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 Crimson wrote:

 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.

I'm rather not implying anything either !

The trouble with points efficiency as a goal is that a table top battle game will follow the gladiators side of the "Gladiators vs Bricklayers" dilemma (in short, it's better to have something expensive that's really good at what it does).

Balance should not be thought of in terms of efficiency, especially when you've got units that specialise in different tasks such as melee, shooting, anit-armour, anti-hoarde. The main goal for a start is to make sure that equally capable units cost equal amounts of points. Then you just start playtesting the gak out of the game to make sure it actually works and isn't a horribly broken mess aka most GW products.

 AtoMaki wrote:
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.

I actually agree with the concept of "army focus" and think it lends flavor to the different armies. The Tau army as a whole has a stated weakness of being poor in melee. You can either make kroot decent in melee and limit the amount you can take because they are "specialist units". Or you can give the Tau player an unlimited amount of kroot and make them awful and purely worse than fire warriors like they are now. Your choice. Tau will never be a melee faction where you can take as many kroot as you want and have them perform just as well as the equivalent points of fire warriors.

I don't think I have ever read anything in the lore that indicates that an entire army of kroot is even possible, as they are basically auxiliaries to the Tau aren't they? IG don't get to field an entire army of Ogryn either.

bouncingboredom wrote:
Balance should not be thought of in terms of efficiency, especially when you've got units that specialise in different tasks such as melee, shooting, anit-armour, anti-hoarde. The main goal for a start is to make sure that equally capable units cost equal amounts of points. Then you just start playtesting the gak out of the game to make sure it actually works and isn't a horribly broken mess aka most GW products.

Points per damage output (within a certain role IE anti-tank or anti-infantry), durability per point (against certain weapon profiles), and unique rules like movement, range etc. are the only metrics that matter. If you look at units that are "overpowered" they have much better values in these areas then other units do. These metrics SHOULD be the main levers of balance.

w1zard wrote:

I actually agree with the concept of "army focus" and think it lends flavor to the different armies. The Tau army as a whole has a stated weakness of being poor in melee. You can either make kroot decent in melee and limit the amount you can take because they are "specialist units". Or you can give the Tau player an unlimited amount of kroot and make them awful and purely worse than fire warriors like they are now. Your choice. Tau will never be a melee faction where you can take as many kroot as you want and have them perform just as well as the equivalent points of fire warriors.

On the contrary, the kroot options in the tau codex lack any means of anti-tank (the biggest gun is an autocannon equivalent), meaning that even a kroot-heavy army would rely heavily on the tau's big guns to deal with big threats. This essentially places the kroot forever in a support role to the tau guns, that is until kroot get a codex and a whole plethora of new options, but then it wouldn't be a tau army would it?

Ultimately though, if a unit has been included within a codex then I believe it is wholly a part of that faction's identity. Kroot are as much Tau as Tau are for the time being and so should be comparatively efficient in their (limited) role and that was intended. Tau are shooty, Kroot are choppy, bring them together and you have a full faction, at least that was GW's original intent.

 Crimson wrote:

 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.

You really sure a flamer kills enough more points of guardsmen than intercessors?

Quick and dirty math says a flamer kills 6 points of guard and 5 points of intercessors that's still not exactly a shining indication that either are balanced at 4 points vrs 17 points per model given the list of weapons that are more efficient against primaris vrs guardsmen.

Dandelion wrote:
Ultimately though, if a unit has been included within a codex then I believe it is wholly a part of that faction's identity. Kroot are as much Tau as Tau are for the time being and so should be comparatively efficient in their (limited) role and that was intended. Tau are shooty, Kroot are choppy, bring them together and you have a full faction, at least that was GW's original intent.

Speculation. Once again I invoke the Ogryn example. Ogryn are meant to be IG auxiliaries that fulfill a specific role within the army. There was never meant to be an IG army entirely made up of Ogryn.

If you accept the fact that Tau are meant to be poor in melee generally, you have to accept the fact that kroot will either be decent and limited, or suck and be unlimited. Personally, I wish it to be the former because kroot being worse in every way than fire warriors makes me sad.

Ice_can wrote:


Quick and dirty math says a flamer kills 6 points of guard and 5 points of intercessors that's still not exactly a shining indication that either are balanced at 4 points vrs 17 points per model given the list of weapons that are more efficient against primaris vrs guardsmen.

My math says that amount of s4 AP- hits (12.5) that kills one Intercessor, kills 5,5 guardsmen. So that's 22 points of guard killed vs 17 points of the Intercessor.

w1zard wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:
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.

I actually agree with the concept of "army focus" and think it lends flavor to the different armies. The Tau army as a whole has a stated weakness of being poor in melee. You can either make kroot decent in melee and limit the amount you can take because they are "specialist units". Or you can give the Tau player an unlimited amount of kroot and make them awful and purely worse than fire warriors like they are now. Your choice. Tau will never be a melee faction where you can take as many kroot as you want and have them perform just as well as the equivalent points of fire warriors.

Obviously, if you leave out those Stealths and Hazards from your army then you can have all the Kroot you can and still lose big time as the Berzerkers tear through them like they are nothing. But the Kroot should hold up their own in their role (basic assault infantry) and not be any worse than the other units in their role just because the Tau has a shooty emphasis. The Kroot shouldn't suck because the Tau has a melee weakness, they should suck because others (like Chaos) has melee strengths.

w1zard wrote:
Points per damage output (within a certain role IE anti-tank or anti-infantry), durability per point (against certain weapon profiles), and unique rules like movement, range etc. are the only metrics that matter. If you look at units that are "overpowered" they have much better values in these areas then other units do. These metrics SHOULD be the main levers of balance.

But then you get into arguments about unit x can do the same amount of damage as unit Y, except unit x has to close within 12" to do what Y can do at 24" etc. Which is why it would be easier to just start from similar units being similarly priced, and then going on a play testing binge from there to make sure that you've priced for example superior melee ability properly compared to superior firepower. I think we're kind of agreeing, but I would argue that the interaction of units needs to be tested to fully justify price points. Guardsmen at the minute are largely powerful not so much because of what they do themselves, but what they allow people to do with other units. Most of the best armies today are - just like 15 years ago - the armies that can abuse the best combinations of models, rules and wargear.

 Crimson wrote:

Ice_can wrote:


Quick and dirty math says a flamer kills 6 points of guard and 5 points of intercessors that's still not exactly a shining indication that either are balanced at 4 points vrs 17 points per model given the list of weapons that are more efficient against primaris vrs guardsmen.

My math says that amount of s4 AP- hits (12.5) that kills one Intercessor, kills 5,5 guardsmen. So that's 22 points of guard killed vs 17 points of the Intercessor.

I wasn't desputing the claim was asking if it is by enough given the rediculous swing in survivability per point to the guard vrs plasma, dissy's, battle cannons etc?

w1zard wrote:I don't think I have ever read anything in the lore that indicates that an entire army of kroot is even possible, as they are basically auxiliaries to the Tau aren't they? IG don't get to field an entire army of Ogryn either.

Someone hasn't heard of the Kroot Merc list provided in the Chapter Approved of a White Dwarf long long ago? It was written by Andy Hoare, and I still have a PDF copy of it.

They were also set up so that they could be taken as Allies for Space Marines, Necrons, Sisters, and Tyranids like Daemonhunters and Witch Hunters from yesteryear. They also had access to Signature evolutionary Adaptations for an additional cost like +1 Toughness because they ate a lot of Orks, Stealth from eating chameleonic reptiles, and other options. They also had unique options like the Vulture Kindred, aka Jump Kroot.

They were also interstellar, sending out mercenaries in their Warspheres, when they first met the Tau.

Ice_can wrote:

I wasn't desputing the claim was asking if it is by enough given the rediculous swing in survivability per point to the guard vrs plasma, dissy's, battle cannons etc?

Probably not, but at least it is something! With Primaris profile it is actually mathematically possible to make marines more survivabe against certain weapons than guard without either making the marines really cheap or the guard really expensive. I think 5 point guardsmen and 16 point intercessors might be pretty much perfect.

w1zard wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
Ultimately though, if a unit has been included within a codex then I believe it is wholly a part of that faction's identity. Kroot are as much Tau as Tau are for the time being and so should be comparatively efficient in their (limited) role and that was intended. Tau are shooty, Kroot are choppy, bring them together and you have a full faction, at least that was GW's original intent.

Speculation. Once again I invoke the Ogryn example. Ogryn are meant to be IG auxiliaries that fulfill a specific role within the army. There was never meant to be an IG army entirely made up of Ogryn.

If you accept the fact that Tau are meant to be poor in melee generally, you have to accept the fact that kroot will either be decent and limited, or suck and be unlimited. Personally, I wish it to be the former because kroot being worse in every way than fire warriors makes me sad.

I do not accept that the entire faction is meant to be bad in melee. Tau (the race) are meant to be poor in melee so that Kroot can be good in melee. Part of the whole point of Tau was its thematic diversity and I'm pretty sure GW has said as much in the past. IIRC The designers were torn (budget-wise) between making a high-tech army and a low-tech army so they compromised and made an army of both that complemented each other. Tau shoot and Kroot chop.

But let's go back to your point about them being limited: they already are. There are no Kroot HQs, which means Tau players are required to take Tau HQs and on top of that the Kroot do not get Sept traits. So a mostly-kroot army suffers from lack of anti-tank, lack of synergy and no sept tenets. They still need Tau guns to function even if they were as good as Ork boyz.

 Crimson wrote:

 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.

Cut this out. It's tired and old. You're not clever.

Marines exist as non-primaris. Much of the kits are non-primaris. Good god.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 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.

Cut this out. It's tired and old. You're not clever.

But it's the truth. Minimarine statline cannot represent an expensive elite unit like AtoMaki wants in this edition, the rules just won't allow it. And no, GW will not give the minimarines the Primaris statline. Denying the reality will not alter the truth. You can make the minimarines dirt cheap, but some of do not want crappy horde marines.

Marines exist as non-primaris. Much of the kits are non-primaris. Good god.

For now. It will change.

Dandelion wrote:
I do not accept that the entire faction is meant to be bad in melee.

Then we have different ideas about how the game should be balanced. Tau (as a faction) ARE supposed to be bad in melee, it is stated in universe and also heavily implied within the codices themselves (IG codex has stated tactics for fighting Tau as "Get close because they are poor close quarters fighters"). Kroot are supposed to be the exception to this rule to provide melee support on a VERY limited basis.

So again I ask you, if we take the assumption that Tau (as a faction) are supposed to perform poorly in melee is true, then you have two ways to balance melee units.

1. They are decent, but you can take them only on a limited basis.
2. You can take an unlimited amount of them, but they are so bad that fire warriors are pretty much better in every situation.

Which do you want?

If you want to make the argument that Tau (as a faction) shouldn't have melee combat as a weakness, then you are proposing redesigning practically every faction in the game, because most factions are designed with some sort of thematic "weakness" in mind.

 Crimson wrote:

Marines exist as non-primaris. Much of the kits are non-primaris. Good god.

For now. It will change.

Agreed. Oldmarines are getting phased out gradually, and anyone who doesn't see the writing on the wall is naive as hell.

w1zard wrote:
Tau (as a faction) ARE supposed to be bad in melee, it is stated in universe and also heavily implied within the codices themselves (IG codex has stated tactics for fighting Tau as "Get close because they are poor close quarters fighters"). Kroot are supposed to be the exception to this rule to provide melee support on a VERY limited basis.

Except I don't believe any of that to be the case. Kroot are as integral to the Tau's identity as the Tau themselves. Because Kroot exist as part of the faction, the Tau (as a faction) are not supposed to be bad at melee. Unless you can find me a quote from the designers saying otherwise, I will assume that every unit in every codex defines their faction in some small way.
So, Kroot exist to make the Tau faction well-rounded, and they are as integral as Fire Warriors.
Besides, the role of the kroot is already limited, providing only melee and anti-infantry, a majority Kroot list would not function even if Kroot were good. So your extra limitations are unnecessary.

Dandelion wrote:
...Because Kroot exist as part of the faction, the Tau (as a faction) are not supposed to be bad at melee...

You keep saying this but I don't think it is true. I'm not going to waste my time providing specific lore sources because it is common knowledge, and if you really wanted, a quick google search on your part can confirm that the Tau faction as a whole are indeed depicted as poor close combat fighters in the lore.

The real problem is that how do you balance that on the tabletop?

If you are really arguing that all factions should be equally good at every element of the game and have multiple options for units that can perform those roles well, then pretty much every faction needs to be redesigned from the ground up. 40k isn't designed that way... every faction has one or two thematic weaknesses built into them.

I personally like thematic weaknesses. I’ve always been a fan of glass cannons. Great at killing, but die to a stiff breeze. That why I’m building a Scion army. The toughest thing in the list will be my Valkyries, but I will destroy with plasma suicide command squads.

w1zard wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
...Because Kroot exist as part of the faction, the Tau (as a faction) are not supposed to be bad at melee...

You keep saying this but I don't think it is true. I'm not going to waste my time providing specific lore sources because it is common knowledge, and if you really wanted, a quick google search on your part can confirm that the Tau faction as a whole are indeed depicted as poor close combat fighters in the lore.

Common knowledge is usually always wrong to some extent, and so does not constitute evidence. And I'm not asking for lore examples, I'm asking for quotes from GW designers saying that Tau (and specifically Kroot) should be bad at melee. I don't care what anyone else thinks.

Besides, there are plenty of lore examples where Kroot outmatch Eldar and Orks in combat so...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

w1zard wrote:

If you are really arguing that all factions should be equally good at every element of the game and have multiple options for units that can perform those roles well, then pretty much every faction needs to be redesigned from the ground up. 40k isn't designed that way... every faction has one or two thematic weaknesses built into them.

I'm not saying every faction should be good at every aspect. Tau have no psykers and therefore should suck during the psychic phase. Ditto for necrons and DE. The lack of those units is where faction weaknesses reside. Tau have no units that can countercharge a Knight and expect to do any damage; that is a weakness. etc...

My overall point is that if a unit exists within a faction then it is wholly a part of that faction's identity and its strengths. The lack of a unit for a role constitutes a weakness. Trying to cut down existing units is just madness imo, they're there for a reason.

Dandelion wrote:
Common knowledge is usually always wrong to some extent, and so does not constitute evidence. And I'm not asking for lore examples, I'm asking for quotes from GW designers saying that Tau (and specifically Kroot) should be bad at melee. I don't care what anyone else thinks.

Besides, there are plenty of lore examples where Kroot outmatch Eldar and Orks in combat so...

You aren't understanding. I'm not arguing that kroot should be bad in melee. I'm arguing that Tau as a faction should be (generally) bad in melee. So how do you make kroot good in melee (as they are depicted in the lore) and make them a viable choice whilst still keeping to the Tau FACTION'S theme of being good at ranged combat and being bad at melee? You either limit the amount of kroot you can take in a Tau army or make kroot suck. I personally think the former is a better option.

Being bad in melee is Tau's schtick... you want to erase that inbuilt weakness then you need to redesign all of the other factions as well because all of the other factions have inbuilt weaknesses too...That is unless you are arguing to make Tau intentionally overpowered. I'm starting to repeat myself and I don't know how clearer I can be on this.

w1zard wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
Common knowledge is usually always wrong to some extent, and so does not constitute evidence. And I'm not asking for lore examples, I'm asking for quotes from GW designers saying that Tau (and specifically Kroot) should be bad at melee. I don't care what anyone else thinks.

Besides, there are plenty of lore examples where Kroot outmatch Eldar and Orks in combat so...

You aren't understanding. I'm not arguing that kroot should be bad in melee. I'm arguing that Tau as a faction should be (generally) bad in melee. So how do you make kroot good in melee (as they are depicted in the lore) and make them a viable choice whilst still keeping to the Tau FACTION'S theme of being good at ranged combat and being bad at melee? You either limit the amount of kroot you can take in a Tau army or make kroot suck. I personally think the former is a better option.

Being bad in melee is Tau's schtick... you want to erase that inbuilt weakness then you need to redesign all of the other factions as well because all of the other factions have inbuilt weaknesses too...That is unless you are arguing to make Tau intentionally overpowered. I'm starting to repeat myself and I don't know how clearer I can be on this.

Not quite, there is a third option, and that while Kroot may be decent in melee, it still takes some investment, such as number of models, in order to accomplish the same action that other armies generally do with fewer models and/or units. Individual Guardsmen tend to suck at Shooting because of their anemic weapon, but they are cheap enough that you can put a lot of flashlights on the field to be a threat. Kroot used to be really physically strong, and used their Rifle to have more attacks over all. They've lost that with the Rifle only giving them their strength, rather than their attacks. They were never considered an unbalanced unit with that set up, but I wonder if they would now.

I'd be all for Kroot getting their second hit back. Them basically being turned into Snipers was incredibly silly, and now they're just kinda...not good for anything.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I'd be all for Kroot getting their second hit back. Them basically being turned into Snipers was incredibly silly, and now they're just kinda...not good for anything.

EDIT: Forgot about the kroot rifle giving them +1 strength now, bringing them back up to where they should have stayed post-4th edition codex.

The changes that were made to Kroot Carnivores really highlights the whiplash split-personality of GWs codex writing team.

4th edition: Kroot have S4, get extra attack from their rifles.
6th edition: Kroot have S3, no longer get two attacks when using rifles in melee, rifles grant AP5 in melee instead, have access to sniper rounds instead.
7th edition: Same as above.
8th edition: Kroot still have strength 3, rifles give +1 strength in melee, no extra attacks, sniper rounds taken away.

 Crimson wrote:
But it's the truth. Minimarine statline cannot represent an expensive elite unit like AtoMaki wants in this edition, the rules just won't allow it. And no, GW will not give the minimarines the Primaris statline. Denying the reality will not alter the truth. You can make the minimarines dirt cheap, but some of do not want crappy horde marines.

I don't care what GW wants or doesn't want to do. Marines not getting the Primaris statline because "muh uncomfortably transparent milking attempt" is not a balance problem - it is a company problem.

 AtoMaki wrote:

I don't care what GW wants or doesn't want to do.

Then write your own rules and use them. But if we are talking about the sort of fixes that could actually happen in a future CA, errata or a supplement, then what GW wants to do kinda matters.

 Crimson wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

I don't care what GW wants or doesn't want to do.

Then write your own rules and use them. But if we are talking about the sort of fixes that could actually happen in a future CA, errata or a supplement, then what GW wants to do kinda matters.

But then we aren't really talking about balancing the game.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

I don't care what GW wants or doesn't want to do.

Then write your own rules and use them. But if we are talking about the sort of fixes that could actually happen in a future CA, errata or a supplement, then what GW wants to do kinda matters.

But then we aren't really talking about balancing the game.

that would be "writing another game", as I see it.
Future balancing depends on the company "games workshop" and so we should take that as a stated point to start from...

GW will never balance their game, has never balanced their game, so any discussion on how to balance the game is really how to rewrite 40k if you were in charge lol.

 AtoMaki wrote:

But then we aren't really talking about balancing the game.

Yes we are. Point changes can and do happen. Hoping that minimarines get cheaper is realistic, hoping that they will be given Primaris rules is not.