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- Codeci are updated more often than once every five years.

- Rules and pointcosts are updated and balanced on regular intervals. A unit won't be overpowered or useless during the an entire edition (there are exceptions of course).

- All armies have chapter tactics (or equivalents) and not just Space Marines, leading to greater diversity and options within the different armies. Add unique stratagems, relics, disciplines and warlord traits to boot.

- Model's are better than ever.

Is the game perfect? Absolutely not, but as a casual player that still wants a modicum of balance, and who only play with close friends, I'd say that 40k is in a better place than ever.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

auticus wrote:
That makes sense now why my hugely zealous competitive 40k guys don't go to Adepticon; they don't use the ITC rules there and those guys are pretty much ITC-only.

Adepticon reports to ITC but has their own missions.

Which yet again proves the main dominance of the castellan is due to the itc missions. It's a bit too good by itself but the itc missions exacerbate the problem. This is basically proved now by how often the castellan dominates events that run ITC champions missions, while not dominating at events which do not.

The main dominance of the castellan is it can reliably kill 2-3 targets a turn while being impossible to remove. It's going to do good in every possible format.

Then why didn't it dominate at Adepticon?

Wayniac wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

auticus wrote:
That makes sense now why my hugely zealous competitive 40k guys don't go to Adepticon; they don't use the ITC rules there and those guys are pretty much ITC-only.

Adepticon reports to ITC but has their own missions.

Which yet again proves the main dominance of the castellan is due to the itc missions. It's a bit too good by itself but the itc missions exacerbate the problem. This is basically proved now by how often the castellan dominates events that run ITC champions missions, while not dominating at events which do not.

The main dominance of the castellan is it can reliably kill 2-3 targets a turn while being impossible to remove. It's going to do good in every possible format.

Then why didn't it dominate at Adepticon?

Castellan is rather ineffective against horde armies for it's points cost. Horde armies did very well (GSC and Orks having strong representation in top 10).

I'd be curious if Adepticon did the whole time clock thing ITC did? Did the horde army players make it to turn 6 every turn? Or were the games ending on turns 2/3?

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:
I think one thing needs to happen, Relics, Warlord Traits and Psychic powers should have points costs. They aren't even remotely well balanced enough between each other to justify them being the same effective cost.

The power I can grant to my genestealer cult army with one CP spent to give me three warlord traits? The fact that I can spend a total of five CP to grant myself five command traits is rather absurd.

Once you can adjust the costs of these things independent of the unit involved a lot of power combos could easily be dealt with more effectively.

With Knights getting Exalted Court, I've been using multiple Warlord Traits in games. Ill say your correct, they are not all created equal, but they are diverse enough to make them worthwhile, and with them being one of the best ways to customize at the table, the diversity is effective.

Making them cost points wouldn't be good for the game IMHO.

 Horst wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

auticus wrote:
That makes sense now why my hugely zealous competitive 40k guys don't go to Adepticon; they don't use the ITC rules there and those guys are pretty much ITC-only.

Adepticon reports to ITC but has their own missions.

Which yet again proves the main dominance of the castellan is due to the itc missions. It's a bit too good by itself but the itc missions exacerbate the problem. This is basically proved now by how often the castellan dominates events that run ITC champions missions, while not dominating at events which do not.

The main dominance of the castellan is it can reliably kill 2-3 targets a turn while being impossible to remove. It's going to do good in every possible format.

Then why didn't it dominate at Adepticon?

Castellan is rather ineffective against horde armies for it's points cost. Horde armies did very well (GSC and Orks having strong representation in top 10).

I'd be curious if Adepticon did the whole time clock thing ITC did? Did the horde army players make it to turn 6 every turn? Or were the games ending on turns 2/3?

This is kind of going to the point though. Horde armies did not dominate at LVO and Castellans did. Hordes dominated at Adepticon, and the Castellan did not. The underlying factor here seems to be that the Adepticon missions enabled Horde armies to do very well, while the LVO missions did not.

Therefore it seems to be when ITC Champions missions are in place the Castellan dominates. When it is not, the Castellan does not dominate, and we have already seen this multiple times now with the tournaments that did not use ITC missions such as the GW GT at Warhammer World and now most recently Adepticon.

The logical conclusion then is that the ITC Champions missions are part of what enables the Castellan to dominate.

On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.

Wayniac wrote:

 Horst wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

auticus wrote:
That makes sense now why my hugely zealous competitive 40k guys don't go to Adepticon; they don't use the ITC rules there and those guys are pretty much ITC-only.

Adepticon reports to ITC but has their own missions.

Which yet again proves the main dominance of the castellan is due to the itc missions. It's a bit too good by itself but the itc missions exacerbate the problem. This is basically proved now by how often the castellan dominates events that run ITC champions missions, while not dominating at events which do not.

The main dominance of the castellan is it can reliably kill 2-3 targets a turn while being impossible to remove. It's going to do good in every possible format.

Then why didn't it dominate at Adepticon?

Castellan is rather ineffective against horde armies for it's points cost. Horde armies did very well (GSC and Orks having strong representation in top 10).

I'd be curious if Adepticon did the whole time clock thing ITC did? Did the horde army players make it to turn 6 every turn? Or were the games ending on turns 2/3?

This is kind of going to the point though. Horde armies did not dominate at LVO and Castellans did. Hordes dominated at Adepticon, and the Castellan did not. The underlying factor here seems to be that the Adepticon missions enabled Horde armies to do very well, while the LVO missions did not.

Therefore it seems to be when ITC Champions missions are in place the Castellan dominates. When it is not, the Castellan does not dominate, and we have already seen this multiple times now with the tournaments that did not use ITC missions such as the GW GT at Warhammer World and now most recently Adepticon.

The logical conclusion then is that the ITC Champions missions are part of what enables the Castellan to dominate.

Do we know if those horde armies were actually finishing games though? Did they all make it to turn 6? I don't see anything in the rules packet about chess clocks. Against an army like Genestealers or Orks, if the game only goes to turn 3, yea I can see why they'd have such great representation in the top 10. It might not be the Castellan itself making the difference if games just aren't making it to the endgame.

 Horst wrote:

Bharring wrote:
I like producing the missions and terrain layout right before a game. As I understand it, all potential tourny missions and even sometimes the board layout is clearly defined before the event, so players have time to tailor their lists and playtest.

By producing the missions and terrain layout right before the game, you need to bring a more TAC list that can handle a variety of missions or layouts. I think it makes games more dynamic and fun. The downside is that you can wind up truly boned from the missions or layout itself; even if you try to build TAC, there will be times when the other guy is just much better suited to that mission/layout. That's the nature of random.

The good thing about not being a competitive player, is that it's a lot easier to accept that sometimes one side simply gets boned by luck.

The last tourny I went to, one of my games saw me on a board half where *nothing* in my list could get cover *anywhere* in my deployment zone. To add insult to injury, the objectives used d3-vp-each, and the two in my DZ were 1 and 2, and the two in theirs were each worth 3. So I got hosed on that - but I'm still glad we did it that way. It was still a really fun game. (Wound up winning because one of my DA squads fell back one round and rallied the next - had they not fallen back they would have been wrecked, and had they not rallied, they wouldn't have taken the objective - it's a dice game, luck happens.)

I really don't like paying to show up to an event, possibly traveling an hour or more for it, maybe buying a hotel room for a weekend, only to find out that my army is utterly unsuited to half the missions out there.

It's hard enough to build an army that has a chance at a set of 6 known missions against every codex out there. It's probably one of the reasons "netlisting" is so popular, because it's really not easy to build an army list that can deal with all possible combinations that can be fielded against you.

If it is for a local tournament that's just for fine, yea tha'ts OK, bust out the wacky missions. I went to a local tournament this past weekend, mission 2 was a Maelstrom of war mission, completely random as hell. But for major events like ITC or Adepticon? Those need to have published missions so you can plan for them.

Personally I don't like the samey ITC missions as I think they aren't as skill testing as they need to be (of gameplay skill) and place too much emphasis on list building. I prefer the way we do tourneys over here, you have your mission packet in advance so you aren't surprised by the missions and can build and playtest, but they also have variety, whether it be the 6 CA18 missions or the 6 ETC missions, you aren't surprised by the mission unless you're a bad player (from the point of view of the format) as you'll have practised it, but you will be forced to diversify your list and the combination of mission and match-up forces more tactical play, as pulling a horde in one mission is very different to pulling them in another and the same goes for a knoght list etc.

Martel732 wrote:
On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.

Is there anything about the game that you do like, at present?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

nareik wrote:
Warhammer world is just 15 minutes from a commercial intercontinental airport and under two hours from a whole bunch of super airports.

The idea that it is remote to international travellers is laughable.

East Midlands is hardly a main airport. The flights from there are very limited.

You're not really refuting either of my points. It has destinations all over the world, and there are a bunch of huge airports within a couple of hours if none of the East Midlands Airport (EMA) destinations are convenient.

Unfortunately, very recently one of their main providers of passenger services for EMA closed their business. So there will be gaps in services in the immediate future.

It may not be LV, but it is hardly remote or inaccessible to international travel.

 Dysartes wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.

Is there anything about the game that you do like, at present?

Marines.

Martel732 wrote:
On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.

I'd be curious to see how informing one with the other would turn out. Adepticon always seems to let the problem of objectives being ruled by number of models without any sense of quality reach its natural conclusion. Changing it to PL seems like an interesting experiment. I'm curious if anyone has bothered to run a major event simply using the latest CA missions and see how that meta turns out.

 LunarSol wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.

I'd be curious to see how informing one with the other would turn out. Adepticon always seems to let the problem of objectives being ruled by number of models without any sense of quality reach its natural conclusion. Changing it to PL seems like an interesting experiment. I'm curious if anyone has bothered to run a major event simply using the latest CA missions and see how that meta turns out.

The great thing about PL *ducks rotten fruit* is it disincentivises the minmax balance from naked boots on the field toward actually including upgrade options. The loyal 32 is much more fluffy/thematic when they have their heavy weapon teams and so on!

nareik wrote:

Spoiler:

 LunarSol wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.

I'd be curious to see how informing one with the other would turn out. Adepticon always seems to let the problem of objectives being ruled by number of models without any sense of quality reach its natural conclusion. Changing it to PL seems like an interesting experiment. I'm curious if anyone has bothered to run a major event simply using the latest CA missions and see how that meta turns out.

The great thing about PL *ducks rotten fruit* is it disincentivises the minmax balance from naked boots on the field toward actually including upgrade options. The loyal 32 is much more fluffy/thematic when they have their heavy weapon teams and so on!

The counterpoint is that it incentivises minmax balance to include every possible upgrade. No Harlequin doesn't have a Fusion Pistol. DA Exarch doesn't have two guns. No reason to take anything but the BIS for each potential upgrade.

It cuts both ways.

We see a lot of the same names finishing top tier with the same armies. Nick is there with orks (same ole list). Sean with Ynnari (same ole list). There is only 1 castellan list in the top 10 which is kind of surprising. However - with practically nothing worth shooting at showing up in the top 10. No surprise really.

Also. GSC who are also broken BTW. Have combos that 1 shot any model in the game with mortal wounds if they pass a psychic test and can get within 18" of you. Also the democharge stratagem is officially busted. 10 d6 str 8 ap-2 d3 damage shots hitting on likely 2's but for sure 3's. Yeah sorry...5 LR command tanks worth of firepower for 200ish points shouldn't even be possible.

Counterpoint to the counterpoint.

It would be interesting to find out what is BIS in such a scenario. Tough all points costs be equal, the choices aren't. What is Optimal? the heaviest weapon, the most expensive, etc.
Current meta for certain codices is towards more less upgraded bodies that would certainly no longer be the meta.

nareik wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.

I'd be curious to see how informing one with the other would turn out. Adepticon always seems to let the problem of objectives being ruled by number of models without any sense of quality reach its natural conclusion. Changing it to PL seems like an interesting experiment. I'm curious if anyone has bothered to run a major event simply using the latest CA missions and see how that meta turns out.

The great thing about PL *ducks rotten fruit* is it disincentivises the minmax balance from naked boots on the field toward actually including upgrade options. The loyal 32 is much more fluffy/thematic when they have their heavy weapon teams and so on!

I think PL could be really good with a few tweaks. A version of it that limited weapons to what's available in the kit could be really nice.

 Earth127 wrote:
Counterpoint to the counterpoint.

It would be interesting to find out what is BIS in such a scenario. Tough all points costs be equal, the choices aren't. What is Optimal? the heaviest weapon, the most expensive, etc.
Current meta for certain codices is towards more less upgraded bodies that would certainly no longer be the meta.

Some cases are obvious - why would you ever take a single Avenger Shuriken Catapault, when you can take 2x Avenger Shuriken Catapaults for the same PL? Without giving anything else up?

Some are fairly clear - why take a Heavy Bolter if a Grav Cannon costs just as much?

Some others have some real tradeoffs - Brightlance or Shuriken Cannon?

And some are just silly as-is - Aeldari Blade vs Chainsword?

That said, points allow finer tradeoffs. Say we want a Plasma Gun to be an upgrade to a Boltgun, but want people to pick Boltgun at times? You make the Boltgun cost less than the Plasma Gun. The player can then decide if they want the more powerful gun for the points. You lose that differentiation with PL.

nareik wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.

I'd be curious to see how informing one with the other would turn out. Adepticon always seems to let the problem of objectives being ruled by number of models without any sense of quality reach its natural conclusion. Changing it to PL seems like an interesting experiment. I'm curious if anyone has bothered to run a major event simply using the latest CA missions and see how that meta turns out.

The great thing about PL *ducks rotten fruit* is it disincentivises the minmax balance from naked boots on the field toward actually including upgrade options. The loyal 32 is much more fluffy/thematic when they have their heavy weapon teams and so on!

It does no such thing. It incentives taking ALL THE UPGRADES because there is no downside. When a unit costs the same with a Lascannon as without, why would you ever not take the Lascannon?

 BaconCatBug wrote:

nareik wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.

I'd be curious to see how informing one with the other would turn out. Adepticon always seems to let the problem of objectives being ruled by number of models without any sense of quality reach its natural conclusion. Changing it to PL seems like an interesting experiment. I'm curious if anyone has bothered to run a major event simply using the latest CA missions and see how that meta turns out.

The great thing about PL *ducks rotten fruit* is it disincentivises the minmax balance from naked boots on the field toward actually including upgrade options. The loyal 32 is much more fluffy/thematic when they have their heavy weapon teams and so on!

It does no such thing. It incentives taking ALL THE UPGRADES because there is no downside. When a unit costs the same with a Lascannon as without, why would you ever not take the Lascannon?

Because PL is made for people who aren't going to just min/max because they can. They don't have a lascannon, they have a heavy bolter assembled. They don't have every model armed with combi-plasma. Etc. etc.

Wayniac wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

nareik wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.

I'd be curious to see how informing one with the other would turn out. Adepticon always seems to let the problem of objectives being ruled by number of models without any sense of quality reach its natural conclusion. Changing it to PL seems like an interesting experiment. I'm curious if anyone has bothered to run a major event simply using the latest CA missions and see how that meta turns out.

The great thing about PL *ducks rotten fruit* is it disincentivises the minmax balance from naked boots on the field toward actually including upgrade options. The loyal 32 is much more fluffy/thematic when they have their heavy weapon teams and so on!

It does no such thing. It incentives taking ALL THE UPGRADES because there is no downside. When a unit costs the same with a Lascannon as without, why would you ever not take the Lascannon?

Because PL is made for people who aren't going to just min/max because they can. They don't have a lascannon, they have a heavy bolter assembled. They don't have every model armed with combi-plasma. Etc. etc.

I have never met a person like this while playing 40k. I have never met a person like this while playing any game. "I'm going to take the worse of two options!"

Yea.... I'm sure players like this exist, but I know I've never seen one.

If they assemble worse options and then realize it later, they'll either deal with it and not be happy about it, convert it to something else, or start a different army and sell the worse one. Or quit the game when they realize they've spent $100+ on units that are garbage.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

nareik wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.

I'd be curious to see how informing one with the other would turn out. Adepticon always seems to let the problem of objectives being ruled by number of models without any sense of quality reach its natural conclusion. Changing it to PL seems like an interesting experiment. I'm curious if anyone has bothered to run a major event simply using the latest CA missions and see how that meta turns out.

The great thing about PL *ducks rotten fruit* is it disincentivises the minmax balance from naked boots on the field toward actually including upgrade options. The loyal 32 is much more fluffy/thematic when they have their heavy weapon teams and so on!

It does no such thing. It incentives taking ALL THE UPGRADES because there is no downside. When a unit costs the same with a Lascannon as without, why would you ever not take the Lascannon?

You tell me I'm absolutely wrong then give an example that illustrates exactly what I said. Did I have a communication error? Or do you not see 'taking all the upgrades' as being a subset of the concept 'taking upgrades'.

In answer to your rhetorical question there often ARE opportunity costs to taking upgrades. In the case of the weapon team your swapping two bases for one, and in a unit that is there to take up space and move between objectives you may not find a single lascannon running around the field to be any more effective than a pair of lasguns.

PL can be helpful for a newer player, or someone who wants to throw their collection on the table and not fiddle with points. It can be useful for extremely casual groups, too.

I, personally, find that usually Points work better for me, though - as it's quite fast to throw together a list in BattleScribe (or something), and I have enough models that "Do I take that upgrade or not" is usually a question of which models I take, not which models I have.

It's kinda nice that GW has rulessets for both, provided points is first-class and PL is just a conveinience. If they balance around PL first and do Points only as an afterthought, though, the game will get worse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Horst wrote:

Spoiler:

Wayniac wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

nareik wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.

I'd be curious to see how informing one with the other would turn out. Adepticon always seems to let the problem of objectives being ruled by number of models without any sense of quality reach its natural conclusion. Changing it to PL seems like an interesting experiment. I'm curious if anyone has bothered to run a major event simply using the latest CA missions and see how that meta turns out.

The great thing about PL *ducks rotten fruit* is it disincentivises the minmax balance from naked boots on the field toward actually including upgrade options. The loyal 32 is much more fluffy/thematic when they have their heavy weapon teams and so on!

It does no such thing. It incentives taking ALL THE UPGRADES because there is no downside. When a unit costs the same with a Lascannon as without, why would you ever not take the Lascannon?

Because PL is made for people who aren't going to just min/max because they can. They don't have a lascannon, they have a heavy bolter assembled. They don't have every model armed with combi-plasma. Etc. etc.

I have never met a person like this while playing 40k. I have never met a person like this while playing any game. "I'm going to take the worse of two options!"

Yea.... I'm sure players like this exist, but I know I've never seen one.

Hello, Horst, nice to meet you.

As above, I'm mostly a Points player. But I'll field models as assembled. I've split a 10man DA squad into two - which means the second squad didn't have an Exarch. It's a free upgrade that gives 1 model 2W 2A and a 4++ - but, at the time, I didn't have enough DA Exarchs, so I went without (and that's doing so in a *points* game).

I've taken any number of suboptimal options because that's what I wanted to use or that's what I had modeled. It's not "I'm going to take the worse of two options!". It's "I think $option1 would be cooler than $option2, so that's what I'll build" - not because $option1 is worse, but because it was more alluring. $option2 being better didn't really matter. For instance, I have multiple Dire Avenger Exarchs with CC weapons. It's not a good idea, mechanically. But I didn't want to repeat dual Cats on every Exarch.

 Horst wrote:

If they assemble worse options and then realize it later, they'll either deal with it and not be happy about it, convert it to something else, or start a different army and sell the worse one. Or quit the game when they realize they've spent $100+ on units that are garbage.

Or deal with it, enjoy it, play it as is, and enjoy the hobby.

Horst wrote:I have never met a person like this while playing 40k. I have never met a person like this while playing any game. "I'm going to take the worse of two options!"

Yea.... I'm sure players like this exist, but I know I've never seen one.

If they assemble worse options and then realize it later, they'll either deal with it and not be happy about it, convert it to something else, or start a different army and sell the worse one. Or quit the game when they realize they've spent $100+ on units that are garbage.

Hi. I'm Smudge. I use PL, and am more than happy taking "inferior" options because they fit the narrative of what I'm trying to make. I play WYSIWYG, so if I've got models which used to be built for points efficiency, I'll play them with what I've got modelled, not what becomes being under PL. If I've got models armed with no upgrades whatsoever (like my Guardsmen, because I prefer keeping my special weapons segregated into dedicated SWT/HWT, with only Veterans and Command Squads (also carrying banners) being armed with mixed weapon options.

There, now you can see you've seen one.

Just because you don't see people doing it doesn't mean that some people out there do prefer it, and don't exactly take kindly to people dismissing it because "I've not seen it".

All the same, can we not talk about PL/points? It goes nowhere, and is more likely to end up in threadlock.

This whole thread has been off the rails for a long time and should have been locked long ago.

Yeah, let's move on from the Points vs. PL debate. That has no real bearing on whether 40k is in a good place or not anyways.

I don't see how as a Deathwatch player I can build a PL list and NOT be overpowered. Everyone, pick up a storm shield and a combi plasma. Then, everyone take a Inferno pistol as the pistol option.

Vanguard vets for 5 points with SS/HTH? YES PLEASE.

Captains with Terminator armor, double melta powerfists? Sure.

This is why PL is situational, and should be regarded with caution.

Yep, let's agree regardless of the benefits/drawbacks of PL vs points it would certainly change things up (but we can disagree on whether it will be for the better or even interesting)!

Wayniac wrote:
Yeah, let's move on from the Points vs. PL debate. That has no real bearing on whether 40k is in a good place or not anyways.

Except it does, because GW is pushing this hardcore. I wouldn't be surprised to see them make this the standard. Because their new "list builder app" that was dropping in early 2018 (STILL WAITING) uses only Power level.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I don't see how as a Deathwatch player I can build a PL list and NOT be overpowered. Everyone, pick up a storm shield and a combi plasma. Then, everyone take a Inferno pistol as the pistol option.

Vanguard vets for 5 points with SS/HTH? YES PLEASE.

Captains with Terminator armor, double melta powerfists? Sure.

This is why PL is situational, and should be regarded with caution.

If you have them all modelling appropriately, it's fine.
PL really isn't the place for minor proxies like weapons. "These Kroot are Flayed Ones", sure, but the point of PL appears to be that you simply look at the models and see what they have.