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 Galas wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I will pray to a god I don't believe in that the 0-3 restriction isn't true. Not because it actually affects me, but because its sucks and it does not fix anything.

What if it's 0-3 outside of Troops?

I still think its a patch that doesn't actually fix anything. Spam has always been a thing, even in Fantasy when armies where based in %, people spammed. The way to fix spam is to make interesting missions and victory conditions that favour TAC armies, not putting hard-caps.
And balancing units, not to a point where we have PERFECT balance, but a point where, even if you spam a unit that is mathematically more efficient, it will stil loss because they can't compensate the lack of tactical versatility with raw offensive power.

I think that's a pretty lofty goal. Maybe we need caps until all the books are out?

Do you have an example of a mission that might promote TAC? Is there any mission that might make someone using 54 or so Enlightened think twice? I'm not so sure.

If someone is using 54 Enlightened then thats because that unit has some of his stats so undercosted that it doesn't matter the lack of versatility to facing enemy targets, or being faced by the enemy, they still win by raw damage.

In reality, people should be able to spam. And some times, it could work. Just like a card game where someone uses one of those random decks based in things like burning down the cards of your opponent by making him overdrawn.
Sometimes you can auto lose if you play agaisnt a rush deck, but agaisnt a control deck you can actually win with ease.

Spam is a absolute viable strategy, the problem is when SPAM is the end of all things. That happens not when you can spam, but when you have units that are so good, you can win with ease just using them, no matter what you are facing. People need to understand that 8th is based around "combos". Armies aren't gonna look like armies in the end spectre of competitive.

The best kind of missions that promote more TAC lists are some like the Infinity ones where you actually need X kind of unit to make some of the objetives in the mission and score points. Yeah yeah I know Infinity faces also his own problems, like the Uber-Unit with a bunch of cheerleaders.

I think GW is doing well now based off the return of players to 8th edition, driving sales. Anecdotally, in my area, there is a real frenzy of returning players, not a influx of new players, some untapped number of people that suddenly jumped into wargaming.

Why did so many players return for 8th edition? I’d contend it was that finally a big chunk of people said the rules are in a better place. When I see people coming back they say fairly universally something about the rules.

There is a large group of people who like the beer and pretzel nature, and the models and fluff. But I don’t think that those guys left. They were always there.

Everything I see about GW seems to be driven by the reality of releasing Codex (proven drivers of Model purchases) and rules updates (another driver of purchases).

 Galas wrote:
If someone is using 54 Enlightened then thats because that unit has some of his stats so undercosted that it doesn't matter the lack of versatility to facing enemy targets, or being faced by the enemy, they still win by raw damage.

In reality, people should be able to spam. And some times, it could work. Just like a card game where someone uses one of those random decks based in things like burning down the cards of your opponent by making him overdrawn.
Sometimes you can auto lose if you play agaisnt a rush deck, but agaisnt a control deck you can actually win with ease.

Spam is a absolute viable strategy, the problem is when SPAM is the end of all things. That happens not when you can spam, but when you have units that are so good, you can win with ease just using them, no matter what you are facing. People need to understand that 8th is based around "combos". Armies aren't gonna look like armies in the end spectre of competitive.

The best kind of missions that promote more TAC lists are some like the Infinity ones where you actually need X kind of unit to make some of the objetives in the mission and score points. Yeah yeah I know Infinity faces also his own problems, like the Uber-Unit with a bunch of cheerleaders.

*adjusts glasses*

Excuse me, I'll have you know that only running five man tactical squads with no upgrades, uses power level, and highlander squads of every vehicle in the game from a different faction, using no stratagems or special rules, while also playing on a dinner table without terrain and all of my models are only from 1980 is the only real way to play warhammer, and everyone else is a WAAC jerk.

 Galas wrote:
If someone is using 54 Enlightened then thats because that unit has some of his stats so undercosted that it doesn't matter the lack of versatility to facing enemy targets, or being faced by the enemy, they still win by raw damage.

Sure, they're likely undercosted, but not by so much as to remove a significant portion - I could be wrong on that as I haven't spent time analyzing them.

In reality, people should be able to spam. And some times, it could work. Just like a card game where someone uses one of those random decks based in things like burning down the cards of your opponent by making him overdrawn.
Sometimes you can auto lose if you play agaisnt a rush deck, but agaisnt a control deck you can actually win with ease.

I don't disagree, but I think we need to have this conversation, because the possibility is real and instead of people flipping out (not you) we need to have some rational procedure. With card games there are more finite types of decks to worry about - I feel like there are more things you have to consider in Warhammer.

The best kind of missions that promote more TAC lists are some like the Infinity ones where you actually need X kind of unit to make some of the objetives in the mission and score points.

What stops the opponent from simply blowing the scoring units off the table?

If the opponent is blowing the scoring unis off the table he isn't destroying the rest of your army. Those are tactical decisions that make facing with a TAC army in a proper mission vs a SPAM army more engagin than just "Can he blow me up fast enough?"

I think that a cap on 3 units is a bloody great idea, as long as it excludes troop choices & transports. At the moment GW is having trouble with players leveraging certain units that are overpowered. They are rushing around trying to fix them, but there will necessarily be a lag on this. A hardcap means that even if a unit is unbalanced it has a limit upon how much it can skew the game. What's not to like? You can still run your crazy 100-Enlightened list in casual games, or competitions can lift the cap if they want to. But I bet you'd find no-one rushing to do so! I think it's one of those moves that will look obvious in hindsight.

 Galas wrote:
If the opponent is blowing the scoring unis off the table he isn't destroying the rest of your army. Those are tactical decisions that make facing with a TAC army in a proper mission vs a SPAM army more engagin than just "Can he blow me up fast enough?"

Maybe. I can't say without playing a proper rule set.

Those scoring units might most often be infantry. Wouldn't it behoove me to take fire raptors, wipe their infantry, and hold my scoring units in reserve? Their best choice is to hide their scoring units until it is tenable. Then we're sort of playing a games sans two or three units for the first 2 to 3 turns (if they can).

Can you think of a list that would suffer as a result of this? Do IG really need 15 mortar teams to be effective?

Here's a hint: Poxwalkers and Cultists are Troops. This'd do nothing to that list, for example.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Here's a hint: Poxwalkers and Cultists are Troops. This'd do nothing to that list, for example.

There are some rumored changes to Poxwalkers that would nerf them pretty sharply. Namely paying points among other possibilities.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

jcd386 wrote:
The very fact that they are coming out with a faq shows they are trying for balance...

FAQ are a new thing for GW. I acknowledge they are doing a better job at it in 8th. It's still being handled quite lackadaisical. This edition is already a year old and we are more unbalanced now than when we started. GW's sales are through the roof right now too!

When we started we didn't have THIRTEEN codexes.

We had 30 or something close index armies. It is literally the same thing when talking about from a balance prospective. Index 8th was a version of the game that was more balanced than the codex version.

I disagree. The Index version had worse balance and a lot less options.

Yeah, I think people are a bit too quick with the potential with a fix like this. Look if it's "no soup, no exceptions" and "0-3 non-troop units, no exceptions" then obviously there would be several armies heavily affected or rendered unplayable. But even if we assume this rumour is true, it's not like those statements earlier were written with some form of eloquence you'd find in a real rulebook (I know were going to get a somewhat snarky comment on language in rulebooks just because of that) so there could very well be exemptions to those rules.

Some armies would suffer from the 0-3 restriction, not that any detachments would be impossible to fill but it'd be a burden regardless. And soup would clearly have to be defined in a more nuanced manner since otherwise some minor factions just wouldn't work. Still, some people seem to think that if this rumour is true, then this would be the exact wording and that seems silly. GW is arguably at a crossroads here with how they want 8th to move forward but I don't see the harm in at least giving them the benefit of the doubt until the FAQ is out. If their solution turns out to be terrible, then by all means, continue to doom and gloom.

I personally didn't see anything wrong with the 5th edition detachment, and it limited elites, heavy support, and fast attack to 3 units each.

Limiting things to 3 of the same unit seems perfectly reasonable to me. Other than all bike or all terminator armies, I don't see this being a problem to any reasonable list, and maybe they could have some kind of exception.

5th also allowed most armies to heavily modify their FoC limitations, often based on your HQ selection.

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Really? It's not that hard to do? I'd love to see you try to balance everything in every codex and have it all come out balanced. It should be easier for you since you don't have to consult other people or worry about what is coming out in the next few months.
I expect a complete list of all units and options by the end of April since it's so easy.

Yikes, double ninja'd. And I agree I'd pay good money for a truly balanced game.

Yes, balancing a game this complex is incredibly hard. Take something that's gone through many iterations of balance (and still is), but is in a pretty decent place - like Starcraft - and consider how simple balancing it is compared to Warhammer. Only 3 factions and 2 resource types, maybe 30 total units in the game. Probably the only thing more complicated in SC is that you have more control over resource management in the form of workers/mining. And still it's not a perfect balance.

Now think about not only units and weapons, but that you have different melee/ranged weapons, detachments, scenario/deployment types, stratagems, psychic powers, and all coming across a couple dozen or so of factions...plus soup, so you have to consider how they'll interplay not only within their codices, but their armies. You also don't have as easy access to data from electronic matchmaking, so you're required to rely on tournament standings.

Now, I don't think it's an impossible task to balance it...or to get close to have like a 90% or so balance, where the most egregious offenders aren't hideous...but it's not nearly as easy as all of the salt here would make one think.

Actually magic is intentionally unbalanced (the colors are deliberately made different and better at different aspects of the game while being weaker at others). They do have some core rules they follow though - such as - no unit can have x power without paying y resource - unless it costs z life/discard cards ect.

Basically - magic has a fine tuned points system.
Basically - warhammer 40k does not.

IT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO MAKE THIS POINTS SYSTEM. I've stated this many times before - it is not hard to do - countless games have done it. GW is obviously not doing it. They just make points up out of thin air - which could also work if you actually attempted to guess better on points and didn't ignore obvious issues like "this unit is almost exactly the same as this one - but this unit costs 15 more points for no acceptable reason".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
I disagree. The Index version had worse balance and a lot less options.

The game is more balanced to you with -1 to hit army traits and stratagem levels ranging from space marines to eldar? Come on man - try harder.

 Galas wrote:
I disagree. The Index version had worse balance and a lot less options.

The index version of 8th edition is the worst 40k edition ever. All my armies were not top tiers in 7th edition and I have way more fun using them, even against eldar. I just hated playing against gladius SM because they were playing with 300+ points than me. Now with the new codex drukhari are playable once again, and not only as a super boring gunline with basically just anti tank.

I think armies need to be more efficient at certain things than others. IG should be able to flood the board with a decent gun line of GEQ or effective and cheap vehicles. Eldar should dominate hit and run tactics with bikes and what not, and have very specialized units. A chaos space marine cultist should be either a more expensive or not quite as good or well equipped guardsman. A space marine bike should be inferior in points efficiency to an Eldar jet bike. These are a few examples but you should get my point. Thats how you make armies interesting and different. Your justification for points should be, well my army is better at close combat than shooting so I should pay less points for choppy guys and more points for shooty guys. My tanks should be cheap and his tanks should be expensive but better. Things like that.

If the rumor of "imperial" not being a battleforged key word is true my guess would be that they are going to use words that allow for limited access to other books like "inquisition". This would allow for say SoB to be mixed with inquisitors and/ or maybe GK (depends on how wide they want the term inquisition to go). There may also be some key word that allows Custodes to work with Sisters of Silence.

I think people have unrealistic ideas about wargames and how they achieve balance.

Look at any wargame out their, the most balanced ones are those that do some combination of the following:

A. have a limited range of factions and/or units and/or unit types with extremely specific roles (Starcraft though not perfectly analogues fits here)

B. have a wider range of units, but have much more shallow rules differentiation across units of the same type (IE there might be 15 armies but all of their troops are essentially the same minus 1 or 2 minor differences across each). (KoW)

C. Comp IE have an extremely structured army creation ruleset allowing for less variety and including a lot of restrictions (IE 0-1 choices etc) (8th edition warhammer fantasy tourney scene)

D. Keep scale small (Mali, infinity, WM etc etc)

E. Institute significantly more complicated value systems in order to reflect nuance and thus point differentials better This is a combination of more intricate stat lines and introducing a more complicated combat resolution system than a d6 can accommodate. (Mali and infinity address this in completely different ways but are both good examples)

Notice how GW games prescribe literally none of the above restrictions, and in fact some of the largest appeal factors for 40k directly fly in the face of many of these. Many of the loudest voices I have seen on the forum are hard line against all of the things mentioned here yet somehow believe balancing the game to be easy... All actions have consequences, one of the chief consequences of a game with a giant model range promoting rich and freedom centric army builds, a large scale, and promoting the beer and pretzels nature of the game is the sacrifice of balance. Some of these design choices can be mitigated in one way or another by the above (Warhammer Fantasy despite major ruleset shortcomings had a significantly more balanced tournament environment because the community fully embraced Comp, not to say it was great, just better), but all of them mean a less balanced game period.

I have always advocated very strongly for community led comp systems, but the 40k community I have been found to be some of the most strongly against this idea. No game out their is truly well balanced from what I have seen, even those like WM and Mali that make it their business to be balanced and tourney friendly have major issues. KoW one of the more balanced games I have spent a lot of time with is also extraordinarily bland and not very engaging as a direct result of said balance. WM is cut throat to a crazy degree and has one of the more toxic in game environments I have experienced, nor is it very balanced. Mali is semi balanced but has an extreme learning curve, and unless you dedicate your life to it you will lose, constantly and relentlessly. What I am saying in a very long winded way is two fold: 1. Be careful what you wish for and 2. Balance is way harder than it sounds, and achieving it requires sacrifice, sacrifice, which if the comments on dakka are any indication most are not prepared for.

countless games have done it

I know I am going to regret this, but please name these games.

 Xenomancers wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Really? It's not that hard to do? I'd love to see you try to balance everything in every codex and have it all come out balanced. It should be easier for you since you don't have to consult other people or worry about what is coming out in the next few months.
I expect a complete list of all units and options by the end of April since it's so easy.

Yikes, double ninja'd. And I agree I'd pay good money for a truly balanced game.

Yes, balancing a game this complex is incredibly hard. Take something that's gone through many iterations of balance (and still is), but is in a pretty decent place - like Starcraft - and consider how simple balancing it is compared to Warhammer. Only 3 factions and 2 resource types, maybe 30 total units in the game. Probably the only thing more complicated in SC is that you have more control over resource management in the form of workers/mining. And still it's not a perfect balance.

Now think about not only units and weapons, but that you have different melee/ranged weapons, detachments, scenario/deployment types, stratagems, psychic powers, and all coming across a couple dozen or so of factions...plus soup, so you have to consider how they'll interplay not only within their codices, but their armies. You also don't have as easy access to data from electronic matchmaking, so you're required to rely on tournament standings.

Now, I don't think it's an impossible task to balance it...or to get close to have like a 90% or so balance, where the most egregious offenders aren't hideous...but it's not nearly as easy as all of the salt here would make one think.

Actually magic is intentionally unbalanced (the colors are deliberately made different and better at different aspects of the game while being weaker at others). They do have some core rules they follow though - such as - no unit can have x power without paying y resource - unless it costs z life/discard cards ect.

Basically - magic has a fine tuned points system.
Basically - warhammer 40k does not.

IT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO MAKE THIS POINTS SYSTEM. I've stated this many times before - it is not hard to do - countless games have done it. GW is obviously not doing it. They just make points up out of thin air - which could also work if you actually attempted to guess better on points and didn't ignore obvious issues like "this unit is almost exactly the same as this one - but this unit costs 15 more points for no acceptable reason".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
I disagree. The Index version had worse balance and a lot less options.

The game is more balanced to you with -1 to hit army traits and stratagem levels ranging from space marines to eldar? Come on man - try harder.

So, nobody was talking about M:tG, but it's cute that you think it's an apt comparison. Let's talk about that. So, you think that it's a good example of balance with a "fine tune points system." If you believe that's the truth, I've got a bridge to sell you. M:tG has a very long history of printing horridly unbalanced cards and creating a game that's increasingly powered, particularly with the constant addition of sets over time. I'm not sure how familiar you are with M:tG, but it's worlds away from having been balanced over time.

As you said, "try harder."

I'd also invite you, as you insist how easy it is to make a points system, to balance 40k. It's apparently very easy in your mind, so go do it. Prove us all wrong. You'd be a hero to the community! Put up or shut up.

I mean, that or people could just check your post history to see what your idea of "balance" is lol.

The community resistance to comp stems from no form of it hitting everyone equally.

There is a point I'd like to add to Tripchimeras' list

F) Ban (old) stuff.

Eventually your ancient library of options becomes unmanageable so you reduce it. Magic has a regular cycle like this but the warhammer community absolutely hates this idea.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
If the rumor of "imperial" not being a battleforged key word is true my guess would be that they are going to use words that allow for limited access to other books like "inquisition". This would allow for say SoB to be mixed with inquisitors and/ or maybe GK (depends on how wide they want the term inquisition to go). There may also be some key word that allows Custodes to work with Sisters of Silence.

I would hope that the Authority of the Inquisition would be reworded to make them work with any Imperium, or they fix their keywords or something. Either that or they may as well just get rid of inquisition altogether.

But then again, I don't think they're going to axe soup armies either.

 Earth127 wrote:
The community resistance to comp stems from no form of it hitting everyone equally.

There is a point I'd like to add to Tripchimeras' list

F) Ban (old) stuff.

Eventually your ancient library of options becomes unmanageable so you reduce it. Magic has a regular cycle like this but the warhammer community absolutely hates this idea.

Pfft. I'd play warhammer "formats" in a heartbeat.

"Legacy" tournaments using 5th-6th ed, or whatever the "Gold Standard" is ruled as.
"Standard" tournaments using the current edition.
"Highlander" evens with one offs, etc

LOVE it.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I disagree. The Index version had worse balance and a lot less options.

The game is more balanced to you with -1 to hit army traits and stratagem levels ranging from space marines to eldar? Come on man - try harder.

I'll say that it is more balanced than index. You have a couple of spikes here and there, but you pull those out and the vast majority of armies do fine. Orks & IK need love and i'm sure some others need some more tools to make more varied lists, but they can compete.

The one thing I want above all else is for them to take the BRB FAQ, the Stepping Into A New Edition of WH40K FAQ, and the Designers Commentary and roll them all into the Spring FAQ on top of whatever else they are adding. Having 3 separate FAQs for the main rules is asinine.

I would like to see a "last laugh" kind of thing implemented. To counter balance "first blood" which is, basically, one free victory point for the one who starts.

 godardc wrote:
I would like to see a "last laugh" kind of thing implemented. To counter balance "first blood" which is, basically, one free victory point for the one who starts.

Yea, ITC, Adepticon, & Nova have this. Both players can score first blood too, though.

Problem we have in 40k at a competitive level is some things are simply better than others. Its always going to be this way unless we start playing chess. GW cannot keep up this constant patching or nerfs or pts increases.

I'd suggest they come up with a competitive rating like they do for power and then that transforms in a tournament/matched setting to your opponent getting automatic extra VPs cmd pts or both. I cant see how its so hard to have a body like the ITC have a 2-3 page PDF per codex that is amended 4 times a year that takes the top units/combos and assigns a value to that which you tot up and note on your army list. Heck crap units could have - competitive points so a max unit of 20 chaos space marines might be -2 competitive pts

e.g. your competitive list score is say 10 because you took a bunch of dark reapers

mine is 5 because i took a load of tactical marines

I can use the difference in score for automatic X number of cmd pts or victory pts in our game.