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Tyel wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Curious that you've separated "Ultramarines" and "non-UM" here just for Marines but we don't see where "Non-alaitoc CWE" or "non-mars Admech" or "non-Alpha Legion CSM" fall.

You've also listed Ynnari as top tier. You know they basically got deleted except for a single two-unit combo right? As an army, they are gone. CSM without soup also appear just about as much as Marines without guilliman.

An accurate tier list would be:

Top: Guard Eldar Nids Chaos Imperium

Mid: Orks SOB Marines

Low: Admech GSC

Too early to call: BA DA

Sir not appearing in this film: DE Tau SW GK Necrons

That top tier is about 75% of top lists, mid tier about 20, low about 5.

This seems about right.
Really though its hard to talk of a meta when the game is shifting - often quite considerably - every 6 weeks. I think Chaos has potentially been hit by chapter approved and the psychic changes - or at least the more skewed lists have been.

I agree. It's not clear how the loss of Malefic Lords will affect the Chaos umbrella faction but I doubt it'd be as much as the functional loss of Ynnari affected the Aeldari umbrella. Magnus, Mortarion, and some alpha bezerkers and some brimstone horrors is still a solid core for a list, and the new tzeentch bonus will only make the defensiveness of the tzeentch screening squad more efficient (no reason not to run Changeling+Horrors as their own detachment since they're HQ and troops, just gotta add one herald or something).

The psychic change would have affected them heavily if they still had the malefic lords, but as-is if tournaments adopt the smite change it shouldn't affect them too much. As long as magnus and morty get their smites, they're happy.

Pending upcoming balance changes or new codexes, nids, eldar, imperium soup heavy on guard and chaos will continue to be The Big Four. I can definitely see BA joining mid tier as about on par with UM (I think Martel heavily underestimates how good something like a DC-oriented list that isn't heavily reliant on deep strike to make their melee alpha happen might be against the possibility of the meta shifting towards something more Dark Reaper shaped. Their matchup is good vs guard, maybe not quite as good as the genestealer/alpha zerker matchup, but much better against eldar since they don't get to use Forewarned.)

the_scotsman wrote:
Curious that you've separated "Ultramarines" and "non-UM" here just for Marines but we don't see where "Non-alaitoc CWE" or "non-mars Admech" or "non-Alpha Legion CSM" fall.

You've also listed Ynnari as top tier. You know they basically got deleted except for a single two-unit combo right? As an army, they are gone. CSM without soup also appear just about as much as Marines without guilliman.

An accurate tier list would be:

Top: Guard Eldar Nids Chaos Imperium

Mid: Orks SOB Marines

Low: Admech GSC

Too early to call: BA DA

Sir not appearing in this film: DE Tau SW GK Necrons

That top tier is about 75% of top lists, mid tier about 20, low about 5.

It's because marines without guilliman belong in the not appearing in this film section and with Guilliman are basically at the admech level.

One problem that needs to be fixed is the blatant Bias that the Imperium gets and Xenos/Chaos are out in the cold. Alot of the abilities that the Imperium just "get" for having aura's, the other side has to waste valuable spell slots a turn or CP. This is also evident in the faction keyword area....look at what can be "Imperium" versus, for example the new demon codex where you have to refine yourself ALLLLLL the way down to a single god devotion to get a loci. A loci that for all intent and purposes is garbage on the power level. The faction keyword mechanic needs to be adjusted to be a minimum of 2 shared words for aura and buff benefits.

 quickfuze wrote:
One problem that needs to be fixed is the blatant Bias that the Imperium gets and Xenos/Chaos are out in the cold. Alot of the abilities that the Imperium just "get" for having aura's, the other side has to waste valuable spell slots a turn or CP. This is also evident in the faction keyword area....look at what can be "Imperium" versus, for example the new demon codex where you have to refine yourself ALLLLLL the way down to a single god devotion to get a loci. A loci that for all intent and purposes is garbage on the power level. The faction keyword mechanic needs to be adjusted to be a minimum of 2 shared words for aura and buff benefits.

Can you be more specific? Are we specifically talking about guillimans 12" imperium buff? It's just a reroll 1's aura that add +1 to your advance or charge move - if you are paying 360 (now 385) for that...you are over paying for sure. I can't think of any other imerpium aura - help me out so we can discuss.

 Xenomancers wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Curious that you've separated "Ultramarines" and "non-UM" here just for Marines but we don't see where "Non-alaitoc CWE" or "non-mars Admech" or "non-Alpha Legion CSM" fall.

You've also listed Ynnari as top tier. You know they basically got deleted except for a single two-unit combo right? As an army, they are gone. CSM without soup also appear just about as much as Marines without guilliman.

An accurate tier list would be:

Top: Guard Eldar Nids Chaos Imperium

Mid: Orks SOB Marines

Low: Admech GSC

Too early to call: BA DA

Sir not appearing in this film: DE Tau SW GK Necrons

That top tier is about 75% of top lists, mid tier about 20, low about 5.

It's because marines without guilliman belong in the not appearing in this film section and with Guilliman are basically at the admech level.

I just don't see where you're getting that second statement. Unless you've got a wealth of info stashed away somewhere, the most recent major tournament events I'm finding (like the Seven Circles of Hull event on Nov 25th) have marines with guilliman appearing just as much as the other mid-tier dexes. They're NOWHERE NEAR as rare as the other oddballs like admech, GSC, or Grey Knights.

I agree that marines outside the optimal subfaction are basically never seen, just like every non-optimal subfaction of every faction besides guard and tyranids. I can count the number of times I've seen non-AL CSM, non-Alaitoc Eldar, non-tzeentch daemons or non-Mars Admech on one finger (one admech list in I think 3rd place of some event in november used a substantial Stygies contingent).

For nids, you see Kronos and Kraken. For guard, you see Cadians and Catachans (talking recent results here, pre gutting of Tallarn). That is the privilege of being absolute tippy-top top tier: You get two subfactions appearing instead of one.

This is why your little whine-crusade is so irritating to me. Marines are not some poor, oppressed, kicked puppies because they're limited to a single optimal subfaction. They are literally playing the same game as absolutely everyone else. I'd love to see everyone having some tournament playtime, and I think once we get the other 8 or so codexes out, as long as we don't get too many stinkers like DA, we should start to see that. That should be the priority right now, not rushing back to ensure Marines are in the top tier to coddle your ego.

You have never once provided any kind of evidence to prove Marines are in a somehow worse spot than any of the "non big four" factions despite rejecting every single little bit of data that's ever put in front of you as either "too small of a sample size" if it's recent data or "too out of date" if it's a large sample. Yet you continually make claims like "marines are on par with admech" despite never providing any evidence of that yourself, or any evidence at all to back up anything you say.

[MOD EDIT - RULE #1 - Alpharius]

A more fair way to look at it is to say that marines will END UP down with admech. I'm guessing every codex that comes out this year is also better than marines. Then GW will have to figure out how to unbury their poster boys.

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/12/18/chapter-tactics-50-year-in-review-and-which-factions-dominated-2017/

Just finished listening to this on the way into work, they do a really good breakdown of armies played, changes in numbers from end of 7th to beginning of 8th, from beginning of 8th until current, representation changes over the course of the year, and lots more. It's very comprehensive.

Basically, the rough conclusions:
AM wins tournaments more than any other codex, we're all terribly surprised.
Chaos comes in second in its various flavors, again, not surprising, but the caveat here being they don't know how the Malefic Lord nerf will change the numbers going forward.
Orks win a lot more than I would have thought.
Marines are heavily represented, middle tier, which is what most rational minds around here kind of thought anyways.
Eldar were discussed a bit, but don't seem to have heavily slanted the data one way or another yet, definitely not as well represented as they were in 7th.

There's a lot of good information in there, they break down data from all the official ITC events (which is a lot of data, over 11000 players worth of data) over the past year and slice and dice the data in a lot of interesting ways.

I'll be curious to hear their round up at the end of next year to see how things have changed over the course of new releases.

Are marines middle because they have so many representatives, though? That's my concern. I have no faith in the marine codex to stand up to a Tau or Drukhari codex at all.

Martel732 wrote:
A more fair way to look at it is to say that marines will END UP down with admech. I'm guessing every codex that comes out this year is also better than marines. Then GW will have to figure out how to unbury their poster boys.

Could be. I can definitely see a situation like AOS saw with the early books (which were also pre-written before the game dropped and ended up very low on the power scale) which led to the re-release of the Stormcast battletome very early on in the rotation.

But then again, they also could not be. Tau, DE and Necrons in particular are in a *very* bad spot with the index, and a DA-level codex that doesn't really fix any of their issues will leave them exactly where DA are right now: basically in the same spot with a few extra cookies that don't fundamentally fix much. And those factions are all fairly elite, so they lack the natural "we're a horde faction so we work pretty well in 8th" defense that GSC and Orks are currently benefitting from in the index. They certainly didn't demonstrate that they understood what any of those other elite factions needed to compete in Chapter Approved...The Tau and Dark Eldar stuff that they added were just laughably inept.

But at the present moment, Marines are not sharing a tier with Sisters, GSC, Admech, GK or the other also-rans. They're in the same shoes as mono- or light ally DG, CSM, Orks, and the rest of the mid-tier, showing up about a quarter of the time with cute little counter-meta strategies to beat the top tier armies.

Interestingly, I haven't beat sisters yet with marines of any kind. I consider sisters head and shoulders above any kind of marine list. They just aren't in plastic.

Martel732 wrote:
Are marines middle because they have so many representatives, though? That's my concern. I have no faith in the marine codex to stand up to a Tau or Drukhari codex at all.

Man, you have a lot of faith in GWs ability to buff Tau and Drukhari out of the hole they're in then.

What tells you that GW has figured out what Drukhari and Tau need to work then? is it the multiple weapon option tables where they're almost all exactly the same but one is always completely superior 100% of the time (Wych weapons, Tau Specials, Haemonculus weapons, Scourge weapons, Reaver melee attachments, etc) or was it the stellar rules they got in Chapter Approved that addressed tons of their current issues (Advance and Shoot trait for Tau characters, Trait that doesn't function at all until turn 3 for the Succubus, etc)?

At the end of the day, maybe marines are winning more because more people are picking marines than other mid/low tier factions, but if they were simply mathematically inferior you wouldn't see them sneaking into the top tables with their countermeta stuff. At the end of the day, marines are just not currently the worst faction around, or even close, and if they are after all the rest of the codexes are released? Great, then they should be buffed along with anyone else who can't compete.

Martel732 wrote:
Interestingly, I haven't beat sisters yet with marines of any kind. I consider sisters head and shoulders above any kind of marine list. They just aren't in plastic.

They actually discuss the fact that Sisters were fairly well represented (or at least better represented than they would have expected) and tended to point out in tournament settings pretty well. They did a breakdown of the average points total that various factions ended up with at the end of a tournament, which was very interesting. Basically, Sisters tend to point out in ITC tournament settings at around 60 points or so, which was slightly above average (Necrons tended to point out at 53, which is the lowest). The other thing they mentioned with that though is that there are some really good Sisters players who just know how to use their army well, so you have low representation, but higher average player skill coming into play a bit, whereas with Marines you might just be seeing results that are slanted to a certain extent by simple weight of representation.

Chaos flavors tended to point out of tournaments with the highest average point total (somewhere in the 70s), even though AM won more tournaments, they tended to have a lower average point total across tournaments, this may also have to do with representation and average player skill level.

Edited for clarification and typos.

Nids and Eldar were poor before their codices, too. I think GW has more freedom with those factions. Look at all the crap they just made up for Nids. Little nodules that give carnifex -1 to be hit? Heavy venom cannons for all?

I personally can't recommend too many changes for marines until I see every codex. I will say that I think IG and Nids are gonna need massive nerfs going forward. But I guess we'll see. Basically every tyranid list I've seen makes me feel like I don't even know where to begin against them.

I think you'd end up playing a little less whack-a-mole if you started post codex balancing by making the game in general a little less slanted towards cheap plentiful units (I'd start by removing Insane Bravery and do something like double results of all random shot weapons against units with 10 or more models, something to simulate the effects of old blasts) but yeah, we may still see pretty extensive rebalancing of nids and guard.

In my eyes, Eldar and BA win "most improved" award for 8th from index to codex. Everything else that's come out really big has started from a decent core from the index in the first place. I wasn't at all surprised when nids and guard came out big in the codexes, and I will also not be surprised if Orks, GSC, Harlequins and Sisters end up in the higher tiers as well, as they all function fairly well out of the index.

Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Tau are all going to rely on GW being able to pull some of that ol game design creativity out of their butts and ground-up redesign some of the stuff that just currently does not function at all. I have less optimism about how they'll turn out.

Yeah, nids didn't surprise me, but the extent of goodies they got really did.

the_scotsman wrote:
In my eyes, Eldar and BA win "most improved" award for 8th from index to codex. Everything else that's come out really big has started from a decent core from the index in the first place. I wasn't at all surprised when nids and guard came out big in the codexes, and I will also not be surprised if Orks, GSC, Harlequins and Sisters end up in the higher tiers as well, as they all function fairly well out of the index.

This didn't really surprise me that much, Eldar psychic powers were weak in the Index, but you knew they were going to be amazing in Codex, traditionally Chaos and Eldar have always had the strongest psychic power foundations in the game (which I feel is in line with the fluff).

Blood Angels honestly are second only to Ultramarines in terms of their ubiquity to the Imperial storyline, I suspect they are going to perform well once players really have a handle on their meta and how best to use it.

GSC will be fine, they have AM guns and arguably the best of Tyranid hand to hand combined with the best deep strike rules in the game.

Harlequins will be fine by virtue of being associated with the Eldar soup, if nothing else.

Orks are the only one I'm concerned about. I've heard a couple shooting solutions for them I liked, one being that they hit on a 5+ all the time, the other being to give them +1 to hit for every 10 models in the squad, which would make things like Lootas good initially, but less and less impressive as they take casualties. But that's all conjecture, who knows what GW will do to encourage list diversity in the Ork codex.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Interestingly, I haven't beat sisters yet with marines of any kind. I consider sisters head and shoulders above any kind of marine list. They just aren't in plastic.

They actually discuss the fact that Sisters were fairly well represented (or at least better represented than they would have expected) and tended to point out in tournament settings pretty well. They did a breakdown of the average points total that various factions ended up with at the end of a tournament, which was very interesting. Basically, Sisters tend to point out in ITC tournament settings at around 60 points or so, which was slightly above average (Necrons tended to point out at 53, which is the lowest). The other thing they mentioned with that though is that there are some really good Sisters players who just know how to use their army well, so you have low representation, but higher average player skill coming into play a bit, whereas with Marines you might just be seeing results that are slanted to a certain extent by simple weight of representation.

Chaos flavors tended to point out of tournaments with the highest average point total (somewhere in the 70s), even though AM won more tournaments, they tended to have a lower average point total across tournaments, this may also have to do with representation and average player skill level.

Edited for clarification and typos.

There is a much more simple explanation for SOB low participation rate. Their models are rare and very few men (the majority of players in this game) want to play an army of girls. They are better than space marines in every way though. Player skill accounts for very little in this game. It is mostly list building -followed by dice rolls. Player skill is basically knowing when you should go for a table or when to win by objectives and what order to kill things in- not very hard to figure out.

 Xenomancers wrote:
There is a much more simple explanation for SOB low participation rate. Their models are rare and very few men (the majority of players in this game) want to play an army of girls.

Please, most serious tournament players would play an army of Orks wearing tutus if the rules were there, I think this has very little to do with it. Honestly, if it does, seek therapy, you have issues.

 Xenomancers wrote:
They are better than space marines in every way though.

I think we can discount this as according to you, every faction in the game is superior to marines in every way. The way you pitch it they could be beaten by coma patients.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Player skill accounts for very little in this game.

According to you, but this fails to explain people who win with clearly inferior factions. Players that know how to use the strengths of their army are always going to outperform painters who show up with pretty models, regardless of faction.

 Xenomancers wrote:
It is mostly list building -followed by dice rolls.

Hey, welcome to the last 25 years of 40k, what astounding insight! Players get lucky? NO! Players construct good lists that mitigate the effects of luck? NO! Seriously, I assume you have never followed any professional sport, but here's the thing, championships always involve good roster construction and a little luck.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Player skill is basically knowing when you should go for a table or when to win by objectives and what order to kill things in- not very hard to figure out.

Yet, it's often where players make mistakes in tournament settings, it's almost like a, what's the word I'm looking for, a skill! It's amazing how often people will screw up the math in their head at the table and either don't go for a kill when they have it, choose the wrong target, make a bad placement, or simply underestimate their opponent. I know you live in a mathhammer world Xeno, but really, people make mistakes, frequently, especially when you add in the extra pressure of a tournament.

 Xenomancers wrote:
There is a much more simple explanation for SOB low participation rate.

The lack of sisters players is completely driven by the dollar cost of models, the lack of plastic models, and historic lack of codex support. Do I want to be a masochist and start a metal SoB army, or 2 other plastic armies? Tough call.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Their models are rare and very few men (the majority of players in this game) want to play an army of girls.

Rare-ish. The bulk of the line is still easy to get a hold of. I don't know many 40k players that go, "Ewwww... Guuurls." But, I also rarely play against 10 year olds.

 Xenomancers wrote:
They are better than space marines in every way though.

Smartest thing you've ever said. They always have been and always will be. Its the marines turning traitors that started this whole mess.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Player skill accounts for very little in this game. It is mostly list building -followed by dice rolls. Player skill is basically knowing when you should go for a table or when to win by objectives and what order to kill things in- not very hard to figure out.

I.... I don't know to reply to this. I'm a firm believer in the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 model of "List, Luck, Skill". I think you vastly oversimplify things.


Dang it TwinPoleTheory! You beat me.

the_scotsman wrote:
I think you'd end up playing a little less whack-a-mole if you started post codex balancing by making the game in general a little less slanted towards cheap plentiful units (I'd start by removing Insane Bravery and do something like double results of all random shot weapons against units with 10 or more models, something to simulate the effects of old blasts) but yeah, we may still see pretty extensive rebalancing of nids and guard.

In my eyes, Eldar and BA win "most improved" award for 8th from index to codex. Everything else that's come out really big has started from a decent core from the index in the first place. I wasn't at all surprised when nids and guard came out big in the codexes, and I will also not be surprised if Orks, GSC, Harlequins and Sisters end up in the higher tiers as well, as they all function fairly well out of the index.

Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Tau are all going to rely on GW being able to pull some of that ol game design creativity out of their butts and ground-up redesign some of the stuff that just currently does not function at all. I have less optimism about how they'll turn out.

I'd agree with most of this outside of your lack of optimism for Tau and Necrons (not sure about DE outside of eldar soup). I think Tau have the framework for a good army if they get some point reductions and figure out something to do with markerlights that isn't pants on head stupid. I think Necrons have some interesting abilities that if tweaked could end up with a very powerful army.

But looking at this list really highlits my concern that SM are already mid to low tier (can we call them lower middle class?) that are about to get leapfroged (and to me all signs are pointing to this happening) by GSC, Sisters, Tau, Necrons and Orcs. Going from mid to bottom in a game where the difference from top to mid is almost insurmountable and doesn't make for a fun game for either side. Reducing my options for fun games to a handful of other underpowered armies (GK, DA, Inquisition, DE?, AdMech) or against intentionally handicapped "regular" opponents.

Also, I parsed out non-ultra marines from marines mostly because I'm salty from coming back from 5th edition where my black templars had our own codex to this edition where it's ultramarines or die. The difference between UM and say the flavors of CWE is that there are models available to the different SM chapters that are not available to the other chapters so it's more than just a "my guys are the wrong color (which is a big effing issue if you know how difficult it is to paint 60 white shoulder pads over black primer)" but that's really a personal issue and one that I probably just need to buck-up and deal with if I want to keep playing this game.

And CA has really undermined what little faith I had in GW to use CA to balance armies. SM a mid tier army at best got their most competitive units nerfed while the top tier armies escaped mostly unscathed (malefic lords TBD but recent results seem to indicate that Chaos is still performing at top tier without them). I've said it before but it seemed like a hamfisted attempt to sell more primaris/GW models at the expense of FW in some cases(except for fire raptors, I still don't get that one), rather than an attempt to balance the meta.

bananathug wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I think you'd end up playing a little less whack-a-mole if you started post codex balancing by making the game in general a little less slanted towards cheap plentiful units (I'd start by removing Insane Bravery and do something like double results of all random shot weapons against units with 10 or more models, something to simulate the effects of old blasts) but yeah, we may still see pretty extensive rebalancing of nids and guard.

In my eyes, Eldar and BA win "most improved" award for 8th from index to codex. Everything else that's come out really big has started from a decent core from the index in the first place. I wasn't at all surprised when nids and guard came out big in the codexes, and I will also not be surprised if Orks, GSC, Harlequins and Sisters end up in the higher tiers as well, as they all function fairly well out of the index.

Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Tau are all going to rely on GW being able to pull some of that ol game design creativity out of their butts and ground-up redesign some of the stuff that just currently does not function at all. I have less optimism about how they'll turn out.

I'd agree with most of this outside of your lack of optimism for Tau and Necrons (not sure about DE outside of eldar soup). I think Tau have the framework for a good army if they get some point reductions and figure out something to do with markerlights that isn't pants on head stupid. I think Necrons have some interesting abilities that if tweaked could end up with a very powerful army.

But looking at this list really highlits my concern that SM are already mid to low tier (can we call them lower middle class?) that are about to get leapfroged (and to me all signs are pointing to this happening) by GSC, Sisters, Tau, Necrons and Orcs. Going from mid to bottom in a game where the difference from top to mid is almost insurmountable and doesn't make for a fun game for either side. Reducing my options for fun games to a handful of other underpowered armies (GK, DA, Inquisition, DE?, AdMech) or against intentionally handicapped "regular" opponents.

Also, I parsed out non-ultra marines from marines mostly because I'm salty from coming back from 5th edition where my black templars had our own codex to this edition where it's ultramarines or die. The difference between UM and say the flavors of CWE is that there are models available to the different SM chapters that are not available to the other chapters so it's more than just a "my guys are the wrong color (which is a big effing issue if you know how difficult it is to paint 60 white shoulder pads over black primer)" but that's really a personal issue and one that I probably just need to buck-up and deal with if I want to keep playing this game.

And CA has really undermined what little faith I had in GW to use CA to balance armies. SM a mid tier army at best got their most competitive units nerfed while the top tier armies escaped mostly unscathed (malefic lords TBD but recent results seem to indicate that Chaos is still performing at top tier without them). I've said it before but it seemed like a hamfisted attempt to sell more primaris/GW models at the expense of FW in some cases(except for fire raptors, I still don't get that one), rather than an attempt to balance the meta.

Here's where I'm going to disagree a little bit: the difference between top and mid is almost insurmountable *in a maximum competitive setting* and *when you don't make any meta predictions*. The reason why we so often see the mid or lower tier factions appearing right at the top tables, but not nearly as much in the middle, is because those players brought along a solid countermeta list that even in the maximum competitive setting of the tournament, is still able to compete and even excel because it tailors to beat the big bad boys.

Also, it is somewhat disingenuous to say that because Space Marines got a nerf to one character, one weapon, and one vehicle, the top tier armies "escaped unscathed" in comparison. Also, remember at the time CA was written Space Marines were still solidly considered to be in the top bracket, as Guard, SM, DG, GK, AM and CSM were the only codexes being considered for balance. SM didn't really drop down into the mid tier until the eldar+nid release fully impacted the meta.

Malefic Lords, one of the major tools of the chaos soup lists, are straight up gone. No longer exist as an option in any competitive sense. Eldar lost Ynnari from their pack of tools just before CA as well as Shadow Spectres which pre the Ynnari change were arguably their second most competitive unit. Celestine, far and away the best SOB unit, got a nerf. A good chunk of guard stuff also got adjusted, from conscripts to primaris psykers to earthshaker carriages to manticores - at the time CA was being written, those units were the competitive guard list, you can't exactly hold it against them too hard that they didn't nerf what the competitive guard players pivoted to after they nerfed the first set of stuff. Guard have at this point been nerfed on four separate occasions, if I'm counting correctly.

The eldar codex and tyranid codex had just dropped, probably after the writing work for CA was completed. THose armies (barring ynnari) were absent from the tournament scene previously. They would have had no way to know what kind of impact they would have.

It's true that daemons got no adjustments, but I'm not going to call them unscathed until we get the leaks from their upcoming codex. Will we see adjustments to princes, horrors, and exalted flamers? we don't know yet.

CA was premature, and as a result somewhat cautious with the main GW Line. I was unimpressed, but not surprised, to see it didn't have a huge impact.

Outside of maximum competitive games, where people are slinging soup allies and multiple detachments to maximise benefits, I'm supremely unconvinced that balance is as impossible as people on here make it sound. Whether one army is seen more frequently on the competitive circuit than another is an omnipresent and extremely convenient excuse for a loss, and while I will always feel for the Martels who live in a permanent tournament-level hellscape of utterly fluff-shredding army lists in a sea of gray plastic and dull mathhammer, I think the numbers of people who actually have to deal with competitive lists on a daily basis is much, much, much lower than the internet would have you believe. The level of play where you are actually forced to abandon your preferred subfaction to play the competitive hotness is at a higher bar than most people play in the real world. It's just that griping about it is easy, the change from one to the other is easy to see and point out, and actually improving the way you play the game is hard enough that a lot of people either don't bother or don't think the choices exist.

The number of people you're going to find in this corner of the internet who have IQs of 9000, simulate their games in their heads down to the last die roll, and have determined that the only thing that matters is the list, the roll of the dice and the fickle balance ineptitude of the hated foe games workshop who listens to their phone calls in order to ruin their hopes and dreams is about the same as the number of people you'll run across in other places online who strangely frequently are doctors, lawyers, professional economists, skilled hackers or elite commandos ready to hunt you down with the skills they learned in Irack.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I didn't vote because I really don't think it's a problem considering the worst offender of blob star (Guilliman) is actually part of the weakest army in the game and even with ultimate blobstar power still can't place highly in tournaments. however - if other armies had access to this style of play - it would be overwhelming to the point it would break the game.

Here we go

This whole edition is premature Scotsmen.

The number of people you're going to find in this corner of the internet who have IQs of 9000, simulate their games in their heads down to the last die roll, and have determined that the only thing that matters is the list, the roll of the dice and the fickle balance ineptitude of the hated foe games workshop who listens to their phone calls in order to ruin their hopes and dreams is about the same as the number of people you'll run across in other places online who strangely frequently are doctors, lawyers, professional economists, skilled hackers or elite commandos ready to hunt you down with the skills they learned in Irack.

Unfortunately this is my corner of the gaming world. Looking at the most recent poll about 50% of people see tourney level lists at least 50% of the time so I don't think writing off those of us that struggle with a hyper competitive meta as special unicorns who need to play another game instead of trying to get some sort of balanced product out for is good for a significant percentage of the player base.

A more balanced game doesn't hurt those that don't play in that competitive of a space but it really helps those of us that show up to game night knowing we will see chaos monster mash, craftworld spear/reaper spam, IG damn near anything, Nids genestealer/flyrant spam escape the treadmill of chasing the new hotness. Even "casually" constructed armies from these factions will make a mockery of a SM list that isn't stormravens/fire raptors, especially under the ITC champions missions.

The difference between one of these lists and the best I can put out as a SM player is insurmountable and that makes for just not a bad game for me but also for my opponent when it's obvious who will win by the end of turn 2. I probably should just go out and buy a new army but I'm stubborn, like to complain on the internet, actually enjoy painting and modeling my own army and don't have the time available to do that at this point in my personal/professional life (although this could be considered a lack of will on my part and I should just buy something competitive if I want to be competitive which I don't really have a solid counter for outside of having to spend another 2-5 years collecting/painting a new army from scratch just isn't in the cards for me and seems like a pretty big eff u, none of my buddies have to buy new golf clubs to go play the new course but I feel like I'm being pushed to have to buy a new army to enjoy this edition. I couldn't imagine if they had to build their clubs from scratch not knowing if their newly constructed 7 iron would be legal by the time they got it bought, built and out to the course...)

To get back to the subject. Blob-star seems to be a lazy but unsurprising result of GWs rules. You'll notice the more powerful armies are able to escape it (more fun to play and more powerful...) and those armies reduced to pathetically clinging to the shadow of one or two models seem to fall victim to the more mobile, less blobby armies. I like mini-blob star. A unit or two packed around a leader is actually a fun way to construct and play an army. Having to try to fit as much of your army around one guy is not fun to build or play (with or against). I'm not sure this will get any better with the anticipated drop of MORE primarchs but luckily as other codexes get more powerful you will see less and less marines (which are the main blob-star offenders) and this issue should self-resolve until those OP primarchs show up and we find ourselves having this conversation next year...

the_scotsman wrote:
Here's where I'm going to disagree a little bit: the difference between top and mid is almost insurmountable *in a maximum competitive setting* and *when you don't make any meta predictions*. The reason why we so often see the mid or lower tier factions appearing right at the top tables, but not nearly as much in the middle, is because those players brought along a solid countermeta list that even in the maximum competitive setting of the tournament, is still able to compete and even excel because it tailors to beat the big bad boys.

I am not sure they have counter-meta lists though. Those have never really been a thing in 40k. Its just about having what are crudely the best units (which can be determined reasonably accurately with stats) and then being lucky.

I would be surprised if Orks or other non-top tier armies ever got near the top unless they were lucky enough to get the first turn in most of their tournament games. Which may be unlikely for one player in one tournament, but isn't that unlikely with a large number of players in lots of tournaments. Having got the first turn they have a far greater chance of winning a game than they do going second. (I have no stats on this - but its what happens, and hard to see how it wouldn't).

What is strange is why other factions are not even getting this. I suspect its because armies like Necrons do not really benefit from getting the first turn. They have very limited alpha strike (or damage at all) and as a result will tend to be beaten down. DE also suffer from a fistful of crap unit entries and everything doing inferior damage for its points than the current meta. I guess Tau have the same problem.

So the odds of them winning repeatedly to place in a tournament are so low its not happening.

As it is I think Necrons, Tau and DE can all be "fixed" with massive points drops. DE are still going to be a broken faction though, doing the same thing they have been doing since 5th edition with minor tweaking. Warriors in venoms, lances on other platforms. Everything else being a confused mess.

...but I don't notice that. I notice that armies that have a "reroll everything" character can be constructed around that character, and that that has become the dominant build for two factions in particular, Space Marines with guilliman and Admech with Cawl.

But we also see, for instance, other armies that could do that but don't, because it isn't the strongest thing available. There was a tournament list a little while ago that traded out Guilliman for Dante and ran the flyer spam list using him for the rerolls (because with his jump pack he could keep up better with the flyers, which that player judged more useful than the reroll to wound).

But that isn't how BA lists in the new codex are shaking out. You have units that drop in with buffers (typically Death Company or Sang Guard) but you don't rally the whole army around the character, you send in one unit to efficiently use stratagems and essentially "attach" the character to the one unit, just like how characters were used last edition.

Chaos can also run a similar list with Abbaddon, which is not good enough to be seen in the competitive meta. Alpha Zerkers, which are not a blob-star, are.

I can't help but think that the only reason this guy thinks "blobs" are actually the competitive meta is that that's what people he plays with are currently playing, he's seen competitive lists like that in the past, and now he thinks "competitive=blob-star with guilliman! Oh woe is me I'm only playing against competitive lists..."

The reality of the situation is that once you get down to even semi-competitive lists that aren't 100% crazy tournament hotness, you can compete even with lists that are sub optimal. I've played too many games with and against the factions people complain about, seen too many games with and against them that are not complete stomps to believe what you're saying about "damn near anything guard brings auto-beats marines and I CANT make a list that can ever compete." I play in a comparatively casual meta, where people buy, build, and paint their collections and only a couple people are mass-ebaying to get the competitive hotness, but it's also a massive meta, with a ton of different players. I've played my Dark Eldar into cadian guard, catachan guard, admech into tallarn tank guard, dark eldar wyches into pre-nerf Ynnari, and I've never once felt like I couldn't include the units that I love and that I've painted up over the years if I wanted a chance to win.

Was every list I played against five detachments with five different sets of regimental doctrines spamming the best units with no extra upgrades with soup allies? no. But according to the internet, if I take Thousand Sons with only a single unit of tzeentch daemons and no magnus against catachans with artillery, harker, and the infinite CP warlord+relic combo, I should pretty much autolose. and it just doesn't happen. I have a close game that gets decided on objectives (another thing the internet says never happens).

I just can't help but wonder if the folks playing in these ruthless competitive metas either don't know what an actually casual list is, or if they just never really play against it so they assume it's the same all the way down, and because they lose against 100 naked infantry backed up by Celestine and 8 basilisks they would also lose against a casual list that's just someone's collection that they've played for years. I don't know. But I can't agree with things I see the evidence against right in front of me every single week played across 5-10 tables.

Tyel wrote:
I would be surprised if Orks or other non-top tier armies ever got near the top unless they were lucky enough to get the first turn in most of their tournament games. Which may be unlikely for one player in one tournament, but isn't that unlikely with a large number of players in lots of tournaments. Having got the first turn they have a far greater chance of winning a game than they do going second. (I have no stats on this - but its what happens, and hard to see how it wouldn't).

Orks win more than I would have thought honestly, the FLG podcast goes through the statistics pretty exhaustively and have a huge amount of data they are pulling from, so clearly someone knows how to play greenskins and win.

Tyel wrote:
I suspect its because armies like Necrons do not really benefit from getting the first turn.

Necrons definitely have issues, however, they have won a tournament according to ITC.

Tyel wrote:
So the odds of them winning repeatedly to place in a tournament are so low its not happening.

But it is happening, the percentages are bad, for sure, but stating that they simply can't win is not true, they have.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
But it is happening, the percentages are bad, for sure, but stating that they simply can't win is not true, they have.

Is it?

I don't think I have seen a tournament with a Necron victor. Or Tau or DE.

tneva82 wrote:

Insularum wrote:
Even if we accept that aura blob-star is as powerful as the previous invisible/2++ re-roll-able invincible deathstars (IMO it isn't even close), its nowhere near as broken as some of the other current mechanics; for example since CA the clarification on character targeting has provided a practically unbeatable counter to the typical Guilliman parking lot or static gunline - an army of chaplain ven dreads with one or two deepstrikers dropping out of LOS. No auras required and would be free to navigate the table taking any/all objectives while casually returning fire as everything is a character with less than 10 wounds and therefore illegal to select as a target.

My take on this is that since psychic activity has shifted away from friendly buff casts (invisibility, endurance, prescience) to offensive power (smite, smite, smite), auras have moved into the power vacuum. This makes a wider range of characters compete for a place in your list so is in general good for the game.

How would that work? Isn't the unit out of LOS supposed to be closest target? In 8th ed getting unit reliably out of LOS at will seems awfully tricky proposition.

Using a supreme command detachment, fill up on chaplain dreads, use your elite slot for something cheap with a small footprint. For easy use play as Ravenguard and use your stratagem to infiltrate the elite slot unit into a hard to reach spot that is closer than the dreads. Duplicate this detachment until you hit the points limit, i.e. you can get 4 dreads with twin lascannon and another 5 with assault cannon plus two units of aggressors in three supreme command detachments for under 2000 points. There are plenty of cheaper single unit models in the elites slot available for space marines that could replace the agressors - but they have at least some staying power if the opponent has weapons that ignore line of sight.

It's back to rock/paper/scissors but a static gunline such as Guilliman and his razorbacks cannot win if they cannot shoot anything.