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Wayniac wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.

People fight it because "your army is overpowered and wins a lot of one-sided games, until you randomly hit the nerf mission where it auto-loses" is a fundamentally bad approach to balance.

Whether or not that is the case it appears to be how GW balances.

That assumes you a) believe that, and b) have any confidence in GW's ability to balance the game under those conditions (or at all). I think a lot of the resistance to those kinds of extreme scenarios (or Realm rules in AoS) comes from the fact that most people don't actually believe GW when they say they balance around them and wouldn't have much faith in their ability to balance around those scenarios even if they did. This mainly comes from experience, as pointed out by Peregrine above.

I would equally ask why we accept GW's answer when experience shows it's a bad way to balance the game, and doesn't even work anyway?

Slipspace wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.

People fight it because "your army is overpowered and wins a lot of one-sided games, until you randomly hit the nerf mission where it auto-loses" is a fundamentally bad approach to balance.

Whether or not that is the case it appears to be how GW balances.

That assumes you a) believe that, and b) have any confidence in GW's ability to balance the game under those conditions (or at all). I think a lot of the resistance to those kinds of extreme scenarios (or Realm rules in AoS) comes from the fact that most people don't actually believe GW when they say they balance around them and wouldn't have much faith in their ability to balance around those scenarios even if they did. This mainly comes from experience, as pointed out by Peregrine above.

I would equally ask why we accept GW's answer when experience shows it's a bad way to balance the game and doesn't even work anyway?

Because they still write the game, and that's what they feel does work and continues to do it. So it's all we have to go on when we consider how they are balancing things. Besides, I agree with them in some ways: It's a common thing in games to have the matchup that you hope to avoid because it reduces your extreme build. I honestly find nothing wrong with the idea of baking that in to discourage those sort of builds. Sure you can do it, but if you get that match or matches where your gimmick is disadvantaged you only have yourself to blame for bringing a gimmick list in the first place.

 Peregrine wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.

People fight it because "your army is overpowered and wins a lot of one-sided games, until you randomly hit the nerf mission where it auto-loses" is a fundamentally bad approach to balance.

Its a bit like pointless debates over how to decide the best all-round athlete. The GW approach is similar to the Decathlon/Heptathlon approach in athletics of having a wide range of challenges which if you over-specialise in some you will lose out in others and fail to win. Sure a pure sprinter can enter a Decathlon/Heptathlon but they will not win it - which hits your measure of "overpowered" in some events and "nerfed" in other events but is simply how they approach design for finding the best overall.

The ITC by contrast is like observing that the single best event for finding the best overall athlete is one with both running and jumping so they decide on the 400m hurdles. Then to find the best overall athlete they just keep running 400m hurdles races until they have a winner. Totally different philosophy to finding the best overall. None of the events are any different so none of them "nerf" anyone and of course they all include both running and jumping so a pure sprinter will not be "overpowered" in any of the races.

Which you prefer is a matter of taste. Personally I find the ITC mission set dull, I have spent one weekend playing an event with a previous version of it and was so damn bored that I nearly lost my final game due to not being interested enough. I honestly would have preferred to be working overtime. So having tried it I know where my preference lies and what my taste in mission packs is.

Better athletic analogy:

ITC is a triathlon: some variety in events, but still focused on speed and endurance.

An ideal mission set is a decathlon: variety in events that may favor one athletic build over another, with the average winner being a well-rounded athlete.

GW runs a weird decathlon where they decided that running is too powerful so there's an extra event where you have to crawl 100m without using your legs, and the fastest runners in previous events have to drag extra weight, and then there's a poetry contest because it makes a good story.

The second sounds more fun. Ultimately I think the issue here is the desire to have your list be almost 100% of the factor in how you win and remove any other randomness. I would bet most of that type would get rid of dice too if they could.

Bottom line is the ITC missions cater to listbuilding where you don't want or care to build a balanced force, you want to theory/math it out and pick only the most optimal choices, usually based around some extreme min/max gimmick, and never want there to be a drawback. Everything about the ITC missions tries to remove any drawback for listbuilding a particular way. There is nothing "well rounded" about it, in fact ITC missions discourage well-rounded anything. You focus on two things, and two things only, to the exclusion of all else.

The GW missions have listbuilding but have built-in twists to discourage always bringing the most optimal, extreme force because if you do, there's a chance you could get a mission that has a drawback for it which someone who brought a more balanced force would not face because its not an "eggs in one basket" approach.

If i had access to undercosted units, gw missions wouldn't stop me from using them.

Playing with GW missions, the same type of min/max still happens. The difference is that the parameters are not the same, so you get different types of min/max.

GW missions don't really discourage twink play, they just encourage a different type of twink play.

AoS has this great scenario where nothing can come in from reserves; it all must start on the board. Throws a wrench into alpha-stike builds and provides a reason for them to go a bit less heavy on the reserves and round their list out a bit. The realm rules seem to be trying this, but too often it is ham-fisted and can completely destroy game balance rather than favoring more rounded lists. An example would be the feature that removes all rend (AP). Saves tend to be worse in AoS and rend less common, but you get the idea. Another feature restricts the range of all shooting and magic to 6". And so on. There are plenty of decent features scattered around too but the presence of game-breaking ones pushes people away from using them at all. A problem when they are supposed to be basic rules and points are supposedly balanced around them.

Jesus, such a scenario in w40k would be horrible. GK whole movment is based around being deep struck from reservs, worse they pay for those abilities. And if they can't alfa strike at least something on the turn they drop down, then they don't really have a valid way to win. they can't melee their opponents down, they are too few of them with two few attacks for that. And stright up shot out just won't work with an army with almost only bolter weapons.

A scenario when you can't drop in from reservs and your casting is restricted by those realm thingies, would be a huge kick in the nads for a GK player. Why even try to play such a game then, other then the opponent having easy points in a store event or something.

Karol wrote:
Jesus, such a scenario in w40k would be horrible. GK whole movment is based around being deep struck from reservs, worse they pay for those abilities. And if they can't alfa strike at least something on the turn they drop down, then they don't really have a valid way to win. they can't melee their opponents down, they are too few of them with two few attacks for that. And stright up shot out just won't work with an army with almost only bolter weapons.

A scenario when you can't drop in from reservs and your casting is restricted by those realm thingies, would be a huge kick in the nads for a GK player. Why even try to play such a game then, other then the opponent having easy points in a store event or something.

Grey Knights sound like their day in the sun has come and gone, maybe they should be squatted. Putting the old man out of his misery?

Theyll always have 5th ed.

That doesn't really much to people who never played in 5th ed. Plus punishing a faction mechanics for something that happened decades ago seems strange.

I understand why the mechanics could generate more random results, but most games are about limiting the random aspect of it. No one is going to go after the 1 in a 1000 move, hoping that it will maybe just work this time.
For such a system to work, and generate multiple armies from multiple factions, all or at least most of the codex would have to be very flexible with a lot of very good options. And by good I mean good good, not good if stars allign in a proper way.

I'm not punishing them. It's just kind of how it is atm.

Martel732 wrote:
Theyll always have 5th ed.

And 4th ed.. my "instant kill you even if you're supposed to be immune to instant death" Grandmasters were so much fun. I think my 4th ed GK army with 3 Land Raiders full of GK was the most fun army I've ever played.

I didn't do much 4th, actually. Even less when I got a WD codex.

Martel732 wrote:
I didn't do much 4th, actually. Even less when I got a WD codex.

That WD codex gets a bum rap, but it was overall a net positive for us. If GW had printed an actual codex at that time, we would have gotten stuck with an inferior codex for all of 5th edition like the Dark Angels did. Regardless of what you think of Matt Ward, that later codex was objectively superior to anything we had or could of gotten at the time.

Ward looks better and better all the time.

Martel732 wrote:
Ward looks better and better all the time.

Oddly enough, I found Ward's codices were rather well balanced for game play (as much as GW generally gets, at any rate). They were just absolutely atrocious on fluff. Phil Kelly tended to make over wrought codices in balance, but was rather good in the fluff (even though, they tended to continue some atrocious naming). Robin Cruddace couldn't be bothered to make a decent codex at all. It was either over wrought if he liked the army or a bland boring mess if he didn't.

 Charistoph wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Ward looks better and better all the time.

Oddly enough, I found Ward's codices were rather well balanced for game play (as much as GW generally gets, at any rate). They were just absolutely atrocious on fluff. Phil Kelly tended to make over wrought codices in balance, but was rather good in the fluff (even though, they tended to continue some atrocious naming). Robin Cruddace couldn't be bothered to make a decent codex at all. It was either over wrought if he liked the army or a bland boring mess if he didn't.

5th Ed GK, and WHFB Daemons were not balanced at all


That said, he actually made fun interesting rules that captured the feel of the army in the game. If he wrote all the dexes, and they were al balanced around his measure, might actually be good.

Then again, didn't he like half-ass the armies he didn't really care bout, and made his favorites really strong?


It's difficult to defend Matt Ward tbh.

Karol wrote:
Jesus, such a scenario in w40k would be horrible. GK whole movment is based around being deep struck from reservs, worse they pay for those abilities. And if they can't alfa strike at least something on the turn they drop down, then they don't really have a valid way to win. they can't melee their opponents down, they are too few of them with two few attacks for that. And stright up shot out just won't work with an army with almost only bolter weapons.

A scenario when you can't drop in from reservs and your casting is restricted by those realm thingies, would be a huge kick in the nads for a GK player. Why even try to play such a game then, other then the opponent having easy points in a store event or something.

You seem to have missed the point a little. I think NinthMusketeer was pointing out that the realm rules range from reasonable (no Deep Strike, which is probably fine in the context of AoS) to really stupid, like restricting shooting and magic to effectively nothing. Both wouldn't necessarily be in play at the same time and there was no suggestion to use those exact rules in 40k. Somehting like restricted Deep Strike might actually be interesting in 40k. Probably not completely restricted, but maybe in turn 2 you can only DS more than 12" away (or 15"-D6) and in turn 3 you can DS normally. One of my big problems with DS at the moment is how it went from dangerous risk/reward in previous editions to pinpoint accurate, guaranteed placement in 8th, so something to disrupt it might be interesting. It might even force players to reconsider whether to DS at all.

One of the more enjoyable scenarios from CA2017 was Recon, which split your forces into 3 parts and randomly determined which part would deploy in the first turn. That was a good disruptive scenario that still made player decisions important but also forced them to alter what was often a fairly static battle plan.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I didn't do much 4th, actually. Even less when I got a WD codex.

That WD codex gets a bum rap, but it was overall a net positive for us. If GW had printed an actual codex at that time, we would have gotten stuck with an inferior codex for all of 5th edition like the Dark Angels did. Regardless of what you think of Matt Ward, that later codex was objectively superior to anything we had or could of gotten at the time.

Oh yeah, that DA codex was very, fun ? Only being able to take squads of 5 or 10 marines, boy howdy sure felt good. All the bland, flavorless feels of that book. I played a ton of it, man, did it feel bad. I remember too at the time being told by everyone " Hey, just hang in there, when the new marine codex drops it'll all make sense. " Guess what happened ? It. Never. Made. Sense.

Poetry contests in sporting competitions might sound rediculous, but it was a part of the modern Olympics.

Baron Coupertain (forgive my spelling) envisioned it as a place for gentlemanly competition between polymaths.

nareik wrote:
Poetry contests in sporting competitions might sound rediculous, but it was a part of the modern Olympics.

Baron Coupertain (forgive my spelling) envisioned it as a place for gentlemanly competition between polymaths.

That's interesting, actually. Was not aware.

On that note with Warhammer, GW's intent in their tournaments has always been to showcase the HOBBY as a whole, not just one part of it. This is why tournaments always used to factor in Painting, Generalship, Sportsmanship, and Composition; to make sure that the person who best represented the hobby as a whole came out the overall winner rather than someone who only focused on one aspect. This is also why awards like Best Painted, Best General and Best Sportsman (not sure if that one is still around) existed; to give a token reward to the people who might excel at one point but not all of them.

Personally, I loved it. The person who brought a cheesy filth army to curb stomp people may have won all their games and might win Best General, but they would likely be dinged on Comp and, usually, Sportsmanship (those sorts of people are usually the rules lawyer/argumentative types) so would be eliminated from the running for overall winner. As it should be. The winner of a Warhammer tournament should be the person who exemplifies all aspects of the hobby, not just the person who can make the filthiest list and win all their games.

Wayniac wrote:
The person who brought a cheesy filth army to curb stomp people may have won all their games and might win Best General, but they would likely be dinged on Comp and, usually, Sportsmanship (those sorts of people are usually the rules lawyer/argumentative types)

Oh the projection. By all accounts, Nick Nanavati is possibly one of the hobbiest nicest people. In fact I think I could say the same for most the top players in the game.

If you don't vibe with competitive it's fine, but theres zero reason to gak on people who just enjoy competing.

Someone had to rules lawyer, because gw writes such vague rules.

 SHUPPET wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
The person who brought a cheesy filth army to curb stomp people may have won all their games and might win Best General, but they would likely be dinged on Comp and, usually, Sportsmanship (those sorts of people are usually the rules lawyer/argumentative types)

Oh the projection. By all accounts, Nick Nanavati is possibly one of the hobbiest nicest people. In fact I think I could say the same for most the top players in the game.

If you don't vibe with competitive it's fine, but theres zero reason to gak on people who just enjoy competing.

My point is that's what the Comp score was meant to do. The person who brought an army designed only to win, would get their comp score low and be prevented from winning the tournament overall (although they would still likely get Best General). As it should be, because designing the most min/maxed army does NOT best represent the hobby.

Slipspace 773029 10405868 wrote:

You seem to have missed the point a little. I think NinthMusketeer was pointing out that the realm rules range from reasonable (no Deep Strike, which is probably fine in the context of AoS) to really stupid, like restricting shooting and magic to effectively nothing. Both wouldn't necessarily be in play at the same time and there was no suggestion to use those exact rules in 40k. Somehting like restricted Deep Strike might actually be interesting in 40k. Probably not completely restricted, but maybe in turn 2 you can only DS more than 12" away (or 15"-D6) and in turn 3 you can DS normally. One of my big problems with DS at the moment is how it went from dangerous risk/reward in previous editions to pinpoint accurate, guaranteed placement in 8th, so something to disrupt it might be interesting. It might even force players to reconsider whether to DS at all.

One of the more enjoyable scenarios from CA2017 was Recon, which split your forces into 3 parts and randomly determined which part would deploy in the first turn. That was a good disruptive scenario that still made player decisions important but also forced them to alter what was often a fairly static battle plan.

I must have understood it wrong then. I thought that some stuff come from terrain or scenario rules in AoS, and then you get an over laping realm thingy, which I w40k terms could be something like different planets. If I was wrong I still even a single change like that is enough to break an army.
Not saying those scenarios can't be fun, for some armies, specially the flexible ones. But if someone cuts up my army in 3 parts and I get the wrong parts on the wrong turn, then we may as well not be playing turn 1. GK to work need something they can't do right now, which is deep strike everything on the same turn. Spreading it over 3 turns, just makes it easier, if that is possible, for the opponent to kill off the army. There just isn't enough stuff to play with in a GK army for such limitation do not have huge effect. If a unit of termintors drop turn 1, but the draigo that is suppose to buff them drops turn 3, then he probably isn't buffing anything. Plus the termintors now without their re-rolls can't perform their job, and there is no unit that can replace them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac 773029 10405970 wrote:

My point is that's what the Comp score was meant to do. The person who brought an army designed only to win, would get their comp score low and be prevented from winning the tournament overall (although they would still likely get Best General). As it should be, because designing the most min/maxed army does NOT best represent the hobby.

That is like saying the sportsman with the best physical and mental capacity shouldn't work, because there is more to sport then just the competition. No one actualy believes that. Not even the sports official or the people that sponsor sport.

Karol wrote:

Wayniac 773029 10405970 wrote:

My point is that's what the Comp score was meant to do. The person who brought an army designed only to win, would get their comp score low and be prevented from winning the tournament overall (although they would still likely get Best General). As it should be, because designing the most min/maxed army does NOT best represent the hobby.

That is like saying the sportsman with the best physical and mental capacity shouldn't work, because there is more to sport then just the competition. No one actualy believes that. Not even the sports official or the people that sponsor sport.

Warhammer is not a sport, despite people trying to turn it into a sport. It is a hobby. The person who best exemplifies the hobby should be the overall winner.

yeah Comp score was/is pointless. Overall should be based on Battle points, appearance, and sportsmanship.

If you play well, your army looks good, and you don't act like a douche, you win the overall. How your army is composed doesn't have much to do with that (other than being part of appearance).

Comp score is an opinion, and should be left out of a competitive event.