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The number of IH players, with no other faction, was close to that for all the other marine factions combined.

Yes IH are a problem, no that doesn't mean the other marine lists aren't problems.

The best players in a large competitive event are taking the best army, so the handful of UM players likely were not the best players. Player skill is a factor in outcome. If you feel this is a personal statement on you, maybe it is- I don't care. A lot of people who play this game pick non competitve options for emotional reasons (fluff, personal interest, dislike of competitive options, etc.)

Until you have a tournament where most or all of the marine players take UM you can't make a comment on the statistics of how 8 of likely not the best players did in a 800+ person tournament. Without equal skill we can only make statements on the win rates of the highest population factions within a data set. The only valid outcome there is they are less popular than IH(likely because their rules while good, aren't as good)

MiguelFelstone wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

MiguelFelstone wrote:

Also, it's not a "Grand Tournament" if it's invite only, that's an Invitational by its very definition.

When at least a third of all attendees are SMs, and the top game is Iron Hands vs Raven Guard - only inviting two SM players isn't representative of jack

The invitations are based on performance in the GTs. So there weren't more marines because they didn't do well enough in GTs.

Your missing my point, it's not representative of the meta (or the "balance" of the game) if they broke the game a month before hand and just tossed out invites to the "best players of the year".

You are missing the point of the whole format. It is not "by invitation" it is by qualification by getting a good result in a previous major GT event.

It is a bit like the cut in a golf tournament - making the cut is not "getting invited" to play for the top places. It is earned by making the cut.

Are you next going to tell me that the LVO results are meaningless because the playoffs for the top 8 are by invitation only?

happy_inquisitor wrote:
You are missing the point of the whole format. It is not "by invitation" it is by qualification by getting a good result in a previous major GT event.

Again, it's not representative of the meta or game balance if they broke everything a few weeks beforehand and tossed out invites to the players who did well in previous versions of the game.

Using GWs "Grand Tournament" as a base line for game balance doesn't mean a damn thing, you might as well pull up stats for narrative games.

Erm that's not really true.

It's just a tournament comprising players who performed well at previous events. The lists aren't fixed.

That's all.

blaktoof wrote:
The number of IH players, with no other faction, was close to that for all the other marine factions combined.

Yes IH are a problem, no that doesn't mean the other marine lists aren't problems.

The best players in a large competitive event are taking the best army, so the handful of UM players likely were not the best players. Player skill is a factor in outcome. If you feel this is a personal statement on you, maybe it is- I don't care. A lot of people who play this game pick non competitve options for emotional reasons (fluff, personal interest, dislike of competitive options, etc.)

Until you have a tournament where most or all of the marine players take UM you can't make a comment on the statistics of how 8 of likely not the best players did in a 800+ person tournament. Without equal skill we can only make statements on the win rates of the highest population factions within a data set. The only valid outcome there is they are less popular than IH(likely because their rules while good, aren't as good)

This is nonsense. By the same token I could suggest that every army not playing Ironhands is not trying to win. People play with the armies they have and they do the best they can. This argument belongs in a bucket of chum. People who fly to the biggest tournament in the country and spend probably close to 1000 dollars overall are trying to win. Some people just aren't willing to play their blue marines as Ironhands. The only part you are right about is the biggest element of skill in a tournament like this is bringing the right list. No amount of generalship is going to let your Ultramarines outperform Ironhands. Ironhands are just better by a large margain straight up. When you look at the results. It is very clear. Jezz are you literally saying that because they are playing Ultramarines they aren't good players LOL.

 Ishagu wrote:
It's just a tournament comprising players who performed well at previous events.

Previous events, so previous versions of the game?

MiguelFelstone wrote:
Again, it's not representative of the meta or game balance if they broke everything a few weeks beforehand and tossed out invites to the players who did well in previous versions of the game.

 Xenomancers wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
The number of IH players, with no other faction, was close to that for all the other marine factions combined.

Yes IH are a problem, no that doesn't mean the other marine lists aren't problems.

The best players in a large competitive event are taking the best army, so the handful of UM players likely were not the best players. Player skill is a factor in outcome. If you feel this is a personal statement on you, maybe it is- I don't care. A lot of people who play this game pick non competitve options for emotional reasons (fluff, personal interest, dislike of competitive options, etc.)

Until you have a tournament where most or all of the marine players take UM you can't make a comment on the statistics of how 8 of likely not the best players did in a 800+ person tournament. Without equal skill we can only make statements on the win rates of the highest population factions within a data set. The only valid outcome there is they are less popular than IH(likely because their rules while good, aren't as good)

This is nonsense. By the same token I could suggest that every army not playing Ironhands is not trying to win. People play with the armies they have and they do the best they can. This argument belongs in a bucket of chum. People who fly to the biggest tournament in the country and spend probably close to 1000 dollars overall are trying to win. Some people just aren't willing to play their blue marines as Ironhands. The only part you are right about is the biggest element of skill in a tournament like this is bringing the right list. No amount of generalship is going to let your Ultramarines outperform Ironhands. Ironhands are just better by a large margain straight up. When you look at the results. It is very clear. Jezz are you literally saying that because they are playing Ultramarines they aren't good players LOL.

Yes ih are stronger than um. But that doesn't mean um and other sm chapters are "weak " or "balanced ". It just means that ih are currently the most broken thing in the game. A .50 cal is more powerful than a 7.62×51 but both are more effective than a slingshot. Do you honestly believe that sm, excluding ih, aren't still the strongest faction in the game? With all those free buffs, the largest selection of strategems, and the most internally balanced codex? The biggest selection of units?

C'mon Xeno. Yes ih are stronger than um. But um are still stronger than pretty much everyone else. This is a direct result of gw changing codex design philosophy mid-edition and taking their sweet time catching everyone else up.

MiguelFelstone wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
It's just a tournament comprising players who performed well at previous events.

Previous events, so previous versions of the game?

MiguelFelstone wrote:
Again, it's not representative of the meta or game balance if they broke everything a few weeks beforehand and tossed out invites to the players who did well in previous versions of the game.

No lol, previous events this season. They were using CA18 missions prior to CA19, and they are actually very similar.

The CA19 ironed out a few chinks.

Shooty marines are busted as feth. Melee marines are still... well, go look at the results. It's amazing they can give BT and BA so many new rules and still get crap results. Thanks 8th ed for trashing assault hard.

Martel732 wrote:
Shooty marines are busted as feth. Melee marines are still... well, go look at the results. It's amazing they can give BT and BA so many new rules and still get crap results. Thanks 8th ed for trashing assault hard.

Endemic fault of 8th edidition is melee, especially massed melee factions suffer from that. That has nothing to do with BT or BA which are still heaps above similiar factions.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Shooty marines are busted as feth. Melee marines are still... well, go look at the results. It's amazing they can give BT and BA so many new rules and still get crap results. Thanks 8th ed for trashing assault hard.

Endemic fault of 8th edidition is melee, especially massed melee factions suffer from that. Tja t has nothing to do with BT or BA which are still heaps above similiar factions.

Are they though? Marines are still glass cannons and having to wait till turn 3 lets the enemy exploit that hard. I don't see any data that indicates BA or BT are any better than Eldar, Tau, IKs, etc. I haven't beaten IHs yet after the BA book dropped. It hasn't even been close, really.

 Xenomancers wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
The number of IH players, with no other faction, was close to that for all the other marine factions combined.

Yes IH are a problem, no that doesn't mean the other marine lists aren't problems.

The best players in a large competitive event are taking the best army, so the handful of UM players likely were not the best players. Player skill is a factor in outcome. If you feel this is a personal statement on you, maybe it is- I don't care. A lot of people who play this game pick non competitve options for emotional reasons (fluff, personal interest, dislike of competitive options, etc.)

Until you have a tournament where most or all of the marine players take UM you can't make a comment on the statistics of how 8 of likely not the best players did in a 800+ person tournament. Without equal skill we can only make statements on the win rates of the highest population factions within a data set. The only valid outcome there is they are less popular than IH(likely because their rules while good, aren't as good)

This is nonsense. By the same token I could suggest that every army not playing Ironhands is not trying to win. People play with the armies they have and they do the best they can. This argument belongs in a bucket of chum. People who fly to the biggest tournament in the country and spend probably close to 1000 dollars overall are trying to win. Some people just aren't willing to play their blue marines as Ironhands. The only part you are right about is the biggest element of skill in a tournament like this is bringing the right list. No amount of generalship is going to let your Ultramarines outperform Ironhands. Ironhands are just better by a large margain straight up. When you look at the results. It is very clear. Jezz are you literally saying that because they are playing Ultramarines they aren't good players LOL.

Not everyone going to LVO is trying to win. A lot of people go to play for fun, even in the championships. And yes if people were not taking one of the top performing factions they weren't really trying to win the event, so yes most of the not good players are playing the less competitive factions. You know it's okay to go to a big event for fun, or to try and go 5 and 1 or 4 and 2 with an army you know is not competitive. Those people's stats are mixed in with everyone else's, but surprise!- not every faction is going to have the same ratio of those players to people who are great players ad taking a specific faction due to how competitive it was. This is why we say players drop non SM armies in favor of taking SM armies at LVO, players who had played that non SM faction for most or all of this year's ITC scoring.

So yes I stand by saying if the 18 UM players at LVO most of them were not great players, or not really going to the event thinking " this is what I need to take to win the event". The people that were good players and wanting to win were playing the most competitive factions.

Martel732 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Shooty marines are busted as feth. Melee marines are still... well, go look at the results. It's amazing they can give BT and BA so many new rules and still get crap results. Thanks 8th ed for trashing assault hard.

Endemic fault of 8th edidition is melee, especially massed melee factions suffer from that. Tja t has nothing to do with BT or BA which are still heaps above similiar factions.

Are they though? Marines are still glass cannons and having to wait till turn 3 lets the enemy exploit that hard.

Yes they are and the game beeing over t3 is more due to the general killyness of 40k in 8th aswell as sizecreep .

Further alot of defensive mechanics got nerfed into the ground, f.e. PM used to be nigh immortal torwards lasgun and bolter fire, etc.

Martel732 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Shooty marines are busted as feth. Melee marines are still... well, go look at the results. It's amazing they can give BT and BA so many new rules and still get crap results. Thanks 8th ed for trashing assault hard.

Endemic fault of 8th edidition is melee, especially massed melee factions suffer from that. Tja t has nothing to do with BT or BA which are still heaps above similiar factions.

Are they though? Marines are still glass cannons and having to wait till turn 3 lets the enemy exploit that hard. I don't see any data that indicates BA or BT are any better than Eldar, Tau, IKs, etc.

Why are you waiting for turn three? For the assault doctrine to kick in? Nobody else has that. I assault with my Night Lords in turn two all the time and it often works. Chance is a factor in 40k. Sometimes you need to take a chance. You seem adverse to that. You can't always wait for the sure thing.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Shooty marines are busted as feth. Melee marines are still... well, go look at the results. It's amazing they can give BT and BA so many new rules and still get crap results. Thanks 8th ed for trashing assault hard.

Endemic fault of 8th edidition is melee, especially massed melee factions suffer from that. Tja t has nothing to do with BT or BA which are still heaps above similiar factions.

Are they though? Marines are still glass cannons and having to wait till turn 3 lets the enemy exploit that hard.

Yes they are and the game beeing over t3 is more due to the general killyness of 40k in 8th aswell as sizecreep .

Further alot of defensive mechanics got nerfed into the ground, f.e. PM used to be nigh immortal torwards lasgun and bolter fire, etc.

They're not. The data shows this. In fact, your OWN POST explains why. Elite punching just doesn't work in 8th. I've accepted that. It actually hasn't in a long time, though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Shooty marines are busted as feth. Melee marines are still... well, go look at the results. It's amazing they can give BT and BA so many new rules and still get crap results. Thanks 8th ed for trashing assault hard.

Endemic fault of 8th edidition is melee, especially massed melee factions suffer from that. Tja t has nothing to do with BT or BA which are still heaps above similiar factions.

Are they though? Marines are still glass cannons and having to wait till turn 3 lets the enemy exploit that hard. I don't see any data that indicates BA or BT are any better than Eldar, Tau, IKs, etc.

Why are you waiting for turn three? For the assault doctrine to kick in? Nobody else has that. I assault with my Night Lords in turn two all the time and it often works. Chance is a factor in 40k. Sometimes you need to take a chance. You seem adverse to that. You can't always wait for the sure thing.

It takes time to close the gap and/or get past the endless chaff. I don't fear your NIght Lords assaulting me. I fear being blasted apart with no real answer.

 Ishagu wrote:

MiguelFelstone wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
It's just a tournament comprising players who performed well at previous events.

Previous events, so previous versions of the game?

MiguelFelstone wrote:
Again, it's not representative of the meta or game balance if they broke everything a few weeks beforehand and tossed out invites to the players who did well in previous versions of the game.

No lol, previous events this season. They were using CA18 missions prior to CA19, and they are actually very similar.

The CA19 ironed out a few chinks.

The meta, the GAME massively changed a month before this GW tournament, how could it possibly represent the current state of the game or "game balance" if it doesn't include the SM suppliants?

Ya game balance is just fine as long as you don't allow Iron Hands or Raven Guard, it's mind boggling that you guys can't grasp this.

What are you talking about? There have been multiple large events using CA missions following the release of the SM book.

 Ishagu wrote:
What are you talking about? There have been multiple large events using CA missions following the release of the SM book.

Lets see the stats.

Look up the Caledonian and the recent GW tournament, and the one prior.

 Ishagu wrote:
Look up the Caledonian and the recent GW tournament, and the one prior.

It's not a "Grand Tournament" if only 30 people attend. The LVO had hundreds of players. Are you seriously comparing the two?

A quote from someone who actually went:

Yeah it was a dumpster fire event in terms of game balance. 100% GW’s fault. I thought it was telling that for Sunday, they had to follow Sean around for the first two rounds because otherwise they would have just been showing marines versus marines the entire day, which they eventually had to do in the finals.

Which is a shame, because as usual the player skill on display was fantastic. Too bad 1/3 of the players at the event, including most of the top players and 8 out of the eventual top 10, felt compelled to switch to marines because it’s so head and shoulders more powerful than everything else. And that’s after the summer and december updates to the game already boosted a lot of armies.

You can put you head in the sand all you want, you know there's a problem with at least a few sub factions.

Shut up NPC player #3435.
Nothing wrong with current balance and marines. Now can I interest you in buying some intercessors ?

 Ishagu wrote:
Look up the Caledonian and the recent GW tournament, and the one prior.

Are you talking about https://tabletop.to/caledonian-uprising-2020? Not sure if this is the one but I don't think it proves what you think it proves since 4 out of the top 8 were some form of space marine. 9 out of the top 16 were space marines. I mean one of the top 16 was an imperial list with a solid space marine detachment as well so you could probably say 10 out of the top 16 had space marines in them. Props to the tzeentch guy who won though Id have like to seen some of his games to see how he uses it.

The most recent GW tournment I could find was the North American GT but that was back in May? I'm not trying to sound antagonistic or anything I would genuinely love to see the data you have on non-itc tournaments as I would love to see what the different metas look like. But feth its almost impossible to find a non-itc event when I google search this stuff.

The Salt Mine wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
Look up the Caledonian and the recent GW tournament, and the one prior.

Are you talking about https://tabletop.to/caledonian-uprising-2020? Not sure if this is the one but I don't think it proves what you think it proves since 4 out of the top 8 were some form of space marine. 9 out of the top 16 were space marines. I mean one of the top 16 was an imperial list with a solid space marine detachment as well so you could probably say 10 out of the top 16 had space marines in them. Props to the tzeentch guy who won though Id have like to seen some of his games to see how he uses it.

Anyone who plays the game knows that sm are currently the strongest faction. Of course some chapters are less op than others but that doesn't change the fact. Doesn't matter what format you play either. I'm sure everyone will get 2.0 codexes sooner or later because $$$ but until then the fact stands.

And looks like out of the top ten none of the sm armies had a leviathan. Yup better nerf those. One did have an astreus though. Guess that points drop helped huh gw? To bad you couldn't give one to the other sm super heavys. Oh yeah, they aren't primaris are they?

And of course the chaos list is soup and, surprise surprise, Alpha Legion! As usual chaos has to rely on soup and the one good legion trait we have. Thanks again gw!

MiguelFelstone wrote:
The LVO had hundreds of players.

And doesn't use the actual rules of 40k, but rather their own version. That disqualifies them.

@MiguelFelstone

Lol you can't omit what I said after that.

The point is the LVO cannot be used to judge the state of the game. No ITC event can.

No one has once said that using the CA missions creates perfect faction equalibrium, but they do show a better level of balance. Yes, Astartes still perform well.

People need to relax about Marines. 6 months of being in top, years of being rock bottom prior to that. The sky isn't falling. Go play chess if you want a perfectly balanced experience right now, and homebrew it so white doesn't always go first lol

In the meantime, 3rd party homebrew rules cannot be used to gauge game balance because they fundamentally alter the game beyond what was designed officially.

Martel732 wrote:
Shooty marines are busted as feth. Melee marines are still... well, go look at the results. It's amazing they can give BT and BA so many new rules and still get crap results.

BA can be a shooty army you know. You aren't required to go melee heavy with them. Encouraged? Sure. But not required. So maybe BA players need to adapt to the edition they're playing a bit.

Martel732 wrote:
Thanks 8th ed for trashing assault hard.

Having never been a big fan of the prominence of assault/melee, I agree. Thanks 8e, keep it up!

I think "years of being rock bottom" might be an exaggeration. Have Marines always been a top army? Of course not. But have they been the worst army for years? Only if you take GK's performance for the state of the entire Marine Faction. In which case, saying all Marines are OP because IH is stupid strong is equally valid.

We can be pedantic about it, but generally yes, they have been utter trash for years.

Fine, Grey Knights were worse lol

ccs wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Shooty marines are busted as feth. Melee marines are still... well, go look at the results. It's amazing they can give BT and BA so many new rules and still get crap results.

BA can be a shooty army you know. You aren't required to go melee heavy with them. Encouraged? Sure. But not required. So maybe BA players need to adapt to the edition they're playing a bit.

Martel732 wrote:
Thanks 8th ed for trashing assault hard.

Having never been a big fan of the prominence of assault/melee, I agree. Thanks 8e, keep it up!

Sounds more like he just needs some shooting, if he has as much trouble getting rid of screens as he says.

Marines have been fairly middle of the pack for years. Neither the best nor the worst. There have been plenty of Factions which have had worse records in the meta than Marines did.