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I don't think we are talking about the same kind of speed freaks army.

I'm not talking about some fluff-bunny attempt at driving around the board as fast as possible. I'm talking about building a solid list out of trukks, battlewagons, boyz, koptas, bikes, buggies and planes. That's a third of our codex!
There is everything in there that decent list needs - and yet they fall apart simply because all of those units pay way to much points compared to their resilience.

I'd also like to point out that instead you basically told me "Yeah, but your army is fine in a some narrative mission".
I have no words for that except "please don't talk about game balance ever again".

Oh, and a speed freak army will still lose the thunder run against an imperial gun line. Because they aren't actually that fast and dead units can't move off the board.

I'm not talking about some fluff-bunny attempt at driving around the board as fast as possible. I'm talking about building a solid list out of trukks, battlewagons, boyz, koptas, bikes, buggies and planes. That's a third of our codex!
There is everything in there that decent list needs - and yet they fall apart simply because all of those units pay way to much points compared to their resilience.

Ahh yes the speedfreaks, a huge aspect and archetype, just stagnating...
Instead we get tellyporta bs.

Kinda like daemonengines and Warpsmiths really. Archetypes that don't function

 Da Boss wrote:
Though, I will say, puttng Knight sized models and fliers into the game was a mistake that changed the scale and scope of the game in a way that makes balancing it very difficult now for these all rounder forces, and it may just be pretty broken as long as those things are allowed in the game. They make very little sense on a 6x4' table outside of special scenarios in any case, and their introduction was really what made me lose interest in 40K.

They're certainly difficult to balance, but powerful units like greater daemons have always been in the game from 1st edition. It's actually one of the things I really like about 40k - that you can play out battles where greater daemons or massive war machines and infantry share a table. In casual play it shouldn't really be an issue assuming players discuss it before preparing lists. I certainly always encourage my opponent to bring suitable units to take on my chaos knights when I play them, and actively avoid bringing TITANIC units in lower points games. At the end of the day, even with equal points costs, an anti-tank army is going to do better against tanks than an anti-horde army (and vice versa). Unless you constrain the types of units that both players bring, some lists will have advantages against others. But being able to bring the units you like is a huge part of 40K, and I'd rather keep that than have perfect balance for armies that shouldn't be well matched. What's that saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight?

 Jidmah wrote:


I'd also like to point out that instead you basically told me "Yeah, but your army is fine in a some narrative mission".
I have no words for that except "please don't talk about game balance ever again".

Themed list is good in themed mission - shock horror!

Themed list is less good in missions which do not match its theme - sky falling!

The game is designed to play in many ways, when GW put out missions in their publications you would expect them to have list types available to support those missions and they do. If you choose to use one of those highly themed lists in a mission set to which it is unsuited then what exactly do you expect to happen against a list that was designed with the mission in mind?

Are you asking for every list to be functionally just as good at every mission whether or not the player took any account of the mission when designing the list? That certainly seems to be what you are asking for.

 Brother Castor wrote:

They're certainly difficult to balance, but powerful units like greater daemons have always been in the game from 1st edition. It's actually one of the things I really like about 40k - that you can play out battles where greater daemons or massive war machines and infantry share a table. In casual play it shouldn't really be an issue assuming players discuss it before preparing lists. I certainly always encourage my opponent to bring suitable units to take on my chaos knights when I play them, and actively avoid bringing TITANIC units in lower points games. At the end of the day, even with equal points costs, an anti-tank army is going to do better against tanks than an anti-horde army (and vice versa). Unless you constrain the types of units that both players bring, some lists will have advantages against others. But being able to bring the units you like is a huge part of 40K, and I'd rather keep that than have perfect balance for armies that shouldn't be well matched. What's that saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight?

Okey, but that doesn't really help in most situations. First of all if an army can counter both horde and anti tank with the same list, it probably doesn't worry what your playing most of the time. In all other situations it would require to buy more models then it takes for 2000pts. And sometimes, because of the rule of 3, and other list limitations, even if you go over 2000pts with your army, you sitll may end up with a list that can't deal with vehicles or hordes. Which is a problem when a lot of armies bring imperial knights, now one could of course say that smart game play is needed in such a situation and playing the mission, assuming this isn't a kill game, but to play the mission succesfuly your army has to have at least mid tier rule set. If it is weaker, and can't counter the opposing army, then it will just get beaten, because the models won't be able to do fullfill the plan to win. It would end with people not being able to play, certain match ups, unless they like to know pre game that they will lose bad.

If you choose to use one of those highly themed lists in a mission set to which it is unsuited then what exactly do you expect to happen against a list that was designed with the mission in mind?

Some armies don't have themed missions that favour their army rules though.

 Brother Castor wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Though, I will say, puttng Knight sized models and fliers into the game was a mistake that changed the scale and scope of the game in a way that makes balancing it very difficult now for these all rounder forces, and it may just be pretty broken as long as those things are allowed in the game. They make very little sense on a 6x4' table outside of special scenarios in any case, and their introduction was really what made me lose interest in 40K.

They're certainly difficult to balance, but powerful units like greater daemons have always been in the game from 1st edition. It's actually one of the things I really like about 40k - that you can play out battles where greater daemons or massive war machines and infantry share a table. In casual play it shouldn't really be an issue assuming players discuss it before preparing lists. I certainly always encourage my opponent to bring suitable units to take on my chaos knights when I play them, and actively avoid bringing TITANIC units in lower points games. At the end of the day, even with equal points costs, an anti-tank army is going to do better against tanks than an anti-horde army (and vice versa). Unless you constrain the types of units that both players bring, some lists will have advantages against others. But being able to bring the units you like is a huge part of 40K, and I'd rather keep that than have perfect balance for armies that shouldn't be well matched. What's that saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight?

They're not really comparable though. Yes, that one powerful lynchpin unit/model has been part of the game for a while, but they were restricted. You couldn't have a whole army of Bloodthirsters. You couldn't reasonably take 3 Monoliths without gimping yourself with phase out as they were nearly (or exactly) half your army's points. I shouldn't need to discuss with my opponent what is and isn't allowed in lists to ensure I have a good game. In just about any other game, you can rock up to the store for a PUG with no other discussion to be had. 40k is the sole exception to this.

All of the Apocalypse only units should have stayed Apoc only. This is 40k's event horizon point, where they decided to put them into regular play circa 6th ed. Which is also the time the game went down the toilet funnily enough. Now, they've crossed that proverbial Rubicon and don't want to go back for fear of pissing off their whales that bought a lot of these kits. Sorry GW, for the health of your game you've got to make these types of units restricted to Apocalypse again. I know people won't like it, but tough gak. It's for a greater good.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Brother Castor wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Though, I will say, puttng Knight sized models and fliers into the game was a mistake that changed the scale and scope of the game in a way that makes balancing it very difficult now for these all rounder forces, and it may just be pretty broken as long as those things are allowed in the game. They make very little sense on a 6x4' table outside of special scenarios in any case, and their introduction was really what made me lose interest in 40K.

They're certainly difficult to balance, but powerful units like greater daemons have always been in the game from 1st edition. It's actually one of the things I really like about 40k - that you can play out battles where greater daemons or massive war machines and infantry share a table. In casual play it shouldn't really be an issue assuming players discuss it before preparing lists. I certainly always encourage my opponent to bring suitable units to take on my chaos knights when I play them, and actively avoid bringing TITANIC units in lower points games. At the end of the day, even with equal points costs, an anti-tank army is going to do better against tanks than an anti-horde army (and vice versa). Unless you constrain the types of units that both players bring, some lists will have advantages against others. But being able to bring the units you like is a huge part of 40K, and I'd rather keep that than have perfect balance for armies that shouldn't be well matched. What's that saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight?

They're not really comparable though. Yes, that one powerful lynchpin unit/model has been part of the game for a while, but they were restricted. You couldn't have a whole army of Bloodthirsters. You couldn't reasonably take 3 Monoliths without gimping yourself with phase out as they were nearly (or exactly) half your army's points. I shouldn't need to discuss with my opponent what is and isn't allowed in lists to ensure I have a good game. In just about any other game, you can rock up to the store for a PUG with no other discussion to be had. 40k is the sole exception to this.

All of the Apocalypse only units should have stayed Apoc only. This is 40k's event horizon point, where they decided to put them into regular play circa 6th ed. Which is also the time the game went down the toilet funnily enough. Now, they've crossed that proverbial Rubicon and don't want to go back for fear of pissing off their whales that bought a lot of these kits. Sorry GW, for the health of your game you've got to make these types of units restricted to Apocalypse again. I know people won't like it, but tough gak. It's for a greater good.

But Grimtuff , why don't you just house rule those models out of your game.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Brother Castor wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Though, I will say, puttng Knight sized models and fliers into the game was a mistake that changed the scale and scope of the game in a way that makes balancing it very difficult now for these all rounder forces, and it may just be pretty broken as long as those things are allowed in the game. They make very little sense on a 6x4' table outside of special scenarios in any case, and their introduction was really what made me lose interest in 40K.

They're certainly difficult to balance, but powerful units like greater daemons have always been in the game from 1st edition. It's actually one of the things I really like about 40k - that you can play out battles where greater daemons or massive war machines and infantry share a table. In casual play it shouldn't really be an issue assuming players discuss it before preparing lists. I certainly always encourage my opponent to bring suitable units to take on my chaos knights when I play them, and actively avoid bringing TITANIC units in lower points games. At the end of the day, even with equal points costs, an anti-tank army is going to do better against tanks than an anti-horde army (and vice versa). Unless you constrain the types of units that both players bring, some lists will have advantages against others. But being able to bring the units you like is a huge part of 40K, and I'd rather keep that than have perfect balance for armies that shouldn't be well matched. What's that saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight?

They're not really comparable though. Yes, that one powerful lynchpin unit/model has been part of the game for a while, but they were restricted. You couldn't have a whole army of Bloodthirsters. You couldn't reasonably take 3 Monoliths without gimping yourself with phase out as they were nearly (or exactly) half your army's points. I shouldn't need to discuss with my opponent what is and isn't allowed in lists to ensure I have a good game. In just about any other game, you can rock up to the store for a PUG with no other discussion to be had. 40k is the sole exception to this.

All of the Apocalypse only units should have stayed Apoc only. This is 40k's event horizon point, where they decided to put them into regular play circa 6th ed. Which is also the time the game went down the toilet funnily enough. Now, they've crossed that proverbial Rubicon and don't want to go back for fear of pissing off their whales that bought a lot of these kits. Sorry GW, for the health of your game you've got to make these types of units restricted to Apocalypse again. I know people won't like it, but tough gak. It's for a greater good.

Honestly i wonder how bad it would be for the player base, We lost so many players with 6th. And i never really got the impression that anyone really wanted those apocalypse units in 40k and only really 1 person even used them once they had come.
It in one fell swoop killed apocalypse as a game played and hurt 40k a huge deal. Probably was profitable, the bigs kits probably have a huge return over the smaller ones.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


I'd also like to point out that instead you basically told me "Yeah, but your army is fine in a some narrative mission".
I have no words for that except "please don't talk about game balance ever again".

Themed list is good in themed mission - shock horror!

Themed list is less good in missions which do not match its theme - sky falling!

The game is designed to play in many ways, when GW put out missions in their publications you would expect them to have list types available to support those missions and they do. If you choose to use one of those highly themed lists in a mission set to which it is unsuited then what exactly do you expect to happen against a list that was designed with the mission in mind?

Are you asking for every list to be functionally just as good at every mission whether or not the player took any account of the mission when designing the list? That certainly seems to be what you are asking for.

I thoroughly explained what I want. A speed freaks is no more "themed" than any other army, including imperial gunlines, eldar jetbikes, daemon hordes and infantry marines. It's a major aspect of the ork army and thus should be able to generate a list that has a decent win quote in any eternal war and maelstrom mission.

Since you repeated your statement of "speed feaks = fluffy fun army", you have cemented that you have no fething clue what you are talking about. You should do some research before continuing to make a fool out of yourself.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Brother Castor wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Though, I will say, puttng Knight sized models and fliers into the game was a mistake that changed the scale and scope of the game in a way that makes balancing it very difficult now for these all rounder forces, and it may just be pretty broken as long as those things are allowed in the game. They make very little sense on a 6x4' table outside of special scenarios in any case, and their introduction was really what made me lose interest in 40K.

They're certainly difficult to balance, but powerful units like greater daemons have always been in the game from 1st edition. It's actually one of the things I really like about 40k - that you can play out battles where greater daemons or massive war machines and infantry share a table. In casual play it shouldn't really be an issue assuming players discuss it before preparing lists. I certainly always encourage my opponent to bring suitable units to take on my chaos knights when I play them, and actively avoid bringing TITANIC units in lower points games. At the end of the day, even with equal points costs, an anti-tank army is going to do better against tanks than an anti-horde army (and vice versa). Unless you constrain the types of units that both players bring, some lists will have advantages against others. But being able to bring the units you like is a huge part of 40K, and I'd rather keep that than have perfect balance for armies that shouldn't be well matched. What's that saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight?

They're not really comparable though. Yes, that one powerful lynchpin unit/model has been part of the game for a while, but they were restricted. You couldn't have a whole army of Bloodthirsters. You couldn't reasonably take 3 Monoliths without gimping yourself with phase out as they were nearly (or exactly) half your army's points. I shouldn't need to discuss with my opponent what is and isn't allowed in lists to ensure I have a good game. In just about any other game, you can rock up to the store for a PUG with no other discussion to be had. 40k is the sole exception to this.

All of the Apocalypse only units should have stayed Apoc only. This is 40k's event horizon point, where they decided to put them into regular play circa 6th ed. Which is also the time the game went down the toilet funnily enough. Now, they've crossed that proverbial Rubicon and don't want to go back for fear of pissing off their whales that bought a lot of these kits. Sorry GW, for the health of your game you've got to make these types of units restricted to Apocalypse again. I know people won't like it, but tough gak. It's for a greater good.

But Grimtuff , why don't you just house rule those models out of your game.

WHOOOOOOOSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

That was like fething Concorde flying over. Swing and a miss.

 Grimtuff wrote:
WHOOOOOOOSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

That was like fething Concorde flying over. Swing and a miss.

That was part of the joke, yes.

I want balance, but there will always be some caveats. Ranged units getting good range and chance to ambush a melee unit are very often going to come out stronger unless they are just that much weaker to begin with. In which case the melee unit will be able to close the gap and murder the ranged unit in question. Here terrain would also play a part which complicates thing further.

The second thing that also needs to happen is a proper culling of redundancies. Some armies are overflowing with certain specialist units that now tend to overlap with other specialist units and that tends to create a lot of trap units that no one uses. It is one of the things I think AoS has done well so far(except with Stormcast that seems to suffer from excessive model output) which leaves a game that can be more easily balanced and then maybe expanded slowly. Hell, I wouldn't mind if some units would be effectively made the same so there is less redundancy and the different looks would be a player choice rather than a rule choice.

 Grimtuff wrote:


WHOOOOOOOSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

That was like fething Concorde flying over. Swing and a miss.

That is not very funny, my aunt died when a concorde fell on her.

But Grimtuff , why don't you just house rule those models out of your game.

Because people who bought them are going to want to use them, and if people bought a unit then there is a higher chance it is good, then bad. Try telling people to not play smash capt+knights in their soup lists, when such lists make 1/3 of all people playing, and the rest is knights with something else, or armies build to kill knights lists, and eldar. People would just laugh at for asking stupid questions.

Karol wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:


WHOOOOOOOSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

That was like fething Concorde flying over. Swing and a miss.

That is not very funny, my aunt died when a concorde fell on her.

But Grimtuff , why don't you just house rule those models out of your game.

Because people who bought them are going to want to use them, and if people bought a unit then there is a higher chance it is good, then bad. Try telling people to not play smash capt+knights in their soup lists, when such lists make 1/3 of all people playing, and the rest is knights with something else, or armies build to kill knights lists, and eldar. People would just laugh at for asking stupid questions.

And we are back to Karols meta being insanely competitive.

Are there any other stores near your house? Surely you can find a community that won't stomp you into the ground and then expect you to thank them.

Also Concorde the plane? or concorde the bird?

The plane. She worked at a hotel in France and it fell down and she died.

It isn't a question of competitive though, it is a question of how much an army costs. I am a bad example for this, because no one wanted to tell me how much an army costs, or to be precise I got the play what you want/collection never ends/etc shtick from people at the store, and I was too stupid to ask my dad about w40k. Though I my defence, I did not know that he played it. But 700$ here is a lot more then 700$ in the US, the people I started with bought one army and played with it till they left the game, or switched armies if they started playing tournaments. Not many people are willing to experiment or buy bad models, when investing in to an army means you used up the money for 1-2 years. And if enough people do it, you end up with a meta where most armies are build out of models that are good now or which were good in the past. Ah and not many people stay playing for long. Seems like most people play for a year, maybe a bit longer.

The closest other store to me Is 6 hours trip away. So not really an option for me. But the store is there. I know people go to events there, but they have cars.

So, what I’m looking for in a balanced game are the following.

1: Missions designed to require player interaction. One of the ways would be to create scenarios where objectives / goals placed by your opponent are worth more victory points. I.e. Controlling an objective you placed is worth 2 VP, controlling an objective placed by your opponent is worth 3 VP. This creates value in being aggressive, and encourages without penalizing armies that have units dedicated to advancing through / around the opponent.

2: Avoid missions that reward destroying *more* of your opponent’s models than you lose. Missions can still involve destroying targets, like Warlords for example, but 1 VP per unit or “points per unit destroyed” should be avoided. At the very least, it creates an interesting tension between protecting your warlord and not taking advantage of the points invested.

3: Awareness that 40k scales exponentially, not linearly. In a game with ready access to Knights with Battle cannon style weapons, a Marine is defensively equivalent and offensively equivalent to a Guardsman. There are two * very* different points of comparison when balancing. There can only really be a Rock Paper Scissors style balance in that case. Guard beats Knights, Knights beat Marines, Marines beat Guard.

Guard mitigates loss to Marines by focusing on anti-elite weapons. Marines mitigate loss to Knights by focussing on anti-tank weapons. Knights mitigate loss to Guard by focussing on anti-chaff weapons.

4: Having attacks that are functionally separate in terms of mechanical interaction with different targets. Whaaah? Acknowledge that a d6 can generate 7 results (including auto-fail and auto-pass) and force all units into 7 rough categories in terms of durability.

Currently, high volume mid strength (5+) weapons are good against everything. Mechanically, we would want greater “distance” between stats. I.e. Guard have T 3, Standard Marines have T 5, Light vehicles T 7, Medium Vehicles T 10, Heavy Vehicles T 15, and Super-Heavy Vehicles T 20.

This would require rework of all damage charts. S v T

-6 or more, can’t wound.
-5,-4 : 6+
-3,-2 : 5+
-1,0,+1 : 4+
+2,+3 : 3+
+4,+5 : 2+
+6 or more, auto wound.

And then anti super heavy weapons go to around S 20, AP -4 or so, anti heavy around S 15, AP -3, anti med vehicle around S 10 AP -2, anti light vehicle around S 7 AP -1, And anti-chaff around S 4 AP 0.

Tweak Rates of fire (top end) to 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 Starting at Super Heavy to Chaff. Tweak damage (top end) to 10, 7, 5, 2, 1.

Points wise, weapons 1 category on either side of ideal should be passably efficient.

5: Encourage lists to be built in a TAC fashion. Either allow upgrades to be taken at the table (rework factions without options to have them) or charge premium for skew lists. Ie if more than 1/3 of your points limit is spent on any one category of unit, pay an additional 5% points for those units. If 2/3 of your points limit is spent on any one category, pay an additional 10% points for those units. Categories (with current values).

Light Infantry - (T3, T4 with poor save) Guard, Ork Boy, Most Aspect Warriors
Medium Infantry - (T4, 4/3+ save)Scouts, Marines, Necron Immortals
Heavy Infantry - (T5, 2+ save, 3+ wounds) Custodes, Terminators, Liche Guard, Tyranid Warriors
Light Vehicle / Monster - (T6) SM bikes, Ork truks and buggies, elite Nids, Eldar Flyers
Medium Vehicle / Monster - (T7) Most Imperial transports, most Imperial Flyers, HQ Nids, most walkers
Heavy vehicle / Monster - (T8) Leman Russ tanks, Land Raiders, Monolith, Carnifex
Titanic Vehicle / Monster - Knights, Baneblades, Necron Super-Monolith, Wraith Knight

Any skew gets “punished” for being harder to tackle for a TAC list, because it’s harder for a balanced list to handle. We want balance, and freedom, and this aims to balance the two.


So while we all want a better balanced game (in my opinion, equally skilled opponents winning a 60/40 split or closer would be ideal / easily acceptable.) the core mechanics of 8th edition do not appear to have these factors / ideas compensated for, and would need rework.

1: Missions designed to require player interaction. One of the ways would be to create scenarios where objectives / goals placed by your opponent are worth more victory points. I.e. Controlling an objective you placed is worth 2 VP, controlling an objective placed by your opponent is worth 3 VP. This creates value in being aggressive, and encourages without penalizing armies that have units dedicated to advancing through / around the opponent.

Not to be a dick but that severly punishes factions that have no ability for mobility aswell as also adding in a opposing effect of defending your placed objective from your enemy more ardently.
In essence you just get the countereffect of what you wanted.

Not Online!!! wrote:

1: Missions designed to require player interaction. One of the ways would be to create scenarios where objectives / goals placed by your opponent are worth more victory points. I.e. Controlling an objective you placed is worth 2 VP, controlling an objective placed by your opponent is worth 3 VP. This creates value in being aggressive, and encourages without penalizing armies that have units dedicated to advancing through / around the opponent.

Not to be a dick but that severly punishes factions that have no ability for mobility aswell as also adding in a opposing effect of defending your placed objective from your enemy more ardently.
In essence you just get the countereffect of what you wanted.

Do you disagree with the concept, or the implementation?

Because while that specific implementation might be flawed, the general idea (missions should be interactive between the sides) is a great one.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

1: Missions designed to require player interaction. One of the ways would be to create scenarios where objectives / goals placed by your opponent are worth more victory points. I.e. Controlling an objective you placed is worth 2 VP, controlling an objective placed by your opponent is worth 3 VP. This creates value in being aggressive, and encourages without penalizing armies that have units dedicated to advancing through / around the opponent.

Not to be a dick but that severly punishes factions that have no ability for mobility aswell as also adding in a opposing effect of defending your placed objective from your enemy more ardently.
In essence you just get the countereffect of what you wanted.

Do you disagree with the concept, or the implementation?

Because while that specific implementation might be flawed, the general idea (missions should be interactive between the sides) is a great one.

If i were to disagree with the conccept, i ain't for the reccord, i would've mentioned it.

Infact i endorse it since it promotes an actual army and not skew anymore, in a way i suspect if finetuned you might also finally could reign in the spam of certain units.
However, i also feel like a lot of older mechanics need a comeback and overhaul.

It also leads to factions that are not by design interactive to be sidelined (Tau, or Knights f.e.) while actively promoting aggresive lists that rely on Alpha strikes. (depending on how you look at it that is a problem)


IT is certainly a suggestion worth mulling about and might include in ways or forms in local groups.

An idea I've had is that you score objectives at the end of your OPPONENT'S turn.

So your opponent always has at least one turn to kill you off an objective or take it from you or something. Wouldn't work with stuff like Blood and Guts, but it'd make "Secure Objective X" more interesting.

 JNAProductions wrote:
An idea I've had is that you score objectives at the end of your OPPONENT'S turn.

So your opponent always has at least one turn to kill you off an objective or take it from you or something. Wouldn't work with stuff like Blood and Guts, but it'd make "Secure Objective X" more interesting.

It would atleast give the opposing player one turn of initiative (in a battle sense ) to react.

actually why isn't that a thing?

One thing that could help account for the insanely disparate power levels of Knights vs infantry (as an example) is to add some sort of friendly fire mechanic. As it stands, the massively powerful weapons on TITANIC units can still be used with surgical accuracy. When you bring a Knight or super-heavy tank to the 'soccer field', it should become really hard to use effectively as most enemy units would essentially already be inside its minimum effective range and hailstorms of missiles should be dangerous to use to all units on the field. [/bandying about random ideas]

 Jidmah wrote:


I thoroughly explained what I want. A speed freaks is no more "themed" than any other army, including imperial gunlines, eldar jetbikes, daemon hordes and infantry marines. It's a major aspect of the ork army and thus should be able to generate a list that has a decent win quote in any eternal war and maelstrom mission.

Since you repeated your statement of "speed feaks = fluffy fun army", you have cemented that you have no fething clue what you are talking about. You should do some research before continuing to make a fool out of yourself.

I don't think we are talking about the same sort of balance.

I am satisfied if every faction can be built to a mission set so that they get a reasonable set of results from the resulting games.

You want any given list archetype to do just as well in a mission set as one which was carefully designed for those missions. With any sort of fixed mission design I think that is impossible unless the unit selections are almost entirely cosmetic and make no difference to the way the army plays.

I think what you need is a radical change in mission design - something more close to the Underworlds game design where you sort of design your own missions to fit your archetype by deckbuilding. A vastly more flexible approach to secondaries in ITC might conceivably achieve what you want although I doubt that would ever be a big enough change for every archetype we could come up with and consider valid.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
An idea I've had is that you score objectives at the end of your OPPONENT'S turn.

So your opponent always has at least one turn to kill you off an objective or take it from you or something. Wouldn't work with stuff like Blood and Guts, but it'd make "Secure Objective X" more interesting.

It would atleast give the opposing player one turn of initiative (in a battle sense ) to react.

actually why isn't that a thing?

Well armies that can clear stuff off an objective every turn, would be wiping out stuff for 2-3 turns, and then waltz on to objectives that can't be contested. As a counter skew to this, there would probably some lists that run 300-400 models that just choke objectives doing nothing with most of their army, while plinking too kill stuff with something like a knight or an Ahriman. It could create a very toxic game situation, specialy if someone tries to play with a "normal" list.

Snugiraffe wrote:


One thing that could help account for the insanely disparate power levels of Knights vs infantry (as an example) is to add some sort of friendly fire mechanic. As it stands, the massively powerful weapons on TITANIC units can still be used with surgical accuracy. When you bring a Knight or super-heavy tank to the 'soccer field', it should become really hard to use effectively as most enemy units would essentially already be inside its minimum effective range and hailstorms of missiles should be dangerous to use to all units on the field. [/bandying about random ideas]

I feel like that would end up punishing melee armies more than shooting armies though. and the melee/shooting balance is kind of the biggest thing right now that needs to be fixed.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Brother Castor wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Though, I will say, puttng Knight sized models and fliers into the game was a mistake that changed the scale and scope of the game in a way that makes balancing it very difficult now for these all rounder forces, and it may just be pretty broken as long as those things are allowed in the game. They make very little sense on a 6x4' table outside of special scenarios in any case, and their introduction was really what made me lose interest in 40K.

They're certainly difficult to balance, but powerful units like greater daemons have always been in the game from 1st edition. It's actually one of the things I really like about 40k - that you can play out battles where greater daemons or massive war machines and infantry share a table. In casual play it shouldn't really be an issue assuming players discuss it before preparing lists. I certainly always encourage my opponent to bring suitable units to take on my chaos knights when I play them, and actively avoid bringing TITANIC units in lower points games. At the end of the day, even with equal points costs, an anti-tank army is going to do better against tanks than an anti-horde army (and vice versa). Unless you constrain the types of units that both players bring, some lists will have advantages against others. But being able to bring the units you like is a huge part of 40K, and I'd rather keep that than have perfect balance for armies that shouldn't be well matched. What's that saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight?

They're not really comparable though. Yes, that one powerful lynchpin unit/model has been part of the game for a while, but they were restricted. You couldn't have a whole army of Bloodthirsters. You couldn't reasonably take 3 Monoliths without gimping yourself with phase out as they were nearly (or exactly) half your army's points. I shouldn't need to discuss with my opponent what is and isn't allowed in lists to ensure I have a good game. In just about any other game, you can rock up to the store for a PUG with no other discussion to be had. 40k is the sole exception to this.

All of the Apocalypse only units should have stayed Apoc only. This is 40k's event horizon point, where they decided to put them into regular play circa 6th ed. Which is also the time the game went down the toilet funnily enough. Now, they've crossed that proverbial Rubicon and don't want to go back for fear of pissing off their whales that bought a lot of these kits. Sorry GW, for the health of your game you've got to make these types of units restricted to Apocalypse again. I know people won't like it, but tough gak. It's for a greater good.

Regarding the first premise, ie. discussing the game in advance:

The reason that this is necessary in 40k and not other games is that no other game offers the breadth of possibilities for play as this one. I don't play other mini games because they don't offer play on so many scales within so many factions and so many combinations, from playing within different historical eras, incredibly diverse campaign systems vs. stand alone event support and world wide interactive group play that influences an evolving storyline.

I like this game BECAUSE we need to talk before we play. If we didn't need to talk before we played, it wouldn't be broad enough to interest me.

Regarding the second premise, ie. keeping fliers and LOW in Apocalypse games:

I would have been okay if they had opted to do this, because I would still have the capability to include those units if I wanted. But I think it was good for the model range to include those things in the main rules; development of this kits is only economically viable if they are an option in the core rules. But I'll counter with an option that has been thrown out in a few other threads. Kill Team has an Arena version, which places more restrictions on game play in the name of balance. I think a 40k arena rule set might go a long way to solving some legitimate complaints about balance without taking away everyone else's sand box.

Because sales of this game have never been better, so obviously players want a sandbox. GW doesn't HAVE to do anything to make YOU happy, because people are voting with their wallets. It ain't broken, it just no longer meets your needs. It's okay to just play any of the other games that you seem to want this game to become.

happy_inquisitor wrote:
I am satisfied if every faction can be built to a mission set so that they get a reasonable set of results from the resulting games.

You want any given list archetype to do just as well in a mission set as one which was carefully designed for those missions.

Uh, no, he pretty clearly wants a list archetype that is common in the background, and represents roughly a third of the codex, to be reasonably viable as a take-all-comers list. Yeah, Speed Freeks are probably going to be better at some missions than others, but on the whole it should even out, and right now it doesn't.

Knights represent the same problem from the other perspective. In theory an all-Knights army should suffer in any mission that requires objective control. In practice their ability to survive any list not geared towards killing them nullifies that disadvantage, and they're very frustrating for a take-all-comers list to play against.

catbarf wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:
I am satisfied if every faction can be built to a mission set so that they get a reasonable set of results from the resulting games.

You want any given list archetype to do just as well in a mission set as one which was carefully designed for those missions.

Uh, no, he pretty clearly wants a list archetype that is common in the background, and represents roughly a third of the codex, to be reasonably viable as a take-all-comers list. Yeah, Speed Freeks are probably going to be better at some missions than others, but on the whole it should even out, and right now it doesn't.

Knights represent the same problem from the other perspective. In theory an all-Knights army should suffer in any mission that requires objective control. In practice their ability to survive any list not geared towards killing them nullifies that disadvantage, and they're very frustrating for a take-all-comers list to play against.

All knight lists are mediocre at best in the GW tournaments, not well suited to the missions. They do well enough in ITC because of the mission design.

I understand what he wants, the only answer would be a radical overhaul of mission design and a move away from fixed predefined missions. I am extremely doubtful that there is much appetite for that in the wider competitive community.

The reason that this is necessary in 40k and not other games is that no other game offers the breadth of possibilities for play as this one. I don't play other mini games because they don't offer play on so many scales within so many factions and so many combinations, from playing within different historical eras, incredibly diverse campaign systems vs. stand alone event support and world wide interactive group play that influences an evolving storyline.

now my expiriance with other then GW is extremly limited, mostly to seeing other people play infinity. And that games seems to have a lot of different scenarios and a lot more in game interactions durning each players turn, then w40k, and the people playing it don't seem to require long talks about what to play. Plus the situation you describe only happens, when two player have over 2000pts and maybe multiple factions owned. When two people have two normal armies, what talk is there to be made? Player A tells player B, that mission X is going to wreck him, if they try to play it. And what next, only option to fix it is not to play the game.

happy_inquisitor wrote:

catbarf wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:
I am satisfied if every faction can be built to a mission set so that they get a reasonable set of results from the resulting games.

You want any given list archetype to do just as well in a mission set as one which was carefully designed for those missions.

Uh, no, he pretty clearly wants a list archetype that is common in the background, and represents roughly a third of the codex, to be reasonably viable as a take-all-comers list. Yeah, Speed Freeks are probably going to be better at some missions than others, but on the whole it should even out, and right now it doesn't.

Knights represent the same problem from the other perspective. In theory an all-Knights army should suffer in any mission that requires objective control. In practice their ability to survive any list not geared towards killing them nullifies that disadvantage, and they're very frustrating for a take-all-comers list to play against.

All knight lists are mediocre at best in the GW tournaments, not well suited to the missions. They do well enough in ITC because of the mission design.

I understand what he wants, the only answer would be a radical overhaul of mission design and a move away from fixed predefined missions. I am extremely doubtful that there is much appetite for that in the wider competitive community.

How is a speed freaks army any different from an craftworld jetbike army? Or a harlequin army? Or drukhari lists based around their bikes and transports? Because those do well in all kinds of missions, which means there is at least one example to prove your theory wrong.