Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I thought 7th was hot garbage. Mainly because of all the free crap and formations. You were stupid to not abuse the free stuff. That was part of gittin gud with 40k 7th... taking lists that gave you free models and as many as you could get by whatever way possible... be it formations or summoning. And then in the same breath complain about balance when free stuff was basically giving you +X points to your list for nothing and was designed TO unbalance the game via list building.

 Marmatag wrote:
Show me a Tyranids or Orks player who looks back fondly at 7th edition.

I look back at 7th edition fondly and primarily play Orks. I feel like I had a much larger variety of enjoyable builds available to me that had fairly equal chances of success. As I often say in topics, I don't play in tournaments and my group don't always run cutthroat lists but it isn't unusual to see lists designed to be particularly powerful. I've had my fair share of one-sided 7th edition games but I generally felt like my actions had a larger impact on the game than they do in some games of 8th. The game felt more interactive in my opinion, even if my results weren't always great.

I had an awful lot of complaints about 7th but I've also got a number of them about 8th and it seems to me that my issues with 8th have more of a negative effect on my enjoyment of the game.

That's all not very specifically about balance, though. When I'm trying to be objective it strikes me that 8th as a whole is probably more balanced than 7th as a whole. Or at least that the (codex-to-codex or index-to-index) faction balance is greater than last edition but the battles themselves tend to be as imbalanced as ever and usually decided by who gets the first turn.

My experience is limited however and all the above is of course my own opinion, I wouldn't want to seem like I'm belittling any other perspectives.

xlDuke wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Show me a Tyranids or Orks player who looks back fondly at 7th edition.

I look back at 7th edition fondly and primarily play Orks. I feel like I had a much larger variety of enjoyable builds available to me that had fairly equal chances of success. As I often say in topics, I don't play in tournaments and my group don't always run cutthroat lists but it isn't unusual to see lists designed to be particularly powerful. I've had my fair share of one-sided 7th edition games but I generally felt like my actions had a larger impact on the game than they do in some games of 8th. The game felt more interactive in my opinion, even if my results weren't always great.

I had an awful lot of complaints about 7th but I've also got a number of them about 8th and it seems to me that my issues with 8th have more of a negative effect on my enjoyment of the game.

That's all not very specifically about balance, though. When I'm trying to be objective it strikes me that 8th as a whole is probably more balanced than 7th as a whole. Or at least that the (codex-to-codex or index-to-index) faction balance is greater than last edition but the battles themselves tend to be as imbalanced as ever and usually decided by who gets the first turn.

My experience is limited however and all the above is of course my own opinion, I wouldn't want to seem like I'm belittling any other perspectives.

It's interesting that you say that you had more army variety when Orkz were completely mono-build last edition, until Ghaazkhul gave them a second mono-build. Orkz struggled against Sisters of Battle and Dark Eldar unless they built a super nob biker star, I'm not sure how you could have been having interesting games against real 7th edition armies when pretty much everything Orkz had except those two build was trash tier. My guess is that your opponents saw the dire straights you were and started throwing games whether through deliberate list changes or deliberately flubbing tactics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Irbis wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Ummm...what exactly is this "balanced infantry/vehicle mix" you're talking about for Marines, Tai or Guard? I don"t believe I've seen a single Rhino, Chimera, or non-Commander Crisis Suit since this edition came out, and those weren't even "tier 1" choices in the first place.

Really now?

Sigh. So much wrong I don't know where to start. In 7th, era of free razorbacks, Rhino didn't exist. Period. These days I see them sometimes used to transport 10 man units, which is more than you can say about last edition. Even in competitive, SM most common build is razorbacks per 1 troop unit. I often see quadlas Predators too, along with flyers, and dreads. Since when motorized/air cavalry list is not infantry/vehicle mix? And that is without ridiculous, broken crutch of gladius forcing you to do it, people do mix naturally, without being prodded.

Ditto for guard, please find me ONE pure infantry list getting anything in any tournament. Virtually all IG armies I saw in 8th were mixed, both in competitive and in casual games. Tau, too, I saw a lot of command tanks and other vehicles on tables once 8th landed, something that didn't exist at all in 7th. It was all mindless riptidewing/suit spam, something that is NOT balanced and I am glad it's gone. How can anyone without amnesia claim with straight face 'spam best unit, and best unit only' from 7th was in any way better, or even equal to 8th where I see varied, unique armies all the time instead of totally identical, cookie cutter lists (down to last upgrade in the case of eldar/admech) enforced by rulebook itself, I have no idea.

See, this is another problem, the difference in perspective. ONLY lions blade strike forces ever took more than 1 or 2 Razorbacks, the guns were too expensive and weren't any good. about 80% of Battlecompanies took Rhinos with grav cannons so they could use the white scars scout move and decimate.

The rest I agree with. SoB are Mech MSU, we've seen marines do all sorts of different builds with Stormraven, Centurions, asscan spam, IG does everything all at once. OH and Khorne Berserkers in rhinos in an Alpha legion detachment (cultist bomb) is the second strongest overall list archetype in the game right now.

I'm an ork player and i have 15 meganobz. I also am very tired of having to field exclusively boyz to pull a win. The problem is that even if vehicles suddenly get really good, i'll still have to either put a ton of bodies OR a ton of vehicles. In 7-th i could at least use cover and nightfight to mitigate alphastrike vs trukks. 7-th was more fun and tactical unless you played vs cutthroat tourney lists like a screamer star or flyrant spam.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Ummm...what exactly is this "balanced infantry/vehicle mix" you're talking about for Marines, Tai or Guard? I don"t believe I've seen a single Rhino, Chimera, or non-Commander Crisis Suit since this edition came out, and those weren't even "tier 1" choices in the first place.

Really now?

Sigh. So much wrong I don't know where to start. In 7th, era of free razorbacks, Rhino didn't exist. Period. These days I see them sometimes used to transport 10 man units, which is more than you can say about last edition. Even in competitive, SM most common build is razorbacks per 1 troop unit. I often see quadlas Predators too, along with flyers, and dreads. Since when motorized/air cavalry list is not infantry/vehicle mix? And that is without ridiculous, broken crutch of gladius forcing you to do it, people do mix naturally, without being prodded.

Ditto for guard, please find me ONE pure infantry list getting anything in any tournament. Virtually all IG armies I saw in 8th were mixed, both in competitive and in casual games. Tau, too, I saw a lot of command tanks and other vehicles on tables once 8th landed, something that didn't exist at all in 7th. It was all mindless riptidewing/suit spam, something that is NOT balanced and I am glad it's gone. How can anyone without amnesia claim with straight face 'spam best unit, and best unit only' from 7th was in any way better, or even equal to 8th where I see varied, unique armies all the time instead of totally identical, cookie cutter lists (down to last upgrade in the case of eldar/admech) enforced by rulebook itself, I have no idea.

1) Rhinos had Fire Points. It was possible to use them for firing Gravdevs out of. In 8th, transports simply to transport are fairly redundant since you have to be static to disembark from them, you can surround them...
2) In Guard, the vehicles you see are: Taurox Primes (not for actually transporting anything, but Gatling Cannons), and artillery of choice. Oh, and Sentinels are in for the "no deepstrike bubble." Because if you don't infiltrate or have chaff...you might as well not play if you're not turn 1.
3) Riptide and suitspam wasn't even that good. Other than Nanivati's nova list, it didn't actually take tournaments in 7th. Scrub harder.

If there was a real issue with 7th, it was the fact it introduced Maelstrom (Random objectives with random scoring), it had too many USRs and non-USRs, and the scoring system was still very "Rocket Tag." What won games in 7th was being able to draw objectives, turbo onto them, and score points before your opponent was allowed to do anything. A lot of this is unfortunately inherent in 40k being IGOUGO, and with the general increase in dice being thrown in 8th, IGOUGO's poor scalability shows even more than ever.

Bull, no tournament ANYWHERE used full maelstrom and even ITCs maelstrom so heavily mitigated the risk that it might as well been 'pick what you want to do.' Not that people didn't still whine about it.


No the problem with 7th WASN'T codex imbalance(although that made it super obvious) it definitely wasn't maelstrom(which is the most pathetic example of grasping at straws I've ever heard) it was SEVENTH EDITION. The rules were and ARE fundamentally broken down to their core, even in heresy. It has no meaningful tactics in 2 out of 4 phases. The psychic phase and assault phase were totally pointless, you couldn't do ANYTHING to have an impact on either. Oh, you cast all your psychic powers, I throw my 2 dice at invis, darn no boxcars, time for shooting. And assault was just 'Excel, but if it hated you.' Movement boiled down to 'move infantry into buildings and immobilize your vehicles' shooting was just 'blow up all his useless vehicles thanks to the doggak AV rules and then flail at whatevers left'. The edition was broken down to it's very core.

8th isn't perfect, but at least it works. (oh but heresy, dur dah hur. Oh yeah? Go try and play custodes in narrative game. They get one new army and the whole thing breaks down.)

I prefer 7th. I won't say it's more balanced, since Codexes were pretty damn poorly balanced, but the core system was a lot better.

TeAXIIIT13 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Show me a Tyranids or Orks player who looks back fondly at 7th edition.

I’m an ork player, all I play is 7th, won’t touch 8th with a 50 foot grabba stik, and for the record I play against eldar and tau (a lot) and have never had any trouble with them

Orks are actually doing far better in 8th than they were in 7th. But since you're beating Eldar in 7th edition with Orks it's safe to say you're not exactly playing competitive 40k. Or your opponent has never heard of "scatbike" or "wraithknight."

Well so far in 8th I didn't have to tailor lists before the game to create some balance. After playing against Necron decurion in 7h with chaos we realized that there was nothing I could do to win. That changed with Traitor Legions, though.
The best part about 8th is that I can put every model I like on the table or create a cool fluffy list and still stand a chance to win. Because decisions matter now, where in 7th mostly lists mattered and there hardly were any decisions to make.

Choosing psychic powers alone is a huge step forward. In 7th: "Oh, I rolled a 4 - that's invisibility." "Okay, you won, next game please."

 malamis wrote:
I'll point out that all the factions you've highlighted for 8th are the ones that have their codex out.

Games in 7th were absolutely decided by who got turn 1.

The formation shenanigans strangled the game because they were free upgrades, even outside of the one that actually did give free upgrades, and there was simply *nothing* that could be done about them.

Also, the existence of "look out sir" made character killing an exercise in face chewing frustration with the magical variable armour save. Now it's just "kill all these guys, then kill that guy" with enough options to skip the first step that win-button characters are not the grief they used to be.

If you ever feel nostalgic for 7th, remember the Skyhammer and then the War Con. And if that's not got you depressed enough, the Baronial Court.

What he said. 8th is not perfect but has expanded the variety of units on the table significantly. My Eldar friend has even remembered that the codex includes more than wind riders, wraith knights, and warp spiders.

We need to see how the rest of the codices come out. We still have major factions which are still in index which places them at a lower power level competitively just because they don't have expanded stratagem lists.

I got to play against a Decurion once, but got to play against Eldar several times, as well as different shades of Marine army. For me, the main advantage Chaos had was they could get ML 3 Psykers and Familiars; I ended up going down the Chaos Warband route, because what self-respecting Chaos player only takes a bunch of Cultists and a Primarch?

Anyway, the thing I miss most about 7th is the elimination of USRs and Psychic Power types altogether. Don't get me wrong, 80+ USRs is bad design, but so is relying on regex matching for weapon-types. Likewise, the elimination of Beam means you can end up with powers like:

The Blood Lance has a warp charge value of 6. If manifested, select a visible enemy model within 12" and draw a line between them and the psyker. Roll a D6 for each model the centre of the line passes over. For each roll of 5+ that model's unit suffers a mortal wound.

Ignoring the ambiguous syntax of "them and the Psyker" instead of "the enemy model and the Psyker," does "draw a line between" mean you draw a line segment connected from the Psyker to the target, or does "between" mean I can draw a line from one table edge to another, as long as the line is in "between" both models?

Is this Psychic Power technically considered an attack? If not, is it considered a simultaneous effect? Do the two "for-each" clauses mean that you could potentially square the number of casualties suffered, ala the 6E Pyrovore nuking an entire board? The beautiful thing about this? None of this can form a RAW precedent for similar situations, and RAI must always be inferred (or creatively assumed).

Or let's look at Daemonic Ritual: Instead of moving in their Movement Phase, any CHAOS CHARACTER may, at the end of their Movement Phase, attempt to summon a DAEMON unit with this ability by performing a Daemonic Ritual. Does "with this ability" mean the Chaos Character is using Daemonic Ritual to summon a Daemon, or does it mean that the Daemon has Daemonic Ritual, thus letting a Chaos Character use the Daemon's Daemonic Ritual to summon it? Clearly the fact all these non-character Daemons have Daemonic Ritual must be a typo: Otherwise, the ability would be called Summonable.

Or let's look at "Before deployment starts" versus "before the battle" leading to "can an Ultramarine Warlord roll to get CP back from the Relic Stratagem," ultimately leading to the question of whether a Warlord is considered alive before the battle.

And of course, Chapter Approved gave us revised Character targeting rules...

 Marmatag wrote:

TeAXIIIT13 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Show me a Tyranids or Orks player who looks back fondly at 7th edition.

I’m an ork player, all I play is 7th, won’t touch 8th with a 50 foot grabba stik, and for the record I play against eldar and tau (a lot) and have never had any trouble with them

Orks are actually doing far better in 8th than they were in 7th. But since you're beating Eldar in 7th edition with Orks it's safe to say you're not exactly playing competitive 40k. Or your opponent has never heard of "scatbike" or "wraithknight."

No I don’t play competitively and for good reason (the game was designed for narrative) and actually I go up against 2 wraith knights fairly often

Honestly I much preferred 7th. It was a much better game for me and my group which was helped largely by the fact nobody brought cheese.

Except one person we sometimes saw. But he was so bad it didn't matter.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Likewise, the elimination of Beam means you can end up with powers like:

The Blood Lance has a warp charge value of 6. If manifested, select a visible enemy model within 12" and draw a line between them and the psyker. Roll a D6 for each model the centre of the line passes over. For each roll of 5+ that model's unit suffers a mortal wound.

Ignoring the ambiguous syntax of "them and the Psyker" instead of "the enemy model and the Psyker," does "draw a line between" mean you draw a line segment connected from the Psyker to the target, or does "between" mean I can draw a line from one table edge to another, as long as the line is in "between" both models?

It's very obvious how this power works unless you try to misunderstand it on purpose.

Is this Psychic Power technically considered an attack?

8th clearly defines what an attack is - either one shot during the shooting phase or one strike during the fight phases.

If not, is it considered a simultaneous effect? Do the two "for-each" clauses mean that you could potentially square the number of casualties suffered, ala the 6E Pyrovore nuking an entire board? The beautiful thing about this? None of this can form a RAW precedent for similar situations, and RAI must always be inferred (or creatively assumed).

You might want to read this: https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2018/01/18/is-8th-edition-the-end-of-the-rules-abuser/
RAW non-sense is dying because GW actually tells us how rules work, unlike in 7th.

Or let's look at Daemonic Ritual: Instead of moving in their Movement Phase, any CHAOS CHARACTER may, at the end of their Movement Phase, attempt to summon a DAEMON unit with this ability by performing a Daemonic Ritual. Does "with this ability" mean the Chaos Character is using Daemonic Ritual to summon a Daemon, or does it mean that the Daemon has Daemonic Ritual, thus letting a Chaos Character use the Daemon's Daemonic Ritual to summon it? Clearly the fact all these non-character Daemons have Daemonic Ritual must be a typo: Otherwise, the ability would be called Summonable.

So the rule is bad because you don't like the naming?
Every CHAOS CHARACTER, unless his rules state otherwise, can summon DAEMONs with the Daemonic Ritual rule. DAEMON CHAOS CHARACTERs can summon copies of themselves if you roll high enough.
Nothing about this rule is unclear in any way unless you are being thick on purpose.

Or let's look at "Before deployment starts" versus "before the battle" leading to "can an Ultramarine Warlord roll to get CP back from the Relic Stratagem," ultimately leading to the question of whether a Warlord is considered alive before the battle.

Oh, yeah 7th had no rules with holes at all, and if any, they were FAQed. No, wait!
I bet I can name a broken rule in 7th for every rule you find in 8th. First up: what does Mob Rule do if you field a detachment or formation from Waagh! Ghazkull and roll a six?
Did you know that Waaagh! Ghazghkull had a 1500+ points formation which allowed Ghazghkull Thrakka to generate three additional warlord traits from a table which only contained two that had any effect on him?

And of course, Chapter Approved gave us revised Character targeting rules...

https://www.warhammer-community.com/faqs/

You should give that page a read before making a fool out of yourself with badly drawn pictures.

 Jidmah wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Likewise, the elimination of Beam means you can end up with powers like:

The Blood Lance has a warp charge value of 6. If manifested, select a visible enemy model within 12" and draw a line between them and the psyker. Roll a D6 for each model the centre of the line passes over. For each roll of 5+ that model's unit suffers a mortal wound.

Ignoring the ambiguous syntax of "them and the Psyker" instead of "the enemy model and the Psyker," does "draw a line between" mean you draw a line segment connected from the Psyker to the target, or does "between" mean I can draw a line from one table edge to another, as long as the line is in "between" both models?

It's very obvious how this power works unless you try to misunderstand it on purpose.

Is this Psychic Power technically considered an attack?

8th clearly defines what an attack is - either one shot during the shooting phase or one strike during the fight phases.

If not, is it considered a simultaneous effect? Do the two "for-each" clauses mean that you could potentially square the number of casualties suffered, ala the 6E Pyrovore nuking an entire board? The beautiful thing about this? None of this can form a RAW precedent for similar situations, and RAI must always be inferred (or creatively assumed).

You might want to read this: https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2018/01/18/is-8th-edition-the-end-of-the-rules-abuser/
RAW non-sense is dying because GW actually tells us how rules work, unlike in 7th.

Or let's look at Daemonic Ritual: Instead of moving in their Movement Phase, any CHAOS CHARACTER may, at the end of their Movement Phase, attempt to summon a DAEMON unit with this ability by performing a Daemonic Ritual. Does "with this ability" mean the Chaos Character is using Daemonic Ritual to summon a Daemon, or does it mean that the Daemon has Daemonic Ritual, thus letting a Chaos Character use the Daemon's Daemonic Ritual to summon it? Clearly the fact all these non-character Daemons have Daemonic Ritual must be a typo: Otherwise, the ability would be called Summonable.

So the rule is bad because you don't like the naming?
Every CHAOS CHARACTER, unless his rules state otherwise, can summon DAEMONs with the Daemonic Ritual rule. DAEMON CHAOS CHARACTERs can summon copies of themselves if you roll high enough.
Nothing about this rule is unclear in any way unless you are being thick on purpose.

Or let's look at "Before deployment starts" versus "before the battle" leading to "can an Ultramarine Warlord roll to get CP back from the Relic Stratagem," ultimately leading to the question of whether a Warlord is considered alive before the battle.

Oh, yeah 7th had no rules with holes at all, and if any, they were FAQed. No, wait!
I bet I can name a broken rule in 7th for every rule you find in 8th. First up: what does Mob Rule do if you field a detachment or formation from Waagh! Ghazkull and roll a six?
Did you know that Waaagh! Ghazghkull had a 1500+ points formation which allowed Ghazghkull Thrakka to generate three additional warlord traits from a table which only contained two that had any effect on him?

And of course, Chapter Approved gave us revised Character targeting rules...

https://www.warhammer-community.com/faqs/

You should give that page a read before making a fool out of yourself with badly drawn pictures.

A line segment is part of a line, but in itself is not a line due to being bounded by endpoints.

Euclid described a line as "breadthless length" which "lies equally with respect to the points on itself"

RAW, this means for a line to between two models, it would have to intersect with a segment drawn between both points. Geometry 101.

"With this ability" can either mean "can use this ability to summon a Daemon," or "can summon a Daemon that has this ability." English. The "by performing a Daemonic Ritual" is either game terminology or fluff that makes the RAI more ambiguous.

Note: I have posted my share of YMDCs for 7th too. For example, "Can I use Siphon Magic to store dice from turn to turn?" Because Siphon Magic didn't generate Warp Charge, but Tokens that could be spent by their owning model as Warp Charge, and there was no explicit discard pile (or universal rules for how Tokens work), you could argue that said Siphon Magic tokens can be kept in place on a model. Either way, the fact that there are no universal precedents, even within the scope of the FAQs (Keywords and Faction Keywords are functionally the same unless you're Daemons) means this ambiguity will continue to rear its head.

PS: That frontline article is drivel.

The highly sarcastic tone with which the Warhammer 40,000 community page takes when responding to some of the rules questions they get show the contempt with which they hold the abusive RAW arguments that often come up.

Might as well say "GW gets kicks from abusing their playerbase the moment they dare to ask for proper rules."

Don't know why Jidmah is opposed to making rules as clear and well-defined as possible.

Darsath wrote:
Don't know why Jidmah is opposed to making rules as clear and well-defined as possible.

Can't speak for him, but have you ever read the fine print?

Anither gripe i have with 8th is how useless summoning is.
Like OK i get it it was too good in 7th but why would i ever summon now when im having to pay full price for units that wont even get access to the buffs they get from being ran in a demons detachment? Overall 8th has some major issues. Now im not saying summoning should be free but summoned units should cost less points.

The best data I could find was at Best Coast Pairings. I've run the numbers so far for January, and there appears to be a surprising amount of balance, although it's a fairly small sample size. The only factions that really seem at all out of whack for balance are Asuryani and Ynnari, and not by much.

I'll try to run the numbers for last year as well to get a better picture of 8th as a whole. Unfortunately there are only about 2 and a half months worth of results from 7th up there, so it'll be a smaller sample relative to 8th when I get there. I'll also plan of adding in more results as they come.

I only looked at tournaments that had at least 20 players, of which there were 12. I looked at total players by faction that attended, made the top 10%, and made the top 4 of each tournament. Below is the standardized residual for each faction for making top 10% or top 4. This is basically showing how many standard deviations the actual results are off from the expected results. Positive numbers performed better than expected, negative performed worse. Anything from -2 to 2 is essentially in the "normal" or "well balanced" range, since it's effectively indistinguishable from completely random results (i.e. if all matches were decided by coin flips for all tournaments, 95% of the results would fall between -2 and 2), and most likely the result of dice rolls and player skill more than faction. Anything greater than 2 or less than -2 is statistically significant enough to safely say there's something about the faction itself causing it to over or under perform. Anything greater than 3 or less than -3 is seriously out of balance for that faction compared to everything else.

TL;DR:
-3.01 or less = Terrible
-3 to -2.01 = Consistently Bad
-2 to 2 = Average
2.01 to 3 = Consistently Good
3.01 or more = Overpowered

Faction______________Players__Top 10%___Top 4
Imperium_____________8______-0.89______-0.21
Adeptus Astartes______33______-0.22______0.03
Blood Angels_________22______-0.81______-1.27
Dark Angels__________14______-0.34______-0.87
Space Wolves_________4______-0.63______-0.83
Deathwatch___________2______-0.45______-0.55
Grey Knights__________5______-0.71______0.22
Astra Militarum________35_____ -0.8_______-0.51
Adeptus Mechanicus___13______-0.26______-0.71
Questor Imerialis_______4______0.95_______0.38
Adeptus Sororitas______4______0.95_______0.87
Chaos_______________5______-0.71______-0.91
Chaos Daemons_______6______-0.77______-1
Heretic Astartes_______30_____-0.46_______0.72
Death Guard__________29_____-0.53______-1.01
Questor Traitoris_______1______-0.32______-0.45
Orks_________________9_____-0.95_______-0.37
Aeldari______________17______1.76_______0.92
Asuryani_____________18______2.76______2.06
Drukhari______________6______-0.77______0.03
Harlequins____________3______-0.55______-0.63
Ynnari_______________8_______2.46______1.88
Necrons______________4______-0.6_______-0.69
T'au________________12______0.64_______0.97
Tyranids_____________23______0.92_______1.31
Genestealer Cults______1______-0.32______-0.45

Most factions came in within 1 standard deviation of the expected results, which is extremely well balanced overall between the factions. Keep in mind that this is less than 1 months worth of data, though, so it's only the most recent small part of the picture since 8th rolled out.

7th was bad. A list I would always crush with was: Psychic tank Ahriman, Screamer Star, summoning spam, and horrors galore. Nothing even remotely fun or balanced about that list. RIP 7th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
Anither gripe i have with 8th is how useless summoning is.
Like OK i get it it was too good in 7th but why would i ever summon now when im having to pay full price for units that wont even get access to the buffs they get from being ran in a demons detachment? Overall 8th has some major issues. Now im not saying summoning should be free but summoned units should cost less points.

Summoning is good when used right. It's a good reactionary tactic used to respond directly to lists. You being a full list but leave 400ish points free, and make sure your summoners are safe, then summon what is needed vs the opponent you are playing.

Medicinal Carrots wrote:
The best data I could find was at Best Coast Pairings. I've run the numbers so far for January, and there appears to be a surprising amount of balance, although it's a fairly small sample size. The only factions that really seem at all out of whack for balance are Asuryani and Ynnari, and not by much.

I'll try to run the numbers for last year as well to get a better picture of 8th as a whole. Unfortunately there are only about 2 and a half months worth of results from 7th up there, so it'll be a smaller sample relative to 8th when I get there. I'll also plan of adding in more results as they come.

I only looked at tournaments that had at least 20 players, of which there were 12. I looked at total players by faction that attended, made the top 10%, and made the top 4 of each tournament. Below is the standardized residual for each faction for making top 10% or top 4. This is basically showing how many standard deviations the actual results are off from the expected results. Positive numbers performed better than expected, negative performed worse. Anything from -2 to 2 is essentially in the "normal" or "well balanced" range, since it's effectively indistinguishable from completely random results (i.e. if all matches were decided by coin flips for all tournaments, 95% of the results would fall between -2 and 2), and most likely the result of dice rolls and player skill more than faction. Anything greater than 2 or less than -2 is statistically significant enough to safely say there's something about the faction itself causing it to over or under perform. Anything greater than 3 or less than -3 is seriously out of balance for that faction compared to everything else.

TL;DR:
-3.01 or less = Terrible
-3 to -2.01 = Consistently Bad
-2 to 2 = Average
2.01 to 3 = Consistently Good
3.01 or more = Overpowered

Faction______________Players__Top 10%___Top 4
Imperium_____________8______-0.89______-0.21
Adeptus Astartes______33______-0.22______0.03
Blood Angels_________22______-0.81______-1.27
Dark Angels__________14______-0.34______-0.87
Space Wolves_________4______-0.63______-0.83
Deathwatch___________2______-0.45______-0.55
Grey Knights__________5______-0.71______0.22
Astra Militarum________35_____ -0.8_______-0.51
Adeptus Mechanicus___13______-0.26______-0.71
Questor Imerialis_______4______0.95_______0.38
Adeptus Sororitas______4______0.95_______0.87
Chaos_______________5______-0.71______-0.91
Chaos Daemons_______6______-0.77______-1
Heretic Astartes_______30_____-0.46_______0.72
Death Guard__________29_____-0.53______-1.01
Questor Traitoris_______1______-0.32______-0.45
Orks_________________9_____-0.95_______-0.37
Aeldari______________17______1.76_______0.92
Asuryani_____________18______2.76______2.06
Drukhari______________6______-0.77______0.03
Harlequins____________3______-0.55______-0.63
Ynnari_______________8_______2.46______1.88
Necrons______________4______-0.6_______-0.69
T'au________________12______0.64_______0.97
Tyranids_____________23______0.92_______1.31
Genestealer Cults______1______-0.32______-0.45

Most factions came in within 1 standard deviation of the expected results, which is extremely well balanced overall between the factions. Keep in mind that this is less than 1 months worth of data, though, so it's only the most recent small part of the picture since 8th rolled out.

I did the same, including tournaments with 8 or more players. I also did it separately for December.

I confirm your results, apart from Ynnari and Aeldari the factions are having an equal share of wins. At least in January...
Believe me, you don't want to check December, that was some fine mess.
I will state it here, knowing that i will receive a lot of flat for it. Chapter Approved did wonders to the meta.

Darsath wrote:
Don't know why Jidmah is opposed to making rules as clear and well-defined as possible.

All the rules Magic Juggler claimed to be problematic are perfectly clear, except for the question of whether a warlord can use its traits before the battle starts.
Most of them could be written slightly more technical, but there is absolutely no question on how they work currently unless you are trying to misunderstand them on purpose of ignore the fact that FAQs exist.

There have never been as little problems with rules in 40k than they have now, due to more careful rule writing on GW's part, FAQs and their designers/community team responding to rule queries.

Therefore I call BS on anyone claiming that rule writing of 8th has a lower quality than 7th.

 Marmatag wrote:
Show me a Tyranids or Orks player who looks back fondly at 7th edition.

I'm an ork player and I don't look back fondly at 7th edition but I prefer it to the current ones. Simply because now I have way lesser options available even for casual games. With drukhari I have the same feeling, GW nerfed a lot of units without improving anything.

I had better results against the top tiers in 7th than in 8th so far. Without the codex drukhari and orks are almost unplayable for me, one-dimensional and too boring.

 Blackie wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Show me a Tyranids or Orks player who looks back fondly at 7th edition.

I'm an ork player and I don't look back fondly at 7th edition but I prefer it to the current ones. Simply because now I have way lesser options available even for casual games. With drukhari I have the same feeling, GW nerfed a lot of units without improving anything.

I had better results against the top tiers in 7th than in 8th so far. Without the codex drukhari and orks are almost unplayable for me, one-dimensional and too boring.

Aye, however at least in 8th edition you're looking at months until your new codex rather than waiting for years to possibly get one before a 9th edition drops.

 Overread wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Show me a Tyranids or Orks player who looks back fondly at 7th edition.

I'm an ork player and I don't look back fondly at 7th edition but I prefer it to the current ones. Simply because now I have way lesser options available even for casual games. With drukhari I have the same feeling, GW nerfed a lot of units without improving anything.

I had better results against the top tiers in 7th than in 8th so far. Without the codex drukhari and orks are almost unplayable for me, one-dimensional and too boring.

Aye, however at least in 8th edition you're looking at months until your new codex rather than waiting for years to possibly get one before a 9th edition drops.

As a DE player, we have been gutted from 5th to 6th, from 6th to 7th, and from 7th to 8th. I MISS 5th DE as an Army, that was amazing... i miss it a lot actually....

What is gone?

Units:
Asdrubael Vect
Lady Malys
Duke Sliscus
Kheradruahk
Baron Sathonyx
Harlequins (but thats ok)
Dais of Destruction

Gear:
Bladevanes
Grenades on most units (most xeno's lost this)
Retro jets
Chain snares
Grisly Trophies
Splinter racks
Enhance Aethersails
(we had Night and flicker fields, we only get 1 now)
Night Vision (not a big one, but still a rule that is gone that made us more unique)
PGL and TGL got rolled into 1
Vex Mask (a weaker Banshee mask)
Envenoms Blades (bladevanes for vehicles)
An actual WWP
Orb of Despair
Animus Vitae (something that was fun, helped PFP)
Casket of Flensing
Archangel of Pain (amazing piece of gear that would fit well in 8th, it was a -1 to hit 1 time use item)

What was nerf: (i mean actual hard nerfs, not really point changes)
Wyches (from 5th till now they are nothing like they used to be)
Splinter Cannons (1/2 the shots are gone)
Reavers (Took away the thing that made them special)
Bloodbrides (used to be weapons experts and able to each take a weapon, now only 1 per 5, so.. idk what their point is other than +4pts a model to gain +1 attack.)

Points nerf: Way to long to type lol.


I love 8th, it is for sure more fun with armies that uses ALL the phases, but as a DE player, i honestly want my 5th ed book back.

 Marmatag wrote:

TeAXIIIT13 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Show me a Tyranids or Orks player who looks back fondly at 7th edition.

I’m an ork player, all I play is 7th, won’t touch 8th with a 50 foot grabba stik, and for the record I play against eldar and tau (a lot) and have never had any trouble with them

Orks are actually doing far better in 8th than they were in 7th. But since you're beating Eldar in 7th edition with Orks it's safe to say you're not exactly playing competitive 40k. Or your opponent has never heard of "scatbike" or "wraithknight."

I am an Ork main and I absolutely prefer 7th to 8th. For me it has far less to do with game balance than it does the problem of the core game of 8th being shallow and boring. Also an army doing "better" isn't really better if your stuck with 1 viable strategy (spam all da boyz!) and basically anything with a ranged weapon (half the army) is absolute trash. The formations for Orks, while generally not great, did have a few gems that made Orks more interesting in 7th while once again in 8th the Ork rules are just really bland and boring.

 Marmatag wrote:


Orks are actually doing far better in 8th than they were in 7th.

This is true but only if you consider tournaments. Because those good results with orks are based around the fact that games are limited to three turns and the green tides (the only competitive style of playing orks) completely invalidate the enemy anti tank, which is mandatory against the majority of competitive lists.

In a casual game even a green tide can be countered quite well, by pretty much any army in the game, only drukhari can't really handle all those cheap bodies. And we had different lists that were mid tiers in semi-competitive metas in 7th, which are the ones I'm interested.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Amishprn86 wrote:



I love 8th, it is for sure more fun with armies that uses ALL the phases, but as a DE player, i honestly want my 5th ed book back.

Same feeling, I'd be pleased with something similar to 7th edition codex plus the coven supplement though

Wyches (from 5th till now they are nothing like they used to be)

Haywire grenade deliverers? I've never really seen the Wych Cults good even back in 3rd.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Wyches (from 5th till now they are nothing like they used to be)

Haywire grenade deliverers? I've never really seen the Wych Cults good even back in 3rd.

Compare to now lol, I'd rather have Cultists.... at least they really could tie up units, hurt vehicles, and even take on marines, now? Cant do any of that. You used to see Wyches on the table in 5th (and sometimes 2-3 units of them) and that was for Comp list.

 Jidmah wrote:

Darsath wrote:
Don't know why Jidmah is opposed to making rules as clear and well-defined as possible.

All the rules Magic Juggler claimed to be problematic are perfectly clear, except for the question of whether a warlord can use its traits before the battle starts.
Most of them could be written slightly more technical, but there is absolutely no question on how they work currently unless you are trying to misunderstand them on purpose of ignore the fact that FAQs exist.

There have never been as little problems with rules in 40k than they have now, due to more careful rule writing on GW's part, FAQs and their designers/community team responding to rule queries.

Therefore I call BS on anyone claiming that rule writing of 8th has a lower quality than 7th.

The elimination of USRs altogether prevents any rules from serving as precedent for another rule. Another difference was that previous editions from late 4th onward used the format:

Flufftext in italics describing what the power does.

Crunch plaintext describing how to resolve the power, with fluff (Chaos is Fickle!) the exception rather than the norm.

Versus the current format of plaintext containing crunch containing crunch and fluff, sometimes within the same sentence.

I counter-claim BS on rule-writing quality not being any lower. There is a reason "MOST PLAYTESTED EDITION" is a meme. 7th did not require a FAQ for squad coherency, one of the most basic rules of 40k, by simple merit of including a picture diagram of example legal/illegal configurations. "As a single group," had ambiguous context by contrast.

I do not get when people go "lalalalalalalala" when it is pointed out that informal rulewriting creates ammo for That Guy to turn the system into Rulelawyer Judge Judy.

I am amused by the attitude of "get the fluff out of my rules."

I find it as childish as

"Get the rules out of my fluff!"