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Dysartes wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Castellans dominated LVO and dominate all tournaments. There are no clever meta busters. Just the same old crap AKA - Ynnari spears/doom - Eldar flyers - blocking moving paths - Orks abusing SAG relic and ofc...shooting twice because nothing is competitive without shooting twice . Dont mistake a little bit of diversity for the same old thang. OP = playable. Not OP? Dumpster.

GW Grand Tournament would like to question your assumption that the Castellan dominates all tournaments.

All ITC events? As a statement, that'd be fair enough - but maybe a key factor there is those three little letters...

ITC is not GW! How can anyone expect GW to "fix" a completely different game than the 40k GW produces?

I've never faced a castellan but thankfully if I do, it wont be with all the stupid BS that goes along with ITC crap.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It's perfectly fair when someone makes an absolute statement like that. You only need one datapoint to disprove the assertion.

While Xenomancers can make...grand statements, we all know what the point was, and it was that Castellans dominate. I haven't a clue what the goal is here with the "Gotcha!" outside some longwinded way to say Castellans are somehow okay?

It is arguable that Castellan lists dominate the ITC. That is an ITC specific problem, it is simply an untrue statement when made about all tournaments. It is an untrue statement which makes it hard to have a meaningful or useful discussion about where the problem really is because the purported problem is specific to one tournament format.

The castellan list is definitely good and competitive in most formats but it is not winning, not getting on the podium and maybe not even in the top 10 so to say that it is dominating them is ridiculous.

A list does not have to win the entire tournament to be overpowered, not fun to play against, and a problem that needs to be fixed.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It's perfectly fair when someone makes an absolute statement like that. You only need one datapoint to disprove the assertion.

While Xenomancers can make...grand statements, we all know what the point was, and it was that Castellans dominate. I haven't a clue what the goal is here with the "Gotcha!" outside some longwinded way to say Castellans are somehow okay?

It is arguable that Castellan lists dominate the ITC. That is an ITC specific problem, it is simply an untrue statement when made about all tournaments. It is an untrue statement which makes it hard to have a meaningful or useful discussion about where the problem really is because the purported problem is specific to one tournament format.

The castellan list is definitely good and competitive in most formats but it is not winning, not getting on the podium and maybe not even in the top 10 so to say that it is dominating them is ridiculous.

Riptides didn't need to dominate every tournament in 6th-7th for us to know they were unbalanced though, right? Same thing with Flyrants.

Wayniac wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

Castellans dominated LVO and dominate all tournaments. There are no clever meta busters. Just the same old crap AKA - Ynnari spears/doom - Eldar flyers - blocking moving paths - Orks abusing SAG relic and ofc...shooting twice because nothing is competitive without shooting twice . Dont mistake a little bit of diversity for the same old thang. OP = playable. Not OP? Dumpster.

I am sorry, but this mentality I see more and more in people who are just basing their opinion from Dakkadakka echo chamber. I also recommend watching Adepticon results to see how things aren't as cut and dry as LVO.

1. Jim Vesal - Chaos Daemon Mix
2. Stephen Fore - Genestealer Cults
3 Bilbo Baggins - Orks
4. Chris Blackham - Drukhari + Craftworlds
5. Sean Nayden - Ynnari
6. Braden Kohl - Militarum Tempestus(Had IK but no Castellan)
7. Thomas Byrd - Ultramarines
8. Bryan Hancock - Orks
9. Elliot Levy - Orks
10. Nick Nanavati - Orks

Okay, and what missions did Adepticon use? What was their scoring? I'm pretty sure Adepticon uses something different to ITC Champions missions like LVO.

That is a big factor to consider before you try to push this "See Castellans are fine one tournament didn't have them!" horsegak.

Of course more datapoints are needed, but i was responding to the statement that they dominate everything and the defeatist attitude that I see way too often here. Castellan may very well need adjustments(I think CP batteries need to be addressed but that is another discussion), but to push the idea that the Castellan is the alpha and the omega of the game is just over-reaction to certain tourney events and match-types. The world is a big wonderful place with many types of different players and matches and in that vast and endless reality we call our world there is so much more fun to be had than the narrative some people push that one shouldn't even bother playing the game because Castellan and Ynnari are strong.

It kinda surprises how many people bother playing the game when there is naught but despair and no hope in sight.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It's perfectly fair when someone makes an absolute statement like that. You only need one datapoint to disprove the assertion.

While Xenomancers can make...grand statements, we all know what the point was, and it was that Castellans dominate. I haven't a clue what the goal is here with the "Gotcha!" outside some longwinded way to say Castellans are somehow okay?

It is arguable that Castellan lists dominate the ITC. That is an ITC specific problem, it is simply an untrue statement when made about all tournaments. It is an untrue statement which makes it hard to have a meaningful or useful discussion about where the problem really is because the purported problem is specific to one tournament format.

The castellan list is definitely good and competitive in most formats but it is not winning, not getting on the podium and maybe not even in the top 10 so to say that it is dominating them is ridiculous.

Riptides didn't need to dominate every tournament in 6th-7th for us to know they were unbalanced though, right? Same thing with Flyrants.

Again this comes back to how are you "supposed" to play, as you can only balance for one way to play, it might be close enough for others but with things like ITC secondarys, missions etc is it the castellen on it's own? Is it mission design, is it secondarys punishing the units that GW expected the counter to be? Or is it GW just really hasn't been balancing outside mono codex lists?

Without understanding the why, and it's probably more than 1 individual factor, fixing the underlying issue instead of nuclear nerfing the symptom unit into unplayable isn't going to happen. Nerfing units into unplayable will just end up splitting the community even more as people get progressively pissed at seeing the way they want to play their codex become unplayable because of some outside factors.

Ice_can wrote:

Spoiler:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It's perfectly fair when someone makes an absolute statement like that. You only need one datapoint to disprove the assertion.

While Xenomancers can make...grand statements, we all know what the point was, and it was that Castellans dominate. I haven't a clue what the goal is here with the "Gotcha!" outside some longwinded way to say Castellans are somehow okay?

It is arguable that Castellan lists dominate the ITC. That is an ITC specific problem, it is simply an untrue statement when made about all tournaments. It is an untrue statement which makes it hard to have a meaningful or useful discussion about where the problem really is because the purported problem is specific to one tournament format.

The castellan list is definitely good and competitive in most formats but it is not winning, not getting on the podium and maybe not even in the top 10 so to say that it is dominating them is ridiculous.

Riptides didn't need to dominate every tournament in 6th-7th for us to know they were unbalanced though, right? Same thing with Flyrants.

Again this comes back to how are you "supposed" to play, as you can only balance for one way to play, it might be close enough for others but with things like ITC secondarys, missions etc is it the castellen on it's own? Is it mission design, is it secondarys punishing the units that GW expected the counter to be? Or is it GW just really hasn't been balancing outside mono codex lists?

Without understanding the why, and it's probably more than 1 individual factor, fixing the underlying issue instead of nuclear nerfing the symptom unit into unplayable isn't going to happen. Nerfing units into unplayable will just end up splitting the community even more as people get progressively pissed at seeing the way they want to play their codex become unplayable because of some outside factors.

I don't often agree with things you post in here, but I think you nailed it this time.

On that note here is a question for the people who previously have argued how much better ITC missions are than everything else: If the Castellan is dominating ITC missions and not other missions (as evidenced by the fact that the GW GT and Adepticon did not have Castellans dominate), where is the issue? Should GW balance the Castellan (and yes it should still be adjusted somewhat IMHO) around ITC Champions missions, or is it really not as bad as ITC Champions missions makes it out to be when you remove those missions?

GW tournaments don't count for anything because they have dumb scores for "favorite army" and that garbage.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:GW tournaments don't count for anything because they have dumb scores for "favorite army" and that garbage.

I don't think that's dumb at all, and ignoring GW because that's not how you enjoy the hobby is exactly the kind of dismissive and ignorant attitude that leads to things like "casual vs competitive". Let people enjoy harmless things. Unless you're genuinely suggesting this causes harm to you.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
GW tournaments don't count for anything because they have dumb scores for "favorite army" and that garbage.

The best overall player should be rewarded - though there should also be awards for best painted, best sportsman and best general as well.

And, ideally, a results table that allows you to sort by column...

 Ordana wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

Castellans dominated LVO and dominate all tournaments. There are no clever meta busters. Just the same old crap AKA - Ynnari spears/doom - Eldar flyers - blocking moving paths - Orks abusing SAG relic and ofc...shooting twice because nothing is competitive without shooting twice . Dont mistake a little bit of diversity for the same old thang. OP = playable. Not OP? Dumpster.

I am sorry, but this mentality I see more and more in people who are just basing their opinion from Dakkadakka echo chamber. I also recommend watching Adepticon results to see how things aren't as cut and dry as LVO.

1. Jim Vesal - Chaos Daemon Mix
2. Stephen Fore - Genestealer Cults
3 Bilbo Baggins - Orks
4. Chris Blackham - Drukhari + Craftworlds
5. Sean Nayden - Ynnari
6. Braden Kohl - Militarum Tempestus(Had IK but no Castellan)
7. Thomas Byrd - Ultramarines
8. Bryan Hancock - Orks
9. Elliot Levy - Orks
10. Nick Nanavati - Orks

Okay, and what missions did Adepticon use? What was their scoring? I'm pretty sure Adepticon uses something different to ITC Champions missions like LVO.

That is a big factor to consider before you try to push this "See Castellans are fine one tournament didn't have them!" horsegak.

So your saying the problem isn't Castellans but the ITC mission format.
Thanks for realising something people outside of the US have been telling you for years.

infact the problem are ITC rules not Castellans based lists, here in europe (ETC or tournaments with CA 2018 missions) hardly you can ever see Castellan lists dominate, you cant complain with GW when a tournament use a rule pack GW didn't make. Try play CA 2018 missions and you will see how much Castellan lists will dominate, play a 4 colum missione (just an extreme example) against a true horde (like 120 Pb's) with castellan like lists.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It's perfectly fair when someone makes an absolute statement like that. You only need one datapoint to disprove the assertion.

That's not exactly how data works.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:GW tournaments don't count for anything because they have dumb scores for "favorite army" and that garbage.

I don't think that's dumb at all, and ignoring GW because that's not how you enjoy the hobby is exactly the kind of dismissive and ignorant attitude that leads to things like "casual vs competitive". Let people enjoy harmless things. Unless you're genuinely suggesting this causes harm to you.

It has nothing to do with the gameplay though. Someone getting a few ranks higher because their Marines were painted slightly nicer than then the people that played better is basically an insult.

Wayniac wrote:
Latest community article says how the Big FAQ will be after Adepticon (which we all knew) but this part in particular has me thinking:

Link to the article: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/03/19/coming-soon-warhammer-40000-2019-faqs-update-1gw-homepage-post-2/

The good news is that Warhammer 40,000 is in a pretty good place at the moment, so there won’t be any seismic changes, just a handful of balancing tweaks.

Would you agree with that sentiment? Why or why not?

Also, do you think that limiting soup/CP/detachments/etc. (any such myriad of changes to end the Loyal 32 powering a Castellan) counts as "balancing tweak" or "seismic change"? In other words, is it something we are likely to see?

It's in the best place its ever been, nostalgia aside of course.

Martel732 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It's perfectly fair when someone makes an absolute statement like that. You only need one datapoint to disprove the assertion.

That's not exactly how data works.

Well, no - data requires multiple points. This would be a datum. However, it looks like - at least last I heard - Adepticon will be providing at least a second point in favour of AlmightWalrus' position.

I would agree with the idea that if someone makes an absolute statement - All X are Y - and another person provides non-anecdotal evidence of at least one X not being Y, then the statement of "All X is Y" can be said to be false.

If I were to make the statement "All posters on Dakka from the US were really positive about the state of Warhammer 40,000", for example, you'd only need to point at this thread to prove me wrong.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:GW tournaments don't count for anything because they have dumb scores for "favorite army" and that garbage.

I don't think that's dumb at all, and ignoring GW because that's not how you enjoy the hobby is exactly the kind of dismissive and ignorant attitude that leads to things like "casual vs competitive". Let people enjoy harmless things. Unless you're genuinely suggesting this causes harm to you.

It has nothing to do with the gameplay though. Someone getting a few ranks higher because their Marines were painted slightly nicer than then the people that played better is basically an insult.

An insult? Not at all. There's more to being the best player than scoring the most kills.

Well, at least as long as they were being honest about whether they painted the models themselves, or hired a commission painter to do it for them.

I'd have a different opinion if the painting score affected who picked up "Best General", though.

I gotta ask, as a non-competitive player what makes ITC so much different that castellans dominate in it? People have mentioned the missions, but what about them is so different from GW ones?

 cole1114 wrote:
I gotta ask, as a non-competitive player what makes ITC so much different that castellans dominate in it? People have mentioned the missions, but what about them is so different from GW ones?

ITC missions give points each turn for Holding 1 objective, holding more objectives then your opponent, killing a unit and killing more units then your opponent. Additionally you pick 3 secondary objectives from a list, the vast majority of which are about killing units.

This leads to army's that care little about holding objectives, holding 1-2 is all you need to do, and heavily focus on killing units. Board control is something that doesn't matter much so a lot more castling and Guard + IK sitting in on 1-2 objectives in a corner shooting away the opponent as efficiently as possible.

Has anyone tried a Meta analysis?

Because about 12% of lists at the LVO had a castellan. Imperial Soup with Knights was around 25%. Whereas about a dozen played Orks. So it's not hugely surprising Imperial Soup did so well.

What was it like here?

Martel732 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It's perfectly fair when someone makes an absolute statement like that. You only need one datapoint to disprove the assertion.

That's not exactly how data works.

It is when disproving an absolute statement. You only need one case that does not line up with the statement in order to disprove it.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:GW tournaments don't count for anything because they have dumb scores for "favorite army" and that garbage.

I don't think that's dumb at all, and ignoring GW because that's not how you enjoy the hobby is exactly the kind of dismissive and ignorant attitude that leads to things like "casual vs competitive". Let people enjoy harmless things. Unless you're genuinely suggesting this causes harm to you.

It has nothing to do with the gameplay though. Someone getting a few ranks higher because their Marines were painted slightly nicer than then the people that played better is basically an insult.

So what? The overall winner of a tournament about a hobby SHOULD be the person who best represents the hobby, not just the person who brought a better list/won all their games. If you go undefeated but are an ass, you might get Best General but you shouldn't win the tournament; you don't deserve it as you don't represent the entirety of the hobby.

This has been how the hobby always worked until recently. Hell, I want them to bring back Sportsmanship and Comp scores so the people who bring a pure min/max list with no regard for the fluff, argue over every rule and try to nitpick will get kicked out of the running for the overall winner. As it should be. This isn't Magic where all that matters is winning games, nor should it be. That is part of the problem with 40k in general; it's more than just the gameplay. Winning games should be *A* factor, but not the *ONLY* factor in being the overall champion of a tournament.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cole1114 wrote:
I gotta ask, as a non-competitive player what makes ITC so much different that castellans dominate in it? People have mentioned the missions, but what about them is so different from GW ones?

Besides what was already said, the only thing ITC missions care about is killing units and holding objectives, and the way their missions work it's basically the same mission just with objectives in different set locations that are predetermined rather than placed by the players. This means that you already know where objectives will be for any given mission, so you can just come up with your plan entirely before the game. In addition, they let you tailor secondary objectives based on your opponent's army list (so if they have horde and monsters, you can pick the secondaries that give you bonus points for hurting monsters and killing models). That's a big reason; everything revolves around killing units with little or no actual tactical decisions to be made other than where to apply firepower. The GW missions have slight variances baked in (e.g. only characters generate VP, units with FLY supersede all others for objectives, no invulns within X inches of the objective, etc.) so you can't just build a gimmicky list and crush people because you don't know which mission you might get, and that unknown might factor into what you bring.

ITC removes this, so it has very stale list building since basically everything about the mission is already known and can be accounted for before you ever get to the table. It basically boils everything in the game down to listbuilding and math/theoryhammer by removing the majority of unknown decisions which are baked into the game to help AVOID boiling everything down to listbuilding and math/theoryhammer.

Speaking of ITC, have you guys seen the new Beta rules for March ITC missions? A couple more non-killing secondaries. You could easily do Recon, Engineers, and Ground Control, and all of your secondaries are now about holding objectives and ground. So you could score 24 points theoretically without killing a single enemy model, if you do just objective based play. Any thoughts on how this might effect the Castellan meta in ITC?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
It has nothing to do with the gameplay though. Someone getting a few ranks higher because their Marines were painted slightly nicer than then the people that played better is basically an insult.

This is what happens when video gamers find 40k.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
It has nothing to do with the gameplay though. Someone getting a few ranks higher because their Marines were painted slightly nicer than then the people that played better is basically an insult.

This is what happens when video gamers find 40k.

Yeah I have to feel like there are plenty of existing games for them to bring this toxic attitude to. “I shouldn’t have to socialize if I don’t want to.” is a real comment above and blaming GW game design for that not being possible.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:GW tournaments don't count for anything because they have dumb scores for "favorite army" and that garbage.

I don't think that's dumb at all, and ignoring GW because that's not how you enjoy the hobby is exactly the kind of dismissive and ignorant attitude that leads to things like "casual vs competitive". Let people enjoy harmless things. Unless you're genuinely suggesting this causes harm to you.

It has nothing to do with the gameplay though. Someone getting a few ranks higher because their Marines were painted slightly nicer than then the people that played better is basically an insult.

Why? You have Best General for people who want to be the best gamer. The overall winner should be more than just who rolled the best with the strongest list - there's more to the hobby than that.

Dysartes wrote:I'd have a different opinion if the painting score affected who picked up "Best General", though.

Absolutely. There's a reason there's multiple winning categories.

Wayniac wrote:So what? The overall winner of a tournament about a hobby SHOULD be the person who best represents the hobby, not just the person who brought a better list/won all their games. If you go undefeated but are an ass, you might get Best General but you shouldn't win the tournament; you don't deserve it as you don't represent the entirety of the hobby.

This has been how the hobby always worked until recently. Hell, I want them to bring back Sportsmanship and Comp scores so the people who bring a pure min/max list with no regard for the fluff, argue over every rule and try to nitpick will get kicked out of the running for the overall winner. As it should be. This isn't Magic where all that matters is winning games, nor should it be. That is part of the problem with 40k in general; it's more than just the gameplay. Winning games should be *A* factor, but not the *ONLY* factor in being the overall champion of a tournament.

Exactly. If you want Best General, you can win that, but don't expect to win the overall tourney if you can't treat people with respect, turn up with sloppily painted models, and generally only go in for winning games.

If that's what you're in the tournament for, then Best General is all you should be caring about, no?

Wayniac wrote:


Besides what was already said, the only thing ITC missions care about is killing units and holding objectives, and the way their missions work it's basically the same mission just with objectives in different set locations that are predetermined rather than placed by the players. This means that you already know where objectives will be for any given mission, so you can just come up with your plan entirely before the game. In addition, they let you tailor secondary objectives based on your opponent's army list (so if they have horde and monsters, you can pick the secondaries that give you bonus points for hurting monsters and killing models). That's a big reason; everything revolves around killing units with little or no actual tactical decisions to be made other than where to apply firepower. The GW missions have slight variances baked in (e.g. only characters generate VP, units with FLY supersede all others for objectives, no invulns within X inches of the objective, etc.) so you can't just build a gimmicky list and crush people because you don't know which mission you might get, and that unknown might factor into what you bring.

ITC removes this, so it has very stale list building since basically everything about the mission is already known and can be accounted for before you ever get to the table. It basically boils everything in the game down to listbuilding and math/theoryhammer by removing the majority of unknown decisions which are baked into the game to help AVOID boiling everything down to listbuilding and math/theoryhammer.

It sounds like ITC went out of their way to make Warhammer 40k less of a game and more of a puzzle to be solved in the most efficient way possible.

 Horst wrote:
Speaking of ITC, have you guys seen the new Beta rules for March ITC missions? A couple more non-killing secondaries. You could easily do Recon, Engineers, and Ground Control, and all of your secondaries are now about holding objectives and ground. So you could score 24 points theoretically without killing a single enemy model, if you do just objective based play. Any thoughts on how this might effect the Castellan meta in ITC?

No, because killing secondaries are easier and more reliable.
Engineer means your unit is doing nothing and your opponent is likely to kill it, stopping your scoring and scoring himself.
King of the Hill suffers the same problem. Why do I need to have 2 mutli wound units sitting around in the center when they can be killing the enemy?

Wayniac wrote:

Besides what was already said, the only thing ITC missions care about is killing units and holding objectives, and the way their missions work it's basically the same mission just with objectives in different set locations that are predetermined rather than placed by the players. This means that you already know where objectives will be for any given mission, so you can just come up with your plan entirely before the game. In addition, they let you tailor secondary objectives based on your opponent's army list (so if they have horde and monsters, you can pick the secondaries that give you bonus points for hurting monsters and killing models). That's a big reason; everything revolves around killing units with little or no actual tactical decisions to be made other than where to apply firepower. The GW missions have slight variances baked in (e.g. only characters generate VP, units with FLY supersede all others for objectives, no invulns within X inches of the objective, etc.) so you can't just build a gimmicky list and crush people because you don't know which mission you might get, and that unknown might factor into what you bring.

ITC removes this, so it has very stale list building since basically everything about the mission is already known and can be accounted for before you ever get to the table. It basically boils everything in the game down to listbuilding and math/theoryhammer by removing the majority of unknown decisions which are baked into the game to help AVOID boiling everything down to listbuilding and math/theoryhammer.

So you want to determine the winner by luck? Holding ground and killing things is how you win the game. Adding in random circumstances can be enjoyable in a casual game, but it sucks in a tournament. Rolling up to the table and to realize the snow flake mission is slanted against you. I've played in those tournaments and they suck ass hard. Granted its easier to get information about the missions in advance now, but I've been gotcha by that gak in the past. It's not fun.

Problem being in 40K it's not clear when we can apply Chauvenet's criterion. As I said, data doesn't exactly work that way in practice. Even "absolute" statements are expected to have outliers.

 Dysartes wrote:
An insult? Not at all. There's more to being the best player than scoring the most kills.

No there isn't. There might be more to being the best painter than scoring the most kills (capturing the most objectives, etc), but that has nothing to do with playing the game. It's like having a painting contest but penalizing a beautiful GD-winning model because its weapon choices aren't optimal and there should be more to being the best painter than being good at painting models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gordoape wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
It has nothing to do with the gameplay though. Someone getting a few ranks higher because their Marines were painted slightly nicer than then the people that played better is basically an insult.

This is what happens when video gamers find 40k.

Yeah I have to feel like there are plenty of existing games for them to bring this toxic attitude to. “I shouldn’t have to socialize if I don’t want to.” is a real comment above and blaming GW game design for that not being possible.

There's a toxic attitude here, but it's yours. GW absolutely is at fault when the game requires negotiating about how many sub-optimal list building choices you're obligated to make, winning is seen as a bad thing and tournaments need sportsmanship/comp/etc to penalize competitive players and bring the losers up to parity, etc. And socializing should involve fun time with friends, not arguing over whether or not unit X is too powerful to use. If your life is so lacking in genuine friendships that you consider this pre-game negotiation to count as socialization, well, I have to feel sorry for you.