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 Crimson wrote:
Please answer this: lets assume that there was an unit identical to ork boys available to the Tau (transport options, equivalent stratagems etc included.) Maybe they're Kroot, maybe they're some new alien allies, it doesn't matter. Should this exact same unit with exact same capabilities cost more in the Tau codex than it does in the Ork codex, because 'weakness' of the Tau is supposed to be melee?

Yes, of course it should, because if Tau have the option of taking a melee unit that is comparable to the good melee units in melee-focused armies then they aren't weak in melee anymore.


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 Charistoph wrote:
But that slow update cycle is GW's design concept. They deliberately choose to release things in that haphazard manner. That they did it because of model availability is irrelevant because they should have begun the design scheme with allowing for those armies not getting flyers to have decent AAA without them, even if it was just a cheap Flakk missile upgrade for their Missile Launchers. They could have also made sure to include all the armies within that design space to release them in short order. They didn't, though. They brought out Flyers for some, allowed some Flakk for others, and ignored the rest until their next codex came out.

And a tabletop game going through it's 6th and 7th iteration is not unfinished or mid-update. This isn't like WoW's PTR where we know we're in testing. We're dealing with the live launches of the patches here, and someone screwed up leaving someone without access to pants till the next patch.

Well yes, it was an example of incompetence by GW. I'm certainly not going to defend their handling of the situation. But defending GW is not my point there, it's that there's a huge difference between "space marines struggle with AA because that's one of their intended weaknesses and it balances out their strengths elsewhere" and "space marines struggle with AA because their new flyer kit doesn't have a release slot for six months". You can't use GW's botched handling of 6th as an example of how designed weaknesses are bad.

Everybody doesn't need to have the same options - but everybody does need a way to deal with every option, or to not need to.

Or in other words everyone needs an AA of a kind.
Anyone needs a fast attack choice that is fast.

Which was my point. A csm army or a SM army don't need a hydra like AA tank, but they need an option that can do AA work.

Well yes, it was an example of incompetence by GW. I'm certainly not going to defend their handling of the situation. But defending GW is not my point there, it's that there's a huge difference between "space marines struggle with AA because that's one of their intended weaknesses and it balances out their strengths elsewhere" and "space marines struggle with AA because their new flyer kit doesn't have a release slot for six months". You can't use GW's botched handling of 6th as an example of how designed weaknesses are bad

Except you can. Designed weaknesses are bad, look at kroot f.e. which was allready brought up.

Also Anti Aircraft missiles were introduced later on, though nobody could use them because they had arbitary requirments, (CSM could not take them for the missile launcher, chosen could f.e.)
Also a point why designed weakness are bad if done incorrectly.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Please answer this: lets assume that there was an unit identical to ork boys available to the Tau (transport options, equivalent stratagems etc included.) Maybe they're Kroot, maybe they're some new alien allies, it doesn't matter. Should this exact same unit with exact same capabilities cost more in the Tau codex than it does in the Ork codex, because 'weakness' of the Tau is supposed to be melee?

Yes, of course it should, because if Tau have the option of taking a melee unit that is comparable to the good melee units in melee-focused armies then they aren't weak in melee anymore.


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 Charistoph wrote:
But that slow update cycle is GW's design concept. They deliberately choose to release things in that haphazard manner. That they did it because of model availability is irrelevant because they should have begun the design scheme with allowing for those armies not getting flyers to have decent AAA without them, even if it was just a cheap Flakk missile upgrade for their Missile Launchers. They could have also made sure to include all the armies within that design space to release them in short order. They didn't, though. They brought out Flyers for some, allowed some Flakk for others, and ignored the rest until their next codex came out.

And a tabletop game going through it's 6th and 7th iteration is not unfinished or mid-update. This isn't like WoW's PTR where we know we're in testing. We're dealing with the live launches of the patches here, and someone screwed up leaving someone without access to pants till the next patch.

Well yes, it was an example of incompetence by GW. I'm certainly not going to defend their handling of the situation. But defending GW is not my point there, it's that there's a huge difference between "space marines struggle with AA because that's one of their intended weaknesses and it balances out their strengths elsewhere" and "space marines struggle with AA because their new flyer kit doesn't have a release slot for six months". You can't use GW's botched handling of 6th as an example of how designed weaknesses are bad.

Except that logic is entirely flawed, lack of synergies should be how you push flavour for a faction, or lack of options.
Presenting people with overcosted units is giving new players a false sense of security and actually is esentially sacrificing effort that could actually usefully be expended on playable units for false choice "Trap units".
Do you know what that does, it pisses players off and you and up with a bunch of people with unplayable model's that they have spent time money and effort on.
It's guaranteed 100% feel bad game design, in card games(filler cards) or other such minimal investment games changing units is easy, in a buy build paint system that design idea will cost you way more players that it will ever gain you.

Ice_can wrote:

Except that logic is entirely flawed, lack of synergies should be how you push flavour for a faction, or lack of options.
Presenting people with overcosted units is giving new players a false sense of security and actually is esentially sacrificing effort that could actually usefully be expended on playable units for false choice "Trap units".
Do you know what that does, it pisses players off and you and up with a bunch of people with unplayable model's that they have spent time money and effort on.
It's guaranteed 100% feel bad game design, in card games(filler cards) or other such minimal investment games changing units is easy, in a buy build paint system that design idea will cost you way more players that it will ever gain you.

Yes, exactly!

 Crimson wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

Except that logic is entirely flawed, lack of synergies should be how you push flavour for a faction, or lack of options.
Presenting people with overcosted units is giving new players a false sense of security and actually is esentially sacrificing effort that could actually usefully be expended on playable units for false choice "Trap units".
Do you know what that does, it pisses players off and you and up with a bunch of people with unplayable model's that they have spent time money and effort on.
It's guaranteed 100% feel bad game design, in card games(filler cards) or other such minimal investment games changing units is easy, in a buy build paint system that design idea will cost you way more players that it will ever gain you.

Yes, exactly!

Agreed as well. Subpar units will just never get taken so long as units being taken is a choice and not something forced onto the player. If the Tau melee units suck and are intentionally overpriced compared to other faction's melee units, then good players will just never take those units and instead double down on the faction's strengths because having melee units isn't a necessary condition for winning. You might as well remove the units from the game at that point, because that isn't "choice", it is "the illusion of choice".

Now that soup is a thing it is even worse, because those overpriced units are now competing for spots against units from other armies that aren't overpriced.

You can make Tau feel worse at melee by limiting their melee options, or making the melee units in question synergize worse with the rest of the army. But intentionally overpricing them is a hamfisted way to try and achieve that, and a good way to kill list diversity.

w1zard wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

Except that logic is entirely flawed, lack of synergies should be how you push flavour for a faction, or lack of options.
Presenting people with overcosted units is giving new players a false sense of security and actually is esentially sacrificing effort that could actually usefully be expended on playable units for false choice "Trap units".
Do you know what that does, it pisses players off and you and up with a bunch of people with unplayable model's that they have spent time money and effort on.
It's guaranteed 100% feel bad game design, in card games(filler cards) or other such minimal investment games changing units is easy, in a buy build paint system that design idea will cost you way more players that it will ever gain you.

Yes, exactly!

Agreed as well. Subpar units will just never get taken so long as units being taken is a choice and not something forced onto the player. If the Tau melee units suck and are intentionally overpriced compared to other faction's melee units, then good players will just never take those units and instead double down on the faction's strengths because having melee units isn't a necessary condition for winning. You might as well remove the units from the game at that point, because that isn't "choice", it is "the illusion of choice".

Now that soup is a thing it is even worse, because those overpriced units are now competing for spots against units from other armies that aren't overpriced.

Soup exemplifies and basically removes the balancing via designed weaknesses aspect of big factions anyways.
Guard armies internally are balanced by a shitton of CP but meh stratagems. ---> Soup guardsmen feed the CP to their smashcaptain and Knight overlords which in turn lose their CP weakness for beeing elite.

Basically balancing via designed weaknesses is (nearly) dead for big factions and the only ones that still can be balanced that way are Tau and Necrons and Orkz since they lack soup possibilites.

In a world of soup faction vs faction armies the only way the game can hope to be balanced is through unit vs unit balance. It is impossible to balance an army against another (as seems to be the most popular option here) when an "army" can consist of 3 characters and no other units. All sense of balance falls apart and we end up in the position we're in now where the best units are cherry picked and taken in cross army soup factions and mono armies are unable to compete.

This wouldn't be as much of an issue if the question of which factions could "soup" was a little more evenly split. But when Imperium can soup with over 50% of the available armies, Chaos with 30% Nids, IG and GSC can ally together and Orks/Necrons must stand alone it should be obvious that massive discrepancies in terms of unit, and hence army, viability.

Unit vs unit balance isn't as boring as the OP suggests either. Units can be balanced in terms of battlefield role, primary strengths, flexibility. There's a ton of ways to make vastly different units still balanced.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Soup exemplifies and basically removes the balancing via designed weaknesses aspect of big factions anyways.
Guard armies internally are balanced by a shitton of CP but meh stratagems. ---> Soup guardsmen feed the CP to their smashcaptain and Knight overlords which in turn lose their CP weakness for beeing elite.

Basically balancing via designed weaknesses is (nearly) dead for big factions and the only ones that still can be balanced that way are Tau and Necrons and Orkz since they lack soup possibilites.

Except you didn't seem to understand this part:

w1zard wrote:
Subpar units will just never get taken so long as units being taken is a choice and not something forced onto the player. If the Tau melee units suck and are intentionally overpriced compared to other faction's melee units, then good players will just never take those units and instead double down on the faction's strengths because having melee units isn't a necessary condition for winning. You might as well remove the units from the game at that point, because that isn't "choice", it is "the illusion of choice".

w1zard wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Soup exemplifies and basically removes the balancing via designed weaknesses aspect of big factions anyways.
Guard armies internally are balanced by a shitton of CP but meh stratagems. ---> Soup guardsmen feed the CP to their smashcaptain and Knight overlords which in turn lose their CP weakness for beeing elite.

Basically balancing via designed weaknesses is (nearly) dead for big factions and the only ones that still can be balanced that way are Tau and Necrons and Orkz since they lack soup possibilites.

Except you didn't seem to understand this part:

w1zard wrote:
Subpar units will just never get taken so long as units being taken is a choice and not something forced onto the player. If the Tau melee units suck and are intentionally overpriced compared to other faction's melee units, then good players will just never take those units and instead double down on the faction's strengths because having melee units isn't a necessary condition for winning. You might as well remove the units from the game at that point, because that isn't "choice", it is "the illusion of choice".

The point of this post was to hightlight that balancing via designed weakness is dead for all but three armies, whilest the three armies suffer from the designed weakness comparatively unfair.
Again i am not in the camp that demands balancing via designed weakness.

Ice_can wrote:
Except that logic is entirely flawed, lack of synergies should be how you push flavour for a faction, or lack of options.

That's a terrible argument. Lacking synergies is the same as being underpowered. If kroot, for example, are less effective than boyz because of a lack of synergies then how exactly is that any different from kroot being less effective because they cost more per model? Either way the unit is below average in power.

Presenting people with overcosted units is giving new players a false sense of security and actually is esentially sacrificing effort that could actually usefully be expended on playable units for false choice "Trap units".

Alternatively, it's offering power at a price. You can fix your lack of melee units if you really aren't comfortable with that hole, but you still won't be good at it compared to a dedicated melee faction. This makes the situation a bit less binary without risking a situation where a faction's "bad" units end up too effective and you have a god-tier faction that is good at everything.


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Not Online!!! wrote:
Soup exemplifies and basically removes the balancing via designed weaknesses aspect of big factions anyways.
Guard armies internally are balanced by a shitton of CP but meh stratagems. ---> Soup guardsmen feed the CP to their smashcaptain and Knight overlords which in turn lose their CP weakness for beeing elite.

And this is why soup should go. One codex, one 5th edition FOC, period. Pick your army and play it, none of this nonsense where you get the best unit for every possible role.

And this is why soup should go. One codex, one 5th edition FOC, period. Pick your army and play it, none of this nonsense where you get the best unit for every possible role.

As often as i disagree with you, that is something i could support.
Then again certain armies like knights, should either be moved into another army, get rid off, go apoc, or simply get a full roster.

(to this day i don't understand why knights did not get a troop slot mini knight the size of a sentinel.)

OR, reimplement the ally chart which was atleast 1 HQ and one troop and no LOW.
that was way more restrictive, still allowed for some fluffy choices and with the diferentiation of differing allies was also fairer. (except for tyranids but that is another story)

 Peregrine wrote:
That's a terrible argument. Lacking synergies is the same as being underpowered. If kroot, for example, are less effective than boyz because of a lack of synergies then how exactly is that any different from kroot being less effective because they cost more per model? Either way the unit is below average in power.

No. I'd rather a unit lack synergy than be overcosted. A good unit with no synergy can stand on its own merits and doesn't take anything away from the rest of the army (doesn't add anything either). An overcosted unit is just bad, because not only is it bad for its price point, it means less points are available to be spent on your army and reduces the effectiveness of the whole.

Considering how often we've gone through this argument and considering it is not going anywhere I am beginning to believe that it would be in 8th's best interest to take up the AoS army system wholesale(ie. how to build an army).

At 2000 points that would mean max 6 HQ. You would have to have at least 3 Battlelines, and then the rest is up to you and allies could at best be 25% of the entire force. Command Points would be generated per turn like AoS and Kill Team which would further limit shenanigans. I am not exaggerating, but everyone who complains about soups, competitive lists, unfluffy armies, would probably love the AoS system in 8th edition if it were attempted. I know a lot of people have internal biases to everything AoS due to various reasons, but the army building system - as it stands - is currently leagues above 8th edition if you compare the amount of complaining and criticizing 8th gets.

Also keep in mind that the biggest complaint about 8th edition is the Command Point system. Going to an AoS Command Point system would resolve all of those issues. It would eliminate the need for the Brave 32. It would mean that mono-armies stand equal in CP generation to soup armies, because most of the soup complaint is related to CP issues and stratagems and the limited CP system of AoS would remove all those issues.

AOS command point system is definitely superior. It removes the whole silly filling slots to generate CP aspect, and not all points being available at the beginning of the game reduces the alpha strike.

w1zard wrote:
No. I'd rather a unit lack synergy than be overcosted. A good unit with no synergy can stand on its own merits and doesn't take anything away from the rest of the army (doesn't add anything either). An overcosted unit is just bad, because not only is it bad for its price point, it means less points are available to be spent on your army and reduces the effectiveness of the whole.

Again, stop trying to separate inherent power and synergy, all that matters is the end result. In fact, a unit that is good enough to stand on its own merits is better than one that relies on synergy to get there. So in your hypothetical system you have Tau that are great at shooting but also great at melee because they can just drop in a Kroot squad or three and have them be top-tier melee units without even having to build the rest of the army around melee.

 Peregrine wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Except that logic is entirely flawed, lack of synergies should be how you push flavour for a faction, or lack of options.

That's a terrible argument. Lacking synergies is the same as being underpowered. If kroot, for example, are less effective than boyz because of a lack of synergies then how exactly is that any different from kroot being less effective because they cost more per model? Either way the unit is below average in power.

Presenting people with overcosted units is giving new players a false sense of security and actually is esentially sacrificing effort that could actually usefully be expended on playable units for false choice "Trap units".

Alternatively, it's offering power at a price. You can fix your lack of melee units if you really aren't comfortable with that hole, but you still won't be good at it compared to a dedicated melee faction. This makes the situation a bit less binary without risking a situation where a faction's "bad" units end up too effective and you have a god-tier faction that is good at everything.


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Not Online!!! wrote:
Soup exemplifies and basically removes the balancing via designed weaknesses aspect of big factions anyways.
Guard armies internally are balanced by a shitton of CP but meh stratagems. ---> Soup guardsmen feed the CP to their smashcaptain and Knight overlords which in turn lose their CP weakness for beeing elite.

And this is why soup should go. One codex, one 5th edition FOC, period. Pick your army and play it, none of this nonsense where you get the best unit for every possible role.

Lacking synergies is not the same as being overcosted.
Your equating totally different things to support your own internal predisposition.

The unit being good but lacking synergies would be as follows
10 Kroot can fight as well as similar points of Ork boys, not necessarily always in the CC phase but between shooting and CC they should trade evenly.
What orks have in synergies are larger foot mobs get more deadly, but less mobile, smaller mobs get transports, they can also be buffed by HQ's

Kroot can fight point for point but can't add buffs or benifit from other synergies in the tau faction to enhance their combat power.


Whar your suggesting is that it should take 15 kroot to beat 10 kroots worth of points of ork boys unbuffed.
At that point it's not even a real choice it's spending points in a way that will always cost you the game.
As when you add synergies your talking about needing 200 points of kroot to even trade with 100 points of boy's. That sort of attrition rate is how you loose games turn 2.

Funny that your second point basically describes how many codex's felt playing against the astra Millicheese codex for all of 2018.

But undercosting and overcosting units simply doesn't work as it doesn't offer things at a price like you sayit does, it only offers the illusion of choice.

Which is why GW keeps thinking things are ok for marines as with 100 choices the designers believe that at atleast one of those units should answer any challenge, but it necer worked as you just end up with 90% of engagements as a probable loss, so why take such a bad unit.

Ice_can wrote:
Kroot can fight point for point but can't add buffs or benifit from other synergies in the tau faction to enhance their combat power.

Then Kroot can't fight point for point. You can't have it both ways, if the units start the same and only one gets buffs then the other one is still weak. All that matters is the end result, not how they get there.

Whar your suggesting is that it should take 15 kroot to beat 10 kroots worth of points of ork boys unbuffed.

Why do you care about un-buffed boyz when they don't exist in a real game?

At that point it's not even a real choice it's spending points in a way that will always cost you the game.

It's a move that always loses you the game under your system too.

As when you add synergies your talking about needing 200 points of kroot to even trade with 100 points of boy's. That sort of attrition rate is how you loose games turn 2.

Yes, now you get it. That's the entire point of making them weak, to discourage people from taking them! If you absolutely must have a melee unit in your Tau army you can take one, but it's going to be bad and you probably shouldn't do it. This maintains the army concept of Tau having poor melee as a weakness instead of allowing you to cover that weakness with a competitive option. The alternative is to just delete Kroot from the game entirely and leave no option at all.

 Peregrine wrote:

w1zard wrote:
No. I'd rather a unit lack synergy than be overcosted. A good unit with no synergy can stand on its own merits and doesn't take anything away from the rest of the army (doesn't add anything either). An overcosted unit is just bad, because not only is it bad for its price point, it means less points are available to be spent on your army and reduces the effectiveness of the whole.

Again, stop trying to separate inherent power and synergy, all that matters is the end result. In fact, a unit that is good enough to stand on its own merits is better than one that relies on synergy to get there. So in your hypothetical system you have Tau that are great at shooting but also great at melee because they can just drop in a Kroot squad or three and have them be top-tier melee units without even having to build the rest of the army around melee.

No that are inherently seperate, it's you that is trying to ram them together and mishmashing ideas together.

Having one or two melle units that are good, without delivery systems and buffs to offence and defence or mobility are never going to compete with a faction that can take as good melle units and buff them offensively or defensively. Or get them across table in number turn 1/2.

Those buffs or delivery method being in that codex are the enherint synergy that rewards that favoured playstyle

 Peregrine wrote:


Why do you care about un-buffed boyz when they don't exist in a real game?

Buffs are not free.

Yes, now you get it. That's the entire point of making them weak, to discourage people from taking them! If you absolutely must have a melee unit in your Tau army you can take one, but it's going to be bad and you probably shouldn't do it.

This is moronic beyond belief. You would be a terrible game designer!

 Peregrine wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Kroot can fight point for point but can't add buffs or benifit from other synergies in the tau faction to enhance their combat power.

Then Kroot can't fight point for point. You can't have it both ways, if the units start the same and only one gets buffs then the other one is still weak. All that matters is the end result, not how they get there.

Whar your suggesting is that it should take 15 kroot to beat 10 kroots worth of points of ork boys unbuffed.

Why do you care about un-buffed boyz when they don't exist in a real game?

At that point it's not even a real choice it's spending points in a way that will always cost you the game.

It's a move that always loses you the game under your system too.

As when you add synergies your talking about needing 200 points of kroot to even trade with 100 points of boy's. That sort of attrition rate is how you loose games turn 2.

Yes, now you get it. That's the entire point of making them weak, to discourage people from taking them! If you absolutely must have a melee unit in your Tau army you can take one, but it's going to be bad and you probably shouldn't do it. This maintains the army concept of Tau having poor melee as a weakness instead of allowing you to cover that weakness with a competitive option. The alternative is to just delete Kroot from the game entirely and leave no option at all.

Costing them like your suggesting is worse than actually just flat out retconning most of the armies down to their competitive units.

It leaves the illusion of choice, bad choices of units automatically cost new players the game. It's championing 100% feel bad game design and that will loose player's even faster.

Ice_can wrote:
Having one or two melle units that are good, without delivery systems and buffs to offence and defence or mobility are never going to compete with a faction that can take as good melle units and buff them offensively or defensively. Or get them across table in number turn 1/2.

Congratulations, now you have a bad melee unit even if it's theoretically balanced in some abstract calculation that has nothing to do with real-world use. It doesn't matter if a unit is bad because of high ppm cost or lack of delivery system or whatever, it's still a bad unit.


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Ice_can wrote:
Costing them like your suggesting is worse than actually just flat out retconning most of the armies down to their competitive units.

It leaves the illusion of choice, bad choices of units automatically cost new players the game. It's championing 100% feel bad game design and that will loose player's even faster.

I'd be happy with removing anti-theme units entirely, but some people don't like having such binary strengths and weaknesses. Low-tier units exist to fill a fluff role or allow a player who is afraid of going into battle with a major weakness to reduce it to a minor weakness at the cost of some of their primary strength, without allowing the army to actually be good at that thing.

 Peregrine wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Having one or two melle units that are good, without delivery systems and buffs to offence and defence or mobility are never going to compete with a faction that can take as good melle units and buff them offensively or defensively. Or get them across table in number turn 1/2.

Congratulations, now you have a bad melee unit even if it's theoretically balanced in some abstract calculation that has nothing to do with real-world use. It doesn't matter if a unit is bad because of high ppm cost or lack of delivery system or whatever, it's still a bad unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ice_can wrote:
Costing them like your suggesting is worse than actually just flat out retconning most of the armies down to their competitive units.

It leaves the illusion of choice, bad choices of units automatically cost new players the game. It's championing 100% feel bad game design and that will loose player's even faster.

I'd be happy with removing anti-theme units entirely, but some people don't like having such binary strengths and weaknesses. Low-tier units exist to fill a fluff role or allow a player who is afraid of going into battle with a major weakness to reduce it to a minor weakness at the cost of some of their primary strength, without allowing the army to actually be good at that thing.

This is where we fundamentally disagree, a good ppm unit without buffs or delivery method can be used efficently by a suitably skilled player.

You can't play around a unit being flat overcosted.

Take a unit of broadsides for tau good shooting and fairly tanky, suck in CC, ok PPM kroot can be placed around the broadsides to keep them shooting for atleast another turn or 2 or possibly manovered during the game to oust the guardsmen cheesing up itc terrain to hide.

Thry won't do that if they are overcosted, no amount of player skill can make tac marines playable.

Ice_can wrote:
This is where we fundamentally disagree, a good ppm unit without buffs or delivery method can be used efficently by a suitably skilled player.

If it can be used efficiently then it isn't a good ppm unit without buffs or delivery method, it's an overpowered unit only partially held in check by lacking the right support to dominate the game. If the buffs/delivery/etc are a meaningful drawback then player skill is not going to make up for it unless you're playing against a weaker player, in which case a higher ppm cost can be played around just as easily.

Take a unit of broadsides for tau good shooting and fairly tanky, suck in CC, ok PPM kroot can be placed around the broadsides to keep them shooting for atleast another turn or 2 or possibly manovered during the game to oust the guardsmen cheesing up itc terrain to hide.

Thry won't do that if they are overcosted, no amount of player skill can make tac marines playable.

If they're doing that job effectively then the lack of buffs/delivery/etc isn't a real penalty and you're trying to count it as one to make the unit look less impressive. The whole point of a faction with weaknesses is that you don't get everything you want. You can have that tanky unit with lots of firepower, but you don't get a meatshield screen to protect it. Etc. If you're looking at your army list and not thinking "how am I going to cope with this flaw" then you have an overpowered and badly designed faction.

 Peregrine wrote:

If they're doing that job effectively then the lack of buffs/delivery/etc isn't a real penalty and you're trying to count it as one to make the unit look less impressive. The whole point of a faction with weaknesses is that you don't get everything you want. You can have that tanky unit with lots of firepower, but you don't get a meatshield screen to protect it. Etc. If you're looking at your army list and not thinking "how am I going to cope with this flaw" then you have an overpowered and badly designed faction.

You do realise that what you have described is the Astra Militarum Codex for 2018.
Simply put why is it ok for one codex but not others.

Your not willing to have a open and honest discussion about this so I really don't see the point in taking this much further, but 10 kroot vrs 10 kroots worth of bots being a draw doesn't fix the weakness Tau have against melle, as the orks can stack banners, warboss and faction trait buffs to get better melle.

Making Kroot more expensive than boys for the same ability in CC before buffs as has been explained by many people is bad game design as when you add those buffs they will quickly decend inti the rediculous outclassed/shelf warmers only trash tier of units.

Ice_can wrote:
You do realise that what you have described is the Astra Militarum Codex for 2018.
Simply put why is it ok for one codex but not others.

Why are you assuming that I approve of the 8th edition IG codex?

(Though you'll note that I also favor getting rid of soup, so all those overpowered CP farms that elite factions weren't supposed to have are gone.)

Your not willing to have a open and honest discussion about this so I really don't see the point in taking this much further, but 10 kroot vrs 10 kroots worth of bots being a draw doesn't fix the weakness Tau have against melle, as the orks can stack banners, warboss and faction trait buffs to get better melle.

Then what's the point of having the units be "equal"? They're only equal in some abstract comparison that doesn't exist in a real game, so who cares?

Making Kroot more expensive than boys for the same ability in CC before buffs as has been explained by many people is bad game design as when you add those buffs they will quickly decend inti the rediculous outclassed/shelf warmers only trash tier of units.

Tau are not supposed to have melee units.

Making Kroot weak is the entire point! You shouldn't be using them 95% of the time, they should only appear in your list if you have a very unusual need and don't care if the unit you fill it with is low-tier at best.

Tau are not supposed to have melee units.

Making Kroot weak is the entire point! You shouldn't be using them 95% of the time, they should only appear in your list if you have a very unusual need and don't care if the unit you fill it with is low-tier at best.

This is not how it should be, or how designed weakness should be for balance.

Instead of making them pisspoor, why not tie them with limits in numbers? f.e. for each firewarrior you get one Kroot.

is it arbitrary? yes, would it be better since melee still is premium for Tau, you bet your ass.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Instead of making them pisspoor, why not tie them with limits in numbers? f.e. for each firewarrior you get one Kroot.

You could do that. Make them a 0-1 unit for your army and you could justify having them be mid-tier in strength. But GW has rejected the idea of unit limits, so I don't think it's a realistic balancing option.

 Peregrine wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Instead of making them pisspoor, why not tie them with limits in numbers? f.e. for each firewarrior you get one Kroot.

You could do that. Make them a 0-1 unit for your army and you could justify having them be mid-tier in strength. But GW has rejected the idea of unit limits, so I don't think it's a realistic balancing option.

1 per firewarrior squad, or 1 per two firewarrior squad. Heck you could even implement auxilia rules for Tau.

Also rule of three exists so unit limits are still there.

Army vs Army and banning the soups from matched play.

Unis vs unit would be terrible, killing armies identities. Everyone would work in the same way and I'd rather keep the current version of 40k with all its issues instead.

As long as soups with 10 codices are allowed and some other factions can rely on 2-3 books at most or just 1 it will always be impossible to balance factions vs factions.

Just to weigh in on the 'Tau melee' debate, what about other options for balancing melee?

For example, what if Kroot were decent units for their points, but simply lacked any meaningful melee weapons?

So, whilst 100pts of unbuffed Kroot could theoretically match 100pts of unbuffed Ork Boyz, the Ork Boyz have access to stuff like Power Klaws, whilst the Kroot can only ever have their basic bladed-gun things (with no AP, no multiple-damage etc.).

It would mean that Kroot weren't technically bad for their points, but would also leave them unable to specialise for cracking harder targets.

Could something along these lines be a reasonable solution?