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Balance isn't hard to define. One TAC army should be able to go toe-to-toe with another TAC army. The moment one army is completely better at that aspect, there's imbalance.
Of course there's the question of what's considered "TAC", which is slightly more holistic and prompts more discussion, but we can think of the basic definition for now as you bringing something to handle every reasonable threat.
A reasonable start, but how do you account for terrain or missions?
Also you've always been saying that about Marines and don't have the statistics to back it up. YEAH they got better after the new Codex, but just wait for everyone else to get a rework.
Hate to break it to you, but you don't have the statistics on it either.
You'd have a point if the terrain rules commonly used actually mattered. It only matters for the dudes automatically getting it (ala army bonus) and when you pop the strat T1. The City Fight terrain rules go a longer way to make terrain matter more, BUT nobody plays "narrative" and, because it not being part of the official rule set, nobody cares. When it comes to stopping LoS it sometimes helps, but it doesn't actually make Assault Marines better at their job. It just means they love longer before I laugh at the pitiful attempt they make at their job.
Missions are kinda fine but definitely favor certain armies rather than certain compositions for those various armies, and I wouldn't say ITC or ETC completely fix this either. That's both an internal and external issue for the codices.
I'll totally admit that the terrain rules should be better, but simply increasing the amount and variation of LOS blockers, and throwing down more terrain impassable to tanks will change the value of units. It takes very little effort to create a big effect.
Sure, drive your Leman Russ commanders into dense terrain where their range is reduced and they cant move, and they can't support the objective without driving closer. Watch Assault Marines land within strike range but out of LOS, then charge and make the Leman Russes useless.
Which now begs the question: how much LoS blocking terrain do you actually need to add for that to actually work?
Also Russes basically never need to move because of the range they have. I think I've seen them move maybe once a game, twice at most.
CaptainStabby wrote: If Tyberos falls and needs to catch himself it's because the ground needed killing.
jy2 wrote: BTW, I can't wait to run Double-D-thirsters! Man, just thinking about it gets me Khorney.
vipoid wrote: Indeed - what sort of bastard would want to use their codex?
MarsNZ wrote: ITT: SoB players upset that they're receiving the same condescending treatment that they've doled out in every CSM thread ever.
Balance isn't hard to define. One TAC army should be able to go toe-to-toe with another TAC army. The moment one army is completely better at that aspect, there's imbalance.
Of course there's the question of what's considered "TAC", which is slightly more holistic and prompts more discussion, but we can think of the basic definition for now as you bringing something to handle every reasonable threat.
A reasonable start, but how do you account for terrain or missions?
Also you've always been saying that about Marines and don't have the statistics to back it up. YEAH they got better after the new Codex, but just wait for everyone else to get a rework.
Hate to break it to you, but you don't have the statistics on it either.
You'd have a point if the terrain rules commonly used actually mattered. It only matters for the dudes automatically getting it (ala army bonus) and when you pop the strat T1. The City Fight terrain rules go a longer way to make terrain matter more, BUT nobody plays "narrative" and, because it not being part of the official rule set, nobody cares. When it comes to stopping LoS it sometimes helps, but it doesn't actually make Assault Marines better at their job. It just means they love longer before I laugh at the pitiful attempt they make at their job.
Missions are kinda fine but definitely favor certain armies rather than certain compositions for those various armies, and I wouldn't say ITC or ETC completely fix this either. That's both an internal and external issue for the codices.
I'll totally admit that the terrain rules should be better, but simply increasing the amount and variation of LOS blockers, and throwing down more terrain impassable to tanks will change the value of units. It takes very little effort to create a big effect.
Sure, drive your Leman Russ commanders into dense terrain where their range is reduced and they cant move, and they can't support the objective without driving closer. Watch Assault Marines land within strike range but out of LOS, then charge and make the Leman Russes useless.
Which now begs the question: how much LoS blocking terrain do you actually need to add for that to actually work?
Also Russes basically never need to move because of the range they have. I think I've seen them move maybe once a game, twice at most.
Last time I faced Russes, of the 6 of them, only 2 could draw LOS first round - and then only to Serpents. Only 3 in the following round. And on round 3, charged 2 with Banshees, two with a Serpent, and LOS'ed the other two. He certainly *did* need to move his Russes - and even then, very few good targets for them.
With lots of LOS terrain, Russes (and most gunlines) get a lot worse. Eldar get a lot more upsides than Marines, though. ASM could actually be great on such a table versus Russses. It changes the game.
As for "the right amount", the right amount is "it changes". I love to clog the table with terrain. But, for best results, you shouldn't know the terrain (density, type, layout, etc) while building your list.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Imagine playing a game of chess where the player playing white could move all of their pieces before black got to move. That is what IGOUGO does, it exponentially increases the first turn advantage, even in games where both sides have identical forces.
Something to note - before 5th edition went entirely off the rails it was frequently advantageous to play second rather than first. The reasons weren't all good (last turn grabs) but the counter-deployment was often enough of an advantage against a slower moving ruleset with lesser alpha strike potential.
8ths alternating deployment doesn't have that.
Get rid of TLOS and suddenly you have a lot more freedom in terrain.
Terrain can have one of the following keywords <Sparse> <Dense> <Impenetrable> which determines how far into a terrain feature units can see.
So a terrain piece with the <Impenetrable> keyword completely blocks LOS through it, <Dense> blocks LOS past 3" into it, <Sparse> is 6", for example. Negates having to get down eye level with models and you're already having to measure for weapon range so you don't even need to do any more measuring.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Imagine playing a game of chess where the player playing white could move all of their pieces before black got to move. That is what IGOUGO does, it exponentially increases the first turn advantage, even in games where both sides have identical forces.
Something to note - before 5th edition went entirely off the rails it was frequently advantageous to play second rather than first. The reasons weren't all good (last turn grabs) but the counter-deployment was often enough of an advantage against a slower moving ruleset with lesser alpha strike potential.
8ths alternating deployment doesn't have that.
Certainly, alternating deployment is certainly how it should be short of physically blocking your opponent from being able to see the opposing deployment area prior to the first turn
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/10 13:49:59
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
I liked counterdeployment, as at lower levels (non-tournies) going first was usually such an advantage. Deploying everything first if you're going first gave the second player an easy counterdeployment option, to help alleviate some of the IGOUGO skew. And counterdeploying meant a lot more in previous editions (plasma meant nothing to Russes or LRs, for example).
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You aren't defending your viewpoint because tighter rules benefit EVERYONE.
Prioritizing the narrative over rules also benefits EVERYONE.
Prioritizing the narrative over rules usually results in neither.
Let's use a common in universe example of Imperial Forces defending against the invading forces of chaos and represent it with 8th Edition. To save space, you can read the entire narrative in the spoiler.
Spoiler:
To start, let's take equal points in infantry squads and cultists to represent the common humans fighting for their beliefs. The guardsmen will outnumber the cultists despite the cultists being inferior stats wise due to poorly balanced point costs. This results in the overwhelming numbers of the Imperial Guard crushing the cultists without having to rely on their discipline (orders on the tabletop) and the cultists cannot use their lore tactics of overwhelming the guard with worthless bodies.
However, both forces have their elite astartes providing reinforcement and directing the forces around them in this high stakes desperate battle. (Iron Warriors directing the siege against the Imperial Fist's defense network) Taking equal points of basic marines for both armies, the loyalists will use their superior infrastructure and resources to have slightly higher numbers than their heretic counterparts who typically are scraping by whatever they can raid/find. (No problem here, this is actually fluffy) The Imperial Fists will win the infantry war of attrition due to both their superior numbers as well as their strictly better Chapter Tactic that includes exploding 6s despite the CSM being hardened by the endless wars/strife within the eye of terror. When the vehicular reinforcements for both armies get there, the loyalist astartes will remember their training and use their chapter tactics to crush the heretics who threw all their legionary tactics out the window the moment they stepped inside their predators. Meanwhile, the Iron Warrior Lord has been standing around idle behind the cultists to make sure they don't run off like the sniveling cowards they are.
The forces of Chaos aren't out of the fight just yet, they still have one card left to play, Daemons. Fortunately, the Emperor protects and the Grey Knights have been deployed to safeguard the loyalists against the unspeakable horrors of the warp. Taking equal points, the endless seas of daemons spill forth against the massively overcosted and outnumbered Grey Knights. The Grey Knights prepared for this and apply all of their special rules to do maximum mortal wounds against the first wave of daemons completely obliterating them from reality and back into the warp. Unwilling to lose that easily, the Daemons turned to the strategems section of their codex to completely reinforce their numbers with the exact same squad at full strength. Unable to banish basic daemons for more than a few moments, the Grey Knights crumble under the weight of respawning daemons fueled by their lower point costs granting them more CP.
Tldr; for the lazy:
Spoiler:
Bad balance has resulted in guardsmen drowning cultists in bodies, loyalist marines being superior fighters as well as more numerous than their heretic counter parts, and the Imperium being better off using literally anything else but the Grey Knights to fight daemons.
Good rules can create narratives like we see in the lore, but bad rules can leave you going "LOL WUT?" when you try to recreate those very same stories. This is before you even consider things like the Imperial Fist marines one-shotting entire squads of CSM with infinite hits after the new FAQ broke exploding 6s without a "these hits may not grant additional hits themselves" clause.
I am in favor of it. I just reject this idea of it being in the form of a separate tournament ruleset instead of putting all of those changes into 9th edition and using the new rules for all games. This conversation started with the idea of making separate rules because they wouldn't be appropriate for non-tournament games, when in reality what is needed is a comprehensive overhaul of the entire game where at the end of it there is no further need for separate tournament/narrative/etc rules.
It will surprise you (though it shouldn't given sales) that a lot of players really like the rules we already have. In my experience, most of those people don't play tournaments, which is why they like the rules.
Anecdotal for anecdotal, see my experience above. My group slowly disappeared over the years because of frustration.
Concerning the battlefield rules.. how can we even hope is stuff like pinning has been removed and morale is done AoS style? I know this statement will attract fire but this is what I think.
And if GW really wanted to put focus on the narrative, we would have a game closer to an RPG. It used to be like that, but then moved toward more models because.. well of course.
Seriously, the narrative is an excuse, it's really that simple.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/10 14:01:19
Generic characters disappearing? Elite units of your army losing options and customizations? No longer finding that motivation to convert?
Your army could suffer Post-Chapterhouse Stress Disorder (PCSD)! If you think that your army is suffering one or more of the aforementioned symptoms, call us at 789-666-1982 for a quick diagnosis!
A Town Called Malus wrote: Certainly, alternating deployment is certainly how it should be short of physically blocking your opponent from being able to see the opposing deployment area prior to the first turn
What I was trying to say is that alternating deployment is not a good idea with non alternating unit selection - because it benefits the alpha strike style armies.
The older style deployment meant that the player going first could pick the strongest starting position (allowing for the risk of seize), but the second player had full information to mitigate this deployment.
Especially with the practical limit of three heavy units, and with armour giving the option to deploy presenting a strong facing while concealing a weak facing.
New style deployment means that whoever goes first will have had the opportunity to place most/all of their army in ideal firing positions against one or more targets, and can begin firing immediately with everything.
Let's use a common in universe example of Imperial Forces defending against the invading forces of chaos and represent it with 8th Edition. To save space, you can read the entire narrative in the spoiler.
Spoiler:
To start, let's take equal points in infantry squads and cultists to represent the common humans fighting for their beliefs. The guardsmen will outnumber the cultists despite the cultists being inferior stats wise due to poorly balanced point costs. This results in the overwhelming numbers of the Imperial Guard crushing the cultists without having to rely on their discipline (orders on the tabletop) and the cultists cannot use their lore tactics of overwhelming the guard with worthless bodies.
However, both forces have their elite astartes providing reinforcement and directing the forces around them in this high stakes desperate battle. (Iron Warriors directing the siege against the Imperial Fist's defense network) Taking equal points of basic marines for both armies, the loyalists will use their superior infrastructure and resources to have slightly higher numbers than their heretic counterparts who typically are scraping by whatever they can raid/find. (No problem here, this is actually fluffy) The Imperial Fists will win the infantry war of attrition due to both their superior numbers as well as their strictly better Chapter Tactic that includes exploding 6s despite the CSM being hardened by the endless wars/strife within the eye of terror. When the vehicular reinforcements for both armies get there, the loyalist astartes will remember their training and use their chapter tactics to crush the heretics who threw all their legionary tactics out the window the moment they stepped inside their predators. Meanwhile, the Iron Warrior Lord has been standing around idle behind the cultists to make sure they don't run off like the sniveling cowards they are.
The forces of Chaos aren't out of the fight just yet, they still have one card left to play, Daemons. Fortunately, the Emperor protects and the Grey Knights have been deployed to safeguard the loyalists against the unspeakable horrors of the warp. Taking equal points, the endless seas of daemons spill forth against the massively overcosted and outnumbered Grey Knights. The Grey Knights prepared for this and apply all of their special rules to do maximum mortal wounds against the first wave of daemons completely obliterating them from reality and back into the warp. Unwilling to lose that easily, the Daemons turned to the strategems section of their codex to completely reinforce their numbers with the exact same squad at full strength. Unable to banish basic daemons for more than a few moments, the Grey Knights crumble under the weight of respawning daemons fueled by their lower point costs granting them more CP.
This is awesome and spot-on. But we know the answer. You should adjust adjust the numbers yourself. But hey please, still buy the books!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/10 14:04:18
Generic characters disappearing? Elite units of your army losing options and customizations? No longer finding that motivation to convert?
Your army could suffer Post-Chapterhouse Stress Disorder (PCSD)! If you think that your army is suffering one or more of the aforementioned symptoms, call us at 789-666-1982 for a quick diagnosis!
AngryAngel80 wrote: They release things like that to say " Lol, the game isn't supposed to be balanced it's all about forging the narrative ! " Which is a phrase I'll never ever forget from 6th 7th days as the mantra of the most broken crap I'd ever seen.
Yet, they release rule sets to make under performing units, armies strong, do yearly points balances and FAQs for balance they say, when they don't intend to balance it ? Seems odd and they support and attend all these tournaments which seem to be using their rules in ways they don't intend, to pound each other to paste.
So why even bother with rules and just say that nothing is tournament legal or cut out for it.
They just love to talk out of both sides of their mouth.
Forging the narrative didn't work in 6th, 7th and almost killed AoS on its launch. They either need to be very over the top clear in that their rules are a joke involving balance of any kind, or actually hire real rules writers to balance it for them.
I add further, if this narrative approach was their goal they would support their old products more, as pushing that narrative is seemingly all well and good when selling new stuff, but I guess all that narrative goes out the window when it comes to kitbashing models, or using out of print models, why even bother calling out legends not for tournaments if the rules are just for narrative anyways.
I don't want to pick on a particular person or post but honestly this exemplifies the problem with this thread - and sometimes Dakka in general . The whole thread appears to be made up of people who did not bother to listen to what the designer said on the podcast. I get the overwhelming feeling that people are responding to what they imagine a GW employee to have said rather than what he actually said. As he did not say the things you are apparently responding to all I can see in your post is straw men being relentlessly knocked down.
There is a whole segment where he discusses why they sometimes do not give rules support for narrative ideas because they would break the game in a more competitive format. e.g In the fluff a Tau commander can commandeer any battlesuit they like but putting commanders in Riptide or Ghostkeel battlesuits did not make the codex because it would have been horribly unbalanced. Similarly you can paint your chaos knight as dedicated to Khorne but if they did not give rules support for that it is because it created balance issues in matched play. The idea that they are all about "forge the narrative" is directly contradicting the content of the actual podcast that the thread is supposed to be about.
I don't want to pick on a particular person or post but honestly this exemplifies the problem with this thread - and sometimes Dakka in general . The whole thread appears to be made up of people who did not bother to listen to what the designer said on the podcast. I get the overwhelming feeling that people are responding to what they imagine a GW employee to have said rather than what he actually said. As he did not say the things you are apparently responding to all I can see in your post is straw men being relentlessly knocked down.
There is a whole segment where he discusses why they sometimes do not give rules support for narrative ideas because they would break the game in a more competitive format. e.g In the fluff a Tau commander can commandeer any battlesuit they like but putting commanders in Riptide or Ghostkeel battlesuits did not make the codex because it would have been horribly unbalanced. Similarly you can paint your chaos knight as dedicated to Khorne but if they did not give rules support for that it is because it created balance issues in matched play. The idea that they are all about "forge the narrative" is directly contradicting the content of the actual podcast that the thread is supposed to be about.
In other words it's enough that the designers declare that they put some thought in the rules writing. Actual results be damned.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/10 14:12:05
Generic characters disappearing? Elite units of your army losing options and customizations? No longer finding that motivation to convert?
Your army could suffer Post-Chapterhouse Stress Disorder (PCSD)! If you think that your army is suffering one or more of the aforementioned symptoms, call us at 789-666-1982 for a quick diagnosis!
happy_inquisitor wrote: e.g In the fluff a Tau commander can commandeer any battlesuit they like but putting commanders in Riptide or Ghostkeel battlesuits did not make the codex because it would have been horribly unbalanced. Similarly you can paint your chaos knight as dedicated to Khorne but if they did not give rules support for that it is because it created balance issues in matched play. The idea that they are all about "forge the narrative" is directly contradicting the content of the actual podcast that the thread is supposed to be about.
Why would it automatically be horribly unbalanced to have a Tau commander in a Ghostkeel or Riptide? Just point it accordingly. It could be very powerful, yes, but that would mean it was also very expensive to field.
That they cannot do so is an admission that they lack the capacity to balance their own game.
Also the potential loadout, and therefore variance in potential power, of a commander in a riptide or Ghostkeel is actually less than a commander in a normal crisis suit due to more limited weapon options.
We even saw a Riptide character from the Farsight Enclaves codex in 6th or 7th (cannot remember which). He was not game breaking.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/09/10 17:45:40
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
I don't want to pick on a particular person or post but honestly this exemplifies the problem with this thread - and sometimes Dakka in general . The whole thread appears to be made up of people who did not bother to listen to what the designer said on the podcast. I get the overwhelming feeling that people are responding to what they imagine a GW employee to have said rather than what he actually said. As he did not say the things you are apparently responding to all I can see in your post is straw men being relentlessly knocked down.
There is a whole segment where he discusses why they sometimes do not give rules support for narrative ideas because they would break the game in a more competitive format. e.g In the fluff a Tau commander can commandeer any battlesuit they like but putting commanders in Riptide or Ghostkeel battlesuits did not make the codex because it would have been horribly unbalanced. Similarly you can paint your chaos knight as dedicated to Khorne but if they did not give rules support for that it is because it created balance issues in matched play. The idea that they are all about "forge the narrative" is directly contradicting the content of the actual podcast that the thread is supposed to be about.
In other words it's enough that the designers declare that they put some thought in the rules writing. Actual results be damned.
Well, outside an observable parallel universe where they did these things and we can observe the impact, the only way to compare realistic scenarios is by theory. And here we have the designers name specific mechanics they considered, but avoided nominally because of balance impact.
Sure, you can pretend that comparing game-as-is to game-as-perfect yields a viable metric for how good GW is, or what the game could be. But comparing to game-as-perfect is a fantasy that will never happen. So comparing it to only that leads to skewed impressions of where it should be and how good they are at their job (and thus, whether we should consume their product).
Consider a specific professional that's successful roughly 37% of the time. Knowing just that, should we assume he has no idea what he's saying? After all, compared to what he could be - successful 100% of the time - he's terrible. So should he be fired and replaced?
Knowing just that, you can't have a meaningful opinion. If he's a doctor doing low-end easy surgeries, certainly - he's terrible. If he's an MLB hitter, certainly not - it doesn't get better than that.
I don't want to pick on a particular person or post but honestly this exemplifies the problem with this thread - and sometimes Dakka in general . The whole thread appears to be made up of people who did not bother to listen to what the designer said on the podcast. I get the overwhelming feeling that people are responding to what they imagine a GW employee to have said rather than what he actually said. As he did not say the things you are apparently responding to all I can see in your post is straw men being relentlessly knocked down.
There is a whole segment where he discusses why they sometimes do not give rules support for narrative ideas because they would break the game in a more competitive format. e.g In the fluff a Tau commander can commandeer any battlesuit they like but putting commanders in Riptide or Ghostkeel battlesuits did not make the codex because it would have been horribly unbalanced. Similarly you can paint your chaos knight as dedicated to Khorne but if they did not give rules support for that it is because it created balance issues in matched play. The idea that they are all about "forge the narrative" is directly contradicting the content of the actual podcast that the thread is supposed to be about.
In other words it's enough that the designers declare that they put some thought in the rules writing. Actual results be damned.
This. GW can say whatever they want until the cows come home. Their results show otherwise and that they don't care about balance, despite them saying they thought about it.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You say that and forget this is the same rules team that had the 7th edition Wraithknight get published and Pyrovores blowing up the whole table.
It's also the same rules team that dialed back the WK in 8th and fixed the Pyrovore problem.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You say that and forget this is the same rules team that had the 7th edition Wraithknight get published and Pyrovores blowing up the whole table.
It's also the same rules team that dialed back the WK in 8th and fixed the Pyrovore problem.
In the same edition?
CaptainStabby wrote: If Tyberos falls and needs to catch himself it's because the ground needed killing.
jy2 wrote: BTW, I can't wait to run Double-D-thirsters! Man, just thinking about it gets me Khorney.
vipoid wrote: Indeed - what sort of bastard would want to use their codex?
MarsNZ wrote: ITT: SoB players upset that they're receiving the same condescending treatment that they've doled out in every CSM thread ever.
Karol wrote: Imagine you bought a car, and VW told everyone that they know it sometimes the engine work and sometimes it doesn't, same with breaks, heating etc. But they full encourage the buyer of their cars to fix the cars they bought themselfs, they are even willing to sell the parts needed for specific repairs.
I think a more apt anology would be if a car manufacturer created a line of mini smart cars for driving 30-40 mph to and from work (priced as a luxury car, of course), but everyone was buying it and trying to use them to win the Indy 500 (and the manufacturer just shrugged and went “okay”). That’s the sort of mentality I seem to pick up from tournament players.
GW’s game works -but only if you squint very hard and don’t purposely try and game it - and in the latter case, that’s not a guarantee against breaking something anyways.
Would we benefit if GW purposely built their ruleset for competitive play? Sure we would, but that’s Too much effort for GW for overall little gain. They make their money on the minis, the rules are just a side gig to promote buying more than one copy of a model. They only put in enough effort to sell the next kit they put out - and that’s all the effort they see the need to do. They only fix something if it’s dragging down model sales.
the issue with this metaphor is that one can buy the luxury car, the high end sports car the performs like a dream, its fast, it handles like a dream, it has features other cars envy.. and then GW send a software update making the car the worst thing on the road, all the features have been disabled, its previous 200+mph top speed has been governed to 40mph and 0-60 has gone from 4.0 seconds to 12. but we have to still be happy to use our now useless car as a commuter in city car that looks nice (most of thier models do look nice)
as examples the wraithknight and stompa, thier rules looked great when they came out. the ork stompa was good for apocolypse games and the wraithknight on release was one of the strongest models for several years. currently both do not do anything but gather dust on shelves. they still look good but the rules have made them both fairly useless. what was good when purchased has been significantly devalued as WG changed thier rules and cost to make them bad. not ok... bad
note i am not advocating for wraithknights to be 7th edition levels of brokenness just that they be comparable to an mid range imperial knight ditto the stompa tough it has outside of apocolypse never been good since being introduced to 40k always overpriced and never fixed.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/10 14:54:57
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You say that and forget this is the same rules team that had the 7th edition Wraithknight get published and Pyrovores blowing up the whole table.
It's also the same rules team that dialed back the WK in 8th and fixed the Pyrovore problem.
In the same edition?
As much as I love a pedantic slap fight, is this really relevant? Everyone knows GW spews broken garbage from time to time using every possible definition of broken. (good,bad,non-functional) Maybe a discussion on prioritizing balance vs prioritizing narrative would be more productive.
We even saw a Riptide character from the Farsight Enclaves codex in 6th or 7th (cannot remember which). He was not game breaking.
O'vesa still exists in 8th, he was in the last Chapter Approved. According to the internet he (and the Eight in general) is trash. The internet is almost totally wrong on that but if we were just to listen to online opinion we would have completely the wrong ideas about how that unit is balanced.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You say that and forget this is the same rules team that had the 7th edition Wraithknight get published and Pyrovores blowing up the whole table.
It's also the same rules team that dialed back the WK in 8th and fixed the Pyrovore problem.
Where GK bad in 6th, 7th edition too? It doesn't look as if the "good" designers and playtesters of 8th somehow made stuff better. In fact from what I was told, GK had more unit, and gear options in the past.
If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You say that and forget this is the same rules team that had the 7th edition Wraithknight get published and Pyrovores blowing up the whole table.
It's also the same rules team that dialed back the WK in 8th and fixed the Pyrovore problem.
In the same edition?
As much as I love a pedantic slap fight, is this really relevant? Everyone knows GW spews broken garbage from time to time using every possible definition of broken. (good,bad,non-functional) Maybe a discussion on prioritizing balance vs prioritizing narrative would be more productive.
My point is, what are you comparing them to? Of course they've done some bad stuff. Most professional outfits have.
This discussion reminds me of all the people who laugh at how dumb Bill Gates was for the 640k memory limit. *Obviously* more memory will be possible, so how could anyone be so stupid to build such a limit into such a system?
Yet all the people bitching about that weren't the ones who put out functional, COTS OSes back in those days.
Of course GW does dumb things. Expecting them never to is asinine. Expecting them to do so less often is reasonable. But how much less often? What success rate is reasonable? How could you possibly answer such a question?
@Karol:
8th Ed is *much* better balanced than 6th/7th. There were a couple shining moments in 6th/7th where some of what they did was great, balance-wise. But there were also a lot of derp decisions.
Where GK bad in 6th, 7th edition too? It doesn't look as if the "good" designers and playtesters of 8th somehow made stuff better. In fact from what I was told, GK had more unit, and gear options in the past.
5th edition codex GK had loads of units and options because they also had all the inquisition stuff. They were in many ways the first faction to have allies built in and the high point of them being top tournament list was also when they had that wide variety of units they could take.
From the moment they lost all those other units they have been one-dimensional and rather limited as a result.
happy_inquisitor wrote: 5th edition codex GK had loads of units and options because they also had all the inquisition stuff. They were in many ways the first faction to have allies built in and the high point of them being top tournament list was also when they had that wide variety of units they could take.
From the moment they lost all those other units they have been one-dimensional and rather limited as a result.
The inquisition stuff in the GK codex was a pale shadow of it's 3rd edition origins - options wise at least. A dozen different units and henchmen were all crammed into a single squad structure and the inquisitors themselves were watered down to corteaz and the xenos grenade caddy.
5e GK weren't strong because of their variety, they were strong because they had better stuff for fewer points.
5th ed GK in my city was always the same two builds. 80% draigo paladin builds, because you only needed a handful of models and it was grotesquely powerful, or the 20% that ran the Coteaz builds. While the codex may have had variety, I never saw that being fielded. I saw the same two lists over and over again.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/10 15:58:48
skchsan wrote: Aside from point values for units not properly reflecting its performance on the board, stratagems being unevenly helpful, and typos on the rulebook/codex, exactly what about the rules do you guys truly think is wrong/bad about it?
Or is it simply the sins of the above that brings down the entire game?
The terrain rules fething suck and you can't defend them as is.
skchsan wrote: Aside from point values for units not properly reflecting its performance on the board, stratagems being unevenly helpful, and typos on the rulebook/codex, exactly what about the rules do you guys truly think is wrong/bad about it?
Or is it simply the sins of the above that brings down the entire game?
The terrain rules fething suck and you can't defend them as is.
CA18 fixed them and now terrain works great.
Would that be the Cities of Death, which are touted as being for Narrative play and seem to have never been picked up for Matched? If so then I agree it fixed them, just that fix is never in place where it matters because it's "not for matched play" so might as well not be a fix at all.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/10 16:49:02
Wayniac wrote: This. GW can say whatever they want until the cows come home. Their results show otherwise and that they don't care about balance, despite them saying they thought about it.
This fails to understand something fundamental about game design: the problems you see are only the ones that were missed. Reese has talked about this on his own podcast in that some of the issues that cropped up were things that he and his testing team failed to catch because the way they approach the game is different than the way others approach the game, and with the internet making it easy to publish those things unintentionally broken things (like 0" charges) become widespread faster than they ever did before.
Basically people can climb up on their soap boxes all.day and claim this is broken and that is broken and we should sack people over this, but that fails to understand that when things are functioning correctly we don't notice them like we do all the things that don't.
And that's before we start layering on our own biases pn what makes a game "good" or not.
There is a Stormcast episode I feel people should give a listen to since its with a former editor who is one of the rules devs for Warhammer Underworlds. He talks about how he wants to game to be a super balanced competetive game system and how that even when you think you've nailed the most perfect way to lay a rule out you can still get feedback on that rule.
Honestly in general I feel like more people should listen to the GW podcasts just to get a better idea of how the games they play come together.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You aren't defending your viewpoint because tighter rules benefit EVERYONE.
Prioritizing the narrative over rules also benefits EVERYONE.
Prioritizing the narrative over rules usually results in neither.
Let's use a common in universe example of Imperial Forces defending against the invading forces of chaos and represent it with 8th Edition. To save space, you can read the entire narrative in the spoiler.
Spoiler:
To start, let's take equal points in infantry squads and cultists to represent the common humans fighting for their beliefs. The guardsmen will outnumber the cultists despite the cultists being inferior stats wise due to poorly balanced point costs. This results in the overwhelming numbers of the Imperial Guard crushing the cultists without having to rely on their discipline (orders on the tabletop) and the cultists cannot use their lore tactics of overwhelming the guard with worthless bodies.
However, both forces have their elite astartes providing reinforcement and directing the forces around them in this high stakes desperate battle. (Iron Warriors directing the siege against the Imperial Fist's defense network) Taking equal points of basic marines for both armies, the loyalists will use their superior infrastructure and resources to have slightly higher numbers than their heretic counterparts who typically are scraping by whatever they can raid/find. (No problem here, this is actually fluffy) The Imperial Fists will win the infantry war of attrition due to both their superior numbers as well as their strictly better Chapter Tactic that includes exploding 6s despite the CSM being hardened by the endless wars/strife within the eye of terror. When the vehicular reinforcements for both armies get there, the loyalist astartes will remember their training and use their chapter tactics to crush the heretics who threw all their legionary tactics out the window the moment they stepped inside their predators. Meanwhile, the Iron Warrior Lord has been standing around idle behind the cultists to make sure they don't run off like the sniveling cowards they are.
The forces of Chaos aren't out of the fight just yet, they still have one card left to play, Daemons. Fortunately, the Emperor protects and the Grey Knights have been deployed to safeguard the loyalists against the unspeakable horrors of the warp. Taking equal points, the endless seas of daemons spill forth against the massively overcosted and outnumbered Grey Knights. The Grey Knights prepared for this and apply all of their special rules to do maximum mortal wounds against the first wave of daemons completely obliterating them from reality and back into the warp. Unwilling to lose that easily, the Daemons turned to the strategems section of their codex to completely reinforce their numbers with the exact same squad at full strength. Unable to banish basic daemons for more than a few moments, the Grey Knights crumble under the weight of respawning daemons fueled by their lower point costs granting them more CP.
Tldr; for the lazy:
Spoiler:
Bad balance has resulted in guardsmen drowning cultists in bodies, loyalist marines being superior fighters as well as more numerous than their heretic counter parts, and the Imperium being better off using literally anything else but the Grey Knights to fight daemons.
Good rules can create narratives like we see in the lore, but bad rules can leave you going "LOL WUT?" when you try to recreate those very same stories. This is before you even consider things like the Imperial Fist marines one-shotting entire squads of CSM with infinite hits after the new FAQ broke exploding 6s without a "these hits may not grant additional hits themselves" clause.
This, This is glorious.
Have mine exalt.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units." Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?" Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?" GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!" Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.
We even saw a Riptide character from the Farsight Enclaves codex in 6th or 7th (cannot remember which). He was not game breaking.
O'vesa still exists in 8th, he was in the last Chapter Approved. According to the internet he (and the Eight in general) is trash. The internet is almost totally wrong on that but if we were just to listen to online opinion we would have completely the wrong ideas about how that unit is balanced.
There is a melee Tau build that centers around the 8 that seems to be decent, though that's anecdotal evidwnce provided via hearsay since I never played against it.
7000 
