Rule 3. "Don't piss off your existing customer base." But the way I figure it, GW decided to roll the dice on that in a big way in recent years. I mean hey, they were always going to try to push the envelope for higher profits, but recently they've been really rolling the dice. Can't say that's the wrong move either.

aardvarkpepper wrote:

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

Rule 1 is it has to meet GW's bottom line. It has to generate profits for the company. Because if it doesn't do that, then GW is not going to give a damn. And GW needs to be on board, because to date the community hasn't come up with a workable wide-scale solution. I'm not trying to give GW crap or the community crap. But it is what it is.

Rule 2 is there need to be variant missions and/or objectives. The OP is writing about units filling multiple roles. But if games come down to combat 9 out of 10 games, then combat is what armies are going to be built around. Combat combat combat combat combat. Combat is a simple formula.

That's all you need to know. Everything else is just corollaries around those two rules.

==

e.g.? points values. People can talk about point values all they want. Increase points. Decrease points. But if you make one unit less viable just by decreasing its point cost, that only changes balance regarding that one unit. Then another unit becomes overpowered when used in conjunction with other units in certain situations, and that becomes the new imbalance. Then that's fixed, then there's another imbalance. It really doesn't matter. Even if you implement something like having units cost 3.2 points instead of 3 points, rounding fractional values, or assigning additional point costs to *units* rather than just models reflecting utility of securing objectives &c - in the end it's just a lot of noise and fury over something that fundamentally doesn't make changes. If you have a two-dimensional game, it's two-dimensional.

As to specific fixes, I've seen plenty of good ideas over the years. But a lot either satisfy Rule 2 but not Rule 1, or they satisfy Rule 1 but aren't really good at Rule 2.

There *used* to be a Rule 3. "Don't piss off your existing customer base." But the way I figure it, GW decided to roll the dice on that in a big way in recent years. I mean hey, they were always going to try to push the envelope for higher profits, but recently they've been really rolling the dice. Can't say that's the wrong move either.

For perfect balance, points don't work, but with adjustments things can become close enough that everything is at least a good fun game. That is really the balance extreme you are trying to avoid, not Scouts are slightly more cost effective than tacticals, so min-maxing take scouts. Scouts aren't blowing people off the table. You are trying to avoid: 7 storm ravens is super efficient and turn 1 cripples almost any opposing army to the point where the game is basically meaningless because only 1 player has a chance.

LiMunPai wrote:
Really, GW would just have to care about balance. Guilliman, for example, is clearly too strong at 2000 points. His buff makes any weapon that hits on a 3+ and wounds on a 3+ 80% more effective. If you apply his buff to the 1600 remaining points in the list, they shoot like 2880 points or more if rolls go into 4+ territory if you completely discount his personal impact on the game. That level of force multiplication just isn't available to any other faction. That clear and obvious imbalance just shows that GW doesn't really care to balance their game, despite what their rhetoric may say.

That isn't to say that the game isn't good. The conversion opportunities and hobbying aspects are superb, and actually putting those models on the table to PewPew is really satisfying. The game just isn't close to balanced.

He is 360 points and doesn't do anything else until combat. It's not like you can fit the whole army within 6" of him either.

Daedalus81 wrote:

LiMunPai wrote:
Really, GW would just have to care about balance. Guilliman, for example, is clearly too strong at 2000 points. His buff makes any weapon that hits on a 3+ and wounds on a 3+ 80% more effective. If you apply his buff to the 1600 remaining points in the list, they shoot like 2880 points or more if rolls go into 4+ territory if you completely discount his personal impact on the game. That level of force multiplication just isn't available to any other faction. That clear and obvious imbalance just shows that GW doesn't really care to balance their game, despite what their rhetoric may say.

That isn't to say that the game isn't good. The conversion opportunities and hobbying aspects are superb, and actually putting those models on the table to PewPew is really satisfying. The game just isn't close to balanced.

He is 360 points and doesn't do anything else until combat. It's not like you can fit the whole army within 6" of him either.

Since it is units within, not models, it is actually rather easy to fit quite a large amount of an army in 6" radius circle of him.

Breng77 wrote:

Since it is units within, not models, it is actually rather easy to fit quite a large amount of an army in 6" radius circle of him.

I'm aware. If it's combat blob then you're waiting for him to cross the field. If it's a gun line they're going to risk getting looped into combat. It's no joke, but it's also no small investment for an already small army. I'll bet there are some silly forgeworld things that could make it crazy though.

Not that much risk of combat when you have Rowboat as a counter charge element, and you need to survive re-roll overwatch, after re-roll shooting.

It isn't unbeatable, but to downplay just how good he is, is a bit silly.

I mean for less than 1500 points you can get 4 lascannon/missile Dev squads, Rowboat, 4 TAC Razors, and your 1 cheap HQ choice. That is 48 S6 shots, re-rolling hits and wounds, 16 lascannon shots, re-rolling hits and wounds. with 7 CP for re-rolls as needed. The biggest risk is a turn 1 charge, which when you go to 2k, you throw in a couple scout squads to negate.

I was under the impression that the entire unit had to be in bubbles for them to apply...

 Jarl of Vashon wrote:
I was under the impression that the entire unit had to be in bubbles for them to apply...

Nope, unless it specifies (like a big mek's kustom force field) if a bubble says "a unit within..." only one model of that unit must be within that range.

Breng77 wrote:
Not that much risk of combat when you have Rowboat as a counter charge element, and you need to survive re-roll overwatch, after re-roll shooting.

It isn't unbeatable, but to downplay just how good he is, is a bit silly.

I mean for less than 1500 points you can get 4 lascannon/missile Dev squads, Rowboat, 4 TAC Razors, and your 1 cheap HQ choice. That is 48 S6 shots, re-rolling hits and wounds, 16 lascannon shots, re-rolling hits and wounds. with 7 CP for re-rolls as needed. The biggest risk is a turn 1 charge, which when you go to 2k, you throw in a couple scout squads to negate.

You'd need an extra HQ since RG is LoW, which is easy enough to grab by dropping a Razorback. Razorbacks are fairly undercosted at the moment. That would also make it 10 drops, which seems a big higher than average for a marine army.

Otherwise a pile of devastators are going to get shot off the table - especially by deepstrikers - and lose their fire power quickly. Sarab termies can easily clean one and CP charge into another and maybe rope a 3rd or 4th in with pile-in.

If this army gets the first turn the Razorbacks do basically nothing with 24" guns considering RG wants to babysit the devs and not move, too. So, whatever 16 lascannons (probably kill Magnus) can do and then you're going to get hit.

Daedalus81 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Not that much risk of combat when you have Rowboat as a counter charge element, and you need to survive re-roll overwatch, after re-roll shooting.

It isn't unbeatable, but to downplay just how good he is, is a bit silly.

I mean for less than 1500 points you can get 4 lascannon/missile Dev squads, Rowboat, 4 TAC Razors, and your 1 cheap HQ choice. That is 48 S6 shots, re-rolling hits and wounds, 16 lascannon shots, re-rolling hits and wounds. with 7 CP for re-rolls as needed. The biggest risk is a turn 1 charge, which when you go to 2k, you throw in a couple scout squads to negate.

You'd need an extra HQ since RG is LoW, which is easy enough to grab by dropping a Razorback. Razorbacks are fairly undercosted at the moment. That would also make it 10 drops, which seems a big higher than average for a marine army.

Otherwise a pile of devastators are going to get shot off the table - especially by deepstrikers - and lose their fire power quickly. Sarab termies can easily clean one and CP charge into another and maybe rope a 3rd or 4th in with pile-in.

If this army gets the first turn the Razorbacks do basically nothing with 24" guns considering RG wants to babysit the devs and not move, too. So, whatever 16 lascannons (probably kill Magnus) can do and then you're going to get hit.

No extra HQ, 2 detachments 1 Spearhead with the 1 cheap HQ choice I mentioned (maybe a naked captain, or Chaplain, or tech marine), the devs and razors, 1 Super Aux with RG and that is at 1500 (original list - HW was like 1420, so 80 points for filler HQ guy). At 2k (what most tournaments seem to be going for) you add scouts, so deepstrikers are 18+" away, use razors to block LOS against ranged threats to the devs, and you still have something like 400 points left to spend, throw in some cherubs on those dev squads.

It is naïve to think that your termies are going to get an easy drop and shoot on the devs (easy to force you beyond rapid fire range even without scouts, just using RBs, and give you the option of maybe charging a RB or 2, then getting counter charged by RG.


As for turn 1, depends on the opponent, if they are an assault army lining up at the edge of their deployment the razors move up slightly and unload, if not block los with and pop smoke on the razors making them harder to hit turn 1.

The It probably takes 3 squads to kill magnus (assuming he is warlord, and takes the 6+ FNP each squad averages 6 wounds) in a single turn. Which I'll happily take, while the remaining squad squad lays down fire on something smaller. Taking missles on the Devs is a little more well rounded, but puts out a little less damage against big targets, but helps tons against horde armies.

I mean this also isn't even a near optimal list, just one I put together quickly and it is not unbeatable, but it isn't weak either, RG is super good.

Breng77 wrote:

As for turn 1, depends on the opponent, if they are an assault army lining up at the edge of their deployment the razors move up slightly and unload, if not block los with and pop smoke on the razors making them harder to hit turn 1.

The It probably takes 3 squads to kill magnus (assuming he is warlord, and takes the 6+ FNP each squad averages 6 wounds) in a single turn. Which I'll happily take, while the remaining squad squad lays down fire on something smaller. Taking missles on the Devs is a little more well rounded, but puts out a little less damage against big targets, but helps tons against horde armies.

I mean this also isn't even a near optimal list, just one I put together quickly and it is not unbeatable, but it isn't weak either, RG is super good.

I'd welcome a challenge like that. Unload then move though.

Girlyman is definitely on my kill list. Lol Even as a Wolf.

Yeah I'm not a fan of the blob deployment. Blasts may have been slower to resolve, but they sure discouraged bunching up. I'm hoping some downsides become more apparent.

I am not convinced you can make it balanced.

The problem in 40k is that damage output for good armies is high. So the alpha strike tends to be overwhelming.

The all flyer list works because your stuff can get where it needs to be on turn one, focus down the main threats and then mop up for the rest of the game. If it goes second its not that amazing.

This is true for many lists. If I gave you a choice to go 1st but I was allowed to take away 25-30% of your army would you consider it a good trade?

Now you could stop this. Rather than two 40k armies having a fairly high chance to table one or the other in 5 turns (often less) the stats could be changed to make it almost impossible (which I feel it was in certain editions - maybe 5th?). If on average dice you would only kill half an army it would all come down to getting objectives.

The question is though whether this would be any more fun. Maelstrom is random and frustrating. Meanwhile who can throw more chaff on a certain point on the battlefield isn't exactly entertaining either. Some of the AoS scenarios have some novelty value but they are often not great.