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No, you're right. Let's just ban everything you find scary regardless of whether or not it's an actual problem.

 Kriswall wrote:
No, you're right. Let's just ban everything you find scary regardless of whether or not it's an actual problem.

naw it's funnier watching you throw a temper tantrum online considering no one was even replying to you on the last replies and The entire conversation diverged into tournament data but apparently youre still sore.

One of you says "let's wait and see before we make a decision"

The other, "let them play!"

Odd way of disagreeing but you do you.

I do think it's necessary to put some sort of limit on the truly big stuff. There's no real argument for bringing a war hound titan IMO, as it's such a rock paper scissors matchup. On turn 1, you can pretty much tell if it can table your army or if it's going to auto lose on the other end. Either way, not a very interesting match.

At smaller events, I think TO's can more or less understand their clientele for the most part and make things work, but that's more difficult for an overall ITC ruling, for example.

I think Reese said it best, it isn't about balance it is about enjoyment. Tournament organizers are (and should be) more concerned with creating a fun experience for their customers than being a test bed for balance. It isn't that these units are unbeatable it is that they typically lead to bad games win or lose (see earlier example of the lord of skulls player losing on turn 1 every game, those aren't fun games for either player.). These units are the epitome of skew lists, either you can handle them and you crush them, ork you cannot and you get crushed.

Breng77 wrote:
I think Reese said it best, it isn't about balance it is about enjoyment. Tournament organizers are (and should be) more concerned with creating a fun experience for their customers than being a test bed for balance. It isn't that these units are unbeatable it is that they typically lead to bad games win or lose (see earlier example of the lord of skulls player losing on turn 1 every game, those aren't fun games for either player.). These units are the epitome of skew lists, either you can handle them and you crush them, ork you cannot and you get crushed.

I'm actually fine with this. Just call a duck a duck. If you don't actually care about balance and only care about making sure that people enjoy themselves enough to show up for (and pay for) the next event, ban and restrict whatever you want. Just be honest and say you're doing it for the good of tournament attendance and not for balance. There is, I feel, a very reasonable belief that TOs and tournament groups make changes for balance purposes. Apologies for misunderstanding.

We do it more for enjoyment and fairness. Balance is an ethereal and ever shifting term.

I feel like that has not been true, for the bigger tournament really ever. The changes (outside of some Comp events) have pretty much always been for the sake of attendee enjoyment. There simply is never enough data to make real balance changes. People don't all run the same army, and so it is really difficult to say, well x army won x tournament and needs to be addressed/banned.

In fact I cannot remember a single change made by the ITC that was purely around balance. Balance requires re-writing large portions of the game.

Take things like the invisibility change, that wasn't made because every winning army was invis-star, that was because facing invis star was an NPE for opponents. Same with the 2+ re-roll save change, those armies were never unbeatable, they just sucked to play against. Same with 7th ed restrictions on LOW. They were never winning everything. They just produce poor games.

Especially when as a TO you need to make any changes before your event happens, so really you have no idea whether they are truly balanced.

Balance matters, but not as much as people having fun.


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MVBrandt wrote:
We do it more for enjoyment and fairness. Balance is an ethereal and ever shifting term.

exactly, if you ban/comp one thing, something else rises to take its place as the "unbalanced winning thing".

One thing I also believe people miss completely is understanding Balance as something that is different by player.

"I've been beating ravenspam and guard taurox/arty/tempestus spam lists fielded by top tier players with berzerkers and bloat drones." That's something I can say, but it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything because how are average players fielding the same lists handling each other?

A lot of people will say things like "Knight spam isn't OP! Because you can do ABC XYZ." But it might still be OP if the vast majority of people playing the game really struggle with it. TOs tend to think more about players who end up ranked 20-256 than they do about those who can "handle it np" and end up ranked 1-19.

MVBrandt wrote:
One thing I also believe people miss completely is understanding Balance as something that is different by player.

"I've been beating ravenspam and guard taurox/arty/tempestus spam lists fielded by top tier players with berzerkers and bloat drones." That's something I can say, but it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything because how are average players fielding the same lists handling each other?

A lot of people will say things like "Knight spam isn't OP! Because you can do ABC XYZ." But it might still be OP if the vast majority of people playing the game really struggle with it. TOs tend to think more about players who end up ranked 20-256 than they do about those who can "handle it np" and end up ranked 1-19.

Right and this goes back to the enjoyment aspect of things. It also matters if your list can do ABC XYZ which some players you are ranked say 100-256, may not have prepared for, and not doing so not only leads to losing, but leads to doing so in a way that is not enjoyable.

If banning pl31+ is for enjoyment, can we also ban brimstone/razorwing/drone/conscript spam? None of those are fun to play against either.

I don't really play big tournaments (yet) but I'll leave my short experience here.

Was pretty new in 7th, brought a decent 1k Tyranids list to local GW store tournament (labeled as casual). (List was Living Artillery, Malanthrope, Flyrant).

Won 2 games w/partner and my last opponent's team was double Imperial Knight and some assassins. It was such a brickwall of unkillable non-interaction, my random partner conceded in the middle of the game due to boredom and pessimism.

Points wise I end up grabbing first in tournament, but that doesn't matter. I had started playing like 3 weeks ago, and this experience was eye-opening, that this will represent a non 0% of games I play. And for a game I play maybe 2-4 games a month, I certainly don't want to spend it against uninteractive unkillable hyper powered point-and-click titans.

I get that is maybe more of a 7th edition complaint, but man I would really not enjoy the same level of unkillable non-interaction in 8th.

You guys remember most of your games right? Like you can pretty much recall what happens? What sticks out stronger, the really fun close ones, or the ones you just get absolutely destroyed and feel bad?

Let that sink in before you make long term decisions.

xera32 wrote:
If banning pl31+ is for enjoyment, can we also ban brimstone/razorwing/drone/conscript spam? None of those are fun to play against either.

I don't disagree with you that those lists aren't fun to play against, but how do you ban those units? The ITC has never banned a unit for being too good, not even in the heyday of free for all scatbike spam (and even then they were only considering making it 1 heavy per 3 models).

The thing about high power level units is that they tend to be overwhelming and non-interactive. (Not that this isn't the case with the aforementioned lists) but they also categorically share something - a giant cost. How would you ban "OP" units? What would the cutoff be? Are Genestealers "too OP?" What about Taurox Primes? It's much tougher to draw such a line, and people who are just trying to have fun and bring normal lists that don't smash people's faces in would be hindered if you eliminated/limited the spam as well.

I've heard a lot of "don't allow more than 3 of a single unit type" but this is difficult and doesn't really mitigate conscript spam (and 87 brims with the changeling is still super annoying I promise)


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DoggieDoo wrote:


I get that is maybe more of a 7th edition complaint, but man I would really not enjoy the same level of unkillable non-interaction in 8th.

This is definitely a LOT less of an issue than it was in 7th (and props to both GW and the play testers towards that end) but that is the primary fear stemming from allowing these types of units into the tournament setting.

Yeah, after looking at the lists for ATC, I'd say that it's just as bad, if not worse then 7th edition.

There are armies that have so many razor wing flocks, that they've got more then 400 wounds and nearly 1000 attacks.

gungo wrote:
You keep missing the point. I keep bringing up examples. But you keep missing it.
Let it play!!! We don't know unless we have 6+ months of tournament data is an awful way to balance the game.

That is exactly how to balance a game. You gather data from a huge set to see what is not balanced. IF GW is going to balance, these are the things they need to watch, not some knee jerk reaction like ITC did to Tau codex the day it dropped in 7th. They can balance point values of undercosted units or weapons with a large data set.

It has NEVER worked.

Because GW has never cared before. TOs cannot balance across the board.

And As you can easily see from tournament data already or the hundreds of battle reports... this edition is NOT balanced. Oh but it's a NEW unbalanced and broken edition doesn't really make a difference. People already know which units are the most powerful and broken. The idea is to fix those extremely broken units.

Yet you have no results that show PL 31+ are broken. Only your claim they are.

Either change the missions, ban the units, or change the rules for those units is the way to go. GW claims they will eventually do it themselves. We will have to wait and see how quickly this happens for now limiting the playing field by removing titan equivilant units is a good way to limit the issues considering it appears fw put very little thought into pricing most of those units with every single weapon option costing the same 0 points.

You can argue that a flat 32+ PL ban isn't quite fair to every unit however arguing that certain units are not broken is flat out wrong.

Again you have to show any results where those 32+ PL units were OP. Most of the current "spam" lists will eat Titans. How are they any more "balanced"?

TBH I think if titan lists go first in the ITC with maelstroms being assessed at the end of the GAME turn, they're going to have a really difficult time not auto losing.

Considering that the BAO attendees voted not to allow Power Level 31+ units for the BAO, we will probably be seeing other tournaments follow that precedent.

Personally, I'm happy with this. I'd rather not get charged turn 1 by a Waptime-buffed Greater Brass Scorpion. And before you ask, no amount of Conscripts/Brimstone Horrors/Razorwings are gong to live long enough to kill that hate-fueled monster.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
Considering that the BAO attendees voted not to allow Power Level 31+ units for the BAO, we will probably be seeing other tournaments follow that precedent.

Personally, I'm happy with this. I'd rather not get charged turn 1 by a Waptime-buffed Greater Brass Scorpion. And before you ask, no amount of Conscripts/Brimstone Horrors/Razorwings are gong to live long enough to kill that hate-fueled monster.

Good news then, scorpions can't be affected by friendly powers.

And as for enough attacks to kill a scorpion, 312 brimstone horrors should deal 20 wounds in 1 round of cc, if they all had their attacks. And that is without resorting to smite.

Stompas and Baneblade-chassis units aren't actually that bad. It's when you start getting into the T9+/2+ armour zone (the Marine superheavy tanks, the real Titans) that things start to go south.

Fragile wrote:

gungo wrote:
You keep missing the point. I keep bringing up examples. But you keep missing it.
Let it play!!! We don't know unless we have 6+ months of tournament data is an awful way to balance the game.

That is exactly how to balance a game. You gather data from a huge set to see what is not balanced. IF GW is going to balance, these are the things they need to watch, not some knee jerk reaction like ITC did to Tau codex the day it dropped in 7th. They can balance point values of undercosted units or weapons with a large data set.

It has NEVER worked.

Because GW has never cared before. TOs cannot balance across the board.

And As you can easily see from tournament data already or the hundreds of battle reports... this edition is NOT balanced. Oh but it's a NEW unbalanced and broken edition doesn't really make a difference. People already know which units are the most powerful and broken. The idea is to fix those extremely broken units.

Yet you have no results that show PL 31+ are broken. Only your claim they are.

Either change the missions, ban the units, or change the rules for those units is the way to go. GW claims they will eventually do it themselves. We will have to wait and see how quickly this happens for now limiting the playing field by removing titan equivilant units is a good way to limit the issues considering it appears fw put very little thought into pricing most of those units with every single weapon option costing the same 0 points.

You can argue that a flat 32+ PL ban isn't quite fair to every unit however arguing that certain units are not broken is flat out wrong.

Again you have to show any results where those 32+ PL units were OP. Most of the current "spam" lists will eat Titans. How are they any more "balanced"?

This is hilarious. Your knee jerk reaction to tau nerfs by the ITC are exactly what GW wanted the game to be played when they released thier FAQ. Everyone of the ITC changes were the CORRECT call. Drone spam nerfs.... yup exactly how to play it not allowing you to go in and out of reserves the same turn. Combined fire detachment nerf..... yup exactly how gw wanted you to play by not allowing every single character to buff your whole army.... not respawning piranas .......yup played correctly. Ghostkeel allowed to use multipe times...yup played correctly.. storm surge dying from anchors and vehicle rams... yup played correctly. Garagatuan creature (aka storm surge) toe in cover nerf..... again the right call. I'm sorry you were bad with rules interpretation but the ITC didn't nerf tau they played them correctly... if anything you completely proves my point the ITC made the correct call immediately instead of waiting 6+ months, but somehow your still sore you didn't get to play with broken misinterpreted rules for 6+ months. It is a joke that you would still be bitching a year later about ITC Nerfs to tau in 7th that were completely the right call. Crap like this and people like you are the reason why the ITC nerfs are completely validated; you don't care about playing the rules correctly you only care about playing with a broken army.

Would you like me to show you how to use the BCP app to see which armies and units are winning it's not exactly hard to see certain units that have a higher win %. Fw didn't even attempt to balance titans they literally put every single weapon option as the same zero point cost. The fw titan datasheets are a complete joke....


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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Stompas and Baneblade-chassis units aren't actually that bad. It's when you start getting into the T9+/2+ armour zone (the Marine superheavy tanks, the real Titans) that things start to go south.

to be fair the stompa should be t9 or better with a mortal wound invul shield.... it is horribly overpriced. It has a handful of weak poor 5+ shooting and was completely hurt by the changes to blast weapons now being a lot harder to use with poor bs.

gungo wrote:
Fw didn't even attempt to balance titans they literally put every single weapon option as the same zero point cost. The fw titan datasheets are a complete joke....

That's how it's been since the 4th edition GW Apocalypse book that introduced the "modern" titan rules, all weapons have always been the same price. Agree with or disagree with it if you like, but it's not a new thing.

gungo wrote:

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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Stompas and Baneblade-chassis units aren't actually that bad. It's when you start getting into the T9+/2+ armour zone (the Marine superheavy tanks, the real Titans) that things start to go south.

to be fair the stompa should be t9 or better with a mortal wound invul shield.... it is horribly overpriced. It has a handful of weak poor 5+ shooting and was completely hurt by the changes to blast weapons now being a lot harder to use with poor bs.

Really what the Stompa needs is more attacks. Offensively it is no better than a knight, and worse than a gorkanaut in close combat. It should really have like 6-8 attacks

 Peregrine wrote:

gungo wrote:
Fw didn't even attempt to balance titans they literally put every single weapon option as the same zero point cost. The fw titan datasheets are a complete joke....

That's how it's been since the 4th edition GW Apocalypse book that introduced the "modern" titan rules, all weapons have always been the same price. Agree with or disagree with it if you like, but it's not a new thing.

i understand that but 8th was supposed to be an attempt at balancing the game. For fw to say fek it we aren't even going to attempt to balance titans and everyone of thier 30 weapon options will all cost the same is a joke. No thought or attempt was put into any point cost at that level. It's just a flat 1500 or 4000 pts and the option to go flying rodent gak crazy if you want. At that point they might as well just say use power levels because we didn't even look at pricing this gak correctly.


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Breng77 wrote:

gungo wrote:

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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Stompas and Baneblade-chassis units aren't actually that bad. It's when you start getting into the T9+/2+ armour zone (the Marine superheavy tanks, the real Titans) that things start to go south.

to be fair the stompa should be t9 or better with a mortal wound invul shield.... it is horribly overpriced. It has a handful of weak poor 5+ shooting and was completely hurt by the changes to blast weapons now being a lot harder to use with poor bs.

Really what the Stompa needs is more attacks. Offensively it is no better than a knight, and worse than a gorkanaut in close combat. It should really have like 6-8 attacks

Agree my point really was it's not pointed remotely correct as it's just an impotent imperial knight with a more wounds.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Stompas and Baneblade-chassis units aren't actually that bad. It's when you start getting into the T9+/2+ armour zone (the Marine superheavy tanks, the real Titans) that things start to go south.

agree-I'd really not like to face twin link volcano cannons in any competitive game. Any well rounded lists is going to struglle against something that can out right kill your best 2 units with relative ease every turn.

A Titan has never been about balance, period. Period.

It never will be. The Titan is solely designed to be unbalanced, forever, and always.

 djones520 wrote:
A Titan has never been about balance, period. Period.

It never will be. The Titan is solely designed to be unbalanced, forever, and always.

then is shouldn't be allowed in competitions period. Period
So the argument about titans and equivilant gak really shouldn't have a problem not being included.

The answer is simple. The larger problem, the problem surrounding the answer and the one that practically impossible to get past; is one of emotion.

The answer... Ban Forge World units.

 oni wrote:
The answer... Ban Forge World units.

That is not a solution at all. You might as well say that the solution is to ban everything but naked tactical squads (with no chapter tactics or anything, of course). That would be balanced, but it would be about as reasonable as banning all FW units.

Land Raider Terminus makes it by 1 point...

 oni wrote:
The answer is simple. The larger problem, the problem surrounding the answer and the one that practically impossible to get past; is one of emotion.

The answer... Ban Forge World units.

There are GW models that are in the same "too big to field" zone.

So which of the PL31+ units are considered to be problems?