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If you feels something else is the issue, let know I'll try to add it. I'm curios to see what this meta thinks.

Hard to say, but i'd say if you solve soup you will likely solve the CP issue in part as well as any creep.

Where is the "all of the above" option?

I gotta say hordes are to meta warping with the lose of stuff like AP5 and templates on bolters and flamers we got no real anti horde guns anymore. Anything shooting at a horde style model would kill more points stuff like SM or fire warriors when last edition the more expensive models would win in shot for shot with basic guns because they run the risk of getting hard counted by stuff like plaz unlike a horde.

I voted for the Horde Imbalance. I actually like armies that look like armies, and that troops are now the workforce of the armies instead of just a tax!

But for some armies that point has past and they are in the OP state. We need more efficient ways to kill hordes (That aren't at the same time, hordes of your own!)

Game length isn't so much of an issue for non-tournament players, but the game could most definitely be streamlined in areas. One of the biggest wastes of time in the game (and incredibly lazy game design) is rolling random shot amounts and random damage. Assign a set value to every single one of these weapons and you'd have a better idea of how to balance problem units/weapons and speed up the game.

Horde, CP and codex creep fall under a general balance umbrella for me, as a balance pass would address these issues simultaneously. Just about a top priority for me anyways.

I voted soup, because even if the game had better balance, I think army construction has jumped the shark. Allies have a place, and call me old and crotchety, but I genuinely miss armies that had a real identity with strengths and weaknesses. The ability to just pull whatever you want from wherever you want with very little (to no) drawback (and are in fact rewarded with some abilities) is hurting the game a lot. There's a compromise between the literal free-for-all we have and the rigid system of 5th.

Cat's out of the bag though. Restricting players won't ever happen now, even though I feel it makes for a much better game for pick ups, tourneys, and general guidelines. Players could then choose to ignore those restrictions between friends and campaigns.

The big issue for me is that faction traits/Chapter Tactics are really imbalanced. For example, why would someone not want to pick Alaitoc for that -1 to hit even if they are technically not playing an Alaitoc Craftworld? There is no parity between Chapter Tactic bonuses.

Terrain rules or lack thereof is my only complaint with the edition I think. So none of the above.
That being said I don't want 7th ed. terrain back, but terrain seems too unnecessary right now, it's mostly just for show if it doesn't block line of sight.

Those are all serious issues - I will go with the blanket answer though - codex creep. Though - I wouldn't really call it that. Codex power is really just all over the place - that is what they need to focus on first.

 Eldarsif wrote:
The big issue for me is that faction traits/Chapter Tactics are really imbalanced. For example, why would someone not want to pick Alaitoc for that -1 to hit even if they are technically not playing an Alaitoc Craftworld? There is no parity between Chapter Tactic bonuses.

I think thats a problem with the -1 to hit trait. Just look at any codex that doesn't has that trait, people instantly see the other traits as usefull and start thinking tactics to how to use them, and lists.
If a codex has the -1 to hit strat it comes down to:

"Do some subfaction has a OP special character like Guilliman/Abaddon/Cawl?
If the answer is NO: Pick the -1 to hit trait"

 Galas wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
The big issue for me is that faction traits/Chapter Tactics are really imbalanced. For example, why would someone not want to pick Alaitoc for that -1 to hit even if they are technically not playing an Alaitoc Craftworld? There is no parity between Chapter Tactic bonuses.

I think thats a problem with the -1 to hit trait. Just look at any codex that doesn't has that trait, people instantly see the other traits as usefull and start thinking tactics to how to use them, and lists.
If a codex has the -1 to hit strat it comes down to:

"Do some subfaction has a OP special character like Guilliman/Abaddon/Cawl?
If the answer is NO: Pick the -1 to hit trait"

I admit that it is the most egregious trait.

I voted Hordes.
I do appreciate how the game has morphed into one that seems designed to push dozens, and dozens, of the same models, with the best counter to bring your own horde. But only in the same way as I'd appreciate a magician using slight of hand to steal my wallet whilst showing me a fancy card trick.

As a casual player, Codex Creep is the major issue for me imo.

Frankly I do like being able to make soup from a fluffy perspective. Allows me to collect small detachments from multiple factions and still make viable armies with them, but I do understand some people's concern about it.

Terrain. There's barely any point using it atm, which is a huge shame.

I think the biggest problem is a combination of CP and Soup and it's a simple fix.

Make each detachment's CP exclusive to that detachment. That gives you 3 CP to float anyway you like, this ends the AM / IG battery and other batteries.

Simple builds to fill a brigade become useless because there are few stratagems that can abuse a minimum cost brigade. If anyone wants to build a brigade it'll end up with a lot of different elements to use all those different stratagems.

I voted Soup, but I'd like to change to Codex Creep. The rest of the issues, while there are some definite issues, all revolve around competitive play.

Horde Imbalance: I don't think this is really an issue. It's a side-effect of the game's mechanics finally giving Infantry a leg-up, which they needed in order to stay relevant. Point-wise, I think we see a really good balance between the amount of infantry and the amount of non-infantry in the game. I think that both visually and strategically, the power blance of infantry right now is the best it's ever been, and there isn't much here I'd like to see changed. Chances are, any perceived imbalance is merely because there are a few outliers that happen to be infantry, rather than stock abilities of infantry as a whole being what's causing any problems.

Game Length: This is more a problem of what people are trying to do with the game rather than the game itself. We're trying to stuff 2000 point games, which are "bigger" than they've ever been, into a 2.5 hr match. People on kitchen tables or at a friend's place don't care if that match takes 4hrs, they're having fun. The only place it matters is in a setting where the amount of time you have left to play matters. In this sense, there's little GW could do by the rules. They could encourage lower point games, but let's be honest, there's no real chance of that happening.

CP Play: Yeah, this is somewhat an issue. But it's mostly a part of Codex Creep, so I'm just going to jump into that.

Codex Creep: Not really "creep" so much as "in-codex and out-codex imbalance". There are too many Chapter Traits/Craftworld Traits/whatever that are nearly useless outside of fluff reasons, because there are other ones in the same book that are sky-high awesome. Biggest culprits here are Raven Guard, Alpha Legion, and Alaitoc. -1 to hit outsid 12 inches isn't OP, but it is vastly better than the other options in the codex. The only exception to this is Ultramarines, because they have access to Gulliman, but competitively that's the only reason people play Ultra. I think the recent Necrons and Dark Eldar codexes show that GW can make really awesome traits that are hard to choose between. Really, it feels like things started turning around the time of the Imperial Guard, who have two very good choices (Cadians for more accurate shooting, Catachans for more shots). I'd like to see an FAQ power up some of the unseen traits. Outside of traits, I think the units each faction is bringing to the table are pretty on point for the most part, with some exceptions that will keep cropping up, because that's the nature of whack-a-mole. Same goes for stratagems, where earlier codexes tend to have worse stratagems. It's only natural, because they didn't know the game as well back when it was first being released as they do now a year in, but it'd be nice to see some updates to things to bring them more in line.

Soup: Again, this is more a problem competitively rather than casually, but even still, it's annoying to have to bring so many books to a game. A Chaos or Imperial list might be bringing 6 books with them (Rulebook, Chapter Approved, Codex 1, Codex 2, Codex 3, Forgeworld), plus FAQ's. That's too much man! Some "encouragement" rather than rules changes, like GW hosting tournaments where you have to be faction-pure or close to it, would be all that is required to start shifting the common practise back into line.

Horde, cp, and codex creep

 Yarium wrote:
It's a side-effect of the game's mechanics finally giving Infantry a leg-up, which they needed in order to stay relevant. Point-wise, I think we see a really good balance between the amount of infantry and the amount of non-infantry in the game..

Just a follow up question, what is the proper balance between infantry and vehicles in a game?

 Blacksails wrote:
Game length isn't so much of an issue for non-tournament players, but the game could most definitely be streamlined in areas. One of the biggest wastes of time in the game (and incredibly lazy game design) is rolling random shot amounts and random damage. Assign a set value to every single one of these weapons and you'd have a better idea of how to balance problem units/weapons and speed up the game.

Horde, CP and codex creep fall under a general balance umbrella for me, as a balance pass would address these issues simultaneously. Just about a top priority for me anyways.

I voted soup, because even if the game had better balance, I think army construction has jumped the shark. Allies have a place, and call me old and crotchety, but I genuinely miss armies that had a real identity with strengths and weaknesses. The ability to just pull whatever you want from wherever you want with very little (to no) drawback (and are in fact rewarded with some abilities) is hurting the game a lot. There's a compromise between the literal free-for-all we have and the rigid system of 5th.

Cat's out of the bag though. Restricting players won't ever happen now, even though I feel it makes for a much better game for pick ups, tourneys, and general guidelines. Players could then choose to ignore those restrictions between friends and campaigns.

If they streamline 40k any more its going to be fething checkers lol.

LunaWolvesLoyalist wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Game length isn't so much of an issue for non-tournament players, but the game could most definitely be streamlined in areas. One of the biggest wastes of time in the game (and incredibly lazy game design) is rolling random shot amounts and random damage. Assign a set value to every single one of these weapons and you'd have a better idea of how to balance problem units/weapons and speed up the game.

Horde, CP and codex creep fall under a general balance umbrella for me, as a balance pass would address these issues simultaneously. Just about a top priority for me anyways.

I voted soup, because even if the game had better balance, I think army construction has jumped the shark. Allies have a place, and call me old and crotchety, but I genuinely miss armies that had a real identity with strengths and weaknesses. The ability to just pull whatever you want from wherever you want with very little (to no) drawback (and are in fact rewarded with some abilities) is hurting the game a lot. There's a compromise between the literal free-for-all we have and the rigid system of 5th.

Cat's out of the bag though. Restricting players won't ever happen now, even though I feel it makes for a much better game for pick ups, tourneys, and general guidelines. Players could then choose to ignore those restrictions between friends and campaigns.

If they streamline 40k any more its going to be fething checkers lol.

I'm hoping you're just making a joke about 40k's depth (lack thereof), but just to be clear, the actual resolving of some mechanics can be streamlined without further loss of depth, like my dice rolling example.

I think the Command Point mechanism could do with some tweaking, probably, and I’d probably like to see some unit profiles tweaked to make them “feel” right, but I shan’t be losing any sleep over either. I don’t play in the kind of environment where people are trying to stretch the rules to breaking point though, so the other things aren’t really issues for me.

When it comes to the stuff that only becomes a problem in a hyper-competitive environment though, I rather feel like the onus should be on event organisers, etc to impose additional restrictions or whatever to mitigate these problems, rather than “regular” 40K having to adapt to people deliberately trying to break it/game the system

It might not be the most popular opinion, but I feel the faq helped in several places. (this is based off that the rule of three is implemented, the Beta matched play rules Tactical Reserves, and Battle brothers implemented, the interim point review is also implemented.) In the most concerning to least, my thoughts..

I think Soup was helped. I was never in the ban soup. I just wanted it toned down. I realize that some people would say that in some specific instances it not changed at all. But I think between Rule of three in 2K points, 3 detachments limit in 2K points, and some of the point cost changes, and the fact that some allies do not provide any CP’s, there is some nerfing there. I went and looked at each of the top 16 lists in Adepticon, and most of them would be changed due to these rules. Seems like GW did well here and I’m eager to see how people adapt.

Horde imbalance. Between the rule of 3, Tactical Reserves rule, and maybe some of the point changes, there might be some lessening of this effect? Maybe? I would still prefer that GW address some of the anti horde weapon imbalance. I’ve advocated that some weapons should get more shots when shooting at larger units. Heavy flamer shooting at a unit with 10+ models? Goes to 2D6 attacks. Demolisher gun shooting at 10+ models? Goes to 1D6+ 3 attacks. Things like that.

Codex Creep. I feel optimistic here. Not enough was done, it was more some peaks were knocked off, and I’d say some of the lower power dexs took some hits that were not needed (sorry Iron Hands, G Knights), but I was grateful to see Flyrants and Dork Reapers, and Gulliman take some leveling. I would have preferred to also see some of the bottom raised up to go with the top getting lowered, but I’ll take a start as a start. Keep going GW.

Game Length. Not sure this FAQ did anything to help with this. Maybe some of the options forced by the rule of three might make some games quicker (looking at you Orks and Guard) But I don’t think it will do that much.

CP game play. Well… On one hand… Some Stratagems are nerfed. On the other, almost everyone gets more CP from the detachment rebranding? So meh? Not a big push in this.

Overall, I’m positive about the FAQ helping with game play. I think they were doing it right in that they are slow to make big changes, and being deliberate. I do feel it was a mistake not to try to bring up some of the stuff on the bottom a little. Simple stuff like lower the cost for Terminators from 40 points a model to 38 to see what happens. Or a Knight be 10 points to see how they change. I would have liked to see some of that type of stuff.

The fact they can't write beta rules to save their lives.

Not a major issue, but it would be nice if Marines that are non codex would have a way to make a Chapter Master using army points instead of 3CP, which also doesn't take into account Masters are usually a bit tougher in other areas as well. I'd love to have a Chapter Master for Imperial Fists to be guiding artillery strikes from the back end of things, or Iron Hands. Oh well.

Sloppy RAW vs RAI is my big one. How do "out of phase" abilities actually work. What does "with this ability" mean, etc.