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SemperMortis wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Lootas however were absolute murder to light and medium vehicles and tanks up until 8E however. If you werent AV13 or 14, even a depleted unit of Lootas stood a good chance of killing any vehicle they shot at and a full unit was almost guaranteed to.

I'm not sure where I'm so far off the mark here. Lootas will do exactly what I claimed here.

I did not claim that Lootas were the best AT unit in the game. I did not claim that Lootas were gonna deadlift Orks over the barrage of insane power creep of 7E. Only that they were effective light and medium vehicle killers. I dont see where the above is an inaccurate statement in such a light. A full unit will on average kill any AV12 or lower vehicle in one round of fire. A depleted unit stands a good chance of doing so with a little luck. I'm not seeing where my original statement was egregiously inaccurate here...

Perhaps I guess I could have added the caveat "at long ranges" in there, but I had figured that didnt need to be pointed out explicitly given the inherently long ranged nature of the unit. I didnt think we were gonna go down the rabbit hole of comparing 48" range weapons to Drop melta.

Again, we just showed that Lootas could not murder AV12 in a "Depleted unit"

I said they stood a good chance, you're conflating two different statements here. More to the point, you seem irrationally focused on my simple use of the word "murder", above and beyond literally everything else I have said. If the subjective meaning of one word is all thats driving this, can we drop it?

they needed a full unit and they needed to roll average or above average to even get the kill...

Average is 3.33 HP's, even rolling a couple extra misses they should do it on a 2 shot volley. More than anything, its that one shot volley that hoses them, but they also get 3 shot volleys just as often.

and even then only if the vehicle wasn't in cover or didn't have a save of some kind.

I didnt claim otherwise, but for 210pts, not much was going to oneshot an AV12 unit in cover from any sort of distance. Units that could generally required more setup and preparation and dramitcally closer range and threat to themselves. Thats a pretty normal tradeoff, broken Scatterbikes excepted.

You can't claim that I am moving the goal posts when the original comment was that they were absolute murder and then I showed you how a bunch of other units were significantly better at that job then Lootas,

Which turned out not to be the case in most instances except under specific optimal (and dramatically shorter) range conditions...

and comparing like to like specifically Ranged 48 and/or Autocannons wasn't the original point

I apologize that when referencing a long range fire support unit's capabilities at engaging light and medium armor, I didnt specify that range played a role, especially when the army in question has other, numerous close range tank kill options that are more effective at such ranges.

so telling me not to compare Lootas to other faction units is ridiculous.

I made no such statement that you could not compared Lootas to other faction's units, lets just keep in mind role and function and target. I dont care about how well Necron Warriors do against Land Raiders. I will accept the superiority of Scatterbikes over Lootas, but theyre superior to damn near everything and were a widely acknowledged major problem and as such comparing them is rather pointless. Suicide Sternguard are so specialized, short ranged, and one use that their battlefield use is and role is extremely difficult to compare to Lootas in a meaningful way. Broadside HYMP's were a great comparison however.

As for "going down the rabbit hole" the entire point is comparing function not range.

Range is an inherent part of function. Generally speaking, we dont lump Devastators into the same comparison as Melta Sternguard either, or Vendettas and Maulerfiends. We accept that drop pod Sternguard are probably going to outperform a Predator Annihilator the turn they drop in. Just as a Lascannon didnt pack the same wallop as a Meltagun at 6" but got to play out at up 48", this not only allows greater target choice and threat radius, but means that you likely have more turns to be shooting as well as your opponent has to close range with you rather than you just appearing in the middle of their lines, and combiweapons only ever got one shot.

If you really want to compare Range things instead we can go down that road, of course I am sure you will limit me to only comparing Lootas to units with S7 weapons that don't have special rules.

Not at all, I compared them to Lascannons earlier. But lets be real about the fact that a unit with a 48" range and able to reach out an touch almost anything on the table plays a different role than a melta squads thats gonna drop on and engage one target and be done or dead after one turn.

If you really think Lootas were "good" then there isn't much I can do to change your mind since you keep coming up with all sorts of new rules to judge how good they are.

If we're going to compare them to some of the most broken things the game has ever had, or talk about effectiveness against units like Land Raiders that were not part of the original assertion, well, there are issues with that.

But let me end it with this, how many top performing lists included lootas? I'll give you a hint, Not one ork player managed to break into the top 50 in ITC and the ones who came closest were using Trukk Boyz and Green Tide, not lootas.

Given how poor Orks fared in tournaments in general, I'm not sure what there is to be gleaned there. Our data set of tournament winning ork lists for 7E is too small to judge basically anything. I only played 2 games in 7E with my Orks so I cant comment too much from that end, but I used Lootas in those two games, and they appeared in every Ork list I faced during 7E except two. I just dont have much data beyond that, if we have a source for 7E Ork tournament lists Id be happy to go over them, but I cant find any with a quick google search.

However, once again, im also not claiming that Lootas were gonna overcome the mass insanity that reigned in 7E and suddenly make Orks viable against the worst there was to be faced.

Bharring wrote:
Look at it this way.

In 6e/7e, a Shuriken Cat would be better/worth more points on Tac Marines than a boltgun.

In 6e/7e, a boltgun would be better/worth more points on a Guardian than a boltgun.

How do you point it to make that appropriate?

Or again, lets look at old Commisar rule. You lose at most 1 model to Morale checks. How much is that worth to an army full of large Conscript squads? How much is that worth to an army full of 5-man LD8 units?

Clearly, there is no constant value that is fair to both forces.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And back on the "Some armies having better options to put into a transport is entirely on the units going inside of the transport not being worth their cost". I'm sure you'd say Fire Warriors are worth more value per point than Tac Marines. Don't Tac Marines get more out of transports than Fire Warriors?

Some units inherently have more value in different things even at the same value point. A glass cannon unit that focuses on shooting things inside 12" is going to get more mileage out of a transport than a fairly tanky unit that engages things at 48" range.

The game might be too simple as is, but you're oversimplifying the considerations.

By that logic it should cost more point to take a rhino for a vet squad with 10 combi plasmas than a tac squad with bolters. It can't work that way though. Plus - transports have their own issues right now. They aren't worth it for any army that isn't eldar.

 Xenomancers wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's still linear though - which is better than exponetial.True the buff is only as strong as the unit it is buffing - the way you balance this is by making sure all armies have viable ways to buff units. Or that other armies are capable of dealing with such buffs through other means at comparable point levels.

How do you do that?

Well - you can't have 2 armies where they have a similar ability for the same cost but one is clearly better. Like in the forwarned/auspex scan situation.

but sometimes the same thing for the same armies are even more imbalanced.

Riddle me this, xeno - the stygies VIII buff and the Alaitoc buff are completely identical. Every unit gets it, its exactly the same.

Does that make Alaitoc and Stygies identically balanced, or does the fact that the Eldar codex contains a shitton of units that also have built in -1s make Alaitoc way stronger?

Making the rules the same just makes the rules the same. it does not make them more balanced, just more rigid and difficult to change if they do become imbalanced, because suddenly if Brimstone Horrors are super busted because they have Daemon unit type and Tzeentch unit type giving them a 4++ while they're three points, you can't just decide "ehhhh they only get a 6++" unless you change those two unit types, which also nerfs a ton of other tzeentch or daemon units that aren't broken.

How did your Tactical Terminators and your Land Raiders and your Dreadnoughts like having their assault cannons nerfed because Razorbacks were strong with them?

Let's get real. -1 to hit army traits should not be in the game and like you said it scales way to hard with other -1 to hit modifiers.

Brimstone's and blue horrors specifically reduce their invo save from 4++ pink to 5++ blue to 6++ brim. They did specifically fix these units. You can make concessions in individual cases. You have to if you want a balanced game. Otherwise - you have what we have now. Aliotoc flyers running around with 7th eddition invis for free every turn against the most common BS in the game and for 2 CP can actually be immune to damage from shooting.

So what you're saying is that universal rules applied to too many things blindly create numerous specific balance problems and by necessity you need to have a granular balancing system with rules costed for individual units or factions in order to achieve anything close to balance?

Almost any instance where the same balancing decision applied to multiple units results in unintended consequences. "Astra Militarum units with BS3+ pay more for their guns!" instead of "Tempestus Scions and Scion Command Squads pay more for their guns!" gets you broken, terrible Veterans. "commissar buff nerfed!" instead of "Commissar interaction with Conscripts nerfed!" gives you commissars useless in 99% of army builds.

The best constructed and balanced army traits are the ones with high impact and limited scope where GW knows exactly what weapons they're buffing and how, and the worst are the ones that just apply a big blanket buff to a gigantic codex full of units blindly and hope for the best.

Right now isn't a great indicative of what armies have always been bad or always been good.

Ideally, yes, a sternie drop would pay more for a droppod (for a classical example that was relevant over multiple editions) than a Tac squad should. That said, the rules don't currently work that way. Different units within a codex can certainly value transports differently. That shouldn't be a surprise.

Could you imagine if 6e/7e CWE got 35pt DropPods? They essentially got 100-200pt droppods (WWP Archons + kabs in an Allied, maybe a Raider for Fragons), and it was clearly worth more than that. Yet Drop Pods were still 35pts for Marines, and that pricepoint wasn't greatly complained about. The WWP version, despite costing a heck of a lot more, was much more complained about.

Do you disagree a droppod shouldn't have cost more than 35pts for Vanilla Marines, but should cost more than 35pts if CWE had them?

There are some rough edges. Again, in 7e, podding Cents was looked at as ugly and stupid, but effective. It probably would have been better if Tacs paid less for one than Sternies or Cents. Storm Guardians in a droppod wouldn't have changed much. But Fire Dragons or Wraithguard would have.

Several times this edition, even, Transports (Razorbacks and StormRavens) have been great for Space Marines. Drop Pods were amazing in 7th and really good in 6th. Rhino Rush has been a thing. Even ignoring Gladius, SM transports have often been strong.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's still linear though - which is better than exponetial.True the buff is only as strong as the unit it is buffing - the way you balance this is by making sure all armies have viable ways to buff units. Or that other armies are capable of dealing with such buffs through other means at comparable point levels.

How do you do that?

Well - you can't have 2 armies where they have a similar ability for the same cost but one is clearly better. Like in the forwarned/auspex scan situation.

but sometimes the same thing for the same armies are even more imbalanced.

Riddle me this, xeno - the stygies VIII buff and the Alaitoc buff are completely identical. Every unit gets it, its exactly the same.

Does that make Alaitoc and Stygies identically balanced, or does the fact that the Eldar codex contains a shitton of units that also have built in -1s make Alaitoc way stronger?

Making the rules the same just makes the rules the same. it does not make them more balanced, just more rigid and difficult to change if they do become imbalanced, because suddenly if Brimstone Horrors are super busted because they have Daemon unit type and Tzeentch unit type giving them a 4++ while they're three points, you can't just decide "ehhhh they only get a 6++" unless you change those two unit types, which also nerfs a ton of other tzeentch or daemon units that aren't broken.

How did your Tactical Terminators and your Land Raiders and your Dreadnoughts like having their assault cannons nerfed because Razorbacks were strong with them?

Let's get real. -1 to hit army traits should not be in the game and like you said it scales way to hard with other -1 to hit modifiers.

Brimstone's and blue horrors specifically reduce their invo save from 4++ pink to 5++ blue to 6++ brim. They did specifically fix these units. You can make concessions in individual cases. You have to if you want a balanced game. Otherwise - you have what we have now. Aliotoc flyers running around with 7th eddition invis for free every turn against the most common BS in the game and for 2 CP can actually be immune to damage from shooting.

So what you're saying is that universal rules applied to too many things blindly create numerous specific balance problems and by necessity you need to have a granular balancing system with rules costed for individual units or factions in order to achieve anything close to balance?

Almost any instance where the same balancing decision applied to multiple units results in unintended consequences. "Astra Militarum units with BS3+ pay more for their guns!" instead of "Tempestus Scions and Scion Command Squads pay more for their guns!" gets you broken, terrible Veterans. "commissar buff nerfed!" instead of "Commissar interaction with Conscripts nerfed!" gives you commissars useless in 99% of army builds.

The best constructed and balanced army traits are the ones with high impact and limited scope where GW knows exactly what weapons they're buffing and how, and the worst are the ones that just apply a big blanket buff to a gigantic codex full of units blindly and hope for the best.

It seems to me that GW when they make a change don't even understand the problem they are trying to fix.

With smite spam the issue was obvious. 30 point malefic lords. They raised them to over double their price - then simultaneously nerfed smite so it couldn't be spammed (unnecessary - spamming smite was only good because of 30 point malefic lords) now most psykers aren't worth their cost. Unless they have a good support ability and if you have a lot of psykers in your army - they are just sitting around doing nothing after you smite 3 times.

The commisar nerf is the same thing. They quad nerfed the problem. Nerf commisars...make conscripts cost equal to infantry when they are far inferior and have to take orders on a 4+ and nerfed max squad size and took away the leadership ability (it's actually worse than not taking one now).

So I agree with you - blanket fixes are really bad. I am opposed to blanket fixes.

Are we really into "but imagine how bad X army would be with Y army's toys and play styles"? Why don't CSM have access to Drop Pods? Technically it should be part of their armory, but it's not part of their play style so they only got the FW CSM version of it instead of boxing a different Drop Pod with a Chaos bits sprue. It's kind of like asking what if Tau got basilisks that could benefit from Markerlights.

 Xenomancers wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's still linear though - which is better than exponetial.True the buff is only as strong as the unit it is buffing - the way you balance this is by making sure all armies have viable ways to buff units. Or that other armies are capable of dealing with such buffs through other means at comparable point levels.

How do you do that?

Well - you can't have 2 armies where they have a similar ability for the same cost but one is clearly better. Like in the forwarned/auspex scan situation.

but sometimes the same thing for the same armies are even more imbalanced.

Riddle me this, xeno - the stygies VIII buff and the Alaitoc buff are completely identical. Every unit gets it, its exactly the same.

Does that make Alaitoc and Stygies identically balanced, or does the fact that the Eldar codex contains a shitton of units that also have built in -1s make Alaitoc way stronger?

Making the rules the same just makes the rules the same. it does not make them more balanced, just more rigid and difficult to change if they do become imbalanced, because suddenly if Brimstone Horrors are super busted because they have Daemon unit type and Tzeentch unit type giving them a 4++ while they're three points, you can't just decide "ehhhh they only get a 6++" unless you change those two unit types, which also nerfs a ton of other tzeentch or daemon units that aren't broken.

How did your Tactical Terminators and your Land Raiders and your Dreadnoughts like having their assault cannons nerfed because Razorbacks were strong with them?

Let's get real. -1 to hit army traits should not be in the game and like you said it scales way to hard with other -1 to hit modifiers.

Brimstone's and blue horrors specifically reduce their invo save from 4++ pink to 5++ blue to 6++ brim. They did specifically fix these units. You can make concessions in individual cases. You have to if you want a balanced game. Otherwise - you have what we have now. Aliotoc flyers running around with 7th eddition invis for free every turn against the most common BS in the game and for 2 CP can actually be immune to damage from shooting.

So what you're saying is that universal rules applied to too many things blindly create numerous specific balance problems and by necessity you need to have a granular balancing system with rules costed for individual units or factions in order to achieve anything close to balance?

Almost any instance where the same balancing decision applied to multiple units results in unintended consequences. "Astra Militarum units with BS3+ pay more for their guns!" instead of "Tempestus Scions and Scion Command Squads pay more for their guns!" gets you broken, terrible Veterans. "commissar buff nerfed!" instead of "Commissar interaction with Conscripts nerfed!" gives you commissars useless in 99% of army builds.

The best constructed and balanced army traits are the ones with high impact and limited scope where GW knows exactly what weapons they're buffing and how, and the worst are the ones that just apply a big blanket buff to a gigantic codex full of units blindly and hope for the best.

It seems to me that GW when they make a change don't even understand the problem they are trying to fix.

With smite spam the issue was obvious. 30 point malefic lords. They raised them to over double their price - then simultaneously nerfed smite so it couldn't be spammed (unnecessary - spamming smite was only good because of 30 point malefic lords) now most psykers aren't worth their cost. Unless they have a good support ability and if you have a lot of psykers in your army - they are just sitting around doing nothing after you smite 3 times.

The commisar nerf is the same thing. They quad nerfed the problem. Nerf commisars...make conscripts cost equal to infantry when they are far inferior and have to take orders on a 4+ and nerfed max squad size and took away the leadership ability (it's actually worse than not taking one now).

So I agree with you - blanket fixes are really bad. I am opposed to blanket fixes.

OK. So in that case, why are you for blanket/universal rules in other instances? Why is "the eldar have a stratagem that works similarly but is usually better" a balancing criteria for Auspex Scan? You could give Forewarned to Orks and it'd be terrible - exact same stratagem substituting weirdboy for farseer. Auspex scan is bad because it's overcosted for the restrictions it has, not because Forewarned exists.

This is why every time "the rules should be more universal" posts come up, I'm so opposed. Almost all the balance issues with 8th as a whole are caused by rules being too universal and GW saying "well if we fix this thing that was broken in the Marine codex then all the marines won't have the same stuff so we HAVE to keep it the same so it'll be fair!"

I didn't suggest that forewarned is too strong of should be fixed with a blanket rule. Only that it is clearly better than other similar abilities in space marines/ admech. Stratagems that fill the same purpose should have similar access, restrictions, and cost. I am of the opinion that the space marine and admech 1s are too weak - and should be buffed to eldar level.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I didn't suggest that forewarned is too strong of should be fixed with a blanket rule. Only that it is clearly better than other similar abilities in space marines/ admech. Stratagems that fill the same purpose should have similar access, restrictions, and cost. I am of the opinion that the space marine and admech 1s are too weak - and should be buffed to eldar level.

I agree to a point. The problem that you're not considering is the constituent armies that a stratagem enhances. The guard "Crush Them" stratagem would be insanely broken if Imperial Knights had it, with their vehicles that are actuallly designed for melee combat. Forewarned would be underpowered if it was a Guard infantry unit or an Ork infantry unit using it.

I agree that the marine and admech stratagems are overly limited for the cost and need a bump. It has nothing to do with Forewarned, despite their similarity - Auspex and Infoslave are just not worth the CPs in most cases.

Crush them is insane on a baneblade. I see what you are saying though. I guess my argument should be that armies should be getting similar performance out of their command point expenditures as well as their point expenditures. That is a blanket statement but it doesn't require a blanket solution. It requires in depth play testing and math hammering - which is something GW does not do - or ever have done. Which is why there has been such bad game balance through out the years.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Crush them is insane on a baneblade. I see what you are saying though. I guess my argument should be that armies should be getting similar performance out of their command point expenditures as well as their point expenditures. That is a blanket statement but it doesn't require a blanket solution. It requires in depth play testing and math hammering - which is something GW does not do - or ever have done. Which is why there has been such bad game balance through out the years.

For something like stratagems the problem is also that they are new. GW are experimenting with what abilities they can hand out to see if they are "Fun". This is why later books tend to have more powerful and interesting abilities - often at a lower price, or with a more clearly worked through system.

So for instance every new codex now includes a CP farm ability - because this is something GW have decided should be available. After all people like using stratagems. They probably hadn't decided this would be a thing when they were first drafting the system 18 months or however long ago.

Well - space marines have CP farm too. A rather decent one. Regen your own expenditure on a 5+. For some reason IG have the ability to get on a 5+ for them and opponents.
Not disagreeing that they aren't sure what the power level of stratagems should be yet. It should have been figured at the start of the edition though.

In theory, yes. In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

There's a reason why most disciplines prefer methods that can adjust the target over the lifecylce of what they're building. You can't know everything up front. It may be painfully obvious after it's out there, but hindsight is 20/20. The idea that they could put out the game and it be perfect is a feverdream. Noone could. So, they have to adapt.

Unfortunately, adapting isn't free. Every FAQ change they make complicates the games. A new player will read the codex and say "I can do X!". Well, a more well-read player will say "Actually, the FAQ on 3.17 as applied to the FAQ from January, which replaces the FAQ from last year, which changed that rule...". And suddenly maybe WH40k isn't the game that player wants to play. So there is certainly downward pressure on the scope and scale of the FAQing/repointing they do.

Note that I'm *not* disagreeing that Forewarned is stronger than Auspex Scan.

Bharring wrote:
In theory, yes. In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

There's a reason why most disciplines prefer methods that can adjust the target over the lifecylce of what they're building. You can't know everything up front. It may be painfully obvious after it's out there, but hindsight is 20/20. The idea that they could put out the game and it be perfect is a feverdream. Noone could. So, they have to adapt.

Unfortunately, adapting isn't free. Every FAQ change they make complicates the games. A new player will read the codex and say "I can do X!". Well, a more well-read player will say "Actually, the FAQ on 3.17 as applied to the FAQ from January, which replaces the FAQ from last year, which changed that rule...". And suddenly maybe WH40k isn't the game that player wants to play. So there is certainly downward pressure on the scope and scale of the FAQing/repointing they do.

Note that I'm *not* disagreeing that Forewarned is stronger than Auspex Scan.

This is why I expect an 8.1 or 8.5 edition with updated books as it's already starting to feel a bit of a mess and we have CA2018 and the fall FAQ and that only leaves sister's of battle to be Codex and FAQ'd