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w1zard wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
...because true balance is impossible....

No, it is not. It is extremely difficult but it is possible. You are conducting an argument from a flawed premise.

Alright, if true balance can be achieved, then do that, obviously. I've seen no evidence that it can, but I would be eminently happy if we arrive at this state, because it is the best state. Can you tell me why you think it can, despite all the evidence to the contrary? I'm not sure I know of any tabletop game that ever has throughout its entire lifetime.

If it cannot, then my method of balancing at least preserves faction identity amid the chaos. It is obviously inferior to true balance, of course - provided that can be achieved.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I want some units to be intentionally bad

Wow. Unfortunately, this is a terrible way to balance a game with massive freedom of choice. If players were forced to take the good with the bad you might have had a point, but when players can just completely skip over bad options you've effectively removed them as an option for most players, especially with allies around.

Besides, who gets to decide what is or isn't an army's theme anyway? Should a Tau player who loves Kroot be penalized every time he/she takes a Kroot unit just because? Why? How does that make anything better? What identity crisis have you averted? You're just hurting players who like different things. If your contention is that it's fluffy, don't you think those fluffy players would follow the fluff of their own accord? Why do you need to prod them into a confined playstyle? Just let players pick units they like for whatever reason they want.
Example: A mangled tau cadre could consist of mostly kroot since they were the only available reinforcements. Boom. It's fluffy, it's cool and it's different and fresh.

Remember, 40k is probably more about collecting than playing for a lot of people. I've spent hundreds more hours painting and building than I have playing, so I would like for every unit to have a purpose and be effective at it when I do play.

On the plus side, it's much easier to actually balance the game when the goal is to make everything as equal as possible instead of trying to juggle good/bad units when easy allies are in the mix.

PS making the archetypical units of a faction overly good just makes the game stale. When only a few units are top dog, people burn out and what something new.

Since you edited it in and I missed it, my reply:

w1zard wrote:
@Unit1126PLL

I don't think anyone is strawmanning your arguments, they are trying to illustrate using examples why they think your argument is flawed.

Personally, I would hate a D&D game where wizards NEVER meleed, fighters NEVER used magic items, or clerics NEVER sneaked. Sure you need to make those classes worse at those things (generally) that they aren't supposed to be doing than the classes who are supposed to be specialists in that area. But, you don't do that by making classes laughably bad at things they aren't supposed to be specialists in, otherwise they just never do it. If you make the cleric bad at sneaking, he just will never sneak at all, ever, and will rather fight and play to his strengths even in a situation that sneaking might be the better option.

A better way is to make the classes SITUATIONALLY decent at things they aren't supposed to be doing. A cleric probably should be bad at being a cat burglar, but pretending to be a member of a crazy cult to infiltrate an enemy temple should be right up their alley. Transferring the analogy over to 40k... Khorne is supposed to be a "melee" army, but Skull cannons should be a GOOD (read, points efficient) ranged weapon that gives khorne the option of engaging at range. Does that mean that khorne becomes an army that is good at shooting? No. Supplementary rules like the rule of 3 prevents this, and also the skull cannon only fulfills a single role (be that ranged anti-infantry or ranged anti-tank, I'm honestly not sure which) so you cannot make an entire army out of them anyway because it would be lacking in ways to deal with most units. Skull cannons are a specialist shooting unit in a melee army much like ogryn are a specialist melee unit inside a shooty army (IG). Making them bad (read, points inefficient) makes it so that they just aren't ever taken.

Everything you've asserted is false.

What I am arguing for is that Khorne should NEVER shoot - nor am I arguing a Wizard should NEVER melee. I am simply arguing that Khorne should be worse (read: points efficient) at shooting than shooting armies, just like how a Cleric should be worse at sneaking than a rogue. Neither one is NEVER going to do those things, and has the tools to do it, but only sort of, compared to the specialists.

The only part I'm unclear on is how you think how Skull Cannons can simultaneously be GOOD (points-efficient) while the army isn't good at shooting, other than bandaid rules like the Rule of 3 (which doesn't exist in narrative play at all, I'll remind you). If it cannot deal with most units, it's not a points-efficient unit, obviously, so you've self-refuted by assuming the skull-cannon was both points-efficient and not-points-efficient at the same time.

Yes, they are a specialist shooting element in a melee army, which is why they should be slightly less efficient than a specialist shooting element in a shooting army.

They're not less efficient than several different choices for the cost though. So they should be nerfed, simple as that.

Dandelion wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I want some units to be intentionally bad

Wow. Unfortunately, this is a terrible way to balance a game with massive freedom of choice. If players were forced to take the good with the bad you might have had a point, but when players can just completely skip over bad options you've effectively removed them as an option for most players, especially with allies around.

Besides, who gets to decide what is or isn't an army's theme anyway? Should a Tau player who loves Kroot be penalized every time he/she takes a Kroot unit just because? Why? How does that make anything better? What identity crisis have you averted? You're just hurting players who like different things. If your contention is that it's fluffy, don't you think those fluffy players would follow the fluff of their own accord? Why do you need to prod them into a confined playstyle? Just let players pick units they like for whatever reason they want.
Example: A mangled tau cadre could consist of mostly kroot since they were the only available reinforcements. Boom. It's fluffy, it's cool and it's different and fresh.

Remember, 40k is probably more about collecting than playing for a lot of people. I've spent hundreds more hours painting and building than I have playing, so I would like for every unit to have a purpose and be effective at it when I do play.

On the plus side, it's much easier to actually balance the game when the goal is to make everything as equal as possible instead of trying to juggle good/bad units when easy allies are in the mix.

PS making the archetypical units of a faction overly good just makes the game stale. When only a few units are top dog, people burn out and what something new.

Double post because the replies are coming more quickly. I'll color code the points I am addressing:
Orange: The assumption implicit in this post is that most players play competitively, as apparently the only criterion for picking a unit in their mind is its competitiveness on the table. This is, in deed, a very stale way to play. There's not much else to say; it's true.

Green: Games Workshop, the faction's creator, self-evidently.

Blue: The one where one could build a plausible melee army out of the Tau Empire army list. If Kroot are competitive, there's a very real risk that the Tau melee is as good as its shooting, especially if they become as good as Khorne Berzerkers, and that betrays the faction identity GW seems to wish to establish.

Violet: Yes, I do, but there's no reason competitive armies couldn't at least appear fluffy as well, by souping together different elements that plays to each present army's strength.

Cyan: Ironically, in my system, they can absolutely do this. No one has removed any options, and the only reason people will tailor their army away from whatever they want is they no longer want it... if they want to be competitive, be competitive. If they want something that isn't competitive, they don't want to be competitive. That's... hopefully self-evident, as well.

White: Of course. That's rather the point, actually - that army is fresh, fun, and not competitive. Because what the player wants is something fresh and fun, not competition. If they wanted competition, they'd go a different route, obviously.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
In an ideal world all unit entries and options would be at least somewhat useful.

Should IG have access to more diverse and powerful artillery? yes they should but that doesn't mean other factions should have terrible artillery or that certain models should be deliberately priced to not be useful.


That's just bad game design.

Agreed. But there is a difference between "useful" and "competitive" which is the problem here on Dakkadakka, I think. It's okay for a Whirlwind to be "suboptimal" compared to a Basilisk, or that a phalanx of Skull Cannons (well, like 3-4) is "suboptimal" compared to an Imperial Knight. I still see Skull Cannons on the table, and even whirlwinds in recent memory. Just not top-table competitive.

That's inevitable, in my opinion - the top tables will never have everything, because true balance is impossible. So you should at least try to balance armies around their identities, and then allow their identities to come together in a cohesive whole as an entire faction. It shouldn't be surprising that a Marine Battle Company is more effectively supported by an Imperial Guard infantry battery with dedicated personnel and equipment (e.g. Masters of Ordnance and Trojans) in emplaced positions with preplanned fire-locations than it would be supported by a trio of Whirlwinds that just got off the boat at the same time they did.
I'm not saying "not everything should be useful." I'm saying "not everything should be competitively balanced on a unit vs unit basis without consideration for the army handling them." Then, furthermore, I am saying that "armies have faction identities in the way D&D Classes have functions" and therefore I am saying "A melee army should have worse (though not useless!) shooting point-for-point compared to a shooting army, in the same way that even a well-built Wizard using a Greatsword should be worse than a Fighter using a Greatsword, given that they both have the limited resources of feat points and actions in a turn."

If the unit isn't good at the job, it IS, by definition, not having a purpose. Simple as that.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
They're not less efficient than several different choices for the cost though. So they should be nerfed, simple as that.

Or the other options buffed, of course. Skull Cannons are almost the perfect unit in my system - fairly good, not unplayably bad, but not measuring up to the shooting specialists in shooting armies. So they're perfect! It's the worse options that should be buffed, perhaps.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
If the unit isn't good at the job, it IS, by definition, not having a purpose. Simple as that.

What? No.
Units can have a purpose that aren't their job. For example, the purpose of the Carnodon Tank is to mostly look cool and have an interesting and unique lore, rather than to compete with the Leman Russ for performance on the table-top, despite them both being Imperial Guard Main Battle Tanks.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
They're not less efficient than several different choices for the cost though. So they should be nerfed, simple as that.

Or the other options buffed, of course. Skull Cannons are almost the perfect unit in my system - fairly good, not unplayably bad, but not measuring up to the shooting specialists in shooting armies. So they're perfect! It's the worse options that should be buffed, perhaps.

If a unit can't function without a buff from another unit, the original unit has a fundamental problem.

So just admit you're okay with the Skull Cannon because it's in YOUR codex and we can be on our way. Otherwise, you need to admit that the Skull Cannon should be nerfed.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
They're not less efficient than several different choices for the cost though. So they should be nerfed, simple as that.

Or the other options buffed, of course. Skull Cannons are almost the perfect unit in my system - fairly good, not unplayably bad, but not measuring up to the shooting specialists in shooting armies. So they're perfect! It's the worse options that should be buffed, perhaps.

If a unit can't function without a buff from another unit, the original unit has a fundamental problem.

So just admit you're okay with the Skull Cannon because it's in YOUR codex and we can be on our way. Otherwise, you need to admit that the Skull Cannon should be nerfed.

But the skull cannon isn't actually good, and as you yourself said earlier, I don't even play Khorne Daemons.

And I don't understand your first sentence. I wasn't mentioning unit buffs from another unit, I meant a buff as in "should be made more points efficient either by price drops or rules buffs" not, like, buffed by an SM captain or something. I suppose I could've said "improved" but the cat's out of the bag now, innit.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Units can have a purpose that aren't their job. For example, the purpose of the Carnodon Tank is to mostly look cool and have an interesting and unique lore, rather than to compete with the Leman Russ for performance on the table-top, despite them both being Imperial Guard Main Battle Tanks.

Why can't it be cool looking and also a good unit? What fething purpose does it serve for it to be bad? This is pure lunacy. Let's just balance the units properly and then you can just leave some points unspent; whatever amount you feel is appropriate to punish yourself for choosing too cool looking models.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Orange: The assumption implicit in this post is that most players play competitively, as apparently the only criterion for picking a unit in their mind is its competitiveness on the table. This is, in deed, a very stale way to play. There's not much else to say; it's true.

No, that is not the assumption. The assumption is that if I pay $50 to buy a unit, then spend a week to paint it I expect it to be useful and not a dead-weight. I don't play competitively at all and all my games are narrative with PL, but running a bad unit simply isn't fun. I once used Kroot to charge some Guardsmen and the Guardsmen won. I haven't used Kroot since because that wasn't fun. It just sucked.

Green: Games Workshop, the faction's creator, self-evidently.

And did they say that having bad units was their intention?

Blue: The one where one could build a plausible melee army out of the Tau Empire army list. If Kroot are competitive, there's a very real risk that the Tau melee is as good as its shooting, especially if they become as good as Khorne Berzerkers, and that betrays the faction identity GW seems to wish to establish.

Why is a plausible tau melee army bad? If faction identity makes units I paid for bad then I want none of it.

Violet: Yes, I do, but there's no reason competitive armies couldn't at least appear fluffy as well, by souping together different elements that plays to each present army's strength.

So in essence, you want to restrict competitive players? Why? Who cares what they do? Why does it matter?

White: Of course. That's rather the point, actually - that army is fresh, fun, and not competitive. Because what the player wants is something fresh and fun, not competition. If they wanted competition, they'd go a different route, obviously.

Why does it matter that it's not competitive? Who even cares? All I know is that said Kroot list would lose to the vast majority of casual lists because they have no bite, and that's not fun for anyone, competitive or casual.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
They're not less efficient than several different choices for the cost though. So they should be nerfed, simple as that.

Or the other options buffed, of course. Skull Cannons are almost the perfect unit in my system - fairly good, not unplayably bad, but not measuring up to the shooting specialists in shooting armies. So they're perfect! It's the worse options that should be buffed, perhaps.

If a unit can't function without a buff from another unit, the original unit has a fundamental problem.

So just admit you're okay with the Skull Cannon because it's in YOUR codex and we can be on our way. Otherwise, you need to admit that the Skull Cannon should be nerfed.

But the skull cannon isn't actually good, and as you yourself said earlier, I don't even play Khorne Daemons.

And I don't understand your first sentence. I wasn't mentioning unit buffs from another unit, I meant a buff as in "should be made more points efficient either by price drops or rules buffs" not, like, buffed by an SM captain or something. I suppose I could've said "improved" but the cat's out of the bag now, innit.

Of course the Skull Cannon is good. 90 points gets you near Rhino durability with a 5++, non-helpless melee, and an excellent range weapon that ignores cover. All at BS3+ which is too high for a melee army. I can show it that it is mathematically better than a ton of other units in the same role if you want.

If it were significantly more expensive it wouldn't be good. At 90 points it's awesome.

So we need the Skull Cannon under your premise.

 Crimson wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Units can have a purpose that aren't their job. For example, the purpose of the Carnodon Tank is to mostly look cool and have an interesting and unique lore, rather than to compete with the Leman Russ for performance on the table-top, despite them both being Imperial Guard Main Battle Tanks.

Why can't it be cool looking and also a good unit? What fething purpose does it serve for it to be bad? This is pure lunacy. Let's just balance the units properly and then you can just leave some points unspent; whatever amount you feel is appropriate to punish yourself for choosing too cool looking models.

I think you missed the point, but I'll reiterate it here again:
The Carnodon doesn't have to be bad. Indeed, it could be better than the Leman Russ, should the designers so choose. But, in competitive play, that will make the Leman Russ fall out of the world, and replace it with the Carnodon. The only way to balance them against each-other is to make them even more the same (e.g. remove the Leman Russ's double shooting, or make the Carnodon T8, or able to receive orders, or the like), given the same amount of points spent on Heavy Support.

Making things the same is increasing the blandness in the game. Opponents who face the Carnodon will get to face an army who has tanks from the Heresy-era, which means it probably has interesting lore, and which operate completely differently from the typical Leman Russ tanks the Imperial Guards fields. This is a Good Thing™. The Carnodon could proxy as a Leman Russ with a few weapon swaps, to be sure, and I also wouldn't begrudge people doing that, of course, but running them as Russes generally isn't respectful of the lore around them.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


I think you missed the point, but I'll reiterate it here again:
The Carnodon doesn't have to be bad. Indeed, it could be better than the Leman Russ, should the designers so choose. But, in competitive play, that will make the Leman Russ fall out of the world, and replace it with the Carnodon. The only way to balance them against each-other is to make them even more the same (e.g. remove the Leman Russ's double shooting, or make the Carnodon T8, or able to receive orders, or the like), given the same amount of points spent on Heavy Support.

Making things the same is increasing the blandness in the game. Opponents who face the Carnodon will get to face an army who has tanks from the Heresy-era, which means it probably has interesting lore, and which operate completely differently from the typical Leman Russ tanks the Imperial Guards fields. This is a Good Thing™. The Carnodon could proxy as a Leman Russ with a few weapon swaps, to be sure, and I also wouldn't begrudge people doing that, of course, but running them as Russes generally isn't respectful of the lore around them.

You have been told about seven million times that balanced doesn't mean the same. One can be more durable other can do more damage, other can be faster other can have some weird bonus rule. If your way of making them different is to make one of them just worse, then it is an utterly gakky way to differentiate them.

Dandelion wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Orange: The assumption implicit in this post is that most players play competitively, as apparently the only criterion for picking a unit in their mind is its competitiveness on the table. This is, in deed, a very stale way to play. There's not much else to say; it's true.

No, that is not the assumption. The assumption is that if I pay $50 to buy a unit, then spend a week to paint it I expect it to be useful and not a dead-weight. I don't play competitively at all and all my games are narrative with PL, but running a bad unit simply isn't fun. I once used Kroot to charge some Guardsmen and the Guardsmen won. I haven't used Kroot since because that wasn't fun. It just sucked.

Guardsmen should be worse at melee than Kroot, of course. The fact that they're not is an awful thing and should be rectified. I'm not arguing for units to be that bad. What I am arguing for is units to fit their army's archetype. For example, you shouldn't expect a Kroot unit of 150 points to charge a Khorne Berzerker squad of 150 points and have a 50/50 of winning...

Dandelion wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Green: Games Workshop, the faction's creator, self-evidently.

And did they say that having bad units was their intention?

Yes? Unless you think they're too dumb to realize that the Whirlwind is worse than the Basilisk/Wyvern after decades of them existing together...

Dandelion wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Blue: The one where one could build a plausible melee army out of the Tau Empire army list. If Kroot are competitive, there's a very real risk that the Tau melee is as good as its shooting, especially if they become as good as Khorne Berzerkers, and that betrays the faction identity GW seems to wish to establish.

Why is a plausible tau melee army bad? If faction identity makes units I paid for bad then I want none of it.

Then play an army you do like the units for. Armies are like D&D characters, as I've reiterated time and again - if you pick a wizard, don't get upset your greatsword combat turns are worse than the fighter's. Instead, be happy that your magic is so much better!

Dandelion wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Violet: Yes, I do, but there's no reason competitive armies couldn't at least appear fluffy as well, by souping together different elements that plays to each present army's strength.

So in essence, you want to restrict competitive players? Why? Who cares what they do? Why does it matter?

What do you mean who cares what they do? Clearly everyone here does, since it's the standard at what DakkaDakka operates. What I'd like to see is armies that are like D&D characters, where you take the good with the bad - or you double down on the good by munchkining your character. There's nothing wrong with trying to play competitively, but I'm sort of shocked you'd judge a unit by its tabletop competitiveness and then turn around and say "who cares about competitiveness?" That doesn't feel jarring when your mind changes so quickly?

Dandelion wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
White: Of course. That's rather the point, actually - that army is fresh, fun, and not competitive. Because what the player wants is something fresh and fun, not competition. If they wanted competition, they'd go a different route, obviously.

Why does it matter that it's not competitive? Who even cares? All I know is that said Kroot list would lose to the vast majority of casual lists because they have no bite, and that's not fun for anyone, competitive or casual.

It matters because the Tau should not be trying to out-melee World Eaters on the casual or competitive scene. That betrays the players who picked World Eaters specifically because they picked the army to be good at melee. It'd be like if you picked a Wizard to cast cool badass spells, and then it turns out that every class can cast exactly the same cool, badass spells - your character's uniqueness and playstyle is diminished, because everyone's basically the same. At least you can swing a greatsword as well as a Fighter, though, I guess.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
They're not less efficient than several different choices for the cost though. So they should be nerfed, simple as that.

Or the other options buffed, of course. Skull Cannons are almost the perfect unit in my system - fairly good, not unplayably bad, but not measuring up to the shooting specialists in shooting armies. So they're perfect! It's the worse options that should be buffed, perhaps.

If a unit can't function without a buff from another unit, the original unit has a fundamental problem.

So just admit you're okay with the Skull Cannon because it's in YOUR codex and we can be on our way. Otherwise, you need to admit that the Skull Cannon should be nerfed.

But the skull cannon isn't actually good, and as you yourself said earlier, I don't even play Khorne Daemons.

And I don't understand your first sentence. I wasn't mentioning unit buffs from another unit, I meant a buff as in "should be made more points efficient either by price drops or rules buffs" not, like, buffed by an SM captain or something. I suppose I could've said "improved" but the cat's out of the bag now, innit.

Of course the Skull Cannon is good. 90 points gets you near Rhino durability with a 5++, non-helpless melee, and an excellent range weapon that ignores cover. All at BS3+ which is too high for a melee army. I can show it that it is mathematically better than a ton of other units in the same role if you want.

If it were significantly more expensive it wouldn't be good. At 90 points it's awesome.

So we need the Skull Cannon under your premise.

I disagree that 7 wounds is "near Rhino durability". I honestly thought it was BS4+, and perhaps it should be. Can you show me what main battle tanks it is mathematically better then? Now I am curious - it may truly turn out to be too good; I was going off of what people took in tournaments and in Daemons lists, assuming those would, of course, take good units.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Green: Games Workshop, the faction's creator, self-evidently.

And did they say that having bad units was their intention?

Yes? Unless you think they're too dumb to realize that the Whirlwind is worse than the Basilisk/Wyvern after decades of them existing together...

Are you inferring that or did they say that's how they balance the game?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Then play an army you do like the units for. Armies are like D&D characters, as I've reiterated time and again - if you pick a wizard, don't get upset your greatsword combat turns are worse than the fighter's. Instead, be happy that your magic is so much better!

How are armies like D&D characters? Units sure, but why entire armies? It'd be like making an army of fighters+wizards and saying your wizards have to be worse than your opponent's because that's their thing.

What do you mean who cares what they do? Clearly everyone here does, since it's the standard at what DakkaDakka operates. What I'd like to see is armies that are like D&D characters, where you take the good with the bad - or you double down on the good by munchkining your character. There's nothing wrong with trying to play competitively, but I'm sort of shocked you'd judge a unit by its tabletop competitiveness and then turn around and say "who cares about competitiveness?" That doesn't feel jarring when your mind changes so quickly?

Your actual stance is difficult to understand. It seem you want to restrict competitive players options while hoping fluffy players just take the good with the bad. My question is why. Why does it matter so much to you that competitive players may not bring fluffy lists all the time. Why does it matter to you whether or not a player makes a powerful tau melee army? Why does it matter?

Also, you talk about faction identity, but the factions are so much more than what you're making them out to be. Tau aren't solely defined by shooting a lot. Khorne isn't only about chopping things. Orks love dakka as much as they love chopping. Guard don't just run over you with tanks. etc...

Unit, armies are not like D&D characters. Stop saying this. It is a gak analogy.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

What I am arguing for is that Khorne should NEVER shoot - nor am I arguing a Wizard should NEVER melee. I am simply arguing that Khorne should be worse (read: points efficient) at shooting than shooting armies, just like how a Cleric should be worse at sneaking than a rogue. Neither one is NEVER going to do those things, and has the tools to do it, but only sort of, compared to the specialists.

I'm fairly sure that this is nigh impossible to do properly unless we assume very specific circumstances. For example, Khorne has access to Havocs, Obliterators, Chaos Predators, and Defilers all the same way for all the shooty goodness, so you have to make these units 'bleh' and have the other Gods pull them up with specific bonuses or something, that in turn kinda self-defeating in terms of balance IMO.

I would rather have everything good and extrapolate from there: Khorne can do good shooting but Khorne Berzerkers are extra-choppy and there is really no reason to not have them if you play Khorne anyway.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Of course the Skull Cannon is good. 90 points gets you near Rhino durability with a 5++, non-helpless melee, and an excellent range weapon that ignores cover. All at BS3+ which is too high for a melee army. I can show it that it is mathematically better than a ton of other units in the same role if you want.

I don't know, glancing at its stats it kinda looks like a crappy pre-buff (index) exorcist tank. And people don't even take the post-buff exorcist.
Though the ram-bar looks like good fun.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Guardsmen should be worse at melee than Kroot, of course. The fact that they're not is an awful thing and should be rectified. I'm not arguing for units to be that bad. What I am arguing for is units to fit their army's archetype. For example, you shouldn't expect a Kroot unit of 150 points to charge a Khorne Berzerker squad of 150 points and have a 50/50 of winning...

Yes, you should. And the Tau should be limited in the amount of kroot they can take through things like force org slots, or things like the rule of 3. By making kroot worse per point then the equivalent amount of points in khorne beserkers you ensure that no Tau player will ever take kroot vs berserkers because WHY? If they cannot even perform their role efficiently, then they just suck, and the Tau player just doubles down on fire warriors because melee troops aren't a REQUIREMENT for winning.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What I am arguing for is that Khorne should NEVER shoot - nor am I arguing a Wizard should NEVER melee. I am simply arguing that Khorne should be worse (read: points efficient) at shooting than shooting armies, just like how a Cleric should be worse at sneaking than a rogue. Neither one is NEVER going to do those things, and has the tools to do it, but only sort of, compared to the specialists.

But, by making them so laughably worse than the specialist you are ensuring that they are NEVER used. Why would a wizard ever pick up a sword when his spells are going to be better in literally every situation? You must ensure that situations exist where a wizard will want to use a sword because that is the BEST option. Granted, they shouldn't be common, but they should exist. Transferring the analogy over to 40k, you want skull cannons to actually better than berserkers in PARTICULAR situations. If every problem can be solved MORE EFFICIENTLY with simply more berserkers there is no reason to ever use skull cannons.

Please drop the whole "narrative play is an option" argument too. The majority of players play matched, and matched play includes the rule of 3.

Why would you ever use D&D as an example for anything? Firstly it's a godawfully designed RPG that has never been properly balanced in its lifetime because nobody has bothered. There's many other systems out there that are far better and do manage balance unlike D&D. But the crux is that D&D is not a PVP tabletop wargame and any comparison of it to pvp wargames is asinine by nature. D&D doesn't need balance because balance isn't absolutely necessary for a cooperative RPG because the players aren't fighting each other.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Why would you ever use D&D as an example for anything? Firstly it's a godawfully designed RPG that has never been properly balanced in its lifetime because nobody has bothered. There's many other systems out there that are far better and do manage balance unlike D&D. But the crux is that D&D is not a PVP tabletop wargame and any comparison of it to pvp wargames is asinine by nature. D&D doesn't need balance because balance isn't absolutely necessary for a cooperative RPG because the players aren't fighting each other.

5th edition D&D is actually pretty balanced, and players fight each other all the time... regardless it is just an analogy. We weren't comparing how D&D is balanced vs how 40k is balanced, we were using D&D classes as an example of examining how specialists operate outside of their area of expertise.

w1zard wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Guardsmen should be worse at melee than Kroot, of course. The fact that they're not is an awful thing and should be rectified. I'm not arguing for units to be that bad. What I am arguing for is units to fit their army's archetype. For example, you shouldn't expect a Kroot unit of 150 points to charge a Khorne Berzerker squad of 150 points and have a 50/50 of winning...

Yes, you should. And the Tau should be limited in the amount of kroot they can take through things like force org slots, or things like the rule of 3. By making kroot worse per point then the equivalent amount of points in khorne beserkers you ensure that no Tau player will ever take kroot vs berserkers because WHY? If they cannot even perform their role efficiently, then they just suck, and the Tau player just doubles down on fire warriors because melee troops aren't a REQUIREMENT for winning.

I don't think that the Tau should have limited access to Kroot. If the Tau player wants to do a CQC army with Kroots, Stealths, and Hazards, then he should be able to do it and have a fairly balanced fight with any other CQC army (like a Khorne one) with the deciding factor being army knowledge and tactics rather than individual unit power. If the Tau player can wrestle the Raptors with their Kroot and isolate and destroy the Berzerkers with their Stealths and Hazards then victory will be theirs - if the Khorne player can catch the Kroot with their Berzerkers and hunt down those suits with their Raptors then they will win. Easy as that.

By the way, the Berzerker equivalents for the Tau are the Stealth Teams and the Hazard Teams. I know, they look nothing alike, but that's the Tau vs Chaos faction difference for you.

Making things the same is increasing the blandness in the game. Opponents who face the Carnodon will get to face an army who has tanks from the Heresy-era, which means it probably has interesting lore, and which operate completely differently from the typical Leman Russ tanks the Imperial Guards fields. This is a Good Thing™. The Carnodon could proxy as a Leman Russ with a few weapon swaps, to be sure, and I also wouldn't begrudge people doing that, of course, but running them as Russes generally isn't respectful of the lore around them.

Blandness comes from few units being viable. Balance the units, unbland the game. I also think you put a little too much emphasis on lore. People also want to just play with cool looking units regardless of lore and having more balanced units means we'll see all these cool looking things on the table instead of a select few. This is a Good Thing™.

I am also of the opinion that if you were a proper lore hound you'd like Warhammer 40k to be more like MERP than D&D. Get some of those juicy MERP damage tables with heads crackin' and all that.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Why would you ever use D&D as an example for anything? Firstly it's a godawfully designed RPG that has never been properly balanced in its lifetime because nobody has bothered. There's many other systems out there that are far better and do manage balance unlike D&D. But the crux is that D&D is not a PVP tabletop wargame and any comparison of it to pvp wargames is asinine by nature. D&D doesn't need balance because balance isn't absolutely necessary for a cooperative RPG because the players aren't fighting each other.

D&D is not a bad example. Right now some people have the option to play a "melee" warrior, an "utility" rogue or ranger. Or they can play the game for real and go after a wizard who can melee while he does range, and range while he does melee, on top of having utility spells. Now all he needs is some chaff "healer" to not die too fast and he is set for greatness. I mean why play GK or even a GK soup, when the same army made out of the same soup components and any other imperial army will just work dramaticly better. On the other hand we have the "wizards" of the game doing melee and shoting, and utility and have ton of good extra rules and soup synergy in one 2k pts army. No wonder some people feel as if they rolled a warrior in a party of 3 wizards and a cleric.

5th edition D&D is actually pretty balanced, and players fight each other all the time... regardless it is just an analogy. We weren't comparing how D&D is balanced vs how 40k is balanced, we were using D&D classes as an example of examining how specialists operate outside of their area of expertise.

5th maybe many things, but it aint D&D. D&D ended with 4th ed.

"D&D ended with 4th ed."
You mean with the *start* of 4th? Because if you're implying that 4th was actually D&D, we obviously must kung-fu fight. That's simply not an OK opinion to have.

3.5 was the best edition. Even better than 3.75.

Back OT,
One of the problems with thematics?
CWE: Super-specialized units. Their tanks are Grav. They are the kings of shooting-on-the-move.

Primaris Marines: Super-specialized Units. Their tanks are Grav. Oh, and POTMS, because a Falcon Cloudhunter is a clumbsy cludge of a vehicle compared to the grace and sophistication of some IoM crap.

Well if you wanna pay 300 points for the Falcon you can have POTMS too.

This is hilarious, the reason none of these weapons are efficient against guardsmen as they are against marines is because 1 marine is more than 3 times as expensive as 1 guardsman.

If Guardsmen were appropriately costed at 7 ppm, then yeah, suddenly weapons become effective against them. Or to put it another way. If Guardsmen are dropped to 1 ppm, literally no weapon in the game is efficient at killing them. And that would only be a 3 point decrease. Insanity.

Percentage wise, how much more effective should a light flamer (S4, AP0) be against Guarsdmen versus Marines? If it were to be equally effective (just as good at killing marines as killing guardsmen) you'd need 7.3 point guardsmen. Are all of you guard apologists going to argue that the game should function where flamers are less effective at killing guard versus marines? So who gets the price increase and who gets the price cut?

 Marmatag wrote:
Are all of you guard apologists going to argue that the game should function where flamers are less effective at killing guard versus marines? So who gets the price increase and who gets the price cut?

I would rather have the Space Marine merit its price. A mighty Space Marine costing only, like, twice as much as a humble Guardsman makes me feel uncomfortable.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Are all of you guard apologists going to argue that the game should function where flamers are less effective at killing guard versus marines? So who gets the price increase and who gets the price cut?

I would rather have the Space Marine merit its price. A mighty Space Marine costing only, like, twice as much as a humble Guardsman makes me feel uncomfortable.

Again: this has already been sorted, the Primaris marines exist, and they're indeed more resilient per point against flamers and small arms than the guardsmen. With the minimarine statline this is impossible to achieve without either making the marines really cheap or the guardsmen really expensive.