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40k will never be balanced as long as the primary focus is kept on firepower and killing units, rather than strategy. Some units will always be mathematically better at killing than others, especially in a game with this many model choices.

Having a system where the majority of games are decided by turn 2 simply because one side killed more then the other side is just bad design

InquisitorKnickers wrote:
Thoughts? (Questions/comments/concerns? Bitches/gripes/complaints?)

Too much added complexity / paperwork / things to remember and keep track of for a tabletop game. Just having to go back and forth between the unit entry and points list is a step too far for many.

nou wrote:
I have read 5th ed BRB and codices / And judging from various polls and discussions here, while it is most commonly pointed as the best edition it also has a significant opposition.

The wound allocation could be abused (but easily fixed), the mission scoring conditions were very poor, they made vehicles tougher and cheaper, didn't sync up changes book to book, and as the edition went on the game saw rampant codex creep.
It's a good start for an oldhammer system, but needs a lot of work to bring the 5e codex releases into line.

nou wrote:
There is one other direct, so maybe more clearly understandable modern example: you cannot adequately and universally point cost a Castellan, because large part of it's efficiency comes from a context it is taken in (stratagems and CP amount) and you would have to have at least two point costs, one for mono IK and one for IG+Castellan for it to be adequately balanced in both contexts.

The thing is that this "two points value dilemma" isn't a real problem outside of pure theory. Some people really don't like canned strategy - but I don't think its a problem if certain combinations can only be played together. Its a shame if a model never has a competitive combo - but its not the end of the world. Not nearly as much as a too powerful combination.

Sure, if I say "every Castellan turns up with Cawls Wrath, a 4++ and a bank of CPs to burn" you can say "well not all Castellans" - but its a bit meaningless. In a competitive world they do because its the best thing to do with the resources available for you. Things have to be pointed on the assumption that people will optimise their lists, not that they grab anything to hand and see how it does.

Balance isn't in some weird idea that anyone should be able to spend X points in any book, and have a 50/50 chance to win against any other list in the game. You can't have a complex game and have that as the objective. Now I'd argue there shouldn't be trap choices in any codex - units which are so eye-wateringly bad for their points you are only taking them of you really don't know how the game works - but by and large (and its a work in progress, but at least they are now trying) GW is acting to get rid of them. But the very fact they can get rid of them suggests that yes, things can be balanced by points.

You could also balance it by fundamentally altering the game (whether its limiting soups or completely changing how missions are won or lost etc) but it isn't inherently necessary.

I don't really see your argument on Terminators either. The problem with Terminators was that for their points they had crap damage output, crap movement - and actually nothing special on defense as well. With the CA18 points drops and things like the beta bolter rules the regular stormbolter/fist build is a bit better - but still not amazing for what you pay. I don't see how it represents a problem with the axes approach. Most models which are mathematically good are good.

InquisitorKnickers wrote:
Thank you for starting up this conversation nou. As a semi-amateur rules writer, topics like this make my day. I believe that there are a lot of ways to make the balance of 40k more accurate, more multi-dimensional and more dynamic. First of all, some assertions for a baseline of a hypothetical 9th edition that would address these issues:

1. Point costs are used for internal codex balance, independent of opponent and assuming a specific standard mission (used as a baseline) and a specific set of guidelines for terrain set-up (also used as a baseline). The points would need to be calculated based on a final gear load-out, not added together during list creation as they currently are. (A storm bolter is more useful on a Captain than a tactical sergeant and a jump pack is more useful on a model with a Thunder Hammer than one with an MC Boltgun.)

2. Command Points would need to have an approximately equivalent value from army to army, though of course this would swing wildly depending on context. I will discuss context related changes below, but I will save general CP balancing discussions for a more appropriate thread.

3. Every mission would need to have expanded rules allowing the objectives/command points generated to shift depending on the force composition of each side (for example, on missions that generate victory points for slain Heavy Support choices, Heavy Support choices should either generate CP or they should score a bonus VP whenever they are used to slay enemy Heavy Support choices).

4. There would need to be a new set of table/terrain guidelines that altered CP generated or created/modified objectives based on unit functionality within that terrain. (Example: on boards more than 1/3 covered by ruins; non-infantry units of a certain size/cost might generate CP or gain objective secured.)

5. There would need to be similar modifications done based on inter-army interactions. (Example: Pure Deathwatch armies (which struggle to take down Knights) might score a VP or gain a CP when they slay a VEHICLE that is TITANIC.)

6. Lastly stratagems would need to vary cost/function based upon their target to help equalize the value of a CP. (Example: Rotate Ion Shields should cost more on the bigger Knights and less on the small ones.)

There are, of course, always more ways to make it multi-dimensional (for example, having stratagems that varied cost/effect based on mission/terrain), but overall I think my idea is pretty much just in the logic of, “GW has made all of these variables that could be changed after list building; why don’t we change them after list-building to increase balance, supplementing points?”

Thoughts? (Questions/comments/concerns? Bitches/gripes/complaints?)

Thank you for this much welcomed change of pace All interesting points all around and your last sentence nicely sums up how can we get past this static "good enough" metric we so painfully derived earlier in the thread.

Mission/terrain specific alterations have actually existed in 40K in form of attacker/defender stratagems prior to 8th edition and have proven usefull tool in flavourfully equalizing intentionally skewed narrative and 8th expanded on that already. You're right that this is a good dynamic tool at game time. Faction specific win conditions have also existed in 7th in form of faction specific Tactical Objectives, but entire Maelstrom concept suffers from huge community objections (partially warranted by poor GW execution of the concept). One thing you may find interesting, which I have been using for a long time in my "universal mission template" - if you allow to copy/steal cards drawn by your opponent as an alternative to random generation on top of the turn you can get consistenly close games with very natural wargame feel of strategic decision making "on the top of command chain". I vastly prefer it to CCG nature of direct, unit specific stratagems in 8th.

As to other dynamic tools I use at gameplay: tactical objective generation based on area control with objective placement specificaly tailored in conjunction with terrain - this enables balance of even the most skewed landscapes and adds a lot to movement/countermovement/movement denial, so switches a lot of balance from mathhammer to player agency. On top of all that I have not played a symmetrical main objectives mission for years now - it is just too great tool for both storytelling and balancing lists performance, both if used after lists are made to accomodate for discrepancies or prior to list construction to enable problem solving approach. But I do play narratively, so never really thought about trying to objectively codify all those tools. Your ideas of altering CP generation and dynamic changes to unit types utility based on terrain are IMHO very promising if somwehat elusive to grasp on how exactly they could/should be implemented.


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A.T. wrote:

InquisitorKnickers wrote:
Thoughts? (Questions/comments/concerns? Bitches/gripes/complaints?)

Too much added complexity / paperwork / things to remember and keep track of for a tabletop game. Just having to go back and forth between the unit entry and points list is a step too far for many.

nou wrote:
I have read 5th ed BRB and codices / And judging from various polls and discussions here, while it is most commonly pointed as the best edition it also has a significant opposition.

The wound allocation could be abused (but easily fixed), the mission scoring conditions were very poor, they made vehicles tougher and cheaper, didn't sync up changes book to book, and as the edition went on the game saw rampant codex creep.
It's a good start for an oldhammer system, but needs a lot of work to bring the 5e codex releases into line.

I have probably adressed a lot of those concerns in "myhammer" rework of 7th, as 5th is at it's core a stripped down version of it in many respects and I have changed a lot by now.

At much added complexity / paperwork complaint I have actually discussed this once before and the solution is reachable - most people now own a smarphone, much of more dynamic tools could be app-ified. In theory, it could also be utilized for dynamic pricing based on faction matchup on the fly, but I know at least few posters that would strongly object to taking away definite number crunching at listbuilding time.

The problem of perfect balancing is NP hard and so for larger problem instances not solvable.
What we see are approximate solutions of GW, weakly tries not more.
Dont blame GW.

Tyel wrote:

nou wrote:
There is one other direct, so maybe more clearly understandable modern example: you cannot adequately and universally point cost a Castellan, because large part of it's efficiency comes from a context it is taken in (stratagems and CP amount) and you would have to have at least two point costs, one for mono IK and one for IG+Castellan for it to be adequately balanced in both contexts.

The thing is that this "two points value dilemma" isn't a real problem outside of pure theory. Some people really don't like canned strategy - but I don't think its a problem if certain combinations can only be played together. Its a shame if a model never has a competitive combo - but its not the end of the world. Not nearly as much as a too powerful combination.

Sure, if I say "every Castellan turns up with Cawls Wrath, a 4++ and a bank of CPs to burn" you can say "well not all Castellans" - but its a bit meaningless. In a competitive world they do because its the best thing to do with the resources available for you. Things have to be pointed on the assumption that people will optimise their lists, not that they grab anything to hand and see how it does.

Balance isn't in some weird idea that anyone should be able to spend X points in any book, and have a 50/50 chance to win against any other list in the game. You can't have a complex game and have that as the objective. Now I'd argue there shouldn't be trap choices in any codex - units which are so eye-wateringly bad for their points you are only taking them of you really don't know how the game works - but by and large (and its a work in progress, but at least they are now trying) GW is acting to get rid of them. But the very fact they can get rid of them suggests that yes, things can be balanced by points.

You could also balance it by fundamentally altering the game (whether its limiting soups or completely changing how missions are won or lost etc) but it isn't inherently necessary.

I don't really see your argument on Terminators either. The problem with Terminators was that for their points they had crap damage output, crap movement - and actually nothing special on defense as well. With the CA18 points drops and things like the beta bolter rules the regular stormbolter/fist build is a bit better - but still not amazing for what you pay. I don't see how it represents a problem with the axes approach. Most models which are mathematically good are good.

If you don't get how Terminators (and distraction carnifexes) are an epitome of linear projection problem by now then there is really very little I can expand upon to make it more apparent for you. Last attempt - if I tell you a number of points, say 80, and nothing more except game conditions to use it in, can you tell me how much and how exactly will they infulence a game and how they will interact with rules? The other way around it is much more simple and perfectly doable, you can name a unit and then assume some set of game conditions and establish a fairly reasonable, momentary point value of said unit because you have a vast array of variables given to crunch, not a single variable. It would change depending on said conditions, but for any narrowly defined circumstances you actually can do that to a reasonable accuracy. But because point projection is lossy, you cannot do this in any reasonable way when all I tell you is point value.

But you touch another important problem in that post - namely a desired level of balance to leave list building and number crunching a meaningful part of the game. It has been best showcased by Auticus' AOS point system attempt - most of the players actually frowned upon statistically too equalized point system, because they could not show off their knowledge and insight of the system by hunting down optimal choices. So the "optimal enough" level of balance would have to be somewhere between "good enough" metrics derived earlier (which I think is very bottom estimate and pretty low for practical considerations) and significantly lower than chess level of "perfect balance" where all list choices are obvious or rigidly given. And the more "optimal balance" differs from "perfect" the more utility in game time dynamic tools.

redboi wrote:
40k will never be balanced as long as the primary focus is kept on firepower and killing units, rather than strategy. Some units will always be mathematically better at killing than others, especially in a game with this many model choices.

Having a system where the majority of games are decided by turn 2 simply because one side killed more then the other side is just bad design

But gap is something that could be change. Right now the gap between the best and the worse army, is so large, both armies could as well be playing different games.

Karol wrote:

redboi wrote:
40k will never be balanced as long as the primary focus is kept on firepower and killing units, rather than strategy. Some units will always be mathematically better at killing than others, especially in a game with this many model choices.

Having a system where the majority of games are decided by turn 2 simply because one side killed more then the other side is just bad design

But gap is something that could be change. Right now the gap between the best and the worse army, is so large, both armies could as well be playing different games.

It's actually a more even playing field than at many times in the past of the game. End of 7e especially!

I don't know how 7th looked like. From my point of view the army power difference is huge. Something like and eldar or IG army can beat my army even if I get free 500pts in re-rolls and the limit to use them only once per turn is lifted. If GK in 7th were worse then they are now, which I assume could have been the case, then GW should have either removed them fromt he game or should have really writen a good codex for them.
From what I understand eldar were good in 7th ed, somehow GW with little time and few people to write and test, could write two very good eldar books and one book that is workable in soup.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I agree that context is important, which is why the cost of a unit must be considered as it’s maximum potential.

The downside to this is that any situation in which the optimal environment is not being taken advantage of (CP battery for Castellan) the model will seem overpriced. Which creates a weird situation in which taking some cheap Guardsmen becomes effectively mandatory. Taking a Farseer on Jetbike to support a Wraithknight is effectively mandatory. (Why wouldn’t you? )

It has always seemed strange to me that jump pack marines have cheap jump packs. Once upon a time, jump packs doubled your movement. While that does not necessarily mean doubling the points, it’s awfully close. Yet jump packs were roughly 1/4 of the price of a Marine. I never understood that.

So appropriately pricing models based on ideal circumstances has the “drawback” of limiting competitive build structures (which I’m ok with) to a small number of effectively pre-selected groupings. Which, to be fair is exactly what happens now anyway. To me, the interesting thing is that it levels the playing field between these pre-selected groupings. Two equally skilled opponents using armies constructed of these idealized groupings (maximizing army potential) should achieve a 60-40 win / loss ratio, over time.

I also agree with the above, that some kind of terrain setup suggestion should be given. Something like for every 500 points, a minimum of 3 large pieces of LOS blocking terrain (6” cube, for example) should be present. This terrain should be deployed starting near the centre of the board in a “web” to ensure the potential for meaningful movement and tactical options through the centre of the board.

This might require a bit of a return to 4 th edition concepts like trees being infinitely tall, in order to ensure that not all LOS blocking terrain is ruins... but I’d say that’s ok.

Infinitely tall visibility limitations were actually introduced in CA18 in the form of Pillars Of Smoke in Urban Battlezone: Conflagration. But as those are narrative rules their very existence will be largely ignored.


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Karol wrote:
I don't know how 7th looked like. From my point of view the army power difference is huge. Something like and eldar or IG army can beat my army even if I get free 500pts in re-rolls and the limit to use them only once per turn is lifted. If GK in 7th were worse then they are now, which I assume could have been the case, then GW should have either removed them fromt he game or should have really writen a good codex for them.
From what I understand eldar were good in 7th ed, somehow GW with little time and few people to write and test, could write two very good eldar books and one book that is workable in soup.

Eldars have been good since the begining of the game largely because fundamental design concept behind this faction and how it interacts with every ruleset to date: they are an army of single task specialists, so have minmaxing built in unit design and you can then further optimize on that with minmaxing lists. That they had some really broken formations in 7th didn't help either and made them borderline easy to break and the most hated faction, perhaps on par with Tau.

nou wrote:
If you don't get how Terminators (and distraction carnifexes) are an epitome of linear projection problem by now then there is really very little I can expand upon to make it more apparent for you. Last attempt - if I tell you a number of points, say 80, and nothing more except game conditions to use it in, can you tell me how much and how exactly will they infulence a game and how they will interact with rules? The other way around it is much more simple and perfectly doable, you can name a unit and then assume some set of game conditions and establish a fairly reasonable, momentary point value of said unit because you have a vast array of variables given to crunch, not a single variable. It would change depending on said conditions, but for any narrowly defined circumstances you actually can do that to a reasonable accuracy. But because point projection is lossy, you cannot do this in any reasonable way when all I tell you is point value.

I don't understand what you mean by "linear projection" or what you are asking me to do with 80 points. Terminators were bad in 8th because they were overcosted. At 40 points a model they were bad in every respect - even toughness. At 34 points they are better, although still not amazing. If they were to drop to say 20~ points I'm sure you would see some players max out on them. Everything is relative to everything else.

I'll maybe accept that you can't so easily compare units which operate in a in a totally different manner and for this you need a degree of iteration. You can't for instance easily look at assault marines and say "if they are X points, a Storm Raven is worth Y".
We are however involved in this iterative process. Through playing the game over and over we can see which units are good and which are bad, and therefore you can tighten the points up - as GW have done through the CA releases. The Storm Raven may not be comparable to assault marines - but its comparable to a range of other flyers or units which perform a similar function on the table.

You have set out in the original post that this process to get "close enough" is impossible. Its obviously not because its happening. Could it be better? Yes - I think GW have missed numerous tricks and I hope they resolve them next time round - but that's a million miles away from your position.

just so you know GK termintors still cost around 40pts. Even if they cost 20pts or strikes were primaris with stormbolters, I don't think people would suddenly swarm to playing them. 20pts is still a lot.

Tyel wrote:

You have set out in the original post that this process to get "close enough" is impossible. Its obviously not because its happening. Could it be better? Yes - I think GW have missed numerous tricks and I hope they resolve them next time round - but that's a million miles away from your position.

You confuse getting better with getting acceptably good here and if you think you "obviously" have to achieve better balance the longer you do this, you should read about asymptotes and strange atractors.

nou wrote:

Tyel wrote:

You have set out in the original post that this process to get "close enough" is impossible. Its obviously not because its happening. Could it be better? Yes - I think GW have missed numerous tricks and I hope they resolve them next time round - but that's a million miles away from your position.

You confuse getting better with getting acceptably good here and if you think you "obviously" have to achieve better balance the longer you do this, you should read about asymptotes and strange atractors.

Have you tried a cloud-based blockchain solution to provide strategic synergy with your hyperphase analysis? CHECKMATE GAME DESIGNERS.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

4D3 average is 8. There is nothing wrong with 2D6 as long as it comes with appropriate cost.

This is the problem, damage is always priced for maximum or average

And as you see in the graphic, 4D3 priced for average damage are much more balanced as you are more likely to see the average result. And both minimum+average results are closer to the Maximum, making it more reliable which means you more likley get what you paid for.

A 40k weapon with 1D6 damage should be price equal or less than a 2 damage weapon to be appropriate priced. But this won't happen so keeping the point cost and change them to 2D3 or fixed 4 damage would be the better solution

nou wrote:

I have read 5th ed BRB and codices for factions I play and I did not get the impression that it was all that different at it’s core to overcome the projection onto linear measure problem. And judging from various polls and discussions here, while it is most commonly pointed as the best edition it also has a significant opposition. It is often named as better balanced than later editions due to a significantly smaller scope and variation, which I have adressed in the OP already as a reasonable way of improving balance. It is however unnaceptable to revert to it for every single Imperial Knight player out there.

Of course you cannot go back, but this is not the point.

A reason why 5th was seen better balanced was because there were less options but units were more different.
No codex had more than 2 options for chaff or other specialists which meant that one unit would have always been better than the other

the attitude from GW "we make no mistakes so we need no Errata/rules changes" is a reason for the opposition, but 5th edition with similar treatment like 8th in rules and point adjustments would have been the 40k with good enough balance

 kodos wrote:


A reason why 5th was seen better balanced was because there were less options but units were more different.
No codex had more than 2 options for chaff or other specialists which meant that one unit would have always been better than the other

the attitude from GW "we make no mistakes so we need no Errata/rules changes" is a reason for the opposition, but 5th edition with similar treatment like 8th in rules and point adjustments would have been the 40k with good enough balance

Decreasing the size of the game and keeping it frozen in size as a valid approach to increase balance, that at the same time directly contradicts GW business model so it cannot happen has been explicitly covered in the OP, so I don't know what else to get from this more than "if this was possible 5th would be the basis of it", which I do not disagree with.

nou wrote:

 kodos wrote:


A reason why 5th was seen better balanced was because there were less options but units were more different.
No codex had more than 2 options for chaff or other specialists which meant that one unit would have always been better than the other

the attitude from GW "we make no mistakes so we need no Errata/rules changes" is a reason for the opposition, but 5th edition with similar treatment like 8th in rules and point adjustments would have been the 40k with good enough balance

Decreasing the size of the game and keeping it frozen in size as a valid approach to increase balance, that at the same time directly contradicts GW business model so it cannot happen has been explicitly covered in the OP, so I don't know what else to get from this more than "if this was possible 5th would be the basis of it", which I do not disagree with.

This wont work, even if they froze everything now there are already too many factors to take into account for them to properly balance the game they would have to remove a lot of the factions which they can't do at this point.

@Nou I have remained in the same position the whole time. I agree points are not the answer.

Even if you can't come up with a good enough definition for "good enough balance" you should still lay one out.

One option you have not put forward is non-liner non-point related rules.

For example "Units with 5 or less models gain +1" movement, and units with 11 or more models -1" of movement."

Rules like this would have an impact on the game, but are not based on points at all. Some units would have the option of benefits from the start, while others wont.

Points are a good base to build from, they allow you to control how much is put on the table, which helps keep armies "feeling" like they should, lots of Guardsman, few Space marines for example. They do not let you control what is put on the board.

What's more as long as you use the original reference point to determine the points cost of anything new then it would come out reasonably balanced.

40k can be balanced. It requires many changes, such as removing some factions, and recognizing that points alone do not create balance. The rules really do need to be more complex for this to happen, with tradeoffs in units' capabilities, a decent suppression system, and so on. And alternating activation, of course. There just isn't room in 8th, or 7th, or 6th...... for units' to contribute to the battle using different means, and decisions to matter.

nou wrote:
... and what can be done to improve it.

First a little preface: it is not possible to "perfect balance" 40K, it is not even possible to "good enough" balance it, not with point system anyway. Just plain abstract math is enough to prove that.

If you're going to make an absurdly pedantic thread to basically create a couple bullet points, where the entire thread could be effortlessly reduced to 1 or 2 sentences, you should at least establish how quality of balance is measured and what is considered acceptable.

 Marmatag wrote:

nou wrote:
... and what can be done to improve it.

First a little preface: it is not possible to "perfect balance" 40K, it is not even possible to "good enough" balance it, not with point system anyway. Just plain abstract math is enough to prove that.

If you're going to make an absurdly pedantic thread to basically create a couple bullet points, where the entire thread could be effortlessly reduced to 1 or 2 sentences, you should at least establish how quality of balance is measured and what is considered acceptable.

And this has been established on first two pages why I did not and then suitable tests of quality of varying sensitivity and treshold of balance have been already proposed and accepted as usable. This is going in circles because people do not bother to read the thread before posting...


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 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

nou wrote:

 kodos wrote:


A reason why 5th was seen better balanced was because there were less options but units were more different.
No codex had more than 2 options for chaff or other specialists which meant that one unit would have always been better than the other

the attitude from GW "we make no mistakes so we need no Errata/rules changes" is a reason for the opposition, but 5th edition with similar treatment like 8th in rules and point adjustments would have been the 40k with good enough balance

Decreasing the size of the game and keeping it frozen in size as a valid approach to increase balance, that at the same time directly contradicts GW business model so it cannot happen has been explicitly covered in the OP, so I don't know what else to get from this more than "if this was possible 5th would be the basis of it", which I do not disagree with.

This wont work, even if they froze everything now there are already too many factors to take into account for them to properly balance the game they would have to remove a lot of the factions which they can't do at this point.

@Nou I have remained in the same position the whole time. I agree points are not the answer.

Even if you can't come up with a good enough definition for "good enough balance" you should still lay one out.

One option you have not put forward is non-liner non-point related rules.

For example "Units with 5 or less models gain +1" movement, and units with 11 or more models -1" of movement."

Rules like this would have an impact on the game, but are not based on points at all. Some units would have the option of benefits from this while others wont.

Points are a good base to build from, they allow you to control how much is put on the table, which helps keep armies "feeling" like they should, lots of Guardsman, few Space marines for example. They do not let you control what is put on the board.

What's more as long as you use the original reference point to determine the points cost of anything new then it would come out reasonably balanced.

As you can see what “good enough” means varies greatly from person to person and even establishing our low bottom line test requires a community vote to see if it produces game state that is deemed balanced “good enough”. Me providing some arbitrary definition of “good enough” doesn’t change static linear projection a bit and I can bet you, that even if I have provided such arbitrary definition first two pages of this thread would be a debate on adequacy of said definition, not a debate on non-linear mechanism... And at this moment in the thread we already have a working baseline test established and it still has not been practically satisfied, early 5th came as close as possible to this metrics, with what - half of modern model line?

As for your movement proposal, I assume that this is to be fluid during game time, so the more casaulties the better the squad? Otherwise it is a blanket change on movement stat or at most a kind of a comp rule but few units can vary in size from 5 to 20+. Elaborate comp systems are better than simple FOCs and are a good way to non-point based balance army balance, yes. They however do not account for terrain or mission impacting the gameplay so I’m more keen on mission time dynamics than listbuilding time dynamics, as mission time dynamics allow for greater spectrum of unit choices to be drawn into viability space.

As to “new units can be point costed” - only if they do not introduce any new kind of game interaction, like Ynnari or GSC did when first released in late 7th. On such occasions you have to rebalance the whole system to accomodate new interactions, especially when those are army wide special abilities and affect all 400+ faction vs faction individual balance spaces.


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I have updated OP to include metrics proposed by AlexTroy (with some commentary) as a basis of "goog enough" subdiscusiions.

Honestly this discussion doesn't make much sense to me. I started out playing MtG before jumping in to 40k. There are hundreds of thousands of cards, and even hundreds of thousands of more combos. Magic apparently can never be balanced according to this thread, and yet more often than not, it is considered so by its own player base.

Why?

Because balance is considered achieved when the competitive playing field offers a wide variety of options to choose from. Not every choice will be balanced, competitive, or even necessarily playable at any given time. But you can still have a balanced meta.

Right now, I'd say the presence of imperial soup for command points (specifically loyal 32) and the castellan heavily warps balance; in magic this is the equivalent of a certain card call treasure cruise, it allowed you jump through some hoops to pay limited resources for card draw that could be slotted into any deck; even those whose main weakness was lack of card draw. Fix command points primarily, and I think you'll find a diverse enough field of contenders to be called "balanced" as huge command point batteries stop being mandatory for imperial armies and stop giant death balls from sucking down 15 cp in a single game. From there, we can worry about reeling in outliers towards the median.

It can be balanced from a competitive sense. Casual balance is an oxymoron.

The issue is that by the definitions offered 40k is fairly balanced. You cant say "play Imperial soup - win". At least 20% or so of lists at the LVO were imperial soup. Do we think they only lost to mirror matches? Were they all the same? No.

There are some internal balancing issues with some factions. Some are stronger and skew your odds. But I am sure this happens in MTG and its what fuels evolution in the meta. The weakness is that there is not an exlicitly anti-Knight plug in for many factions. Often there is in Card Games. GW can however add such much more easily than completely re-writing the game from the ground up. I mean where were Knights in the first year of 8th? Points matter. If the Castellan was 900 points it would likely cease to be meta relevant immediately.

cerberus_ wrote:
Honestly this discussion doesn't make much sense to me. I started out playing MtG before jumping in to 40k. There are hundreds of thousands of cards, and even hundreds of thousands of more combos. Magic apparently can never be balanced according to this thread, and yet more often than not, it is considered so by its own player base.

Why?

Because balance is considered achieved when the competitive playing field offers a wide variety of options to choose from. Not every choice will be balanced, competitive, or even necessarily playable at any given time. But you can still have a balanced meta.

Right now, I'd say the presence of imperial soup for command points (specifically loyal 32) and the castellan heavily warps balance; in magic this is the equivalent of a certain card call treasure cruise, it allowed you jump through some hoops to pay limited resources for card draw that could be slotted into any deck; even those whose main weakness was lack of card draw. Fix command points primarily, and I think you'll find a diverse enough field of contenders to be called "balanced" as huge command point batteries stop being mandatory for imperial armies and stop giant death balls from sucking down 15 cp in a single game. From there, we can worry about reeling in outliers towards the median.

It can be balanced from a competitive sense. Casual balance is an oxymoron.

IT cannot be balanced satisfactorily for most players at a competitive level (or at least has not shown to be able to do so) The problem with the MTG comparison is that the buy in to be competitive is no where near the same (not talking money necessarily but time as well). IN a game where modeling, and painting matter, having "balance" where say 4 builds can compete, is (at least to me) unacceptable, but that might be fine in MTG. Not every unit need be balanced necessarily, but every faction should be.

Breng77 wrote:

cerberus_ wrote:
Honestly this discussion doesn't make much sense to me. I started out playing MtG before jumping in to 40k. There are hundreds of thousands of cards, and even hundreds of thousands of more combos. Magic apparently can never be balanced according to this thread, and yet more often than not, it is considered so by its own player base.

Why?

Because balance is considered achieved when the competitive playing field offers a wide variety of options to choose from. Not every choice will be balanced, competitive, or even necessarily playable at any given time. But you can still have a balanced meta.

Right now, I'd say the presence of imperial soup for command points (specifically loyal 32) and the castellan heavily warps balance; in magic this is the equivalent of a certain card call treasure cruise, it allowed you jump through some hoops to pay limited resources for card draw that could be slotted into any deck; even those whose main weakness was lack of card draw. Fix command points primarily, and I think you'll find a diverse enough field of contenders to be called "balanced" as huge command point batteries stop being mandatory for imperial armies and stop giant death balls from sucking down 15 cp in a single game. From there, we can worry about reeling in outliers towards the median.

It can be balanced from a competitive sense. Casual balance is an oxymoron.

IT cannot be balanced satisfactorily for most players at a competitive level (or at least has not shown to be able to do so) The problem with the MTG comparison is that the buy in to be competitive is no where near the same (not talking money necessarily but time as well). IN a game where modeling, and painting matter, having "balance" where say 4 builds can compete, is (at least to me) unacceptable, but that might be fine in MTG. Not every unit need be balanced necessarily, but every faction should be.

That's not true about price; a competitive standard deck will often cost you about $250 or more every 6 months. Any eternal formats will cost close to $1000 easily; as far as time goes, if you're chasing the meta, you're not in it for a good paint job. Table top standard can be done quite easily. As far as balance goes, it is imbalanced in its current state. When the current format I play saw about 15-20 or more decks circling the metagame with none taking more than 10-20% of the total played, it was considered a healthy format. If you think achieving that is impossible I don't know what to tell you; we already have like what, 8 or so consistently dominant lists in the format? The biggest format warping threat, that forces all lists to built around facing or straight up ignoring, is the castellan backed by a cp battery. Kill those and you open up the format significantly.


Edit- the price might actually be true in 8th now that I think about it; all the rules changes are turning around armies pretty quickly as they patch major holes.

I have played this game from when I was 12 years old in 2nd edition, until today with only 7th as the version I did not really play a lot, and quite frankly, I agree with the original premise of this thread that 40k will never be truly balanced. I think the game is just to complicated with to many variables. However, I feel that 8th edition, for causal play, is the most balanced this game has ever been. I don't care about tournaments being balanced, as I don't play them, I care about whether you can have fun pick up games with a wide variety of lists. So far in 8th edition, barring 1 game where I played with a guy practicing his LVO list and I did not bring a competitive army, every game of 8th I have played has been fun, and not felt like a curb stomping for either side. As opposed the 5th or 6th edition where certain armies where just soooooooooooo much better than others that it did not matter what list was brought, one side just curb stomped the other.

A personal example of this is in 6th edition I ended up having some Eldar. When the new codex dropped, they went from basically unplayable to unstoppable. I would play with lists that I limited myself to no more than 1 of any unit, and not bring some of the more vicious units, and against certain codex it would not matter, I would utterly crush them. It was so unfun that I ended up just selling the Eldar stuff I had, and focused on CSM, who during 6th basically sucked other than maybe one build. Games in 3rd, 4th 5th and 6th were more likely going to be one sided affairs, with the occasional great game. In 8th I feel like the vast majority of games are great, with the occasional unfun game.

Also, except for maybe Grey Knights (I don't play them, and have not played 8th against them recently), none of the other codex feel like they are utter garbage. Yes, some codex are better than others. However I feel like the gap between the best and the worst is far narrower, especially if both players are not maximizing the most effective units.

So while I agree with that 40k will never be truly balanced, I like where the game is today much more so than the past.

I think the next best biggest step in balancing the game will inevitably come from GW adopting an online model for faster rules publishing, distribution and updating.

Having half a codex (or an entire codex) full of units that can't be used in game is money people aren't spending and shelf space being taken up. Its obvious to me that after CA2017 & CA2018 units that were not being used began to be used again or started to be for the first time.

If GW can accelerate that cycle of point adjustments via online updates to an accessible living ruleset we will see more diversity and experimentation as possibilities open up.

Another new development to mention is the specialty detachments. They allow units to be buffed without making point adjustments and also set a narrower field of units for the list to be composed of to hone things in. (I know there is no hard restrictions on what units to bring but if you are spending the command point for a wraithhost detachment I imagine you will be trying to maximize this buff by taking wraith units at the exclusion of others.)

cerberus_ wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

cerberus_ wrote:
Honestly this discussion doesn't make much sense to me. I started out playing MtG before jumping in to 40k. There are hundreds of thousands of cards, and even hundreds of thousands of more combos. Magic apparently can never be balanced according to this thread, and yet more often than not, it is considered so by its own player base.

Why?

Because balance is considered achieved when the competitive playing field offers a wide variety of options to choose from. Not every choice will be balanced, competitive, or even necessarily playable at any given time. But you can still have a balanced meta.

Right now, I'd say the presence of imperial soup for command points (specifically loyal 32) and the castellan heavily warps balance; in magic this is the equivalent of a certain card call treasure cruise, it allowed you jump through some hoops to pay limited resources for card draw that could be slotted into any deck; even those whose main weakness was lack of card draw. Fix command points primarily, and I think you'll find a diverse enough field of contenders to be called "balanced" as huge command point batteries stop being mandatory for imperial armies and stop giant death balls from sucking down 15 cp in a single game. From there, we can worry about reeling in outliers towards the median.

It can be balanced from a competitive sense. Casual balance is an oxymoron.

IT cannot be balanced satisfactorily for most players at a competitive level (or at least has not shown to be able to do so) The problem with the MTG comparison is that the buy in to be competitive is no where near the same (not talking money necessarily but time as well). IN a game where modeling, and painting matter, having "balance" where say 4 builds can compete, is (at least to me) unacceptable, but that might be fine in MTG. Not every unit need be balanced necessarily, but every faction should be.

That's not true about price; a competitive standard deck will often cost you about $250 or more every 6 months. Any eternal formats will cost close to $1000 easily; as far as time goes, if you're chasing the meta, you're not in it for a good paint job. Table top standard can be done quite easily. As far as balance goes, it is imbalanced in its current state. When the current format I play saw about 15-20 or more decks circling the metagame with none taking more than 10-20% of the total played, it was considered a healthy format. If you think achieving that is impossible I don't know what to tell you; we already have like what, 8 or so consistently dominant lists in the format? The biggest format warping threat, that forces all lists to built around facing or straight up ignoring, is the castellan backed by a cp battery. Kill those and you open up the format significantly.


Edit- the price might actually be true in 8th now that I think about it; all the rules changes are turning around armies pretty quickly as they patch major holes.

This makes a couple of what I think are faulty assumptions

1.) People who would like to compete don't care what their army looks like. I don't think this is true at all, plenty of top players have well painted armies. Further their maybe others that would like to compete but don't want to chase the meta because they don't want to have to build and paint a new army.

2.) Table top standard is easily done for all people. I can tell you that for me to get something to look mediocre takes me quite a long time I don't have great fine motor skill (or I could pay someone a lot of money). I would say most armies to get to table top standard take me upwards of 50 hours between building and painting.

I think the time is the big one vs the cost, but if I needed to completely replace an army every year to compete, I think that is about $600 -1000. If we were talking about modifying within a faction where it is adding a unit or 2 it would be ok, but when you have to jump entire factions and build things from scratch it is expensive and time consuming.

Listening to top guys it at times seems like they are guys who can borrow armies to chase the meta, which limits the ability of everyone to reach that level.

I think the balance most people are seeking in 40k would be akin to I play green in magic, I am willing to splash a color here or there, or change cards within green, but I want to be able to compete playing at least a reasonably green deck. So if I play orks, I am fine needing to purchase new ork units (and some allies if any existed) in order to compete, but I don't want the answer to competing to be "play Eldar/Imperium/Etc" It may even not be needing to win a big event, but to win as often as they lose against players of equal skill.

I could be off but to me it feels like that is the minimum level of balance most people want.

Facisminthe41m wrote:
I think the next best biggest step in balancing the game will inevitably come from GW adopting an online model for faster rules publishing, distribution and updating.

I don't necessarily agree. Privateer press have been doing this since the dawn of mk3, and this model has had it since fair share of problems. It might surprise you but gamers don't really want a 'game that's updated faster'. A meta that is constantly in flux can become unstable very quickly, and this isn't attractive to a lot of people.

Facisminthe41m wrote:

Having half a codex (or an entire codex) full of units that can't be used in game is money people aren't spending and shelf space being taken up. Its obvious to me that after CA2017 & CA2018 units that were not being used began to be used again or started to be for the first time.

This may be true for top table competitive games but they don't necessarily represent the majority. this isn't the truth for a large proportion of the gaming population who are 'basement/kitchen table gamers'. Plenty of things that never see the light of day on the competitive scene are constantly duking it out amongst the casual crowd. Gw might be making more than a token effort these days towards the competitive scene, but this isn't necessarily indicative of how a lot of people view the game.

Facisminthe41m wrote:

If GW can accelerate that cycle of point adjustments via online updates to an accessible living ruleset we will see more diversity and experimentation as possibilities open up.

Sadly, I disagree. See my first point. PP have recently adopted this model and it hasn't been a roaring success. Don't get me wrong - i like a 'living' system. On the one hand, to me, it is an attractive proposition to be able to fix problems quickly and not have to wait years for a new codex. But a meta that is constantly in flux and constantly changing is one that is unattractive to a lot of people who want to know what the state of the game is, and who don't want to invest money in stuff only to see it nerfed or broken as soon as they've bought it. Having a sense of 'stability' in a game isn't a bad thing. And rightly or wongly. It is a complaint I've seen more frequently than you'd think about the living rulebook model. Ymmv.

Another point - what about those of us who like books and 'pen and paper'. Not everyone wants to be online. Or require a tablet to play. It's a legitimate point to consider.

To the OP,

Two other things to consider towards 'building' balance is multiple-cost systems in a game. Take the SWC limit in Infinity and unit caps. 'Special weapon cost. It used to be that's for every 50pts of game-size, you got 1 SWC 'point'. In a 'standard' 300pt game, this translated as 6 SWC. Special weapons like heavy machine guns, spitfires or whatever would cost points AND SWC. So, hypothetically, if there was a 30pt model with a heavy machine gun that was broken as all hell, it wouldn't necessarily matter. You wouldn't be able to just take ten of them.

It could be balanced by having a low unit cap- say, one or two max. And even if it didn't, the Model would have an SWC, of maybe 1.5. Meaning you could only ever take a max of 4 of them (if there wasn't a unit cap) and that would mean no other models would be able to have anything other than their pistols or rifles, so no other fancy guns.

Points costs are the final lever to pull in any debate about balancing. You need to look at other areas first.

Breng77 wrote:

cerberus_ wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

cerberus_ wrote:
Honestly this discussion doesn't make much sense to me. I started out playing MtG before jumping in to 40k. There are hundreds of thousands of cards, and even hundreds of thousands of more combos. Magic apparently can never be balanced according to this thread, and yet more often than not, it is considered so by its own player base.

Why?

Because balance is considered achieved when the competitive playing field offers a wide variety of options to choose from. Not every choice will be balanced, competitive, or even necessarily playable at any given time. But you can still have a balanced meta.

Right now, I'd say the presence of imperial soup for command points (specifically loyal 32) and the castellan heavily warps balance; in magic this is the equivalent of a certain card call treasure cruise, it allowed you jump through some hoops to pay limited resources for card draw that could be slotted into any deck; even those whose main weakness was lack of card draw. Fix command points primarily, and I think you'll find a diverse enough field of contenders to be called "balanced" as huge command point batteries stop being mandatory for imperial armies and stop giant death balls from sucking down 15 cp in a single game. From there, we can worry about reeling in outliers towards the median.

It can be balanced from a competitive sense. Casual balance is an oxymoron.

IT cannot be balanced satisfactorily for most players at a competitive level (or at least has not shown to be able to do so) The problem with the MTG comparison is that the buy in to be competitive is no where near the same (not talking money necessarily but time as well). IN a game where modeling, and painting matter, having "balance" where say 4 builds can compete, is (at least to me) unacceptable, but that might be fine in MTG. Not every unit need be balanced necessarily, but every faction should be.

That's not true about price; a competitive standard deck will often cost you about $250 or more every 6 months. Any eternal formats will cost close to $1000 easily; as far as time goes, if you're chasing the meta, you're not in it for a good paint job. Table top standard can be done quite easily. As far as balance goes, it is imbalanced in its current state. When the current format I play saw about 15-20 or more decks circling the metagame with none taking more than 10-20% of the total played, it was considered a healthy format. If you think achieving that is impossible I don't know what to tell you; we already have like what, 8 or so consistently dominant lists in the format? The biggest format warping threat, that forces all lists to built around facing or straight up ignoring, is the castellan backed by a cp battery. Kill those and you open up the format significantly.


Edit- the price might actually be true in 8th now that I think about it; all the rules changes are turning around armies pretty quickly as they patch major holes.

This makes a couple of what I think are faulty assumptions

1.) People who would like to compete don't care what their army looks like. I don't think this is true at all, plenty of top players have well painted armies. Further their maybe others that would like to compete but don't want to chase the meta because they don't want to have to build and paint a new army.

2.) Table top standard is easily done for all people. I can tell you that for me to get something to look mediocre takes me quite a long time I don't have great fine motor skill (or I could pay someone a lot of money). I would say most armies to get to table top standard take me upwards of 50 hours between building and painting.

I think the time is the big one vs the cost, but if I needed to completely replace an army every year to compete, I think that is about $600 -1000. If we were talking about modifying within a faction where it is adding a unit or 2 it would be ok, but when you have to jump entire factions and build things from scratch it is expensive and time consuming.

Listening to top guys it at times seems like they are guys who can borrow armies to chase the meta, which limits the ability of everyone to reach that level.

I think the balance most people are seeking in 40k would be akin to I play green in magic, I am willing to splash a color here or there, or change cards within green, but I want to be able to compete playing at least a reasonably green deck. So if I play orks, I am fine needing to purchase new ork units (and some allies if any existed) in order to compete, but I don't want the answer to competing to be "play Eldar/Imperium/Etc" It may even not be needing to win a big event, but to win as often as they lose against players of equal skill.

I could be off but to me it feels like that is the minimum level of balance most people want.

1.) People who would like to compete don't care what their army looks like. I don't think this is true at all, plenty of top players have well painted armies. Further their maybe others that would like to compete but don't want to chase the meta because they don't want to have to build and paint a new army.

It's not assuming people don't care; I'm saying people can paint quickly to compete if they want. Unfortunately, the hobby aspect is not conducive for competitive; a well painted army could take years to complete, and it only takes one balance change for a meta shift. My belief is if you want to play competitively, you must make sacrifices. I use to play a modern deck in MtG call grixis delver. It was a good deck for about 2-3 years, then a meta shift slowly killed it. I don't play competitive anymore because I won't shell out $800 to salvage the deck. Is the fact that my deck isn't competitive show that the format is unbalanced? Should the design team do something to make it competiive? No the format is healthy, and it can still compete against casual decks.

2.) I think the balance most people are seeking in 40k would be akin to I play green in magic, I am willing to splash a color here or there, or change cards within green, but I want to be able to compete playing at least a reasonably green deck. So if I play orks, I am fine needing to purchase new ork units (and some allies if any existed) in order to compete, but I don't want the answer to competing to be "play Eldar/Imperium/Etc" It may even not be needing to win a big event, but to win as often as they lose against players of equal skill.

TFirstly I'd question if your casual ork lists can compete with a casual imperial, eldar, list, etc. If the answer is yes, then there is no problem. Not every army is going to make a showing at LVO, and that's not a bad thing neccessarily, as long as that army isn't Grey Knights tier on the kitchen table. Right now you have a situation where, barring certain abusive lists and 1 or 2 outliers, most armies are balanced against each other.


I should state my ultimate opinion here so you know where I'm coming from; competitive 40k is not balanced currently due to imperium command batteries and a handful of overperforming units. Removing command point batteries would significantly close the gap between the haves and have nots. Then it should be easier to isolate specific data sheets like the Castellan and go from there. 40k can be balanced competitevly with a little work.

cerberus_ wrote:
Honestly this discussion doesn't make much sense to me. I started out playing MtG before jumping in to 40k. There are hundreds of thousands of cards, and even hundreds of thousands of more combos. Magic apparently can never be balanced according to this thread, and yet more often than not, it is considered so by its own player base.

Why?

Because balance is considered achieved when the competitive playing field offers a wide variety of options to choose from. Not every choice will be balanced, competitive, or even necessarily playable at any given time. But you can still have a balanced meta.

Right now, I'd say the presence of imperial soup for command points (specifically loyal 32) and the castellan heavily warps balance; in magic this is the equivalent of a certain card call treasure cruise, it allowed you jump through some hoops to pay limited resources for card draw that could be slotted into any deck; even those whose main weakness was lack of card draw. Fix command points primarily, and I think you'll find a diverse enough field of contenders to be called "balanced" as huge command point batteries stop being mandatory for imperial armies and stop giant death balls from sucking down 15 cp in a single game. From there, we can worry about reeling in outliers towards the median.

It can be balanced from a competitive sense. Casual balance is an oxymoron.

So not true. Explain platinum Angel ?

MTG is completely unbalanced there are cards so obviously over powered that only certain people have.