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I figured that this forum might be interested in the BAO 2017 results. It was a round of 6 swiss tournament with two undefeated lists.

The first undefeated list:



The second undefeated list:



And the third place list, not undefeated but had the third most points:



Can't be arsed to copy the rest of the top 10 lists but the armies are in order:

Tau - commanders, battlesuits etc

Ynnari - flyers and vehicles

Chaos - brimstones, magnus and co

Genestealer Cult - a mix of AM, nids and GSC

Dark Angels - Azraels parking lot and flyers

Astra Militarum - similar to top 2 lists

Astra Militarum - flyers and scions

Good showing by Astra Militarum to be fair.

1) Conscripts + plasma scions
2) Conscripts + plasma scions + Celestine
3) Conscripts + stormraven + Guilliman


Can't say that I am surprised

Tau are totally good and fine though right Reece. Right guys? Clearly "everything" is good according to Reece.

Anyways now that this is over and surprise (not) that basically we all knew what would be the best stuff and what isn't can we finally get down to brass tacks and start balancing via faq's?

I don't want to wait a year for books for every army. The game is already 10x more boring than 7th ed because of how predictable it is and all I needed to do was some mathhammer and play two games to know this.

Incoming nerf for guard.

hobojebus wrote:
Incoming nerf for guard.

And hopefully a price hike for Gulliman like many have been calling for. Maybe not a huge one but it needs to be enough.

I hope they don't make conscripts too bad after their (arguably justifiable) Nerf.

I'm really hoping they get body armour rather than flack (in game effect us a 6+ instead of a 5+) and that they are limited to a Max squad size of 30.
Maybe chuck in a requirement of a Ld test for orders, and perhaps they won't be as effective at offense, but excellent at being "operation human shield"...

More experienced Dakkanauts can share their Scion Nerf ideas, as I don't even know where to begin!

 Freddy Kruger wrote:
I hope they don't make conscripts too bad after their (arguably justifiable) Nerf.

I'm really hoping they get body armour rather than flack (in game effect us a 6+ instead of a 5+) and that they are limited to a Max squad size of 30.
Maybe chuck in a requirement of a Ld test for orders, and perhaps they won't be as effective at offense, but excellent at being "operation human shield"...

More experienced Dakkanauts can share their Scion Nerf ideas, as I don't even know where to begin!

Other than possibly reducing the max limit of a Scion Squad to 2 Special Weapons instead of four (right now it's 2 per 5 Scions) do Scions really need a nerf? Not at all a fan of the trend of crying to nerf this or that anytime it appears in a list with regularity - particularly with AM. Are AM just not supposed to appear in the Top 10 of a tournament?

Scions are already 9pts + weapon, after all. The problem people seem to have, really, is more with Plasma Guns - between their versatility against all threats thanks to overcharge and their low cost. Nerf the problem not the symptoms. If plasma guns went to STR 6 normally and overcharged to STR 7 while staying at 1 damage I imagine the angst would lessen.

I mean, the other consistent element of these lists were also FW options - all three had Earthshaker Batteries in them. I haven't seen a tenth of the angst against the wildly unbalanced FW options as we have over Conscripts.

Just make orders fail on conscripts 50% of the time and have the commissar have to roll a 3+ save each time he needs to put down a conscript due to moral. If he fails it the conscripts attack the commissar doing d3 mortal wounds and behave normally for their leadership.


Conscripts are undisciplined and untrained prone to panic possibly overwhelming nearby authority figures in their panic.

For the earthshaker carrages I think once the cheap bubble wrap that is concripts is addressed then things may settle but a slight points nerf may be in order.

 Gamgee wrote:
Tau are totally good and fine though right Reece. Right guys? Clearly "everything" is good according to Reece.

Anyways now that this is over and surprise (not) that basically we all knew what would be the best stuff and what isn't can we finally get down to brass tacks and start balancing via faq's?

I don't want to wait a year for books for every army. The game is already 10x more boring than 7th ed because of how predictable it is and all I needed to do was some mathhammer and play two games to know this.

Yes, Tau is in a good place.

GhostRecon wrote:

 Freddy Kruger wrote:
I hope they don't make conscripts too bad after their (arguably justifiable) Nerf.

I'm really hoping they get body armour rather than flack (in game effect us a 6+ instead of a 5+) and that they are limited to a Max squad size of 30.
Maybe chuck in a requirement of a Ld test for orders, and perhaps they won't be as effective at offense, but excellent at being "operation human shield"...

More experienced Dakkanauts can share their Scion Nerf ideas, as I don't even know where to begin!

Other than possibly reducing the max limit of a Scion Squad to 2 Special Weapons instead of four (right now it's 2 per 5 Scions) do Scions really need a nerf? Not at all a fan of the trend of crying to nerf this or that anytime it appears in a list with regularity - particularly with AM. Are AM just not supposed to appear in the Top 10 of a tournament?

Scions are already 9pts + weapon, after all. The problem people seem to have, really, is more with Plasma Guns - between their versatility against all threats thanks to overcharge and their low cost. Nerf the problem not the symptoms. If plasma guns went to STR 6 normally and overcharged to STR 7 while staying at 1 damage I imagine the angst would lessen.

I mean, the other consistent element of these lists were also FW options - all three had Earthshaker Batteries in them. I haven't seen a tenth of the angst against the wildly unbalanced FW options as we have over Conscripts.

Plasma Gun needs a nerf too
but if you nerf Plasma Gun everyone will instantly just switch to Melta Gun

Also, Why isn't Plasma Gun overpowered on a Terminator? (rhetorical)

One could say that it's not just 1 problem, it's a web of smaller problems.

Also drop the "Are AM just not supposed to appear in the Top 10 of a tournament?"
It gets us nowhere.

Paying more points for Melta that doesn't even get within half range out of DS unlike Plasma and thus balancing it out.

Plasma is ridiculously good and needs a nerf.

 Talamare wrote:

GhostRecon wrote:

 Freddy Kruger wrote:
I hope they don't make conscripts too bad after their (arguably justifiable) Nerf.

I'm really hoping they get body armour rather than flack (in game effect us a 6+ instead of a 5+) and that they are limited to a Max squad size of 30.
Maybe chuck in a requirement of a Ld test for orders, and perhaps they won't be as effective at offense, but excellent at being "operation human shield"...

More experienced Dakkanauts can share their Scion Nerf ideas, as I don't even know where to begin!

Other than possibly reducing the max limit of a Scion Squad to 2 Special Weapons instead of four (right now it's 2 per 5 Scions) do Scions really need a nerf? Not at all a fan of the trend of crying to nerf this or that anytime it appears in a list with regularity - particularly with AM. Are AM just not supposed to appear in the Top 10 of a tournament?

Scions are already 9pts + weapon, after all. The problem people seem to have, really, is more with Plasma Guns - between their versatility against all threats thanks to overcharge and their low cost. Nerf the problem not the symptoms. If plasma guns went to STR 6 normally and overcharged to STR 7 while staying at 1 damage I imagine the angst would lessen.

I mean, the other consistent element of these lists were also FW options - all three had Earthshaker Batteries in them. I haven't seen a tenth of the angst against the wildly unbalanced FW options as we have over Conscripts.

Plasma Gun needs a nerf too
but if you nerf Plasma Gun everyone will instantly just switch to Melta Gun

Except that a Meltagun is 12pts and would still be far worse at killing MEQ - arguably the main intended target for Plasma Guns. As this chart from 3++ (http://www.3plusplus.net) shows: http://www.3plusplus.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/WeaponChart_IG_All.png currently overcharged PGs allow the PG to handle AV/MC as well as it does MEQ/TEQ. Tone them down and you'd bring back weapon diversity.

The winners list is illegal, which is somewhat awkward. Commissars can't take Chainswords.

Whoop-de-doo, that's kind of missing the forest for the trees. It's a Conscripts and Stormtroopers list, not a "walk me closer, I want to hit them with my sword" list!

This shows AM is too powerful at this point. and i really hope we will have a more balanced meta byi the end of the year. the flyer nerf gives me hope.

There will always be units there are better than others, and those units will always be spammed at tournaments. The picture that is slowly emerging tells us that:

1) Conscripts needs a little nerf. And plasma-scions also. But nothing huge.

2) Leman Russes are too expensive to be fielded by competetive Guard players.

3) Tourneys should disallow forgeworld models, or at least put a cap or a tax on them.

4) Tau is competetive, but would not be without the Tau Commander.

5) Guilliman and the stormraven are probably undercosted

6) There were only two undefeated lists. This suggests that 8th edition, in spite it's warts, is far more balanced than the 7th editions invisibility deathballs of doom.

So per the other thread I made for BAO results (which is also still on page 1), 15 of these lists we're undefeated at the close of round 3. These included lots of Tau, Eldar and Chaos. As this shows, by the end of round 6 only two lists remained in that category.

What that tells me is that the final 3 rounds were actually pretty close so the people crying nerf are likely overdoing it. We likely should wait for Codexes before doing any balancing and see where things shake up. The only other clear takeaway I see is that Tau need a small buff for some of their stuff besides Commander Suits (which can be delivered via Codex I'd imagine as tactics or Stratagems).

Given that this was played with swiss system it is not surprising that it went from 15 to 2 undefeated lists. In swiss players with the same win/loss ratio face each other each round.

Yeah people shouldn't put too much weight on there being "only" 2 undefeated lists, since the format of the tournament isn't going to allow for more than one or 2 anyway.

Golly, with those TWO total Chaos lists in the Top 18, Brimstones and other horrors sure are a major problem. Almost no one at the BAO was able to beat them!!

/s

Oh hey, they only brought conscripts in ALL THREE LISTS! WHERE ARE YOU MELISSA AND KANLUWEN!?!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also if it a Swiss-tournament format, being undefeated means much less as it is set up in such a way that essentially MAYBE 4 people will walk away undefeated. So that means if someone has 1 loss, it isn't too big of a deal; but at the same time if they went undefeated they are the real stars of the show.

Yeah, that's what happens when you leave conscripts with orders. Their firepower is ridiculous with orders.

I'd wonder if these lists would fare equally well if Orders were removed from conscripts.

 Talamare wrote:

GhostRecon wrote:

 Freddy Kruger wrote:
I hope they don't make conscripts too bad after their (arguably justifiable) Nerf.

I'm really hoping they get body armour rather than flack (in game effect us a 6+ instead of a 5+) and that they are limited to a Max squad size of 30.
Maybe chuck in a requirement of a Ld test for orders, and perhaps they won't be as effective at offense, but excellent at being "operation human shield"...

More experienced Dakkanauts can share their Scion Nerf ideas, as I don't even know where to begin!

Other than possibly reducing the max limit of a Scion Squad to 2 Special Weapons instead of four (right now it's 2 per 5 Scions) do Scions really need a nerf? Not at all a fan of the trend of crying to nerf this or that anytime it appears in a list with regularity - particularly with AM. Are AM just not supposed to appear in the Top 10 of a tournament?

Scions are already 9pts + weapon, after all. The problem people seem to have, really, is more with Plasma Guns - between their versatility against all threats thanks to overcharge and their low cost. Nerf the problem not the symptoms. If plasma guns went to STR 6 normally and overcharged to STR 7 while staying at 1 damage I imagine the angst would lessen.

I mean, the other consistent element of these lists were also FW options - all three had Earthshaker Batteries in them. I haven't seen a tenth of the angst against the wildly unbalanced FW options as we have over Conscripts.

Plasma Gun needs a nerf too
but if you nerf Plasma Gun everyone will instantly just switch to Melta Gun

Also, Why isn't Plasma Gun overpowered on a Terminator? (rhetorical)

One could say that it's not just 1 problem, it's a web of smaller problems.

Also drop the "Are AM just not supposed to appear in the Top 10 of a tournament?"
It gets us nowhere.

The Plasma Guns are too cheap is the issue. Not the plasma Guns themselves...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, that's what happens when you leave conscripts with orders. Their firepower is ridiculous with orders.

I'd wonder if these lists would fare equally well if Orders were removed from conscripts.

According to the thread in tourney discussion, they were being used to deny deepstrike offensives by going second. Then the tempestus would deploy to beta strike the enemy. Exactly like they should be used, but still far too cheap.

The funny thing is people are arguing this is "variety" because there are like a few factions, it's not dominated by 1-2.

I see almost all completely different armies with like 10+ different factions in the top 24.

Are you attempting to imply that variety is not variety?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, that's what happens when you leave conscripts with orders. Their firepower is ridiculous with orders.

I'd wonder if these lists would fare equally well if Orders were removed from conscripts.

Expect, at least, Conscript Squads to get tied to Infantry Squads taken.
They did that with Command Squads and officers in Guard.



But again, people who didn't play Guard have whined for years that many Guard players wanted their army to be something other than the WW1 meatshieldfest that they imagined them to be...

How's that meatshield tasting?

Compare the variety of lists at LVO 2017 to this. The top 3 lists were not all the exact same faction.

 Gamgee wrote:
Tau are totally good and fine though right Reece. Right guys? Clearly "everything" is good according to Reece.

Anyways now that this is over and surprise (not) that basically we all knew what would be the best stuff and what isn't can we finally get down to brass tacks and start balancing via faq's?

I don't want to wait a year for books for every army. The game is already 10x more boring than 7th ed because of how predictable it is and all I needed to do was some mathhammer and play two games to know this.

Tau had a placing in the top 10, more than many other armies, not seeing where the issue is here. We dont even see Orks, Dark Eldar, Tyranids, Sisters, Grey Knights, Necrons, etc appear in this list. The only real big issue apparent in these lists is flyers and conscripts.