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There's currently a lot of major, across-the-board issues with the game itself at the moment that I can't see being fixed in an FAQ or Chapter Approved, such as how certain factions rely on playing only 1 of their traits (such as Ultramarines with the Space Marine codex, or half the armies with a -1 to hit trait), or how some relics simply never see the light of day. The biggest for me is probably the redundancy of the current AP system, since Games Workshop has decided to give out a lot of 3+ or 4+ invuln saves to stuff that should be weaker to larger guns. Volume of fire and High Damage weapons are always better than prioritising AP weapons, and kinda makes some weapons like meltaguns, Vanquishers etc really poor at the job that they're supposed to be good at. I think that there will continue to be major balance issues after this FAQ as a result of these bigger balance issues.

Soup, Game length, CP, and Hordes are the ongoing issue the game has to me.

Hordes should be fixed by a weapon rebalance. If your shooting a Flamer type weapon (all factions have these) you should get 1D6 shots per models targetted, CP should be by faction only, an d these two changes most likely fix Soup and Game Length.

Reemule wrote:
Soup, Game length, CP, and Hordes are the ongoing issue the game has to me.

Hordes should be fixed by a weapon rebalance. If your shooting a Flamer type weapon (all factions have these) you should get 1D6 shots per models targetted, CP should be by faction only, an d these two changes most likely fix Soup and Game Length.

Did I read that right? Are you saying a single flamer against a unit of 20 cultists should do 20d6 shots?

Reemule wrote:

Forfiter wrote:
Rowboat is curretnly fine, SM are dead in competitive anyway

We need quick FAQ to deal with broken Castellans and shining spears. Those 2 are breaking the game now just ignore anyone saying Guilman is the problem, they probably never been/saw current tournament lists. It's all about Eldar soulbursting spears+reapers and imperiual Castellans. Whole "soup" thing woundlnt be an issue if we did not had Castellans. Actualy they are better in Soup than in IK lists - as they dont worry about CP and have all good gems on one IK (with more knights IK player need to choose what knight will benefit from it cause other will not).

If the Castellan was the problem the Chaos Castellan would be making a big show also. It is not. Ergo the Castellan isn't the problem.

It's almost like if the model is the problem, you go after the model rather than something like Soup to fix the issue, huh?

So... any hets we will get a sep faq in September?

 lolman1c wrote:
So... any hets we will get a sep faq in September?

I was a believer, but we'd have seen a teaser article by now. Since it wasn't coming in september, we'll probably see it in october. Probably not the first week of October since they'll want to get all their excitement for Orktober and the Ork codex release out of the way first.

Removed by BrookM - Rule #1 please!

Darsath wrote:
There's currently a lot of major, across-the-board issues with the game itself at the moment that I can't see being fixed in an FAQ or Chapter Approved, such as how certain factions rely on playing only 1 of their traits (such as Ultramarines with the Space Marine codex, or half the armies with a -1 to hit trait), or how some relics simply never see the light of day. The biggest for me is probably the redundancy of the current AP system, since Games Workshop has decided to give out a lot of 3+ or 4+ invuln saves to stuff that should be weaker to larger guns. Volume of fire and High Damage weapons are always better than prioritising AP weapons, and kinda makes some weapons like meltaguns, Vanquishers etc really poor at the job that they're supposed to be good at. I think that there will continue to be major balance issues after this FAQ as a result of these bigger balance issues.

I agree that there are a some across-the-board changes needed, especially with traits and relics. Except for maybe IG I've found the volume of fire with 0 AP not doing much. It's why you don't see many Kabalite warriors and poison weapons(that tend to be 0 AP) see much table usage. Regarding meltaguns I think the problem lies more with how effective plasma is currently at its price point. You can get plasma more easily and it tends to be a more versatile gun compared to meltas(although a SoB melta army did ruin me a week ago).

What problems don't go away if CPs were limited purely to the detachment that generated them?

Maybe perhaps a single Battleforged army can only have one type of CP regeneration buff, period.

Good thing with playing Necrons is that with every change it can only get better!

Can just sit back, relax, bring the bucket og popcorn, and watch everybody haggle on how to fix the system without taking a nerf (too hard) for their own pet army.

torblind wrote:
Good thing with playing Necrons is that with every change it can only get better!

Can just sit back, relax, bring the bucket og popcorn, and watch everybody haggle on how to fix the system without taking a nerf (too hard) for their own pet army.

See, you say that but I bet something is gonna get a price increase like those destroyers. I don't know if they're underpriced or overpriced but I seems like those are the only unit that gets talked about. Ergo, they'll get a price increase

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Reemule wrote:

Forfiter wrote:
Rowboat is curretnly fine, SM are dead in competitive anyway

We need quick FAQ to deal with broken Castellans and shining spears. Those 2 are breaking the game now just ignore anyone saying Guilman is the problem, they probably never been/saw current tournament lists. It's all about Eldar soulbursting spears+reapers and imperiual Castellans. Whole "soup" thing woundlnt be an issue if we did not had Castellans. Actualy they are better in Soup than in IK lists - as they dont worry about CP and have all good gems on one IK (with more knights IK player need to choose what knight will benefit from it cause other will not).

If the Castellan was the problem the Chaos Castellan would be making a big show also. It is not. Ergo the Castellan isn't the problem.

It's almost like if the model is the problem, you go after the model rather than something like Soup to fix the issue, huh?

Kinda. If you look at the competitive list, it its really the same issue again and again. If you have enough CP you just dump that on whatever can best use it to produce results. Right now that is a B.A. Smash captain and a Castellan. If you nerf the captain and the castellan, its just going to next be a Space Wolf Captain and a Crusader IK, in the same setup, doing the same things.

It seems clear the game breaks down at some extremes. Extreme CP seems to be showing right now. Extreme Hordes was showing a while ago. Soup was never the problem, but more the byproduct of how to get the CP you need to get to the extreme CP you want to "break" the game.

Maybe reduce the emphasis on stratagems? drop the CP's back down, restrict their usage to the faction that generated them and adjust a couple of the relics that allow regeneration?

Reemule wrote:

And back to what stands, all players are bad at balance due to that bias.

That's ok. That is why there is sampling. Everyone has biases, whether it's political surveys, market research, etc.. and you sample representatively precisely to get around that. That's the whole point.

It's only when you collect data from a group that is inherently self-selected instead of sampled, e.g. people who live in certain areas, people who pursue certain types of jobs, people who on their own volition choose to play 40K competitively, that's when you start to make the really, really hideous mistakes as you're dealing with a systematically biased group, rather than biased individuals.

 fraser1191 wrote:

torblind wrote:
Good thing with playing Necrons is that with every change it can only get better!

Can just sit back, relax, bring the bucket og popcorn, and watch everybody haggle on how to fix the system without taking a nerf (too hard) for their own pet army.

See, you say that but I bet something is gonna get a price increase like those destroyers. I don't know if they're underpriced or overpriced but I seems like those are the only unit that gets talked about. Ergo, they'll get a price increase

That. And they did in fact hike the Gauss Pylon from 485 to 5.. something the first FAQ I think. Were definitely not immune.

And of course, I say I'm relaxed, but nothing can really dull the knot of pain, deep within, from loving an army that just won't ever perform in foreseeable future.

 fraser1191 wrote:

torblind wrote:
Good thing with playing Necrons is that with every change it can only get better!

Can just sit back, relax, bring the bucket og popcorn, and watch everybody haggle on how to fix the system without taking a nerf (too hard) for their own pet army.

See, you say that but I bet something is gonna get a price increase like those destroyers. I don't know if they're underpriced or overpriced but I seems like those are the only unit that gets talked about. Ergo, they'll get a price increase

Probably because Destroyers are either fine or even a bit too expensive, but that stratagem for them is just insane. Not sure what they were smoking when they gave re-roll to hit AND to wound a 1 CP price tag. Most codexes pay at least 2 CP for just one of those. It just doesn't appear on the radar as much because the unit to take it with isn't the very best.

Ideally, Destroyers down in points along with most Necron stuff, but that Extermination Protocols Stratagem needs to be something like 2-3 CP for re-roll to wounds only or a 1 CP for re-roll 1s to wound.

 Stux wrote:

Reemule wrote:
Soup, Game length, CP, and Hordes are the ongoing issue the game has to me.

Hordes should be fixed by a weapon rebalance. If your shooting a Flamer type weapon (all factions have these) you should get 1D6 shots per models targetted, CP should be by faction only, an d these two changes most likely fix Soup and Game Length.

Did I read that right? Are you saying a single flamer against a unit of 20 cultists should do 20d6 shots?

Ehh I meant 1D6 per 5 models. But so much for typing.

lolman1c wrote:So... any hets we will get a sep faq in September?

5 days to go, it seems unlikely.

Stux wrote:

Reemule wrote:
Hordes should be fixed by a weapon rebalance. If your shooting a Flamer type weapon (all factions have these) you should get 1D6 shots per models targetted, CP should be by faction only, an d these two changes most likely fix Soup and Game Length.

Did I read that right? Are you saying a single flamer against a unit of 20 cultists should do 20d6 shots?

Nothing so extreme, but I would like flamers to get something though. At present they're very underwhelming.

Removed by BrookM

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Reemule wrote:

And back to what stands, all players are bad at balance due to that bias.

That's ok. That is why there is sampling. Everyone has biases, whether it's political surveys, market research, etc.. and you sample representatively precisely to get around that. That's the whole point.

It's only when you collect data from a group that is inherently self-selected instead of sampled, e.g. people who live in certain areas, people who pursue certain types of jobs, people who on their own volition choose to play 40K competitively, that's when you start to make the really, really hideous mistakes as you're dealing with a systematically biased group, rather than biased individuals.

But overall, I'm okay with that. I think we had this discussion before, the Tourney system is great at identifying the most broken, and terrible at identifying the second most broken.

It also doesn't do anything at identifying problems at the other end of the spectrum, the most overcosted.

I think where I differ is I don't think a well defined casual meta can do any of those, including the one thing I think the tourney system can do well, identifying the most broken, due to the lack of codified play, and the susceptibility of the smaller meta to have one alpha player that defines good and bad based off their ability to play well.

So one system shows 1 thing really well, and the other system might or might not show you anything. I'll go with the system that shows 1 things well myself.

Reemule wrote:


But overall, I'm okay with that. I think we had this discussion before, the Tourney system is great at identifying the most broken, and terrible at identifying the second most broken.

It also doesn't do anything at identifying problems at the other end of the spectrum, the most overcosted.

I think where I differ is I don't think a well defined casual meta can do any of those, including the one thing I think the tourney system can do well, identifying the most broken, due to the lack of codified play, and the susceptibility of the smaller meta to have one alpha player that defines good and bad based off their ability to play well.

So one system shows 1 thing really well, and the other system might or might not show you anything. I'll go with the system that shows 1 things well myself.

Well, there'd be no issue if tourney's would just stick to identifying the most broken than and acknowledge, that things might be just as broken for the other 99.9% of 40K players, even if it's a non-issue in tournaments.

Problems arise if people than come out with idiotic statements of "Chaos Castellans aren't broken" or "AdMech Dunecrawlers aren't broken" or whatever "because they don't place high in tournament". If you know tournaments cannot identify these cases, don't claim they "are fine" or "not OP" just because they aren't and structurally cannot be perceived as such in the tournament circuit as you've just said.

Tournament circuits can identify potentially broken units, other methods of investigation can also identify potentially broken units. They need not overlap and one does not invalidate the other.

Process wrote:
Maybe reduce the emphasis on stratagems? drop the CP's back down, restrict their usage to the faction that generated them and adjust a couple of the relics that allow regeneration?

You can't do that at this point, Stratagems are a relevant part of the game and "toning" down their usage will only further nerf armies that extremely rely on their usage

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Reemule wrote:


But overall, I'm okay with that. I think we had this discussion before, the Tourney system is great at identifying the most broken, and terrible at identifying the second most broken.

It also doesn't do anything at identifying problems at the other end of the spectrum, the most overcosted.

I think where I differ is I don't think a well defined casual meta can do any of those, including the one thing I think the tourney system can do well, identifying the most broken, due to the lack of codified play, and the susceptibility of the smaller meta to have one alpha player that defines good and bad based off their ability to play well.

So one system shows 1 thing really well, and the other system might or might not show you anything. I'll go with the system that shows 1 things well myself.

Well, there'd be no issue if tourney's would just stick to identifying the most broken than and acknowledge, that things might be just as broken for the other 99.9% of 40K players, even if it's a non-issue in tournaments.

Problems arise if people than come out with idiotic statements of "Chaos Castellans aren't broken" or "AdMech Dunecrawlers aren't broken" or whatever "because they don't place high in tournament". If you know tournaments cannot identify these cases, don't claim they "are fine" or "not OP" just because they aren't and structurally cannot be perceived as such in the tournament circuit as you've just said.

Tournament circuits can identify potentially broken units, other methods of investigation can also identify potentially broken units. They need not overlap and one does not invalidate the other.

First, So I know a guy who plays about .2 games a year. Yep, he collects paints, and played a game 3 years go. He should be good to play again in 2020. You really want to give him the same voice as some guy who has played 200 games this year? Why? What is he going to bring? Same with your idea that going to some meta that doesn't have any kind of format that they have something to add, how do you know it isn't modified by some house rule they didn't tell you about?

Second, Plenty of game companies have an organized play that works very well. Not sure why 40K has decided to not do that. Maybe they will, but go look at every game system. Video games, people are watching pro players. Warmachine people are watching WMW players, Xwing players are watching the guys that play nationals.

I'll go even further. Why are your casual players playing in matched play? Wouldn't this be solved if people stuck to the classifications GW laid out, and they stuck to open play? And then GW if they choose can make changes to open play to adjust the play experince for those players as needed?

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:

torblind wrote:
Good thing with playing Necrons is that with every change it can only get better!

Can just sit back, relax, bring the bucket og popcorn, and watch everybody haggle on how to fix the system without taking a nerf (too hard) for their own pet army.

See, you say that but I bet something is gonna get a price increase like those destroyers. I don't know if they're underpriced or overpriced but I seems like those are the only unit that gets talked about. Ergo, they'll get a price increase

Probably because Destroyers are either fine or even a bit too expensive, but that stratagem for them is just insane. Not sure what they were smoking when they gave re-roll to hit AND to wound a 1 CP price tag. Most codexes pay at least 2 CP for just one of those. It just doesn't appear on the radar as much because the unit to take it with isn't the very best.

Ideally, Destroyers down in points along with most Necron stuff, but that Extermination Protocols Stratagem needs to be something like 2-3 CP for re-roll to wounds only or a 1 CP for re-roll 1s to wound.

Well they're coming from rerolling 1s to hit already, with the stratagem we get to pick up the 2s in addition to the 1s. (And of course with rerolling 1s to hit, we roll a s*** load of 2s, so that's nice). Rerolling to wound is a pure gain, as our sources for reroll 1s to wound don't really fly well with destroyers.

Reemule wrote:

First, So I know a guy who plays about .2 games a year. Yep, he collects paints, and played a game 3 years go. He should be good to play again in 2020. You really want to give him the same voice as some guy who has played 200 games this year? Why? What is he going to bring? Same with your idea that going to some meta that doesn't have any kind of format that they have something to add, how do you know it isn't modified by some house rule they didn't tell you about?

Second, Plenty of game companies have an organized play that works very well. Not sure why 40K has decided to not do that. Maybe they will, but go look at every game system. Video games, people are watching pro players. Warmachine people are watching WMW players, Xwing players are watching the guys that play nationals.

I'll go even further. Why are your casual players playing in matched play? Wouldn't this be solved if people stuck to the classifications GW laid out, and they stuck to open play? And then GW if they choose can make changes to open play to adjust the play experince for those players as needed?

First. Yes. In a representative sampling, all types of players should be included. That's the point. He's part of the GW customer base, so a "representative sample" needs to also include these kind of people, simply because they exist in the customer base. That's the definition of "representative". They must have a voice simply because they exist.

If there were (hypothetical) to be a 1000 of those 2-games-a-year-people for every tournament player out there, they would also need to be weighted 1000-to-1 compared to the respective tournament player. The reason is so you have an ACCURATE representation of the people playing 40K. Since very few people play 200 games a year, giving them an outsized say in what the rules should be like would be distorting the picture. That's the entire problem. Nothing else.

And what they perceive as problematic or broken is just as valid as what a tournament players perceives as problematic or broken, weighted, as above, as best as possible by how much of a % of the player-base they represent or constitute. There shouldn't be a "better-than-thou" type of players that get's a bigger say, relative to how big a part they are in the community.



Second, If plenty of game companies do it more to your liking, why not play their games? I am in 40K precisely because they DON'T do it like this and as long as there are other companies doing it more to your liking, what's the issue. Diversity in the market place is a good thing. There's value in and of itself in GW doing it differently BECAUSE a lot of companies don't do it the way GW does. If GW would do it like PP, what should people do who enjoy the GW-way precisely because they take a different tackt.

I wouldn't want ALL gaming companies to do it like GW neither, because people getting into things like Warmachine went there precisely because it's done differently there. Again, diversity and having different gaming cultures for different styles and tastes is the point. Let people pick the flavour they like, rather than force all companies to conform to a narrow model favoured by some, making the gaming world a poorer, blander, less diverse place.

I'll go further. If you want your gaming to be more like competitive Warmachine or X-Wing or Chess or whatever, why not play those? See? Telling people to get "out of your game" because they enjoy their plastic soldiers different than you is pretty a-hole thing to do, don't you agree?

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Reemule wrote:

First, So I know a guy who plays about .2 games a year. Yep, he collects paints, and played a game 3 years go. He should be good to play again in 2020. You really want to give him the same voice as some guy who has played 200 games this year? Why? What is he going to bring? Same with your idea that going to some meta that doesn't have any kind of format that they have something to add, how do you know it isn't modified by some house rule they didn't tell you about?

Second, Plenty of game companies have an organized play that works very well. Not sure why 40K has decided to not do that. Maybe they will, but go look at every game system. Video games, people are watching pro players. Warmachine people are watching WMW players, Xwing players are watching the guys that play nationals.

I'll go even further. Why are your casual players playing in matched play? Wouldn't this be solved if people stuck to the classifications GW laid out, and they stuck to open play? And then GW if they choose can make changes to open play to adjust the play experince for those players as needed?

First. Yes. In a representative sampling, all types of players should be included. That's the point. He's part of the GW customer base, so a "representative sample" needs to also include these kind of people, simply because they exist in the customer base. That's the definition of "representative". They must have a voice simply because they exist.

If there were (hypothetical) to be a 1000 of those 2-games-a-year-people for every tournament player out there, they would also need to be weighted 1000-to-1 compared to the respective tournament player. The reason is so you have an ACCURATE representation of the people playing 40K. Since very few people play 200 games a year, giving them an outsized say in what the rules should be like would be distorting the picture. That's the entire problem. Nothing else.



Second, If plenty of game companies do it more to your liking, why not play their games? I am in 40K precisely because they DON'T do it like this and as long as there are other companies doing it more to your liking, what's the issue. Diversity in the market place is a good thing. There's value in and of itself in GW doing it differently BECAUSE a lot of companies don't do it the way GW does. If GW would do it like PP, what should people do who enjoy the GW-way precisely because they take a different tackt.

I wouldn't want ALL gaming companies to do it like GW neither, because people getting into things like Warmachine went there precisely because it's done differently there. Again, diversity and having different gaming cultures for different styles and tastes is the point. Let people pick the flavour they like, rather than force all companies to conform to a narrow model favoured by some, making the gaming world a poorer, blander, less diverse place.

I'll go further. If you want your gaming to be more like competitive Warmachine or X-Wing or Chess or whatever, why not play those?

I don't want to. I want to play Competitive 40K. A game they made. A game they designed for me. Its called match play. The real question is why do you keep pushing the idea that Casual players can't find the game that was designed for them? Why aren't you playing Open play? If you want the precepts of casual play, go play the game for you. Stop trying to get the competitive game to fit your casual play ideals, and your going to be much happier?

Reemule wrote:


I don't want to. I want to play Competitive 40K. A game they made. A game they designed for me. Its called match play. The real question is why do you keep pushing the idea that Casual players can't find the game that was designed for them? Why aren't you playing Open play? If you want the precepts of casual play, go play the game for you. Stop trying to get the competitive game to fit your casual play ideals, and your going to be much happier?

I also want to play matched play. I don't play open play often. In open, the (Chaos) Castellan (in the same list with the same CP battery, if we're talking imperial) being mathematically flat-out better than Predators, point for point, isn't an issue. It's a problem in matched play where things ought to be balanced.

Hell, since you evidently don't care about the 4th, or 5th or 10th most OP thing, but only the top OP thing, I'd probably say Open Play would be a much better fit for the competitive ITC circuit and it's players who perceive finding the most powerful combo as "part of the game" (and hilariously mis-labelled as "skill"), than the matched play rules, whose aim in balancing the game you and many other tournament players clearly don't value and/or seem to be far more accepting of imbalances beyond the most egregious cases.

I do care about the other ones, but your system of using casual players gives no chance of fixing them either, despite your idea that some how causal players are good at identifying those things.

And again, Trying to balance the one thing with multiple nerfs at the same time just leads to centurions.

Chaos doesn't bring predators either. So chances are your matching something that is broken, against something else that is broken.

Asking people to play open play is like asking kids to go play in the kiddy pool. No one will do that. It is the nature of man kind. I see it in League of Legends - it is the same kind of selfish people there too.

Matched play does not mean "Ultra competitive setting".

The saturday game at the LGS organized on a Whatsapp group that same morning by saying "Hey! Who's up for a game with my salamanders? 2000 points", is the definition of matched play. The rules exist for this exact event, which represents easily more than 90% of the 40K games being played.

Those games are not ultra competitive, and the players usually bring to the table a mix of models they like and models that make the list work. This is 40K, this is what the rulebook is made for. This is what codici aim at.

The rules for "Ultra competitive play" the kind of which is right now made exclusively by soups, do not exist. They have no reason to, because they represent such a tiny amount of games, that they are completely irrelevant to the state of the game.

The difference in 8th is that GW finally understood that those tiny percentage of games tend to attract a lot of attention, and so through FAQs and CA, they are trying to patch the worst issues.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Even there, they don't really to resolve them fully, they just need to constantly shake what is played at those levels, so that the cost of chasing the meta is high.

This way, the average 40K player (which takes his time to paint minis and has in general limited time to dedicate to the hobby), is not encouraged to buy into the last hotness, because the time required to implement it into his army, is longer than the time the meta requires to change.

As long as this is true, you prevent the cancer of the top competitive lists to contaminate the healthy parts of the hobby.

Balance will only ever come to 40k when the game is broken down to a few basic rules and everyone uses the same thing.
An example would be something like...

An army is made of 2 characters, 3 troop units, 2 elite, 2 heavy support, 2 fast attack, 1 flyer and one lord of war.

A troop unit is ten models on 25-40mm bases. Your choice.
They hit on 4+, wound on a 4+ and save on a 4+. Range of weapons is 12 inches.
One model may carry a special weapon. It does mortal wound instead.
One can carry a heavy weapon. It does d6 mortal.

Doesn't matter the model. They're all the same.

For a touch of flavor you add basic rules.
Space marines have a 3+ save.
Eldar move +1 inch in movement.
Orks can re roll to charge.
Ect.

If you want a plasma gun be different from a flamer and be more "realistic"... Play narrative/open where all the detailed rules come into play.

Balance and an end to the arguments.

Play a balanced game of tactics using little figures or play an in-depth detailed game with crazy expansive rules and all the minutiae.