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Take it to the BA Tactics thread, please.

Fair. Point is, not all marines are a problem. And ITC absolutely helps with some very annoying mechanics GW refuses to address. Like endless dum dums for which there is no penalty for losing.

Martel732 wrote:
So you think that CA 2019 is magically going to fix this issue?

Honestly, I don't think the missions were the problem for you to begin with, I think the problem is your skill as a player. I think the new rules you guys got more than fixed that. You've been brought in line with the strongest armies in the game, you as a player are just incapable of leveraging your strengths, and you being unable to defeat Guard with these new rules under the CA19 missions which are more competitive in nature, just serves to highlight this.

Martel732 wrote:
"you are not a shooty army" You sure about that?

Yes, I'm sure about that as my statemtent was literally made in direct comparison to other Space Marine chapters. Isn't your entire complaint that your army is the 'melee' Chapter of the new Space Marines?

Let's just drop this. My reasons for favoring ITC aren't changing any minds. GW needs to write better missions, still. There should be some reward for killing 100 models. In GW missions, there isn't.

"Isn't your entire complaint that your army is the 'melee' Chapter of the new Space Marines?"

My point was that BA might be better off just shooting and not trying to use melee, which makes gakky vanilla marines.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

its difficult to understand because you havent explained why not.

Why not?

JFC, should be pretty self evident!. They're not gonna balance it based my houserules either. ITC creates their own missions and houserules, GW doesn't control what ITC does, GW cannot be held responsible for rules that they did not write themselves. It would be utterly absurd situation if GW had to change the game based on issues caused by someone's houserules. And at any model that third party could issue new houserules and GW had to change the game again. Utter lunacy! GW writes the rules, missions and points. And they're not perfect and that's on GW. But if you alter the game by houserules, then you have no grounds for complaining if there are issues. Like if you buy a new car and it breaks down, you have a valid complaint against the manufacturer. But if the car breaks down after you have first taken it apart and jury rigged and modified with all sorts of parts from dubious sources, then it hardly is the manufacturer's fault if there are problems.

GW sends reps to almost every major ITC event, asking players about their armies and what works well and what doesn't, speaking to top players, and hired half of their ITC staff for their playtest team.

But you just keep telling yourself whatever you need to. It's "pretty self evident" after all.

It is though, asking itc players for balance is like asking a german for directions in china.

Pointless endeavour .

I guess that'd depend upon the German you asked....

Martel732 wrote:
There should be some reward for killing 100 models.

Maybe you should deal with the withering firepower first. Not the chaff. It exists to get killed so the rest of the army can do its job. Which means you’re doing exactly what your opponent wants, and even more when you deploy your expensive assaulters into the enemy’s guns. That’s not an ITC problem. Yes you score secondaries. But it’s always a poor approach when you bring the game plan the enemy prefers.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
There should be some reward for killing 100 models.

Maybe you should deal with the withering firepower first. Not the chaff. It exists to get killed so the rest of the army can do its job. Which means you’re doing exactly what your opponent wants, and even more when you deploy your expensive assaulters into the enemy’s guns. That’s not an ITC problem. Yes you score secondaries. But it’s always a poor approach when you bring the game plan the enemy prefers.

My point is that other marines are MUCH better at that task. Melee literally can't stop the guns while the chaff is there. That's a fundamental reason shooting is so much better in 8th.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
CP generation should be looked at too. Taking min troops to overcharge killy units is part of the problem.

I feel like it isn't the issue it used to be. Marines lists are very low CP these days. Its the strats that got stronger and need to be tied to the strength of the model they'e used on (e.g. Duty Eternal should cost 2 on a Levi).

It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.

Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.

So you don't believe that the utility of a defensive strategem scales up based on the inherent durability of the unit. Do you actually believe that duty eternal is as effective when used on a basic box dread ad when used on something already as incredibly tough as a leviathan? Does the same apply to offensive strategems? If endless cacophony were made available to all csm units instead of just infantry would you believe it equally effective if I played it on my fellblade instead of a squad of basic csm? Strategems are more effective when used on bigger units and their price should scale up accordingly.

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
CP generation should be looked at too. Taking min troops to overcharge killy units is part of the problem.

I feel like it isn't the issue it used to be. Marines lists are very low CP these days. Its the strats that got stronger and need to be tied to the strength of the model they'e used on (e.g. Duty Eternal should cost 2 on a Levi).

It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.

Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.

So you don't believe that the utility of a defensive strategem scales up based on the inherent durability of the unit. Do you actually believe that duty eternal is as effective when used on a basic box dread ad when used on something already as incredibly tough as a leviathan? Does the same apply to offensive strategems? If endless cacophony were made available to all csm units instead of just infantry would you believe it equally effective if I played it on my fellblade instead of a squad of basic csm? Strategems are more effective when used on bigger units and their price should scale up accordingly.

Another reason I hate leviathan dreads.

So, the issue is hordes do what hordes do and that sucks ? If they were easily beaten, that would suck and if elite forces easily fold up that sucks. The issue isn't really Guard it's GW basic game play which makes horde so good but really they went down a whole lot. At this point if someone can't handle Guard, they should look inward for answers and not outward for blame.

No, I think the issue is that I should get something for slogging through 100 models that amounts to more than removing 20% of the opponents' list value-wise.

Martel732 wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
There should be some reward for killing 100 models.

Maybe you should deal with the withering firepower first. Not the chaff. It exists to get killed so the rest of the army can do its job. Which means you’re doing exactly what your opponent wants, and even more when you deploy your expensive assaulters into the enemy’s guns. That’s not an ITC problem. Yes you score secondaries. But it’s always a poor approach when you bring the game plan the enemy prefers.

My point is that other marines are MUCH better at that task. Melee literally can't stop the guns while the chaff is there. That's a fundamental reason shooting is so much better in 8th.

Yes other marines are better at shooting tham ba. Ba still have pretty good shooting. That means you use your shooting to remove the chaff and then charge your cc monsters into the meat of your opponent's army. Csm players do this all the time.

And no you shouldn't get anything for killing 100 guardsman. The guard has trillions of troops. It doesn't care if you kill 100. That's the point of the guard and armies like it.

I guess we can agree to disagree. I'll continue to favor ITC. Removing 100 models is soul crushing.

" That means you use your shooting to remove the chaff and then charge your cc monsters into the meat of your opponent's army. Csm players do this all the time."

Yeah, I know. It just doesn't work out that well with BA, imo. It hasn't all edition, and these changes don't really seem to help that much.

My question in regards to the 100 Guardsmen thing is "If you get something for eating through 100 Guardsmen, shouldn't you also get an equal amount of something for eating through an equivalently priced single model unit?" Lets say you get 1 kill point per Guardsmen unit, and they're all 10 man units, that's 10 kill points. Does that mean I should get 10 kill points for taking out a 400 pt Titan? Hell, the Titan is probably harder to take out than the Guardsmen are anyway, so it should probably award MORE points.

 flandarz wrote:
My question in regards to the 100 Guardsmen thing is "If you get something for eating through 100 Guardsmen, shouldn't you also get an equal amount of something for eating through an equivalently priced single model unit?" Lets say you get 1 kill point per Guardsmen unit, and they're all 10 man units, that's 10 kill points. Does that mean I should get 10 kill points for taking out a 400 pt Titan? Hell, the Titan is probably harder to take out than the Guardsmen are anyway, so it should probably award MORE points.

True. And if killing 100 highly expendable guardsmen is worth something shouldn't killing a squad of ultra rare space marines? Or even rarer Custodes?

Martel732 wrote:
No, I think the issue is [blah blah blah]

Nah, quite sure both sides of this argument about SM being OP or not are in agreement that the issue lays with you as a player, so maybe you should take this elsewhere.

BA have Scouts and Intercessors that are some of the best units for dealing with GEQ in the game, and you have Eliminators to take out their orders and casters.

Do you mind sharing the list you're running? I'm pretty sure I can guess what you're mistake is as I see a lot of BA players do it, but show me first hand.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 flandarz wrote:
My question in regards to the 100 Guardsmen thing is "If you get something for eating through 100 Guardsmen, shouldn't you also get an equal amount of something for eating through an equivalently priced single model unit?" Lets say you get 1 kill point per Guardsmen unit, and they're all 10 man units, that's 10 kill points. Does that mean I should get 10 kill points for taking out a 400 pt Titan? Hell, the Titan is probably harder to take out than the Guardsmen are anyway, so it should probably award MORE points.

True. And if killing 100 highly expendable guardsmen is worth something shouldn't killing a squad of ultra rare space marines? Or even rarer Custodes?

The crux of this is that Martel basically wants the cards stacked in favor of his Blood Angels and doesn't want to have to improve his play to get those W's. I think we all recognise it at this point, and it's completely derailed this thread.

So now ITC is stacking things in BA favor? The results sure don't bear that out.

Martel732 wrote:
So now ITC is stacking things in BA favor? The results sure don't bear that out.

With the 1 month of grace that most places enforce, the new BA literally became tournament legal in most places a matter of days ago. On top of that, it's holiday season and there has been screw all in the way of tournaments.

The results don't "bear out" anything, because there is none, yet. My point was that you aren't arguing from a sake of what is better for the game, you're arguing from a perspective of what is best for BA, and even then, the issues you recount are far from impossible to deal with in the hands of a capable player.

I usually think Martel is a bit hyperbolic but not in this case. If he didnt mention marines vs guardsmen people wouldnt be so biased against his idea.

Sure BA have tools to handle lots of guardsmen, they are marines after all. But, if using most of those good tools, and they lack the best of them the TFC, then they are just worse marines in all the other matchups and will lose hard against other lists.

Eliminators and whirlwinds for example are good units but what really makes them good is when you have chapter tactics , doctrines, super doctrines and support characters buffing them. BA have devastator doctrine turn 1 and thats it. Those good supporting units are about half as good in BA as in the better marine chapters and even though they are good enough against guardsmen and their supporting characters they arent against other marines. If I bring 1000pts of firepower against other marines 1750pts of range fire its more like 500pts against 1750 and I just lost that shooting battle by a landslide.

If I build a good BA list against guardsmen I mostly just stand there and shoot with some smash captains in my list and some extra scouts etc and it will work well in that matchup but I cant really build it like that without hamstringing myself compared to just playing it as RG successor.

I dont fear the tank heavy guard lists unless I face them on a bad table which is open and they go first. What I fear is a good guard player with lots of guardsmen that have been spaced correctly since I cant really do anything unless he rolls total crap on his tanks I cant get to.

BA got buffed and are slightly better in all scenarios compared to before but they dont have new tools to overcome their greatest weakness. Cost effectively handle cheap chaff so their expensive CC units can kill the opponents valuable stuff before the tank commanders and the like in the back kill everything. Its just a bad matchup for BA. Only good thing with marines being good is that they melt those units so less of them in the meta but on the other hand I dont see how BA win against IH/IF either if they use their troops to screen well. They have even better shooting than guard and require even less los and their screens are sturdy enough that 5 scouts or 10 intercessors cant kill them easily since they are also marines.

Some armies will have struggles with a TAC list against certain list types like all hordes or all T8 etc. GW missions/cards dont do much to punish that as long as they get the objectives. ITC at least rewards you for not going all in on one aspect since that opens up a lot of secondaries for your opponent to choose from and either kill more or hold more depending on what you go all in on. I think the idea behind ITC is great in that regards but there is one thing that breaks it. In my opinion that thing is strong artillery with no downside. Units like tfcs, whirlwinds and eliminators in good chapters make engineers useless and makes it impossible to avoid giving up kills/secondaries.

Guard artillery and some no los shooting is ok but new marines can just bring it in spades and its so effective and unfun to play against. Its good enough on its own that mission set doesnt matter too much but its very obvious whats wrong with it in ITC. Without that artillery marines have to play the missions like everyone else and they will still be very strong in ITC just due to the power of their rules. But it isnt really ITC that is bad initself but parts of marines that are just extra powerful under their rules but that part should be nerfed anyway to make the game more fun to play since it isnt balanced outside of ITC either. Cant really blame ITC for GW releasing something broken that messes up their missions completely and break certain matchups.

Why are people discussing BA specifically in this thread? Go to a tactica discussion if you want ideas on how to beat hordes with BA. Let's also not disregard the fact that Bloody Baals has released relatively recently and has had no chance to impact the competitive meta.

I'm also confused why I've just read pages and pages of ITC vs GW mission set discussion too. The reason GW absolutely should and do balance around the ITC mission set is quite simple - it is by far the most popular way to play 40k competitively. Whether you think it's the best way to play is irrelevant.

It's like people forget that some of the largest events around the globe have their own, specific rule set too. Many massive events don't use pure ITC or pure GW rules, they use a mix and match approach.

And just so we're all on the same page here, regardless of what mission set you play, certain factions are still way over/under performing. Generally the data of which factions perform well and which perform poorly correlate across all mission sets with a few outliers - Tyranids the most common.

Finally - do bear in mind that almost all the detailed statistical analysis we have in this thread relates to one month. The quietest competitive 40k month with the least games played where the stakes are at their lowest. I'd suggest the data sample in and of itself isn't the most useful for any balance discussion.

For as long as I've played the game, some lists just have bad match ups. On the whole Guard aren't tearing up the high level scenes on their own merits and the best lists have been other armies at this point, Marines being one of them. While I know not all Marines are created equal, still they are good enough to handle guard at this point. I've seen it happen. If the issue is BA aren't as good as the top Marine lists, I agree that has nothing to do with Guard though.

I highly doubt factions will ever be externally or internally balanced, but the point remains BA can handle Guard just fine, by everything I'm reading anyways. As well most divergent Marine factions don't have access to TFC, can they do nothing to guard as well ?

Martel732 wrote:
So now ITC is stacking things in BA favor? The results sure don't bear that out.

What I'm seeing is that you're overly fixated on killing models, which for most of the CA missions isn't a winning condition, or even a condition at all.

So maybe that's the issue? You've forgone the point of the CA missions in favour of blind killing.

For the people arguing that ITC staff are on the playtest team, I'd like to hear why they think the missions in GW books that the ITC team have a hand in balancing and sign off, aren't then good enough.

AngryAngel80 wrote:
For as long as I've played the game, some lists just have bad match ups. On the whole Guard aren't tearing up the high level scenes on their own merits and the best lists have been other armies at this point, Marines being one of them. While I know not all Marines are created equal, still they are good enough to handle guard at this point. I've seen it happen. If the issue is BA aren't as good as the top Marine lists, I agree that has nothing to do with Guard though.

I highly doubt factions will ever be externally or internally balanced, but the point remains BA can handle Guard just fine, by everything I'm reading anyways. As well most divergent Marine factions don't have access to TFC, can they do nothing to guard as well ?

It is just that well placed infantry hordes and not guard in itself that counter typical BA pretty well and really isnt a problem if some matchups are like that. But its in the way it stops melee from getting to the juicy targets that its a problem for BA, not that it counters marines, and most other marines arent so much melee oriented that its as much of a problem for them.

8th edition are quite loopsided in how chapter bonuses are given out so you dont want a bit of everything in your list but mostly stuff that benefit from your chapter tactics and stratagems which in BAs case is almost purely melee. If I get a 100% bonus to melee and 0% for ranged and IH/IF gets the reverse then as soon as my shooting starts to be more of my list than melee its no point staying BA as the other chapters do that much better. If factions at competitive level are balanced around taking max advantage of their inherent bonuses BA will suffer against a guard horde no matter what since it isnt wortg it to counter that matchup.

But as been said above this shouldnt be a discussion about BA vs horde guard. But it does show a pro or con depending on view that ITC have over GW missions. Horde is punished a bit in ITC but instead their artillery is favored so it isnt that guard as a whole but just some builds are effected in negative direction.

Klickor wrote:

AngryAngel80 wrote:
For as long as I've played the game, some lists just have bad match ups. On the whole Guard aren't tearing up the high level scenes on their own merits and the best lists have been other armies at this point, Marines being one of them. While I know not all Marines are created equal, still they are good enough to handle guard at this point. I've seen it happen. If the issue is BA aren't as good as the top Marine lists, I agree that has nothing to do with Guard though.

I highly doubt factions will ever be externally or internally balanced, but the point remains BA can handle Guard just fine, by everything I'm reading anyways. As well most divergent Marine factions don't have access to TFC, can they do nothing to guard as well ?

It is just that well placed infantry hordes and not guard in itself that counter typical BA pretty well and really isnt a problem if some matchups are like that. But its in the way it stops melee from getting to the juicy targets and most other marines arent so much melee oriented that its as much of a problem for them.

8th edition are quite loopsided in how chapter bonuses are given out so you dont want a bit of everything in your list but mostly stuff that benefit from your chapter tactics and stratagems which in BAs case is almost purely melee. If I get a 100% bonus to melee and 0% for ranged and IH/IF gets the reverse then as soon as my shooting starts to be more of my list than melee its no point staying BA as the other chapters do that much better. If factions at competitive level are balanced around taking max advantage of their inherent bonuses BA will suffer against a guard horde no matter what since it isnt wortg it to counter that matchup.

But as been said above this shouldnt be a discussion about BA vs horde guard. But it does show a pro or con depending on view that ITC have over GW missions. Horde is punished a bit in ITC but instead their artillery is favored so it isnt that guard as a whole but just some builds are effected in negative direction.

I get what you're saying but thats been a tale as old as time with this game as the hammer swings from melee to shooting back and forth. Like I play space wolves and I'm a little concerned they will end up very melee focused with their supplement treatment as well so I fear I'll feel a similar pain in that regard. I just commented it wasn't exactly an impossible task as it was being made out to be so often. A rough match up to be sure, just not the hill too far.

GW seems to like to make rules based on " this sounds cool " while at the same time having no real idea how to play the very game they write rules for or the meta in which these new rules will roll out into. Leaving some groups over the top good, and some while still solid much further down the scale because of reliance on CC when the gun is king.

Wow this turned into a math hammer fest.

So much focus is on performance and win ratio I think we have lost sight of the point of the game, what GW created was never supposed to be this.

When I build any list I try to make it as well rounded as possible to fight just about any type of 40K enemy with equal parts shooty and melee. not with a focus on ITC sub objectives, stratagem popping or drawing objective cards that can still give you a win when you have been completely tabled.

I'm more interested in a fun match where the win probability isn't assured. some of the best games I have had have been losses for me but they were nail biters to the end. my opponents just used better tactics on the table with the dice acting as the element of chance.

But if the game is unbalanced its harder to have fun and math helps us prove it. Really hard to sit back and have fun when my opponents vehicles are twice as good as mine when we play the same army. I think all of us, at least most of us, want to be able to take a bit of everything in a TAC list and have a fun and interesting game and sometimes face a guard steel legion or a. DA wing list etc and still have a good shot at winning. GW is marketing their game like that and acts like their product plays like that but in truth it isnt. There are obvious imbalances that should have never been made and ITC rules is one way to combat some of that. Totally free list building, except a few hqs, is quite insane and does not promote TAC lists at all. At least ITC secondaries promotes lower character count, less vehicles, sub 100 models etc. Takes a bit more at the start to learn but isnt too bad. Its kind of soft restrictions for you since GW cant bother with hard anymore. They act like everyone plays with the old force org chart and probably balance their books that way despite the way detachments work in 8th.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Why are people discussing BA specifically in this thread? Go to a tactica discussion if you want ideas on how to beat hordes with BA. Let's also not disregard the fact that Bloody Baals has released relatively recently and has had no chance to impact the competitive meta.

I'm also confused why I've just read pages and pages of ITC vs GW mission set discussion too. The reason GW absolutely should and do balance around the ITC mission set is quite simple - it is by far the most popular way to play 40k competitively. Whether you think it's the best way to play is irrelevant.

It's like people forget that some of the largest events around the globe have their own, specific rule set too. Many massive events don't use pure ITC or pure GW rules, they use a mix and match approach.

And just so we're all on the same page here, regardless of what mission set you play, certain factions are still way over/under performing. Generally the data of which factions perform well and which perform poorly correlate across all mission sets with a few outliers - Tyranids the most common.

Finally - do bear in mind that almost all the detailed statistical analysis we have in this thread relates to one month. The quietest competitive 40k month with the least games played where the stakes are at their lowest. I'd suggest the data sample in and of itself isn't the most useful for any balance discussion.

ITC doesn't exist in my country and in pretty much all Europe.

Last time I heard, the US were not the center of the world.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Itc and variants on itc missions are popular in Sweden at least so some parts of Europe use them quite a lot. Wouldnt surprise me if many non english speaking countries in europe have different metas and rule sets then what we mostly see on english speaking sites since they probably have forums and social media groups in their own languages that outsiders really arent seeing much off. Could be more or maybe even less ITC being played outside of the US than we think we know.

AngryAngel80 784055 10682862 wrote:
I highly doubt factions will ever be externally or internally balanced, but the point remains BA can handle Guard just fine, by everything I'm reading anyways. As well most divergent Marine factions don't have access to TFC, can they do nothing to guard as well ?

Like Grey Knight? with the win ratio they have I think they prove that they don't deal with any army. And they are like BA in some way, lots of small weapon shoting and melee, just without the eliminators, tank support, thunder canons , leviathans etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 aphyon wrote:
Wow this turned into a math hammer fest.

So much focus is on performance and win ratio I think we have lost sight of the point of the game, what GW created was never supposed to be this.

When I build any list I try to make it as well rounded as possible to fight just about any type of 40K enemy with equal parts shooty and melee. not with a focus on ITC sub objectives, stratagem popping or drawing objective cards that can still give you a win when you have been completely tabled.

I'm more interested in a fun match where the win probability isn't assured. some of the best games I have had have been losses for me but they were nail biters to the end. my opponents just used better tactics on the table with the dice acting as the element of chance.

okey, on one side of the table sits a player with an army of marines, casual picked stuff he likes, on the other side sits a Grey Knight player who also picked the models he liked. How much fun do you think the GK player is going to have when they play game 10? Imbalanced in rules always exists, but it is horrible when the differences aren't that big. Now I know that for eldar players not being the best army and worse in win ratio around 1-2% to marines is the end of the world, and something that should never ever happen, but they kind of a forget that when their army sits on those weak 50+ % win ratio, a DA player has something in low 30%. Which means they are practicaly playing a different kind of game.

Martel732 wrote:
So now ITC is stacking things in BA favor?

That was literally your stated reason for favouring ITC! It lets you win easier against the Guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

I'm also confused why I've just read pages and pages of ITC vs GW mission set discussion too. The reason GW absolutely should and do balance around the ITC mission set is quite simple - it is by far the most popular way to play 40k competitively. Whether you think it's the best way to play is irrelevant.

That is not true, ITC is not particularly popular outside USA and 40K is more popular in Europe than in the States.

And in any case, if the game is balanced for ITC, then GW need to put those missions in CA. If I pay GW to get new missions and new points, then I certainly expect that those points are balanced for those missions, not for some third party house rules I may have not even heard of!