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I could be wrong, but to the absolute best of my knowledge, GW has not yet released any competitive rules for 40K. So, it's up to the Tournament Organizer as to what the competitive rules are. So, one of the former posters is correct, casual Warhammer is the only Warhammer (at least in 40K) as there are no competitive rules that have been released by GW (that I'm aware of). So, of course Beer & Pretzels Warhammer can exist. Technically speaking, it's the only kind there is.

AoS is different in this respect in that GW did release competitive rules in the General's Handbook.

SG

Yes.....yes they have it's called matched play dude lol.

Torunoment orginizers have always had house rules. And there are more this Ed because GWs rules department has gone down hill. So rules like first floor blocking Los are common.

Why are we talking about the competitive scene?

Somehow we've taken a fairly fun concept of a casual game and gone fully into the realm of trying to debate it in terms of how it would compare to the competitive side of the game and the formal balanced side?

Somewhere along the line I think we've lost sight o the purpose of this idea and concept and warped it into another "balance" discussion

 Overread wrote:
Why are we talking about the competitive scene?

Somehow we've taken a fairly fun concept of a casual game and gone fully into the realm of trying to debate it in terms of how it would compare to the competitive side of the game and the formal balanced side?

Somewhere along the line I think we've lost sight o the purpose of this idea and concept and warped it into another "balance" discussion

Quite right! I have lost track of this discussion now.
And if anyone is reading the thread and is angry, it might be good to go back and read the opening post again, because there is really nothing to get angry about here!

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Yes.....yes they have it's called matched play dude lol.

Matched Play isn't Competitive Rules. To the absolute best of my knowledge, GW has not yet released any Competitive Rules for 40K.

SG

 Overread wrote:
Why are we talking about the competitive scene?

Somehow we've taken a fairly fun concept of a casual game and gone fully into the realm of trying to debate it in terms of how it would compare to the competitive side of the game and the formal balanced side?

Somewhere along the line I think we've lost sight o the purpose of this idea and concept and warped it into another "balance" discussion

Because the game is balanced around competative play. Because majoirty of 40k players are playing to win in some fashion. So it can't not be talked about in a thread like this. Competative play is the driving factor. Why do you think you always see sales in armies that are winning tournaments? Why is it that basalisks were sold out for months when guard codex dropped? Or how everyone suddently had ass ton of dark reapers, or how Tau commander boxes were flying off the shelf. Because competitive is what drive the machine that is GW people will buy what wins because most people don't have fun loosing.

 Kharneth wrote:
The point of the game isn't for a fair, balanced fight, but rather a true and brutal war of Chaos vs Imperium where we get to see which side has the better force.

Why bother playing the game to do this? Just add up the total point cost of the models owned by each player, and the side with the highest total is the winner. That's probably going to be the outcome on the table, and it saves you the trouble of playing a one-sided game where half the players know they have zero chance of accomplishing anything besides removing casualties until they run out of models to remove.

 ServiceGames wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Yes.....yes they have it's called matched play dude lol.

Matched Play isn't Competitive Rules. To the absolute best of my knowledge, GW has not yet released any Competitive Rules for 40K.

SG

They have, matched play ARE the competative rule set. Matched play is what introduces rules of one and such. Because outside of matched I can cast the same power over and over which will get broken on a competitive level, so, they put matches rules in to curb stuff like that. It's literally implies in the name. Matched, ie competative

I want you to go read page 173 of the brb which is introduction to matched play and tell me how that is not competitive. It literally says in a balanced format where no one has an advantage.

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 Peregrine wrote:

 Kharneth wrote:
The point of the game isn't for a fair, balanced fight, but rather a true and brutal war of Chaos vs Imperium where we get to see which side has the better force.

Why bother playing the game to do this? Just add up the total point cost of the models owned by each player, and the side with the highest total is the winner. That's probably going to be the outcome on the table, and it saves you the trouble of playing a one-sided game where half the players know they have zero chance of accomplishing anything besides removing casualties until they run out of models to remove.

Hey you heard the guy it's not about balance. So he will be totally fine with me spamming Magnus, 9 Daemon princes that will all cast warp time to get into combat turn one.

No one has fun it over and over you are getting tabled because at that point why would I even wanna put a model on the table just to watch them.die.

If we're talking about collaborative list building for a scenario then this can be more balanced than points (balancing the two armies specifically against each other and within the context of the mission).

OP's group seem to be suggesting just take whatever. This might work with a group of friends that have been doing this for a long time but in any other circumstances you really want some guidance on size and power.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Suggestions that removing points to balance is an aweful idea. And the whole notion, "well it's about having fun ! " Yes it is but points allow the fun to be had by both. Because bringing 2k to a 1500 point army is going to be fun for one person.

Points are needed for a reason. Idk why but as of late there seems to have been this massive push for getting rid of points and I don't understand it. It seems to be a theme very common with new table top players as well, just in my observations.

Narrative games can be fine but you still need something to balance it out. Points have to exist.

You do realize that there is nothing inherently balanced about both sides bringing 1500 points. There is no guarantee that it would be any more balanced than one person bringing 2k and the other 1500. If I bring a tournament tuned 1500 points, and you bring a mish-mash of trash at 2k. You are still likely going to be owned. The 500 extra points won't matter. You are making an assumption that both players are bringing equally tuned list. Players do outside of "points' balancing all the time (or at least I have) where someone brings extra units to make the game more fair, or plays points down (at that point why the points? because you know being 100 points down is the exact point of balance?) or doesn't bring certain units to face a newer/weaker player.

Points do not have to exist to balance a game, in fact they in no way actually achieve doing so unless both players are already balancing the game using some other metric than straight points. Whether that be min-maxing (the only place where points matter most and actually show some sort of balance, when both players only run the best units for their points), or self comping.

Points need to exist to facilitate easier pick up play, and blind competitive play (don't know tables, opponents etc.). They also make the players work of self balancing a bit easier to do. They are overall a good thing to have available. But they aren't necessary to have a good competitive game if both player put work into balancing that game. In fact sometimes they are a detriment to a good game because people (such as you are here) beleive that somehow 1500 v 1500 is a balanced game no because the points are equal. If you believe that lets play a game with no cover, and you bring 1500 points of primaris marines, and I'll bring 1500 points of dark reapers. It will totally be fair right because the points are the same.

That's then an argument that not all armies are balanced which I agree but that's why points exist to balance out those armies. I agree 2000 points of guard does not equal 2000 points of space marines BUT that's what points are for. To balance that and to have them adjusted to deal with it.


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Can you give me one example of a table top game with multiple factions that does not have a point system of some kind that is played at a competative level?

I’ve tried these games, and I’m not a fan. It’s either too involved to be really casual, too unbalanced to retain your attention, or both.

Narrative games are actually really hard to do right, especially if you’re going for asymmetrical missions. If anything telling an engaging story on the tabletop requires more rather than less balancing. They’re my favorite kind of games to play, but they DO require more rather than less work, in the same vein an RPG would.

Now, as for wanting it to just be super casual, I’ve found there to be far better games. Setting up and playing a big game of 40k is no joke, and it takes hours and requires your attention. If I just want to relax, hang out on game night, have a few glasses of wine, etc... I reach for my board games. My personal preference are cooperative games like mansions of madness, or at least much faster games like X Wing at the most.

Disclaimer: I’m by far the driver for games among my friends and family. So 90% of anything I do, from setup to supplying miniatures falls on me. I could see if you had a group of gamers where the work and upkeep of games was evenly spread out it would work out better.

Breng77 wrote:
You do realize that there is nothing inherently balanced about both sides bringing 1500 points. There is no guarantee that it would be any more balanced than one person bringing 2k and the other 1500.

Two issues:

1) There isn't a guarantee, but it's sure a lot more likely. Yeah, you could have 1500 points of tournament list vs. 2000 points of trash, but you could also have 1500 points of trash vs. 2000 points of tournament list. Setting the point limit the same for both players limits how far out of balance things can get. Stop using the straw man of perfect and guaranteed balance.

2) You're limiting the disparity in your example. Why only a 500 point gap? You aren't using points, getting to even 500 points of gap is pretty optimistic. Why not discuss a more representative no-points game, 1500 points vs. 5000 points? At that level of disparity it doesn't matter how optimized you are, the winner is the player who has the bigger army.

I agree that narrative games are much harder to balance. For example, strong hold assault, the attacker needs like an additional 1000 points of units to be viable


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You know what let's balance the game off of wounds.

You take 3 knights, that's 72 wounds I'll take a reaver I only have 60 wounds so it's totally balanced.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
That's then an argument that not all armies are balanced which I agree but that's why points exist to balance out those armies. I agree 2000 points of guard does not equal 2000 points of space marines BUT that's what points are for. To balance that and to have them adjusted to deal with it.


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Can you give me one example of a table top game with multiple factions that does not have a point system of some kind that is played at a competative level?

You need it for competitive play, that doesn't mean the game in a setting where you are not blind to your opponent going in could not be more balanced using a method other than points. I have never thought no points could be a competitive format. For what its worth though your answer is Shade Spire. But it has not army building component.

You are also missing the point. We could both play marines at 2000 points and have a completely unbalanced game. Not all units are of equal points efficiency. Points also don't account for player skill. If you are a much better player with access to more models than I have, chances are your 2k list is better than mine, and even if they are close the game might not be because you are a better player..


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 Peregrine wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
You do realize that there is nothing inherently balanced about both sides bringing 1500 points. There is no guarantee that it would be any more balanced than one person bringing 2k and the other 1500.

Two issues:

1) There isn't a guarantee, but it's sure a lot more likely. Yeah, you could have 1500 points of tournament list vs. 2000 points of trash, but you could also have 1500 points of trash vs. 2000 points of tournament list. Setting the point limit the same for both players limits how far out of balance things can get. Stop using the straw man of perfect and guaranteed balance.

2) You're limiting the disparity in your example. Why only a 500 point gap? You aren't using points, getting to even 500 points of gap is pretty optimistic. Why not discuss a more representative no-points game, 1500 points vs. 5000 points? At that level of disparity it doesn't matter how optimized you are, the winner is the player who has the bigger army.

You are missing the point as well. It is not any more likely to produce a close game without some other form of list building balance in play. It only works if both people are trying/able to build a tournament list. It isn't a strawman, when my argument is that you can have as much or more balanced game without points than you can with them, and using them is not the thing that ensures balance in your game. Your second argument is the strawman here, I have stipulated that any balance in a "no points" game requires effort on the behalf of both players and that points are required for a blind pick-up style game, which is why they exist. Your issue in every instance of a discussion about using something other than points is the same. You cannot imagine people play the game in a way other than they way you do. As for 1500 and 5k. Again that depends on the game. Arguabley a game close to that with 5 Ork stompas and 3 Shadow swords could be reasonably balanced.

My argument is as follows just so you are clear

1.) Points are needed and exist to allow for pick-up/tournament style play where you are somewhat blind to your opponents army prior to the game, and don't have (or want to make) time to do a better job balancing the game.
2.) Points in and of themselves in no way ensure a balanced game. The only thing that can make them come close is the players, if players don't have a similar mindset, or make accommodations within the usage of points it is highly likely for games to be onesided.
3.) If players know each other well, and each others armies, it is entirely possible to set up a more balanced game than points allow, but this requires a great deal of effort and knowledge on the part of the players. This makes it undesirable to many players.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 ServiceGames wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Yes.....yes they have it's called matched play dude lol.

Matched Play isn't Competitive Rules. To the absolute best of my knowledge, GW has not yet released any Competitive Rules for 40K.

SG

They have, matched play ARE the competative rule set. Matched play is what introduces rules of one and such. Because outside of matched I can cast the same power over and over which will get broken on a competitive level, so, they put matches rules in to curb stuff like that. It's literally implies in the name. Matched, ie competative

I want you to go read page 173 of the brb which is introduction to matched play and tell me how that is not competitive. It literally says in a balanced format where no one has an advantage.

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 Peregrine wrote:

 Kharneth wrote:
The point of the game isn't for a fair, balanced fight, but rather a true and brutal war of Chaos vs Imperium where we get to see which side has the better force.

Why bother playing the game to do this? Just add up the total point cost of the models owned by each player, and the side with the highest total is the winner. That's probably going to be the outcome on the table, and it saves you the trouble of playing a one-sided game where half the players know they have zero chance of accomplishing anything besides removing casualties until they run out of models to remove.

Hey you heard the guy it's not about balance. So he will be totally fine with me spamming Magnus, 9 Daemon princes that will all cast warp time to get into combat turn one.

No one has fun it over and over you are getting tabled because at that point why would I even wanna put a model on the table just to watch them.die.

Y'all are both making a lot of assumptions. You don't even know which side has more points. I don't even know which side has more points. The point of this, to me, is to see which side is superior in our group of gamers. We're split pretty evenly among all of us. We have two Chaos-only players, a Chaos and Imperial player, a Tau player, an Imperial Guard-only player, an Imperial-only player, and a guy who plays almost all the armies. The point is to put all of the Chaos units that we can field against all of the Imperial (plus allies) forces that they can field, and see what happens. The point is to see which force is more powerful in our gaming group - the Chaos or the Imperium. I hope to do this again next year to see how the forces have grown and evolved.

I'm frankly pretty worried because our IG player has like 20+ Leman Russes, a Baneblade, and a Stormlord and I know the imperials have an Imperial Knight. Us Chaos players don't have any titans... all we have is my Kytan Ravager.

What would be literally no fun is adding up the points and saying whoever has the most points wins. What would be really fun is trying to overcome greater odds. History is full of asymmetric battles with surprising results. Dice are fickle. None of us are competitive players. None of us have ever played with this many points before. There is no telling what could happen. Your assumptions that just because there is no points limits that one side will clearly be superior to the other is flawed. I have no idea which team will have more points, and that's the point. We take what we have and we do what we can.

I'm even considering the idea of giving some players or team extra Command Points depending on how things look. There are so many balancing factors outside of points. We might give the Imperial team a large fortification to use and defend. Like set them up in a nice castle-esque structure that the Chaos force will siege.

Sometimes this game is fun because you play balanced lists against balanced lists and it's about strategy and effective playstyles, other times it's fun to play because you love the lore and you want to re-enact an epic battle without petty concerns over is every exactly equal. GW's points system isn't perfect anyway; some units are over-priced, others are under-priced. Here, we're just playing with the models we own, no restrictions. Pure war.

Historical games set up scenarios with victory conditions. Stuff like a 3:1 attacker has to take such and such terrain by a some time limit.

It's hilarious how any 40K list that sets itself up as the defender gets all those bonuses, with no compensation for the attacker from a scenario standpoint.

Power is the middle ground between points and "JARST PART ARVARTHARN ARN DAR TARBLE ARND PLAR!!11" While that can be fun, it can be fun in the same way that anything can be fun. Maybe you go to the dentist and have a wonderful time. But, that doesn't mean going to the dentist is a generally enjoyable experience.

 Marmatag wrote:
"JARST PART ARVARTHARN ARN DAR TARBLE ARND PLAR!!11"

Glad to see both sides of the discussion are treating each other with dignity and respect..

You cannot tell anyone that the way they choose to play is not fun. You might not want to do it, you might not enjoy it, but that doesn't stop others from enjoying it.

The question posed was "Would you be willing to play a game of 40k with no points or power level?" The answer is: Some people are, others are not.

It depends what you want to get out of the game. If you're looking for a place to test your skill, then you will always want as much balance as possible. If you're looking for a place to test your miniatures, then points are not necessary.

I, personally, have long wanted to play an imbalanced game. A game where one force is outnumbered and outmatched. A game where, as the player with the underwhelming force, the odds are stacked against me. To see if I can secure victory under poor conditions. I have never had so much fun playing Warhammer as I have these past couple months with my friends playing 2v2, 1v1v1, 3v2, 2v1, and so on. It's not always about testing your skills in a balanced setting, sometimes it's just about fighting whatever battle you're presented with that day.

In the future for threads like this, we should probably include a trigger warning in the title for Peregrine.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
In the future for threads like this, we should probably include a trigger warning in the title for Peregrine.

I fear that it would have to be a built in forum feature of hiding threads from him to prevent derailment by wrong-bad-fun posts...

I would totally do this. I have about 8k of nids. I want to put them all on the board versus a SM/AM combo army in a compound and just play until everyone is killed on the Imperium side. Might even make it cool where any troop units that are killed (or perhaps drop to with say 5 models) I can remove and redeploy at the edge of the board to represent the never ending onslaught. See how many turns the Imperium can survive. Would need a big table and a lot of time, but fun as hell.

 Dynas wrote:
I would totally do this. I have about 8k of nids. I want to put them all on the board versus a SM/AM combo army in a compound and just play until everyone is killed on the Imperium side. Might even make it cool where any troop units that are killed (or perhaps drop to with say 5 models) I can remove and redeploy at the edge of the board to represent the never ending onslaught. See how many turns the Imperium can survive. Would need a big table and a lot of time, but fun as hell.

Sounds awesome! I would be up for that.

 corpuschain wrote:

 Dynas wrote:
I would totally do this. I have about 8k of nids. I want to put them all on the board versus a SM/AM combo army in a compound and just play until everyone is killed on the Imperium side. Might even make it cool where any troop units that are killed (or perhaps drop to with say 5 models) I can remove and redeploy at the edge of the board to represent the never ending onslaught. See how many turns the Imperium can survive. Would need a big table and a lot of time, but fun as hell.

Sounds awesome! I would be up for that.

Of course you would! Any true servant of the Blood God would be, lol. Speaking of which, I want in.

With someone I knew very well? Sure. We would also exchange lists beforehand, at least I would. It doesn't need to be balanced or anything, but one side shouldn't have 4x the points of the other. One side shouldn't consist of nothing but Baneblades while the other is all Bolters and Heavy Bolters. You're really going to need to be on the same page. Even then, a narrative battle can make up for a lot of disparity in points.

I have a friend who is very competitive. He plays Eldar as his A team and Dark Angels as his B team, but mostly plays DA because it's more challenging. He would deliberately go after suspected cheaters at the different stores we'd meet at because he thought it was fun.

He played one guy in 3rd Ed that was playing Eldar with his DA. The guy was using the special options of the Craftworld supplement for Ulthwei, Aliatoc, and Beil Tann. As my friend played the guy he pointed out that you can't field a Seer Council, Black Guardians, and Pathfinders (he used the disruption table of course) in the same list and that he had too many aspect warriors (as well as those pathfinders) for his FOC. My friend handled this in a manner that most people would a brand new player who was confused about what his army did, he pointed it out but allowed him to play with it. My friend also calculated the points as they played and told the guy that he was at least 500 points over the 2000pt game that they were supposed to be playing. When my friend finished tabling him in turn 3 the guy left crying.

The point is this was fun for my friend, trouncing someone who was knowingly cheating while staying inside the rules while outwardly displaying good sportsmanship towards them. It was a completely unfair fight but a lopsided victory for the better player. I'm sure if you wanted to play 4000 vs his 2000, he'd be up for it. Though he might break out his Eldar for that. For him the fun is how challenging the game is. Everyone has their own version of fun and it doesn't depend on the rules.

As a side note, points aren't the only way to balance in previous editions. People seem to forget that FOC based on percent or slots used to be another factor in balancing armies. It seems people quickly forgot about these since 8th largely did away with it. Of course people also get upset that their 1st turn deep strikes got restricted or that a melta or a lascannon might instakill a HQ unit, so what should I expect.

I did something like this once. It was Typhus and an endless horde of zombies (my friend managed to get like 100 nice zombie models).

We made up some rules... The zombies basically had a 6+ save, 4+ FnP and 4+ Reanimation Protocols. Additionally they had the old school Without Number ability so new fresh units would walk onto the board. We also had some cemetery scenery that spawned D6 zombies every turn.

We didn't care about points or even bother with a victory condition. Although I think we ended up deciding that if I had at least one model left on the table by the end X amount turns I would win.

We pretty much just drank, ate and threw dice until it was time to call it a night.

 oni wrote:
I did something like this once. It was Typhus and an endless horde of zombies (my friend managed to get like 100 nice zombie models).

We made up some rules... The zombies basically had a 6+ save, 4+ FnP and 4+ Reanimation Protocols. Additionally they had the old school Without Number ability so new fresh units would walk onto the board. We also had some cemetery scenery that spawned D6 zombies every turn.

We didn't care about points or even bother with a victory condition. Although I think we ended up deciding that if I had at least one model left on the table by the end X amount turns I would win.

We pretty much just drank, ate and threw dice until it was time to call it a night.

[Peregrine]But how did you balance it without points?[/Peregrine]

If its purely for fun, why not.