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Driving` like a rain
The gretchins are dancing
On the buggies again
Speedfreeks are gathering
Breaking the day
No point of running
Couse they are coming your way
Smash the toasters
Crack centurion if they dare look your way
The buggies are coming
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaa
Time to die

This is going to be a thing for a while isnt it.

 Blackie wrote:
Amazing! The squigbuggy, one of the crappiest unit in the entire 40k universe, is suddenly good now. Or even one of the most powerful units in the game for someone

I'd rather field R&H cultists then a squig buggy.
a unit that is proven to be overpriced by 20% even still before the 100pts squigbuggy.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I have long stated that Ultramarines are where space marines should be in terms of power. Ultras have comparable WR to strong competitive armies like Eldar and tau. There should be aproximately 0 outrage coming for Ultras compared to tau and eldar.

Wow, that's super, and completely useless, since that win rate would be significantly higher if they weren't running into other absurdly overpowered Marine lists that are lowering that win percentage.

You don't know that's what would happen if the stronger Marines lists (in particular Iron Hands) were removed though. It is one possibility, but another is that other factions also would become more competetive because they in turn would also not be held back by the now-gone lists.

Change the lynchpin of the metagame and you change the whole metagame; other parts won't remain static.

This argument would hold a lot more weight if all marine sub factions weren’t over performing in the current meta. Nerf IH severely and IF, RG, WS or UM just take their place. As well you know - the best counter to an Iron Hands list currently is a WS or RG list.

No, that's the point: that is just one possibility of many. For all we know, Iron Hands prevent counters to the other Marine lists from surfacing.

I'll try to illustrate what I mean with an example:

Let's assume that Unit A is really strong as Iron Hands. This unit shows up so often that the units that get countered by Unit A get pushed out of the meta. One of these units is Unit B. Another of these units, from another army, is Unit C.

Further, assume that Unit A is much less oppressive if it is not ran as Iron Hands.

When we nerf Iron Hands, the lynchpin of the entire meta, the presence of Unit A will drop, and those that are still present will not be as oppressive as before. This allows Unit B and Unit C to potentially see play, as they would no longer be hard-countered by the single most popular army in the game. These units could be counters to the rest of the metagame, but this would not become apparent until the Iron Hands Unit A keeping them down was nerfed.

In other words, trying to make predictions about what the metagame would look like if the defining metagame threat no longer existed in its current form is really, really tricky.

What I think is going to happen though is that Iron Hands and Imperial Fists are going to get slapped down, although I cannot say how soon. GW isn't exactly known for consistent long-term balancing.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
What I think is going to happen though is that Iron Hands and Imperial Fists are going to get slapped down, although I cannot say how soon. GW isn't exactly known for consistent long-term balancing.

I wouldn't hold your breath, one of the most incredible things i read recently was the writers of CA, the codex supplements, and PA aren't consulting each other on their work, and the supplement writers were worried SMs wouldn't be any good.
I'm convinced GW has the same problem Blizzard had a few years ago - they had no competitive gamers testing their content, all the testing was done in house and by friends and family, so crap was wildly out of balance.
If GW does have competitive players test their stuff they need to cull that nerd stock and start fresh with people who have actually played an ETC.

MiguelFelstone wrote:

I wouldn't hold your breath, one of the most incredible things i read recently was the writers of CA, the codex supplements, and PA aren't consulting each other on their work, and the supplement writers were worried SMs wouldn't be any good.

You realize the root source of that little nugget was the 100% bs 4chan post that had things like 2-wound chaos marines, 4 point grots and codex marine point drops right (all of which were incorrect)?

Sterling191 wrote:
You realize the root source of that little nugget was the 100% bs 4chan post that had things like 2-wound chaos marines, 4 point grots and codex marine point drops right (all of which were incorrect)?

I believe you, i read it on SpikeyBits.
I still stand by my second statement (evident by the current state of the meta).

MiguelFelstone wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
What I think is going to happen though is that Iron Hands and Imperial Fists are going to get slapped down, although I cannot say how soon. GW isn't exactly known for consistent long-term balancing.

I wouldn't hold your breath, one of the most incredible things i read recently was the writers of CA, the codex supplements, and PA aren't consulting each other on their work, and the supplement writers were worried SMs wouldn't be any good.
I'm convinced GW has the same problem Blizzard had a few years ago - they had no competitive gamers testing their content, all the testing was done in house and by friends and family, so crap was wildly out of balance.
If GW does have competitive players test their stuff they need to cull that nerd stock and start fresh with people who have actually played an ETC.

They apparently have tournament organizers and their groups playtesting (not sure about the Europeans but in the USA a lot of the big ITC events are also testers, along with the Frontline guys). The issue seems to be that GW's playtesting, from the bits and pieces we've been told, is basically "Take this 1500 point army we designed and see if everything feels right". They don't, apparently, let playtesters try to build armies to break the game, just see if the rules as written interact well together. Thing is I think their testing is all under NDA so we have no way of knowing what exactly it entails unless someone wants to risk breaking it. Which already seems kind of stupid because you would want to know the testing process to see if it's any good.

So the issue doesn't seem to be the lack of playtesting, but the fact their playtesting isn't trying to find the broken combos to catch them before going to print. At least that's what the rumors are about GW's testing. And even then there's no way of knowing if they listen to the feedback they get, although presumably the point changes and FAQs are made in response to what they see in the big tournaments.

And there's also the fact that yes, apparently the codex writers don't communicate with each other about things so each book is sort of done in isolation, which would explain why so many combos that pop up when you soup in or use multiple books get overlooked.

Wayniac wrote:
They don't, apparently, let playtesters try to build armies to break the game, just see if the rules as written interact well together. Thing is I think their testing is all under NDA so we have no way of knowing what exactly it entails unless someone wants to risk breaking it.

So the issue doesn't seem to be the lack of playtesting, but the fact their playtesting isn't trying to find the broken combos to catch them before going to print. At least that's what the rumors are about GW's testing. And even then there's no way of knowing if they listen to the feedback they get, although presumably the point changes and FAQs are made in response to what they see in the big tournaments.

That's exactly the point i was trying to make with the Blizzard example. If GW doesn't have min/max players testing their content - they don't have competitive players testing their content, it's as simple as that.

MiguelFelstone wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
They don't, apparently, let playtesters try to build armies to break the game, just see if the rules as written interact well together. Thing is I think their testing is all under NDA so we have no way of knowing what exactly it entails unless someone wants to risk breaking it.

So the issue doesn't seem to be the lack of playtesting, but the fact their playtesting isn't trying to find the broken combos to catch them before going to print. At least that's what the rumors are about GW's testing. And even then there's no way of knowing if they listen to the feedback they get, although presumably the point changes and FAQs are made in response to what they see in the big tournaments.

That's exactly the point i was trying to make with the Blizzard example. If GW doesn't have min/max players testing their content - they don't have competitive players testing their content, it's as simple as that.

No, I mean they DO have min/max players testing it. They just don't LET them fully test it and, from what rumors say, have very specific things that they are allowed to test/give feedback on. It's GW who lays out the guideline for testing, which is the aforementioned "use this thrown together army and play a game". Not the players.

Wayniac wrote:
No, I mean they DO have min/max players testing it. They just don't LET them fully test it.

What's the difference? Sounds like a total cop to me.
That's like saying they have F1 drivers and a race ready test track but everyones required to putt around in an Oldsmobile Firenza.

MiguelFelstone wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
No, I mean they DO have min/max players testing it. They just don't LET them fully test it.

What's the difference? Sounds like a total cop to me.
That's like saying they have F1 drivers and a race ready test track but everyones required to putt around in an Oldsmobile Firenza.

It's not mucch of a difference, true, but they are using min/max players and handicapping them, basically.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
In other words, trying to make predictions about what the metagame would look like if the defining metagame threat no longer existed in its current form is really, really tricky.

It's not that tricky. Yes, some non-Marine army could end up rising like a phoenix gloriously beating back the nu-Marine scourge.

It's not bloody fething likely though. Certainly not based on the data. In Pollyanna-Marines-are-fine land who knows what can happen, it's a world full of possibilities for the rest of those adorable NPC factions.

What does it matter if competitive players are allowed to fully test new rules or not? Anybody who's ever played the game could see that things like the ih supplement are totally broken.

Did you see the gakstorm this forum erupted in when that was leaked? Nobody needed to playtest that to know it was broken.

Gw obviously doesn't listen to whatever playtesters it has.

Considering their "Competitive" events are largely being won by extremely suspect players, using extremely suspect tactics, and their TO situation is an utter fricking joke, it's no shock that their rules team "made of top ETC players" is also a complete joke.

3 of the last 5 majors have been dogged by allegations of rampant cheating, behinds the scenes and on the tables, and they are doing nothing about that.

GW is a business in the interest of making money. Whether you like the game is completely arbitrary. The points changes are done to drive sales. Iron Hands was intentional.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Considering their "Competitive" events are largely being won by extremely suspect players, using extremely suspect tactics, and their TO situation is an utter fricking joke, it's no shock that their rules team "made of top ETC players" is also a complete joke.

3 of the last 5 majors have been dogged by allegations of rampant cheating, behinds the scenes and on the tables, and they are doing nothing about that.

GW is a business in the interest of making money. Whether you like the game is completely arbitrary. The points changes are done to drive sales. Iron Hands was intentional.

This is sickening and expected.

Wayniac wrote:
It's not mucch of a difference, true.

*stares at Wayniac
/nod

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Considering their "Competitive" events are largely being won by extremely suspect players, using extremely suspect tactics, and their TO situation is an utter fricking joke, it's no shock that their rules team "made of top ETC players" is also a complete joke.

3 of the last 5 majors have been dogged by allegations of rampant cheating, behinds the scenes and on the tables, and they are doing nothing about that.

GW is a business in the interest of making money. Whether you like the game is completely arbitrary. The points changes are done to drive sales. Iron Hands was intentional.

Citation needed.

Sterling191 wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Considering their "Competitive" events are largely being won by extremely suspect players, using extremely suspect tactics, and their TO situation is an utter fricking joke, it's no shock that their rules team "made of top ETC players" is also a complete joke.

3 of the last 5 majors have been dogged by allegations of rampant cheating, behinds the scenes and on the tables, and they are doing nothing about that.

GW is a business in the interest of making money. Whether you like the game is completely arbitrary. The points changes are done to drive sales. Iron Hands was intentional.

Citation needed.

We had direct proof with the Wraithknight. You really think they stopped the habit?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

We had direct proof with the Wraithknight. You really think they stopped the habit?

A single unsubstantiated reddit post is not direct proof, no matter what you want to believe. Furthermore, last I checked that nugget happened before the above allegations of rampant cheating, TO complicity and systemic match rigging.

But hey, you do you.

You want citations of allegations?

Will Betts hosting his own tournaments locally to farm ITC points.

Neil Kerr reporting about relationships between TOs and players.

Vanguard Tactics talking about how the person who ended up wining his tournament got "perfect" scores after losing the match, and nobody checking it.

Alex Harrison has competed in recent events. ALEX.....HARRISON.

Rigged dice were found 3 times at LGT.

Loose rolling at LGT.

Fast dice at LGT.

Multiple complaints about Patrick Sanfillipo at a recent major, verified TO warnings, still allowed to compete and place.

Want more allegations do your own legwork. These majors are not viewed favorably among many in the hobby, for these reasons.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Sterling191 wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Considering their "Competitive" events are largely being won by extremely suspect players, using extremely suspect tactics, and their TO situation is an utter fricking joke, it's no shock that their rules team "made of top ETC players" is also a complete joke.

3 of the last 5 majors have been dogged by allegations of rampant cheating, behinds the scenes and on the tables, and they are doing nothing about that.

GW is a business in the interest of making money. Whether you like the game is completely arbitrary. The points changes are done to drive sales. Iron Hands was intentional.

Citation needed.

We had direct proof with the Wraithknight. You really think they stopped the habit?

The problem is more cherry picking than anything else. A lot of new units got crap rules straight out of the box and never really sold much.

I think the evidence for this cherry picking is that whenever someone claims GW are making things super intentionally they use the Wraithknight as "proof". At this point we can just call it Wraithpicking.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
You want citations of allegations?

Will Betts hosting his own tournaments locally to farm ITC points.

Neil Kerr reporting about relationships between TOs and players.

Vanguard Tactics talking about how the person who ended up wining his tournament got "perfect" scores after losing the match, and nobody checking it.

Alex Harrison has competed in recent events. ALEX.....HARRISON.

Rigged dice were found 3 times at LGT.

Loose rolling at LGT.

Fast dice at LGT.

Multiple complaints about Patrick Sanfillipo at a recent major, verified TO warnings, still allowed to compete and place.

Congratulations, you've managed to show that independent tournaments using varied TOs and rulesets have wildly varying degrees of integrity. But please continue to blame GW for things they arent involved in.

Citing ITC tournaments where shenanigans go down as evidence that GW is cooking the books to sell models is hilarity incarnate.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Want more allegations do your own legwork. These majors are not viewed favorably among many in the hobby, for these reasons.

Nah, im perfectly happy with you continuing to prove your own claims are (once again) hyperbolic and inaccurate. Seems to be a theme for this thread

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
In other words, trying to make predictions about what the metagame would look like if the defining metagame threat no longer existed in its current form is really, really tricky.

It's not that tricky. Yes, some non-Marine army could end up rising like a phoenix gloriously beating back the nu-Marine scourge.

It's not bloody fething likely though. Certainly not based on the data. In Pollyanna-Marines-are-fine land who knows what can happen, it's a world full of possibilities for the rest of those adorable NPC factions.

If you cannot understand the difference between "Nerf Iron Hands, let meta shake out, nerf further if needed" and "Marines are fine!" then perhaps you shouldn't be part of a discussion you clearly do not understand?

Sterling191 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

We had direct proof with the Wraithknight. You really think they stopped the habit?

A single unsubstantiated reddit post is not direct proof, no matter what you want to believe. Furthermore, last I checked that nugget happened before the above allegations of rampant cheating, TO complicity and systemic match rigging.

But hey, you do you.

The guy was literally a designer for them, and that was just one example that was asked about.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If you cannot understand the difference between "Nerf Iron Hands, let meta shake out, nerf further if needed" and "Marines are fine!" then perhaps you shouldn't be part of a discussion you clearly do not understand?

I understand it completely, I just think it's a joke. GW has had months to 'let the meta shake out' and have done nothing. Thinking that they're going to suddenly come around to seeing the problem and actually doing something about it is the very definition of Pollyanna.

This farcical belief that it's just IH that's the problem is simply a refusal to acknowledge the obvious in the interest of catering to the favored PoV faction.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
In other words, trying to make predictions about what the metagame would look like if the defining metagame threat no longer existed in its current form is really, really tricky.

It's not that tricky. Yes, some non-Marine army could end up rising like a phoenix gloriously beating back the nu-Marine scourge.

It's not bloody fething likely though. Certainly not based on the data. In Pollyanna-Marines-are-fine land who knows what can happen, it's a world full of possibilities for the rest of those adorable NPC factions.

If you cannot understand the difference between "Nerf Iron Hands, let meta shake out, nerf further if needed" and "Marines are fine!" then perhaps you shouldn't be part of a discussion you clearly do not understand?

Ugh, I'm getting real tired of bogus "let the meta shake out [after nerfing X Marine subfaction] bru" argument. It's fething obvious that Marines of all colours are a step above all other factions. It's also obvious that the only people who claim otherwise, are those with a Marine army.

There is no current counter, to any Marine build, apart from "MOAR MARINES". This is great for you Marine players. But as someone without a Marine army, it sucks, hard.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If you cannot understand the difference between "Nerf Iron Hands, let meta shake out, nerf further if needed" and "Marines are fine!" then perhaps you shouldn't be part of a discussion you clearly do not understand?

I understand it completely, I just think it's a joke. GW has had months to 'let the meta shake out' and have done nothing. Thinking that they're going to suddenly come around to seeing the problem and actually doing something about it is the very definition of Pollyanna.

This farcical belief that it's just IH that's the problem is simply a refusal to acknowledge the obvious in the interest of catering to the favored PoV faction.

Couldn't agree more, on both statements.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If you cannot understand the difference between "Nerf Iron Hands, let meta shake out, nerf further if needed" and "Marines are fine!" then perhaps you shouldn't be part of a discussion you clearly do not understand?

I understand it completely, I just think it's a joke.

And yet you go on to not understand what I'm arguing.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
GW has had months to 'let the meta shake out' and have done nothing.

You can't both do something and not do something, by definition.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
Thinking that they're going to suddenly come around to seeing the problem and actually doing something about it is the very definition of Pollyanna.

The very definition of the "Polyanna principle" is that people tend to remember pleasant items more accurately than unpleasant ones. Me arguing a normative statement is in absolutely zero ways indicative of what I believe is actually going to happen. I'm arguing what I wish could be the case in an ideal world. I have zero faith that GW is going to handle this in a sound manner, but that doesn't stop me from arguing that they ought to.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:


This farcical belief that it's just IH that's the problem is simply a refusal to acknowledge the obvious in the interest of catering to the favored PoV faction.

But that's not what I am saying, is it? See, you STILL haven't understood! What part of "nerf Iron Hands, let meta settle, nerf further if needed" precludes further nerfs? I'm explicitly saying that further nerfing could be acceptable.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:


Ugh, I'm getting real tired of bogus "let the meta shake out [after nerfing X Marine subfaction] bru" argument. It's fething obvious that Marines of all colours are a step above all other factions.

Personally, I'm really tired of people not understanding how metagames work...

You cannot take performance in the current metagame outside the context of the metagame in which it takes place. In a metagame where everyone is gearing up to kill a Knight in one turn, Land Raiders are trash. In a metagame where everyone is gearing up to counter hordes, Land Raiders at least have a chance. Assume that Knights are the dominant meta threat and that they kill Hordes with their 20618025610982659 shots per turn. GW releases an FAQ pointing out that it was a misprint, and that the real amount of shots should be "2". Knights drop from their top spot, Hordes move in, meta changes and people start spamming high-ROF low-D weapons to counter Hordes. The Land Raider is objectively in a much better place, despite recieving 0 buffs and despite only one part of the meta having been directly nerfed.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:


There is no current counter, to any Marine build, apart from "MOAR MARINES". This is great for you Marine players. But as someone without a Marine army, it sucks, hard.

How is Iron Hands being too strong a benefit for me playing Black Templars, again?

Sterling191 wrote:
Congratulations, you've managed to show that independent tournaments using varied TOs and rulesets have wildly varying degrees of integrity. But please continue to blame GW for things they arent involved in.

To be fair, ITC/ETC only exist because GW isn't involved. They exited the tournament scene years ago, and if it wasn't left up to individuals rather than some type of governing body i doubt we'd see as much drama. So yes, they share the blame.

Sterling191 wrote:
Nah, im perfectly happy with you continuing to prove your own claims are (once again) hyperbolic and inaccurate.

You have a surprising amount of confidence in the merits of your argument, and you're being kind of a dick about it.

I guess the marine haters are finally right. GW gave them way too much way too quickly.