Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

One big issue with balancing the game both in 7th and 8th (via different game mechanics) that make it very hard to balance anything, free ish buffs that aren't really reflected in the units point cost. Chapter tactics and stratagems for everyone make certain units far more effective than they would be as a stand alone. Formations in 7th did the same thing. Aura hammer being super prevalent to doesn't help since trying to balance that requires you to have an ideal point or power total for the baseline game.

To use a basic example how much should a tactical marine cost. In an ideal world GW would base it's cost on it's stats, base equipment and the rules on it's data sheet. But then you have to keep in mind all of the above since that can really change how well a unit performs. Trying to balance anything in such a system seems a tall task given how many factions and units are in the game plus you can mix and match many of them.

Edit: the post I was responding to was edited away.

 Crimson wrote:
Except Tacticals are not more resilient than guardsmen for their points nor are their weapons more effective.

Yeah.
They are just bad.

Which is the issue here. Units can be defined as bad or good depending on where they fall on the spectrum of all units.

The more points you spend on tactical marines, the worse your army is likely to get. This is because you are getting significantly less for your points than you would with the overwhelming majority of other options.

There is no fluff or "army character" reason for this weakness. Tactical Marines are not meant to be crap compared to Guardsmen. Or Fire Warriors, or Kabalites or most other troops options. They just are, because they cost 13 points and Guardsmen cost 4.

If Marines were say 12 points, but Guardsmen were 5 points (and anything else problematic was suitably adjusted) then you would have a more balanced situation. Marines would be at - or at least a lot closer to - the acceptable mark. You would no longer be making your army objectively worse by taking them.

The problem is that Marines have the albatross of Guilliman and won't be fixed properly until he is cast to the outer dark - but that could be done.

Except even giving bobby G a bro hug still doesn't make tactical marines good, they just go from garbage to fluffy lists ok.

Just loom at how many points GW had to take off of intercessors to make peope even begin to consider them worthwhile.

In ith edition GW massively overcosted 3+ and doesn't seem to know why or by how much to be able to fix it.

like 10pts drop I would say. bolters that cost almost 20pts don't kill enough stuff. their resiliance is also, while better then tac marines, not good enough to base an army around. Not when there is a bucket of d2 being thrown around by most lists.

Crimson wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

When people think of unit-level balancing, there is often a comparison going on. Very few units in Starcraft are easily analagous, often begin parked behind different tiers of construction. Comparing the core Troop of the Factions (SM Tacticals, Guard Infantry Squad, Nid Termagant Brood, etc) would be a case that people would look at when doing unit balancing. The problem being that they are not intended to be balanced 1:1. The Guard Squad is cheap, but has a very low model cap for such a cheap unit. Termagants being both cheap and having a large model cap. SM Tacticals are somewhat more expensive, but are generally tougher, stronger, while having a low model cap. Guardsmen are then geared for providing for either larger detachments at a cheaper cost, or allowing for point room for their far more effective vehicles. Termagants can be used like Guardsmen in that respect, but with their shorter-ranged weapons, need to be taken in larger numbers to have a chance for the unit survive long enough to even consider hurting something. Tacticals aren't really set up to be taken cheaply, but either can more easily survive what the 'gants and Guard cannot, or it takes more resources to do so easily. From their, their weapon loadout is more diverse and effective in its diversity than either 'gant or Guard can provide, but their Vehicles are either mediocre or vastly far more expensive.

Except Tacticals are not more resilient than guardsmen for their points nor are their weapons more effective.

I didn't say they were more resilient for their points. What I said is that Tacticals were not meant to be cheap (they aren't), that they are tougher than Guardsmen and 'gants (they are), and that their weapon loadout is more diverse (primarily over the 'gants) and more effective (better range than the 'gants and a little stronger than the Guardsmen). That point value is where the imbalance of Warhammer begins to shine and measures out the desirability of the unit to either take as spam or necessary filler.

Realistically, they should set one unit as the base point, and work from there at how much of it that it can kill versus how quickly it kills it. This should be tested from a ranged perspective and a melee perspective. Everything should then be based off of how it compares with that base unit point. If our base point is the Tactical Marine Squad, how many Guardsmen, on average would it take to shoot them off the board? How long would it take Guardsmen to beat them off the board? Then reverse it and go from there. If it takes 3 Infantry Squads to kill 1 Tactical Squad in the same time 1 Tactical Squad butchers those 3 Infantry Squads, then a Guardsman should be 1/3 the point value of the Marine. This would at least provide a base starting point. It's not perfect, because this method doesn't consider synergistic affects like HQs, Markerlights, etc. (whose affects should be priced in themselves), but I think it would prove better than what we're getting.

What we seem to get is a bit of a dart board approach to which they feel it with a +1 or -2 approach till it 'feels" right without engaging math at all. Then they add weapons and gear with nice round numbers which further imbalances something that was still teetering to begin with.

There are two different contexts.

Army v Army is pretty typical, where there is one specific build for each army which is competitive against the competitive builds of other armies. This is "external balance", where you can pick any army, and have "fair" odds of winning - as long as you take the correct mix of units for that army. If you deviate from that competitive build, you will fail.

Unit v Unit is less common, because there are so many other things going on that it's really hard to balance a Grot against a Knight. But it gets to the notion of "internal balance", where you have more choices of what to take for your competitive build.

I believe that Army v Army balance is more important, and that there should be deliberate cost imbalances to encourage particular army compositions. For example, SMs should be most competitive if they take a fully-mechanized Demi-Company, but considerably less so if they're taking Scouts and Terminators and Primaris and other specialists. "Soup" should be uncompetitive by its nature.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Honestly the fact you had Dreads of all things pin you down speaks levels of how you actually play.

16 dreadnoughts in 6th/7th was a lot, buddy. Thanks for the condescension though.

They came in from a flank with the Flank March ability, and each one was more than capable of wrecking a Leman Russ in a single combat.

...and Dreads in 6th/7th were terrible. So if you thought they were dangerous I would say you're not a strong player.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Honestly the fact you had Dreads of all things pin you down speaks levels of how you actually play.

16 dreadnoughts in 6th/7th was a lot, buddy. Thanks for the condescension though.

They came in from a flank with the Flank March ability, and each one was more than capable of wrecking a Leman Russ in a single combat.

...and Dreads in 6th/7th were terrible. So if you thought they were dangerous I would say you're not a strong player.

While I generally I agree with Dreads not being that strong back then, couldn't Blood angels pull some pretty nasty combos with them using the FW dread DPs and the Lib versions? I vaguely remember that doing well at a few tournaments.

Yes, it was a gimmick for a while. Once they were forced to deploy, it was over.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Honestly the fact you had Dreads of all things pin you down speaks levels of how you actually play.

16 dreadnoughts in 6th/7th was a lot, buddy. Thanks for the condescension though.

They came in from a flank with the Flank March ability, and each one was more than capable of wrecking a Leman Russ in a single combat.

...and Dreads in 6th/7th were terrible. So if you thought they were dangerous I would say you're not a strong player.

What do you want me to say? He had 16 dreadnoughts, and I had <16 anti-tank guns that could stop them in one turn. I killed almost all of them before the end, but they Flank Marched to ~12" away from me, and it was either "get closer" and fail to kill them all because he had more bodies than I had guns (then get charged and mulched by Dreadnought Close Combat Weapons with Str. 10 vs Rear Armor 10, or 12, at best), or "run away" and kill them all eventually, which is what I chose.

I'm sort of shocked you're a bad enough player that you can't do the basic math required to understand that 6 Leman Russes and 1 Shadowsword in those editions was powerful, but not numerous, anti-tank. Indeed, with all your incessant whining about Imperial Guard I would hope you understand the basic tactical concept of having not enough shots to stop the wall of bad-guys attacking you.

Karol wrote:
:too slow:

But considering they aren't more resilient then cheap swarm chaff. Which way should GW go fixing marines. Make them tougher, or make them more killy like eldar are? Maybe a bit of both.

If you look at a bolter Marine in a vacuum next to a Guardsman with a lasgun in a vacuum they're both reasonably priced for getting into infantry firefights.

The problem is that size creep (multiple detachments, vehicle squadrons, bigger guns) has gotten wildly out of control to the point that Space Marines are too squishy and pulse rifles require abilities allowing them to fire four shots a turn to be an effective weapon. Changing Space Marines doesn't really help a whole lot; you can't make an infantry squad bigger or better in the age of Knights/Riptides/Russ squadrons because you can't make it durable until it becomes an Ogryn or a Custodian, and anything else just makes it more expensive without making it more worthwhile. At some point you have to start reining in the damage output; you can't solve all problems by buffing the thing at the bottom of the pile, that just ends up moving the pile without actually flattening it at all.

 AnomanderRake wrote:


If you look at a bolter Marine in a vacuum next to a Guardsman with a lasgun in a vacuum they're both reasonably priced for getting into infantry firefights.

Funny, you can do exactly that in Kill Team. In fact, technically marines have slight buffs given the slight rules differences of Kill Team. Still, I think 3 cultists technically do more work than a single bolter marine. Both being 12 points.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Karol wrote:
:too slow:

But considering they aren't more resilient then cheap swarm chaff. Which way should GW go fixing marines. Make them tougher, or make them more killy like eldar are? Maybe a bit of both.

If you look at a bolter Marine in a vacuum next to a Guardsman with a lasgun in a vacuum they're both reasonably priced for getting into infantry firefights.

The problem is that size creep (multiple detachments, vehicle squadrons, bigger guns) has gotten wildly out of control to the point that Space Marines are too squishy and pulse rifles require abilities allowing them to fire four shots a turn to be an effective weapon. Changing Space Marines doesn't really help a whole lot; you can't make an infantry squad bigger or better in the age of Knights/Riptides/Russ squadrons because you can't make it durable until it becomes an Ogryn or a Custodian, and anything else just makes it more expensive without making it more worthwhile. At some point you have to start reining in the damage output; you can't solve all problems by buffing the thing at the bottom of the pile, that just ends up moving the pile without actually flattening it at all.

But buffs don't have to be +1 to save or AP. GW could give marines better deployment or redeployment options. they could even give them to primaris only. Other stuff could be a form of build in apothecary, which could be buffed up by an actual apothecary or stratagems. Lets say primaris could regrow d2 wounds or one model each turn. It could be enhanced for some chapter that could make the regeneration their whole schtick.
Other fixs could be done in form of option changes. Maybe marines should have more weapon options per squad?
Other stuff could be chapter specific or unit specific, but based on fluff. In the books I read a marine charging is like a mini tank droping on you, they can break light armored targets by weight of impact alone.

Why not give marines some sort of auto hit if they charge . An assault space marine or raptor droping in using a jump pack should leave a crater when he lands. So maybe auto hits based on the size of a unit, if they charge something less armored then them. That could even spread to other armies, eldar could get some sort of dodge bonus which would make them tougher to hit in melee on some units. Orcs could have a space marine like rule, but it could be based on wounds in a unit. Maybe tau could use their non pistol weapons in melee. Maybe some super disciplined IG regiment like the morodian iron guard could get the same type of rule.

I understand the GW tries to make all the rules as much the same as possible, but they really don't have to do it 100% of time. If they make the unit rules the same, then all that is important is raw stats and point costs. And then I agree that fixing anything marine, primaris or not, is not possible in this edition.

Karol wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Karol wrote:
:too slow:

But considering they aren't more resilient then cheap swarm chaff. Which way should GW go fixing marines. Make them tougher, or make them more killy like eldar are? Maybe a bit of both.

If you look at a bolter Marine in a vacuum next to a Guardsman with a lasgun in a vacuum they're both reasonably priced for getting into infantry firefights.

The problem is that size creep (multiple detachments, vehicle squadrons, bigger guns) has gotten wildly out of control to the point that Space Marines are too squishy and pulse rifles require abilities allowing them to fire four shots a turn to be an effective weapon. Changing Space Marines doesn't really help a whole lot; you can't make an infantry squad bigger or better in the age of Knights/Riptides/Russ squadrons because you can't make it durable until it becomes an Ogryn or a Custodian, and anything else just makes it more expensive without making it more worthwhile. At some point you have to start reining in the damage output; you can't solve all problems by buffing the thing at the bottom of the pile, that just ends up moving the pile without actually flattening it at all.

But buffs don't have to be +1 to save or AP. GW could give marines better deployment or redeployment options. they could even give them to primaris only. Other stuff could be a form of build in apothecary, which could be buffed up by an actual apothecary or stratagems. Lets say primaris could regrow d2 wounds or one model each turn. It could be enhanced for some chapter that could make the regeneration their whole schtick.
Other fixs could be done in form of option changes. Maybe marines should have more weapon options per squad?
Other stuff could be chapter specific or unit specific, but based on fluff. In the books I read a marine charging is like a mini tank droping on you, they can break light armored targets by weight of impact alone.

Why not give marines some sort of auto hit if they charge . An assault space marine or raptor droping in using a jump pack should leave a crater when he lands. So maybe auto hits based on the size of a unit, if they charge something less armored then them. That could even spread to other armies, eldar could get some sort of dodge bonus which would make them tougher to hit in melee on some units. Orcs could have a space marine like rule, but it could be based on wounds in a unit. Maybe tau could use their non pistol weapons in melee. Maybe some super disciplined IG regiment like the morodian iron guard could get the same type of rule.

I understand the GW tries to make all the rules as much the same as possible, but they really don't have to do it 100% of time. If they make the unit rules the same, then all that is important is raw stats and point costs. And then I agree that fixing anything marine, primaris or not, is not possible in this edition.

Things like this tend to end up making the game more complicated (making players learn more special rules) without actually fixing the underlying problem. This is how D&D and AoS are written; the underlying basic structure without any of the tacked-on special rules is really, really boring, and the special rules do a lot more to obfuscate the problem than they do to solve the problem.

Things like this tend to end up making the game more complicated (making players learn more special rules) without actually fixing the underlying problem. This is how D&D and AoS are written; the underlying basic structure without any of the tacked-on special rules is really, really boring, and the special rules do a lot more to obfuscate the problem than they do to solve the problem.

It could be very streamlined. A marine could do a s3 attack for free when charging. If he was on a bike, termintor or with a pack it would be higher str.

Eldar foot aspects of the nimble kind could have a unmodified save, that could go up in melee.

Orc boys could do a str 3 hit for 10 wounds, str 4 for 20 and 5 for 30. It could be put in to general army rules.

But maybe you are right. I think that GW just streamlined some stuff too much. Marines for example clearly lack 1-2 army wide rules to be efficient. GW even kind of a tries to fix it in the new book, with detachments getting extra rules. Am just not sure that a high CP cost of those, that forces people to play IG, is the way to go.

Competitive players always going to min max and spam the cost efficient models.

Balancing for factions will never solve this as someone already stated how people can ignore 90% of a codex and cherry pick the top 10% powerful, undercosted units.

Balancing for units wont work because of other army equivalent are not ever equivalent. MEqs, GEqs, TEqs etc... There is sometimes army synergy that is in accounted for.

Balance is always a gradient. Nothing is ever perfectly balanced, you just want to go with as much balance as possible with a priority towards External balance over Internal balanced (cause having all the equal options in the world does you know good if they're all equally bad)

Faction vs Faction is sort of the bare minimum to provide everyone with a way to play their army in a competitive fashion. If a Faction is not competitive, priority 1 has to be making that Faction competitive. It's the External floor.

Army vs Army is the next goal. I'm not really a believe in codex pure, but having an Army that doesn't have a place in its faction is a red flag to address. This is a bit of a mix of External and Internal balance and leans towards the latter a bit for me, but the former for people that are a little more dedicated to single codex armies.

Unit vs Unit is essentially impossible and not realistically desirable even. You want choices and having X number of points capable of killing their points worth of anything regardless of their weapon loadouts and the opposing defensive stats removes pretty much all the decision making in the game. That said, this is something you can do to improve Internal balance once you've got a grip on the higher tier things, but even then, you probably want to prioritize things. For example, it probably needs to be a bit of a priority to make Marines and Terminators viable over say... the Thunderfire Cannon? I mean, its cool and all, but you want to make sure that iconic stuff people love is in the game before you worry too much about the more niche stuff.

It is possible to do unit vs unit balancing, but it leads to very boring army creation, leaving gameplay to only maneuvers and/or the roll of the dice.

With only a couple of exceptions, Warcraft 2's units only had a difference of images. Health, damage, upgrades, and costs were exactly the same across the board (with the exception of the Paladins and the Ogre Mages). I never found the gameplay very interesting, but I enjoyed the story.

Warcraft 3's units had many similarities, being paired up in the first tier, but had more differences when you looked at it across the board. That made the gameplay interesting, and it was largely balanced.

Starcraft and Starcraft 2 has zero similiarities in their units between factions, yet they still kept things manageably balanced when looked at across the board.

Dawn of War managed to do something 40K hasn't done and keep balance pretty close between the factions.

That being said, it is far easier to balance video games that download updates across the internet than a tabletop game that is updated by book, and only one faction at a time unless the entire system gets replaced.

I would rather try to balance both factions and units in a matrix rather than do a single-axis balance.

Let's group all units into definitive battlefield roles, like Basic Infantry, General Infantry, Assault Infantry, Support Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Light Vehicle, Combat Vehicle, Transport Vehicle, etc. Once all factions have their units grouped into these roles, we can compare units horizontally (units with the same role but belonging to different factions) and sum them up vertically (power of unit synergy within the same faction).

I think it is important to have both unit and army balance because "vacuum engagements" do exist and are often the key points of the battle (for example, two General Infantry units duke it out over an objective they both want to capture) but army-on-army situations are generally more prevalent.

 LunarSol wrote:
Unit vs Unit is essentially impossible and not realistically desirable even. You want choices and having X number of points capable of killing their points worth of anything regardless of their weapon loadouts and the opposing defensive stats removes pretty much all the decision making in the game.

That isn't what Unit vs Unit balancing is. There is always going to be battlefield roles based on loadouts and statlines... that HWT with lascannons is going to be crap at taking out infantry, but good for shooting at vehicles. Unit vs Unit balancing is comparing units WITHIN A ROLE to each other to make sure they are at least somewhat close in terms of efficiency per point. If a unit of lootas costs the same as a HWS with lascannons (example only, I'm not sure what lootas cost) then they should have comparable damage output per point. If they do not, then they need to make up for it in other ways like durability per point, special rules, or range or something.

Is this extremely difficult to do and ultimately somewhat subjective? Sure. It still needs to be done, preferably with community feedback.

w1zard wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Unit vs Unit is essentially impossible and not realistically desirable even. You want choices and having X number of points capable of killing their points worth of anything regardless of their weapon loadouts and the opposing defensive stats removes pretty much all the decision making in the game.

That isn't what Unit vs Unit balancing is. There is always going to be battlefield roles based on loadouts and statlines... that HWT with lascannons is going to be crap at taking out infantry, but good for shooting at vehicles. Unit vs Unit balancing is comparing units WITHIN A ROLE to each other to make sure they are at least somewhat close in terms of efficiency per point. If a unit of lootas costs the same as a HWS with lascannons (example only, I'm not sure what lootas cost) then they should have comparable damage output per point. If they do not, then they need to make up for it in other ways like durability per point, special rules, or range or something.

The problem is "what do you mean by comparable damage output per point"?

That single variable varies wildly with terrain type, stratagems/buffs available, target type (especially this), etc etc. So it could appear (for example) that IG Heavy Weapons Teams do comparable damage per point on Planet Bowling Ball with access to the Cadian buff and Overlapping Fields of Fire, and then you can put lootas on that level. However, that basically means that every other IG regiment's HWTs are undercosted.

If you price the lootas on the level of unbuffed lascannon HWTs in dense terrain where they have to move every turn before shooting, you'll end up with ridiculously underpriced lootas...

The most important matter is that a unit shouldn't be terrible just because it's part of a faction that isn't really about that role. Kroot aren't exactly good for melee right now, and some people might use the excuse that Tau aren't a melee faction anyway. Whirlwinds aren't good, and some people might use the excuse that Marines aren't supposed to use artillery anyway.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The most important matter is that a unit shouldn't be terrible just because it's part of a faction that isn't really about that role. Kroot aren't exactly good for melee right now, and some people might use the excuse that Tau aren't a melee faction anyway. Whirlwinds aren't good, and some people might use the excuse that Marines aren't supposed to use artillery anyway.

This goes back to the argument way at the beginning of the thread, about faction identity. I am exactly the person that thinks Kroot should not be as point-efficient as dedicated melee units like Berzerkers. I am also of the opinion that a Whirlwind should not be as point-efficient as a Basilisk, for example.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The most important matter is that a unit shouldn't be terrible just because it's part of a faction that isn't really about that role. Kroot aren't exactly good for melee right now, and some people might use the excuse that Tau aren't a melee faction anyway. Whirlwinds aren't good, and some people might use the excuse that Marines aren't supposed to use artillery anyway.

This goes back to the argument way at the beginning of the thread, about faction identity. I am exactly the person that thinks Kroot should not be as point-efficient as dedicated melee units like Berzerkers. I am also of the opinion that a Whirlwind should not be as point-efficient as a Basilisk, for example.

If that's so then why should a marine player ever take a whirlwind if they are more points efficent in just bringing a basilisk?
Why not double down and bring 3 basilisks and make a detachment?
At that point it's doesn't matter what faction your playing outside of soup or non soupable as you just pick each unit from the codex that gets that unit discounted and balance is not going to come from that. It's also even more broken is someone just goes all out on the flavour bonus undercosted stuff, guard get undercosted tanks ok so I hope you like facing 16 leman russes, they might be a bit OP but it's ok my elites (which I haven't got any of are overcosted like crazy.

Ice_can wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The most important matter is that a unit shouldn't be terrible just because it's part of a faction that isn't really about that role. Kroot aren't exactly good for melee right now, and some people might use the excuse that Tau aren't a melee faction anyway. Whirlwinds aren't good, and some people might use the excuse that Marines aren't supposed to use artillery anyway.

This goes back to the argument way at the beginning of the thread, about faction identity. I am exactly the person that thinks Kroot should not be as point-efficient as dedicated melee units like Berzerkers. I am also of the opinion that a Whirlwind should not be as point-efficient as a Basilisk, for example.

If that's so then why should a marine player ever take a whirlwind if they are more points efficent in just bringing a basilisk?
Why not double down and bring 3 basilisks and make a detachment?
At that point it's doesn't matter what faction your playing outside of soup or non soupable as you just pick each unit from the codex that gets that unit discounted and balance is not going to come from that. It's also even more broken is someone just goes all out on the flavour bonus undercosted stuff, guard get undercosted tanks ok so I hope you like facing 16 leman russes, they might be a bit OP but it's ok my elites (which I haven't got any of are overcosted like crazy.

And here we're back to why I voted "Faction vs. Faction" balance on the poll.

The reason for Marines to take a whirlwind would be narrative, aesthetics, army dedication, or rule of cool. You know, all the things that don't have the words "points efficiency" in them around which people build their armies.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The most important matter is that a unit shouldn't be terrible just because it's part of a faction that isn't really about that role. Kroot aren't exactly good for melee right now, and some people might use the excuse that Tau aren't a melee faction anyway. Whirlwinds aren't good, and some people might use the excuse that Marines aren't supposed to use artillery anyway.

This goes back to the argument way at the beginning of the thread, about faction identity. I am exactly the person that thinks Kroot should not be as point-efficient as dedicated melee units like Berzerkers. I am also of the opinion that a Whirlwind should not be as point-efficient as a Basilisk, for example.

If that's so then why should a marine player ever take a whirlwind if they are more points efficent in just bringing a basilisk?
Why not double down and bring 3 basilisks and make a detachment?
At that point it's doesn't matter what faction your playing outside of soup or non soupable as you just pick each unit from the codex that gets that unit discounted and balance is not going to come from that. It's also even more broken is someone just goes all out on the flavour bonus undercosted stuff, guard get undercosted tanks ok so I hope you like facing 16 leman russes, they might be a bit OP but it's ok my elites (which I haven't got any of are overcosted like crazy.

And here we're back to why I voted "Faction vs. Faction" balance on the poll.

The reason for Marines to take a whirlwind would be narrative, aesthetics, army dedication, or rule of cool. You know, all the things that don't have the words "points efficiency" in them around which people build their armies.

So play narative games and still loose to the russ spam list anyways?

As far as I'm concerned that isn't balance thats some hand waiving to cover up imbalance without answering the question.

Ice_can wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The most important matter is that a unit shouldn't be terrible just because it's part of a faction that isn't really about that role. Kroot aren't exactly good for melee right now, and some people might use the excuse that Tau aren't a melee faction anyway. Whirlwinds aren't good, and some people might use the excuse that Marines aren't supposed to use artillery anyway.

This goes back to the argument way at the beginning of the thread, about faction identity. I am exactly the person that thinks Kroot should not be as point-efficient as dedicated melee units like Berzerkers. I am also of the opinion that a Whirlwind should not be as point-efficient as a Basilisk, for example.

If that's so then why should a marine player ever take a whirlwind if they are more points efficent in just bringing a basilisk?
Why not double down and bring 3 basilisks and make a detachment?
At that point it's doesn't matter what faction your playing outside of soup or non soupable as you just pick each unit from the codex that gets that unit discounted and balance is not going to come from that. It's also even more broken is someone just goes all out on the flavour bonus undercosted stuff, guard get undercosted tanks ok so I hope you like facing 16 leman russes, they might be a bit OP but it's ok my elites (which I haven't got any of are overcosted like crazy.

And here we're back to why I voted "Faction vs. Faction" balance on the poll.

The reason for Marines to take a whirlwind would be narrative, aesthetics, army dedication, or rule of cool. You know, all the things that don't have the words "points efficiency" in them around which people build their armies.

So play narative games and still loose to the russ spam list anyways?

As far as I'm concerned that isn't balance thats some hand waiving to cover up imbalance without answering the question.

The Russ Spam list isn't very good, actually.

But even setting that aside, the whole reason behind splitting Narrative and Matched Play apart is you can balance them separately. They even have separate army construction rules! So perhaps you could balance Narrative Play (using Power Level costs) around Army vs Army, and then balance Matched Play around Faction versus Faction.

But honestly, the problem in your example seems to be that one player (the one with the Whirlwind) wants to play narratively and the other hypothetical Russ-spamming player does not.

 AtoMaki wrote:
I would rather try to balance both factions and units in a matrix rather than do a single-axis balance.

Let's group all units into definitive battlefield roles, like Basic Infantry, General Infantry, Assault Infantry, Support Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Light Vehicle, Combat Vehicle, Transport Vehicle, etc. Once all factions have their units grouped into these roles, we can compare units horizontally (units with the same role but belonging to different factions) and sum them up vertically (power of unit synergy within the same faction).

I think it is important to have both unit and army balance because "vacuum engagements" do exist and are often the key points of the battle (for example, two General Infantry units duke it out over an objective they both want to capture) but army-on-army situations are generally more prevalent.

I think this is very sensible approach, dividing units into different types. Then design units in a manner their rules make them good against certain kind of enemy units. Although current core rules don't generally allow good type classification because the weapon system is so fluid that everything can wound everything to some level, so now people spam high volume, medium-high strength, low AP fire because that bypasses some cheesy ++ save stacking while medium-high strength can wound everything on suitable level and high volume can deal with hordes in some manner.
Now combine these different classes of units and target specialisations and add faction specialisations: Melee army could and should have larger pool of melee capable units with good performance against various targets, while shooty armies should have also melee units but maybe more specialised, for example one against hordes and one against heavy melee infantry, to prevent them from dominating melee armies in melee. Making something expensive because it's not within faction's specialisation is really poor way of balancing, this is how you end up with trap units. Although other way to come up with trap units is to make some of the units too multifunctional for their price point so everyone just spams them because they make the list more flexible with little loss of performance.

Also must be noted that GW is really adept at making useless units in general, there are so many 'legacy' units that are just ported directly from previous edition with little actual thought put on how they function or should function. And then GW doubles down on these poorly ported units by restricting themselves mostly to just point adjustments, while quite many old legacy trap units would need rework in form of some new special rules to make them function, unless you give them huge price decreases.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

The reason for Marines to take a whirlwind would be narrative, aesthetics, army dedication, or rule of cool. You know, all the things that don't have the words "points efficiency" in them around which people build their armies.

This is utterly terrible game design.