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 Argive wrote:
And yet...... reroll everything aura, doctrines/super doctrines benefits every unit in your books.

So you dont see SM placing in half of top 10 lists outside of ITC as an indicator of anything?

They are a great army. They are also incredibly popular, probably more than half of all hobbyists have collected them. When you have a popular faction that plays well you're going to see a lot of it.

No need for people to be hysterical lol. At any given time one faction or another will be on top. Marines today, Eldar yesterday, Castellan day before that. There has never been a period of perfect balance in 40k. Ever.

This will not last indefinitely, so no need to complain over, and over, and over whilst it does.

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Spoiler:

the_scotsman wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:

What's the point of having different chapters with distinctive and unique rules? Are you joking?

Frankly, I don't think there is much point.

Completely agree. It used to be that differentiating your army was about a personal choice in playstyle. So if you wanted to play Iron Hands they were just a regular Space Marine chapter with more vehicles and a bit more of a tendency to field heavy weapons, probably with a few more Techmarines than a regular army. Salamanders would get more melta/flamer, White Scars more bikers and transports, etc. One of GW's biggest mistakes in the last 10-15 years or so, IMO, has been the explosion of rules for things that really don't need them. Not only is it a nightmare to balance it also stifles creativity. I rarely see people asking about someone's cool personal army now, like I did previously when someone showed up with a well-apinted Imperial Fists army (which was essentially SM with some self-imposed restrictions). Now the first thing anyone asks is "what rules you using", usually followed by some rolled eyes and muttering under their breath.

Lol anyone complaining about more variety should leave the hobby. Every faction is getting a supplement via psychic awakening creating extra variation - Scions have the exact same additional rule stacking as Astartes, as an example.

If you want to reduce faction variance go and play chess.

Or how about you knock off the constant gatekeeping and deciding for everyone else what "proper" 40k is? There are nuances between complete agreement and complete disagreement with an opinion but I don't think I've ever seen you display any understanding of that ever.

To reiterate, the game worked fine (well, it was OK I guess) before every chapter had a Codex worth of rules/stratagems/warlord traits/psychic powers added to it and also benefitted from more focus on creativity and individuality while simultaneously being easier to balance. I get the desire for more rules for more factions but I disagree that it's required or a good thing, especially with GW's track record with balance. We see that now with how utterly miserable it can be to play against SM nowadays. It's not even purely about power level, just the layers of rules upon rules which make it feel like you're playing a different game to them.

Yeah, except...scions kinda dont have the same rule stacking. You want one of those new scion doctrines? You give up the base scion doctrine. Like a big boy faction.

They for a few traits and relics, sure, but they also could not take the lion's share of the ones in the base guard book.

Which is how it should be. You should sacrifice something to gain something. That's how it works in hh, rites of war and the like have downsides to go with the upsides. Why is it gw understood that concept for that game, and for most factions in 40k, but can't quite grasp it when they make rules for loyalist marines?

Rites of war should've been how they introduced doctrines into 40k.

Doctrines represent the Astartes mastery of war.

Guard get orders for free. Tau get marker lights, etc

 Ishagu wrote:

 Argive wrote:
And yet...... reroll everything aura, doctrines/super doctrines benefits every unit in your books.

So you dont see SM placing in half of top 10 lists outside of ITC as an indicator of anything?

They are a great army. They are also incredibly popular, probably more than half of all hobbyists have collected them. When you have a popular faction that plays well you're going to see a lot of it.

No need for people to be hysterical lol. At any given time one faction or another will be on top. Marines today, Eldar yesterday, Castellan day before that. There has never been a period of perfect balance in 40k. Ever.

This will not last indefinitely, so no need to complain over, and over, and over whilst it does.

There's a difference between "being on top" in a fairly even playing field and being a heavyweight fighting in the welterweight division.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Racerguy180 wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Spoiler:

the_scotsman wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:

What's the point of having different chapters with distinctive and unique rules? Are you joking?

Frankly, I don't think there is much point.

Completely agree. It used to be that differentiating your army was about a personal choice in playstyle. So if you wanted to play Iron Hands they were just a regular Space Marine chapter with more vehicles and a bit more of a tendency to field heavy weapons, probably with a few more Techmarines than a regular army. Salamanders would get more melta/flamer, White Scars more bikers and transports, etc. One of GW's biggest mistakes in the last 10-15 years or so, IMO, has been the explosion of rules for things that really don't need them. Not only is it a nightmare to balance it also stifles creativity. I rarely see people asking about someone's cool personal army now, like I did previously when someone showed up with a well-apinted Imperial Fists army (which was essentially SM with some self-imposed restrictions). Now the first thing anyone asks is "what rules you using", usually followed by some rolled eyes and muttering under their breath.

Lol anyone complaining about more variety should leave the hobby. Every faction is getting a supplement via psychic awakening creating extra variation - Scions have the exact same additional rule stacking as Astartes, as an example.

If you want to reduce faction variance go and play chess.

Or how about you knock off the constant gatekeeping and deciding for everyone else what "proper" 40k is? There are nuances between complete agreement and complete disagreement with an opinion but I don't think I've ever seen you display any understanding of that ever.

To reiterate, the game worked fine (well, it was OK I guess) before every chapter had a Codex worth of rules/stratagems/warlord traits/psychic powers added to it and also benefitted from more focus on creativity and individuality while simultaneously being easier to balance. I get the desire for more rules for more factions but I disagree that it's required or a good thing, especially with GW's track record with balance. We see that now with how utterly miserable it can be to play against SM nowadays. It's not even purely about power level, just the layers of rules upon rules which make it feel like you're playing a different game to them.

Yeah, except...scions kinda dont have the same rule stacking. You want one of those new scion doctrines? You give up the base scion doctrine. Like a big boy faction.

They for a few traits and relics, sure, but they also could not take the lion's share of the ones in the base guard book.

Which is how it should be. You should sacrifice something to gain something. That's how it works in hh, rites of war and the like have downsides to go with the upsides. Why is it gw understood that concept for that game, and for most factions in 40k, but can't quite grasp it when they make rules for loyalist marines?

Rites of war should've been how they introduced doctrines into 40k.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ishagu wrote:
Doctrines represent the Astartes mastery of war.

Guard get orders for free. Tau get marker lights, etc

Orders affect a limited number of units per turn and require living hqs to use. I can kill markerlights. Marines get free buffs all the time.

There's a difference between one specific unit/list being "on top/ FOTM " vs entire faction and all its supplemented sub-factions being on top..

And to be honest I think post ynnari, doom, and castellan nerf, the game was in a very decent even playing field. From then on all that had to be done was to tweak CHE and some elements of soup. We had a couple months for the meta to settle and you seen a lot of veriety in both ITC and non ITC tourneys. So rather than build on that, we have this...

The disparity between Astartes and other factions isn't that high. You're exaggerating again. Their highest performance also applies to particular chapters and not the whole codex.

In CA missions I actually have more success with my AdMech than my Astartes, and I own and run every unit including FW regularly.

 Ishagu wrote:
The disparity between Astartes and other factions isn't that high. You're exaggerating again. Their highest performance also applies to particular chapters and not the whole codex.

In CA missions I actually have more success with my AdMech than my Astartes, and I own and run every unit including FW regularly.

You know, actually I think it's only in itc where IH and IF are the only dominant marine chapters, and in CA missions all of them are broken. You really shouldnt use these house rule set reaults to make balance decisions. Until you can show me non-existent data that shows marines are balanced in CA mission format im afraid we just have no way to know for sure.

Im certain GW wont take negative feedback as an excuse to do any weird kneejerk reactions though. After all, GW has balanced the game, right?

"chapters". Plural.. Plus, It's all the same faction dude..

Anyway, at this stage, not really sure why I'm trying to have a discussion with someone acting in bad faith and refusing to be objective. Ima go cook some dinner.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
The disparity between Astartes and other factions isn't that high. You're exaggerating again. Their highest performance also applies to particular chapters and not the whole codex.

In CA missions I actually have more success with my AdMech than my Astartes, and I own and run every unit including FW regularly.

You know, actually I think it's only in itc where IH and IF are the only dominant marine chapters, and in CA missions all of them are broken. You really shouldnt use these house rule set reaults to make balance decisions. Until you can show me non-existent data that shows marines are balanced in CA mission format im afraid we just have no way to know for sure.

Im certain GW wont take negative feedback as an excuse to do any weird kneejerk reactions though. After all, GW has balanced the game, right?

I see what you did there. Well played sir.

Lol you guys are funny. There is a lot of hysteria on this forum.

Almost as bad as when the Castellan was single handedly hoisting the Imperium up.

Funny enough the Castellan did not perform as well in CA18 missions back when it dominated the ITC. Those missions forced a lot more movement out of the armies, putting it at risk.

 Ishagu wrote:
Lol you guys are funny. There is a lot of hysteria on this forum.

Almost as bad as when the Castellan was single handedly hoisting the Imperium up.

Funny enough the Castellan did not perform as well in CA18 missions back when it dominated the ITC. Those missions forced a lot more movement out of the armies, putting it at risk.

I am certainly finding your one man PR campaign hysterical.

Lots of sheep on the Internet. I'm not one of them.

Isn't that funny? Every once in a while someone comes along who doesn't just parrot others.

Marines have a strong base, there's no denying this. Definitely the strongest in the game, with far fewer "trap" choices than other Factions, and far more "superior" choices as well. The stacking bonuses are just icing on the cake.

You're a regular John Galt, I know.

Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe I'm 6 months ahead of most people in my outlook. Who knows?

The base marine book is pretty fair, I'd say. But GW couldn't stop there. Oh, no. With so many supplements, there was no way they could help themselves. So now you have power disparities within vanilla marines on top of disparities between vanilla and snowflake marines.

The only solution I see that is mathematically fair is for each supplement to have its own point costs.

It is kinda hard to asses the power of marines as a full faction. ITC rules skew things for many major tournaments and different supplements are definitely not equal. Also GW keeps constantly pushing new bonus rules for other factions too. I have not paid super much attention to what the IG is getting in the new PA book, but they have really solid core so with some extra buffs on top of that they might become pretty powerful. When balancing marines I think the first step should be to nerf the more powerful supplements to be in line on the weaker ones. That would fix the internal balance and if it is not enough to fix the external balance, then the core faction can be nerfed too. But that might not be necessary once all factions have gotten their PA buffs.

 Crimson wrote:
It is kinda hard to asses the power of marines as a full faction. ITC rules skew things for many major tournaments and different supplements are definitely not equal. Also GW keeps constantly pushing new bonus rules for other factions too. I have not paid super much attention to what the IG is getting in the new PA book, but they have really solid core so with some extra buffs on top of that they might become pretty powerful. When balancing marines I think the first step should be to nerf the more powerful supplements to be in line on the weaker ones. That would fix the internal balance and if it is not enough to fix the external balance, then the core faction can be nerfed too. But that might not be necessary once all factions have gotten their PA buffs.

For a couple factions maybe. But so far PA has just upgraded most from bringing knives to a gunfight to bringing flint locks. Better but still outgunned.

 Crimson wrote:
It is kinda hard to asses the power of marines as a full faction. ITC rules skew things for many major tournaments and different supplements are definitely not equal. Also GW keeps constantly pushing new bonus rules for other factions too. I have not paid super much attention to what the IG is getting in the new PA book, but they have really solid core so with some extra buffs on top of that they might become pretty powerful. When balancing marines I think the first step should be to nerf the more powerful supplements to be in line on the weaker ones. That would fix the internal balance and if it is not enough to fix the external balance, then the core faction can be nerfed too. But that might not be necessary once all factions have gotten their PA buffs.

What a fantastic post.

Here is how Marines should be measured:

1: Lots of data collected using official GW rules and missions.
2: The supplements that excel are toned down to match those that don't perform as well.
3: Once these are rebalanced you collect more and more data of Astartes performance against other factions in the official Missions.
4: If Astartes are still too strong, when internal codex balance is achieved, they should then increase some points.
5: Ignore ITC results that skew lists and unit popularity.

The points cost should be for the rules.
Chapter tactic cost x points.
doctrines y points
super docts z points.

Free stuff where some is obviously better will not get balanced ever. with points costs you can tweak things with changes and eventually get a level of equality in forces.

No one argues a tank is more effective in IH hands. So obviously IH chapter tactics should cost more than ultras.
Its pretty obvious.

The tank should cost more, not the tactics.

Martel732 wrote:
The tank should cost more, not the tactics.

Wrong. That Tank (Repulsor) is overpriced in a Black Templar army and can easily be destroyed by a unit that costs half the points. Literally.

Why are you nerfing the tank when it's chapter bonuses and relics that are making the biggest improvement?

Also tactics shouldn't cost anything lol. They just need a few tweaks here and there, nothing even that substantial. You just nerd to decrease effectiveness by 10% or so in a few cases. Those are the margins.

No. The tank should cost more for ih than say ws. Each supplement needs its own points costs. Thats the shitworld gw has created because of their marine fetish.

No, each supplement just needs to be balanced more evenly.

 Ishagu wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
It is kinda hard to asses the power of marines as a full faction. ITC rules skew things for many major tournaments and different supplements are definitely not equal. Also GW keeps constantly pushing new bonus rules for other factions too. I have not paid super much attention to what the IG is getting in the new PA book, but they have really solid core so with some extra buffs on top of that they might become pretty powerful. When balancing marines I think the first step should be to nerf the more powerful supplements to be in line on the weaker ones. That would fix the internal balance and if it is not enough to fix the external balance, then the core faction can be nerfed too. But that might not be necessary once all factions have gotten their PA buffs.

What a fantastic post.

Here is how Marines should be measured:

1: Lots of data collected using official GW rules and missions.
2: The supplements that excel are toned down to match those that don't perform as well.
3: Once these are rebalanced you collect more and more data of Astartes performance against other factions in the official Missions.
4: If Astartes are still too strong, when internal codex balance is achieved, they should then increase some points.
5: Ignore ITC results that skew lists and unit popularity.

How much fething data do we need? Everyone knows who the strongest chapters are already.

More data. More data. More data.

You work for the government? Some fething boardroom?

They cant/wont do that. They either cant control themselves or just dont understand how their own game is played in practice.

But you also said GW doesn't know how to make Astartes a strong faction? Clearly they know exactly what to do because they went ahead and did it.

As for the data, we need more data using the official rules so we can see the extent of the problem. If Iron Hands are the still best using CA missions, but their win rate overall is only 59% compared to 74% in ITC, then they need less power reduction, as compared to what the ITC might suggest. Alternatively if their win rate was even higher they would need more reductions in power. From the large CA tournaments it suggests the disparities are smaller when using the official rules.

Here is why I make this point so often:

Iron Hands do need a power reduction, we all agree. If they were substantially punished so their performance dropped to a 50% win rate in ITC missions, but it means they are now sub par using official rules, then that's another substantial failure of game balance that has punished the players too much.

The ITC might indeed highlight problems, but those problems might be exaggerated when using the homebrew missions so we don't really have a proper measure of the issue. You can't punish those using the official rules for the meta created using the homebrew ones, or visa versa.

I meant balanced rules for astates, not this shitshow. Anyone can turn the knob up to 11 and break it off. GW should have made these changes one at a time, not all at once.

If the rules of one chapter make it more effective. that chapters rules should cost more.

Its a simple concept. You also have no fear of it ever happening. Cost for something that isnt a model???? you mean less models on the table!!!! horrors!

 ImperialArmy wrote:
If the rules of one chapter make it more effective. that chapters rules should cost more.

Its a simple concept. You also have no fear of it ever happening. Cost for something that isnt a model???? you mean less models on the table!!!! horrors!

But different chapter rules dont benefit all units equallly for each chapter. Therefore we need unit level differentiation. One wound ih models benfit far less than two wound models from the 6+++ for example.