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Not an actual quote. He basically said the opposite, that it isn't about balance, it's about how GW wants armies to look. Cultists got nerfed because GW doesn't like chaos armies full of cultists; IG squads got smaller nerfs because GW does like IG armies full of infantry squads.

He was pretty upfront that a lot of the values just don't make sense from a balance perspective. He even said straight-up that Drukhari "will probably need to look outside their codex for competitive success" because the values were so off.

tneva82 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
God, it's so funny listening to them come up with dumb gak justifications for how awful the point values are.

"GW is balancing the game based on how they want armies to look, not for cross-faction balance, that's why cultists are awful on purpose they dont' want CSM armies to be all cultists"

OK cool, so they don't want Dark Eldar armies to include...ANY dark eldar troops then? What units DO they want to see in Dark Eldar armies?

Is that actually quote from video? If yes then they are absolutely murdering use of word balancing because that is NOT balancing things

slightly paraphrased, but they definitely said "balancing the game based on how they want armies to look."

Which is, yeah. The opposite of balancing the game.

It's frankly amazing how much I look at Power Level at this point and it seems MORE balanced to play a PL game (zany wargear and all) than to play a points game. It's just awful.

the_scotsman wrote:
It's frankly amazing how much I look at Power Level at this point and it seems MORE balanced to play a PL game (zany wargear and all) than to play a points game. It's just awful.

Honestly that wouldn't be a bad model for their published physical books. But they need something like an online database with points values that cater towards matched play. More cooperatively-oriented players will work around imbalance but it's not something TOs want to take upon themselves at the wrath of their playerbase.

The only thing stopping GW from putting Power Level in the print books, and having points values be updated and maintained online, is GW themselves- namely, that they want to sell points update books to competitive players.

So we have more actual tangible proof that they dont use points to balance the game.

But people will dryhump that idea into oblivion that the points bring balance so everything is fine just git gud.

And continue sending GW forklifts loaded down with crates of cash. To continue buying in.

 catbarf wrote:
The only thing stopping GW from putting Power Level in the print books, and having points values be updated and maintained online, is GW themselves- namely, that they want to sell points update books to competitive players.

Eh, I could see the app fixing that if they just put all the points in there instead.

 catbarf wrote:
The only thing stopping GW from putting Power Level in the print books, and having points values be updated and maintained online, is GW themselves- namely, that they want to sell points update books to competitive players.

Other way around.

When GW did that with AoS in its initial iteration at launch, the comp players whined about how they were being "taxed for wanting balance!" when just the GHB and subsequent battletomes had points in them. Never mind that they also had the points in the Warscroll Builder, and that the WSB is actually pretty nice for how it functions.

And really, have you seen the complaints over the Combat Roster thing on the Community page only having Power?

People are obsessed with points thanks to tournament tryhards.

 Kanluwen wrote:


And really, have you seen the complaints over the Combat Roster thing on the Community page only having Power?

People are obsessed with points thanks to tournament tryhards.

Hrm, I'd say it's probably more because Points are generally how most tabletop miniatures games work, in some form or fashion, much moreso than a mechanic like PL, and that's just the accepted norm for the genre, and, if executed correctly (which GW clearly did not), should offer better and more granular balance. That's why there's a preference towards it, not just because of tournament tryhards. That group definitely exerts its own pressure, but even if they disappeared tomorrow, Points would almost certainly still remain the overwhelmingly preferred option I'd be willing to bet.

So if it's really all about how GW "wants armies to look", why not bring back limits to certain units? I suppose it goes against all the detachment changes and G-Dub's goal of letting you play as you want, but I would much rather have Cultists be a 0-2 option and be costed appropriately than have them be so expensive as to be pointless.

Then again, I'm just getting my head back into this after not really playing since 5th edition, so it's possible I'm missing something...

What I suspect is that points are bad in print so that people will use the App- it's the thing where they can make frequent changes, so they put it out a book knowing that it's imperfect, so that they get buy in on people using the app, because the app is the tool they'll use to fix the problem.

I think that they would have waited until December to release the CA if they didn't have the app to fall back on for a fix.

we'd like the armies to look like youve spent some money (with us you cheeky Frostgrave cultists users) recently might be closer to the mark

IronNerd wrote:
So if it's really all about how GW "wants armies to look", why not bring back limits to certain units? I suppose it goes against all the detachment changes and G-Dub's goal of letting you play as you want, but I would much rather have Cultists be a 0-2 option and be costed appropriately than have them be so expensive as to be pointless.

Then again, I'm just getting my head back into this after not really playing since 5th edition, so it's possible I'm missing something...

No, you're not missing anything. It's the transparently stupid and lazy approach.

That said, even at the absurd cost they're arguably still a better choice than CSM, which is a terribly sad indictment of the Chaos troops options.

IronNerd wrote:
So if it's really all about how GW "wants armies to look", why not bring back limits to certain units? I suppose it goes against all the detachment changes and G-Dub's goal of letting you play as you want, but I would much rather have Cultists be a 0-2 option and be costed appropriately than have them be so expensive as to be pointless.

Then again, I'm just getting my head back into this after not really playing since 5th edition, so it's possible I'm missing something...

Because this wasn't a full update. That's stuff that would be done in the codex in all likelihood.

But they'll still charge you $40 for it!

Only if you've got an obsessive need to have points now, now, now!

fluffstalker wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
God, it's so funny listening to them come up with dumb gak justifications for how awful the point values are.

"GW is balancing the game based on how they want armies to look, not for cross-faction balance, that's why cultists are awful on purpose they dont' want CSM armies to be all cultists"

OK cool, so they don't want Dark Eldar armies to include...ANY dark eldar troops then? What units DO they want to see in Dark Eldar armies?

Sslyth, obviously. Their 6 point drop is just the begining ....."Sslyth party bus!"

I would totally build an army of Sslyth.

I, for one, welcome our new Sslyth overlords.

This is how GW quietly brings Lizardmen/Seraphon to 40k.

I'd legit go into a Lizard/Snake/Frog people 40k army. I tried to convert Marines with Lizardmen bits before but it didn't look great, at least without paint. That project died in the fire though...

 auticus wrote:
So we have more actual tangible proof that they dont use points to balance the game.

But people will dryhump that idea into oblivion that the points bring balance so everything is fine just git gud.

And continue sending GW forklifts loaded down with crates of cash. To continue buying in.

If you study game design in enough detail you will recognize that point systems are a mostly illusory construct to begin with and don't really function the way people seem to think they do (unfortunately, that sometimes includes game designers too). No game - at least none that I know of - ever really use points in an objective, quantifiable, qualifiable, scientific manner that is directly correlated to a formula which accurately predicts and indicates a units on-table performance capabilities - the ability to objectively calculate such a thing simply does not exist because any such attempt at calculating something like that would be subject to the biases of the person trying to determine how the formula should be weighted in order to account for intangible factors. Points are *always* used to "mold" or "train" the way players build an army, with the idea being that once the army is built to a standard it should have a hopefully 50/50 shot against any other army built to the same standards.

Hrm, I'd say it's probably more because Points are generally how most tabletop miniatures games work, in some form or fashion, much moreso than a mechanic like PL, and that's just the accepted norm for the genre, and, if executed correctly (which GW clearly did not), should offer better and more granular balance. That's why there's a preference towards it, not just because of tournament tryhards. That group definitely exerts its own pressure, but even if they disappeared tomorrow, Points would almost certainly still remain the overwhelmingly preferred option I'd be willing to bet.

Case in point for people misunderstanding how points work. I mean, first off PL *are* points, its a different points system sure, but points are points regardless of what you call them and there are other games out there that have points systems that function in a manner similar to PL. The idea that points will provide better and more granular balance "if executed correctly" is largely a misunderstanding of what points are used for. Points don't actually exist to drive balance directly, they exist to constrain and limit listbuilding - its through those constraints that something resembling "balance" is hopefully found, largely by limiting the amount of one thing or another that you are able to field and take relative to what your opponent is able to do using the same system. Points are always 100% about "what should this army look like", thats why almost universally from one game to another that utilizes points systems, 2 units in 2 different factions with similar capabilities are often priced differently. And the truth of the matter is that "balance" doesn't really exist either, only the perception of it - the reality is that when a community at large complains that something is unbalanced, what is usually happening is that the communities perception of balance is differing from the games creators, because both parties have different expectations of how the game should be played and what the resulting balance should look like.

Now, mind you, that doesn't mean that all games are equally well-balanced, some games go to greater lengths to try to get closer to that 50/50 win rate - Warmachine is a good example of a game that really tries hard to chase balance in this way - but the points aren't really being used to control balance directly, thats really what the themes are for, the points simply exist to limit how many things you can take within that theme. In 40ks case, the GW design studio prioritizes the narrative over competitive balance, its points adjustments are less focused on the mythical 50/50 win rate than they are on simply ensuring that the fieldable armies look like an army that they could actually imagine taking the field of battle in the 41st millennium.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Only if you've got an obsessive need to have points now, now, now!

So, they're releasing the points for free later? Did I miss something?

chaos0xomega wrote:

 auticus wrote:
So we have more actual tangible proof that they dont use points to balance the game.

But people will dryhump that idea into oblivion that the points bring balance so everything is fine just git gud.

And continue sending GW forklifts loaded down with crates of cash. To continue buying in.

If you study game design in enough detail you will recognize that point systems are a mostly illusory construct to begin with and don't really function the way people seem to think they do (unfortunately, that sometimes includes game designers too). No game - at least none that I know of - ever really use points in an objective, quantifiable, qualifiable, scientific manner that is directly correlated to a formula which accurately predicts and indicates a units on-table performance capabilities - the ability to objectively calculate such a thing simply does not exist because any such attempt at calculating something like that would be subject to the biases of the person trying to determine how the formula should be weighted in order to account for intangible factors. Points are *always* used to "mold" or "train" the way players build an army, with the idea being that once the army is built to a standard it should have a hopefully 50/50 shot against any other army built to the same standards.

Hrm, I'd say it's probably more because Points are generally how most tabletop miniatures games work, in some form or fashion, much moreso than a mechanic like PL, and that's just the accepted norm for the genre, and, if executed correctly (which GW clearly did not), should offer better and more granular balance. That's why there's a preference towards it, not just because of tournament tryhards. That group definitely exerts its own pressure, but even if they disappeared tomorrow, Points would almost certainly still remain the overwhelmingly preferred option I'd be willing to bet.

Case in point for people misunderstanding how points work. I mean, first off PL *are* points, its a different points system sure, but points are points regardless of what you call them and there are other games out there that have points systems that function in a manner similar to PL. The idea that points will provide better and more granular balance "if executed correctly" is largely a misunderstanding of what points are used for. Points don't actually exist to drive balance directly, they exist to constrain and limit listbuilding - its through those constraints that something resembling "balance" is hopefully found, largely by limiting the amount of one thing or another that you are able to field and take relative to what your opponent is able to do using the same system. Points are always 100% about "what should this army look like", thats why almost universally from one game to another that utilizes points systems, 2 units in 2 different factions with similar capabilities are often priced differently. And the truth of the matter is that "balance" doesn't really exist either, only the perception of it - the reality is that when a community at large complains that something is unbalanced, what is usually happening is that the communities perception of balance is differing from the games creators, because both parties have different expectations of how the game should be played and what the resulting balance should look like.

Now, mind you, that doesn't mean that all games are equally well-balanced, some games go to greater lengths to try to get closer to that 50/50 win rate - Warmachine is a good example of a game that really tries hard to chase balance in this way - but the points aren't really being used to control balance directly, thats really what the themes are for, the points simply exist to limit how many things you can take within that theme. In 40ks case, the GW design studio prioritizes the narrative over competitive balance, its points adjustments are less focused on the mythical 50/50 win rate than they are on simply ensuring that the fieldable armies look like an army that they could actually imagine taking the field of battle in the 41st millennium.

You can spout as much erudite nonsense as you want, that doesn't make a dude with a flamer and a dude with a plasma gun worth the same.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Only if you've got an obsessive need to have points now, now, now!

So, they're releasing the points for free later? Did I miss something?

Codices are coming with a code for the app. App is going to get updated with points, etc for subscribers while owning the book in the app is also supposed to auto-update the digital copy you get that way even if not a subscriber.

Also, nobody's playing games right now. Probably won't be until late 2021.

 Kanluwen wrote:


Also, nobody's playing games right now. Probably won't be until late 2021.

Speak for yourself, mate.

But even if it were true, "nobody's playing so the fact that they released garbage points values and are trying to charge people $40 for them is no big deal" is certainly a creative defense.

Yeah, it's less "a defense" and more critiquing the people who decided they had to drop the money on it right now.

 auticus wrote:
So we have more actual tangible proof that they dont use points to balance the game.

But people will dryhump that idea into oblivion that the points bring balance so everything is fine just git gud.

And continue sending GW forklifts loaded down with crates of cash. To continue buying in.

I'm perfectly fine with blaming power level wanknards that GW made all wargear cost the same. Thank you for ruining pts power level fanboys, can't let us have nice things, balance is an illusion so there is no reason to put any effort into making a mostly balanced system.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Only if you've got an obsessive need to have points now, now, now!

How else am I supposed to play the game? Put toy soldiers on the table and make pew pew noises like the narrative players? I signed up for a game with pts, if the game doesn't have pts I cannot play it. GW are squandering the free resource at their fingertips, the balance I could introduce with several dozen playtesters skilled at 40k would be as staggering as the lack of balance GW has provided us with through this latest pts batch. If Cultists are not fluffy then they should not be in the codex.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Points are always 100% about "what should this army look like", thats why almost universally from one game to another that utilizes points systems, 2 units in 2 different factions with similar capabilities are often priced differently. And the truth of the matter is that "balance" doesn't really exist either, only the perception of it - the reality is that when a community at large complains that something is unbalanced, what is usually happening is that the communities perception of balance is differing from the games creators, because both parties have different expectations of how the game should be played and what the resulting balance should look like.

No, it's not, points are always 100% about making more choices valid, about making units with better stats not an auto-include over units with poorer stats. Having certain types of units be overcosted because you think the faction should be bad at fielding that type of unit is terrible miniature game design. Within 40k an option is balanced if its pts are both low enough to warrant its inclusion in some lists without being so low that its inclusion is near mandatory. Just because the game designers want the game to be unbalanced does not mean that the game is balanced when it is unbalanced in the manner in which the game designers would like the game to be unbalanced. You would not call a scale balanced if it weighed a seller's wares twice as much as the weight put on the other side, even if the scale was constructed by the seller to weigh the wares twice as much as the weight on the other side. It is an unbalanced scale and the seller is a fraud in the same manner that GW game designers appear to be frauds when it comes to the most recent pts update. When it is viable people will build fluffy lists, it is entirely on GW that they don't utilize the generous 40k playtesters to make a game where people can build whatever list they please and have fun against a majority of opponents.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
God, it's so funny listening to them come up with dumb gak justifications for how awful the point values are.

"GW is balancing the game based on how they want armies to look, not for cross-faction balance, that's why cultists are awful on purpose they dont' want CSM armies to be all cultists"

OK cool, so they don't want Dark Eldar armies to include...ANY dark eldar troops then? What units DO they want to see in Dark Eldar armies?

See, this is what legitimately pisses me off. It's one thing for playtesters to stay quiet about points or even give a half-hearted justification like TTT did (I still don't agree with them, but I think they knew there wasn't a lot to say to defend some of the changes). But to go out "on the offense" basically as the propaganda arm for GW, that rubs me the wrong way. I get not biting the hand that feeds, but you can stay quiet! This is when playtesters lose credibility.

It was a genius move on GWs part, the top tier of competitive players are more or less on GWs payroll at this point - not necessarily literally as I doubt any of them are really getting paid, but they get early access looks to upcoming stuff, playtesting, and I believe in the past GW has flown out some playtesters and competitive players to Nottingham for special events, etc - so maybe they get all expenses paid vacations out of it too. I'm sure they also get some free stuff and swag out of it. Even if they don't have to sign some sort of policy that gags their ability to speak negatively, they still have a compelling reason to stay on GWs good side and be cheerleaders for everything GW does, lest they lose the minor luxuries and status that GWs patronage affords them, as a result GW gets to leverage the soft-power afforded over the community by way of the influence and clout these guys have in the community as a result of their status as major competitors (I mean, i'll be honest I've never heard of these dudes because IDGAF about competitive play, and even if I did I have better things to do than feed some dudes ego over toy soldiers, but I recognize that there are others in the community that put a lot of stock into what top-tier players think).

Or they're just generally optimistic people who also are less impacted by unit nerfs because they both aren't emotionally invested in any specific units power and can make up for nerfs with skill?

If you study game design in enough detail you will recognize that point systems are a mostly illusory construct to begin with and don't really function the way people seem to think they do (unfortunately, that sometimes includes game designers too). No game - at least none that I know of - ever really use points in an objective, quantifiable, qualifiable, scientific manner that is directly correlated to a formula which accurately predicts and indicates a units on-table performance capabilities - the ability to objectively calculate such a thing simply does not exist because any such attempt at calculating something like that would be subject to the biases of the person trying to determine how the formula should be weighted in order to account for intangible factors. Points are *always* used to "mold" or "train" the way players build an army, with the idea being that once the army is built to a standard it should have a hopefully 50/50 shot against any other army built to the same standards.

Yep you're spot on about that. I do study game design (been doing it for 27 years now!) - conferences, design meetings, you name it. I've sat in it. With one caveat... point system CAN be used to BETTER enforce balance. The GW system has always been about structure, not balance (I have had this roundabout in these forums for years with people telling me to gtfo because points == balance not structure to most people).

Just last week this very topic was being discussed haha.

In a game based around mathematical probability you can get pretty close to getting good balance... but only in a set scenario (or small batch of scenarios). Since guy with rocket launcher may be worth 30 points in scenario A, but in scenario B where you have to move fast, guy with Rocket Launcher is only worth about 10 points because he can't fully use his gear (etc etc).

You can find the tangible values, the deterministic values, and build a base from that to build points off of if you are using balance as one of your goals.

It is the intangible pieces that make things hard.

I did this trio of videos for the conquest player base on how i calculate stats for my own machine learning output (for conquest)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX93AINW8gA&list=PLe9ZjKe25oMNH6q3_XU0QxkBt2mEm_F1y&index=5

It may or may not be entertaining to you.

GW games (40k, AOS) have the worst balance in the entire world of wargaming, and always have. Because they dont' use points for balance as much as they use it to grant the illusion of balance. Yet a powerlister's main goal is to make 2000 points operate as if it were 4000 points, and seek to IMBALANCE the game. And the closer you get to balance, the more people complain its "too bland". I found that out with doing AOS first fan comp system (azyr). It did great, but had a lot of heat for being "too balanced, too boring, you made listbuilding not matter anymore". Many players don't really want balance. They want structure and they want the ability to bust balance to feel clever.

"Aww, look who's jelly his pet game will never be a 10th as popular as either warhammer."

I could just as easily say that Warhammer players are jealous of Starcraft or League of Legends. Seriously?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:

If you study game design in enough detail you will recognize that point systems are a mostly illusory construct to begin with and don't really function the way people seem to think they do (unfortunately, that sometimes includes game designers too). No game - at least none that I know of - ever really use points in an objective, quantifiable, qualifiable, scientific manner that is directly correlated to a formula which accurately predicts and indicates a units on-table performance capabilities - the ability to objectively calculate such a thing simply does not exist because any such attempt at calculating something like that would be subject to the biases of the person trying to determine how the formula should be weighted in order to account for intangible factors. Points are *always* used to "mold" or "train" the way players build an army, with the idea being that once the army is built to a standard it should have a hopefully 50/50 shot against any other army built to the same standards.

Yep you're spot on about that. I do study game design (been doing it for 27 years now!) - conferences, design meetings, you name it. I've sat in it. With one caveat... point system CAN be used to BETTER enforce balance. The GW system has always been about structure, not balance (I have had this roundabout in these forums for years with people telling me to gtfo because points == balance not structure to most people).

Just last week this very topic was being discussed haha.

In a game based around mathematical probability you can get pretty close to getting good balance... but only in a set scenario (or small batch of scenarios). Since guy with rocket launcher may be worth 30 points in scenario A, but in scenario B where you have to move fast, guy with Rocket Launcher is only worth about 10 points because he can't fully use his gear (etc etc).

You can find the tangible values, the deterministic values, and build a base from that to build points off of if you are using balance as one of your goals.

It is the intangible pieces that make things hard.

I did this trio of videos for the conquest player base on how i calculate stats for my own machine learning output (for conquest)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX93AINW8gA&list=PLe9ZjKe25oMNH6q3_XU0QxkBt2mEm_F1y&index=5

It may or may not be entertaining to you.

GW games (40k, AOS) have the worst balance in the entire world of wargaming, and always have. Because they dont' use points for balance as much as they use it to grant the illusion of balance. Yet a powerlister's main goal is to make 2000 points operate as if it were 4000 points, and seek to IMBALANCE the game. And the closer you get to balance, the more people complain its "too bland". I found that out with doing AOS first fan comp system (azyr). It did great, but had a lot of heat for being "too balanced, too boring, you made listbuilding not matter anymore". Many players don't really want balance. They want structure and they want the ability to bust balance to feel clever.

I always suspected it was among the worst.

Funny, I seem to remember people were saying all through 8th that GW had no interest in competitive balance and never will.

I mean you could have listened to us when we said that GW cares far more about casual and thematic balance but what do we know. We're just "filthy casuals".

 auticus wrote:

If you study game design in enough detail you will recognize that point systems are a mostly illusory construct to begin with and don't really function the way people seem to think they do (unfortunately, that sometimes includes game designers too). No game - at least none that I know of - ever really use points in an objective, quantifiable, qualifiable, scientific manner that is directly correlated to a formula which accurately predicts and indicates a units on-table performance capabilities - the ability to objectively calculate such a thing simply does not exist because any such attempt at calculating something like that would be subject to the biases of the person trying to determine how the formula should be weighted in order to account for intangible factors. Points are *always* used to "mold" or "train" the way players build an army, with the idea being that once the army is built to a standard it should have a hopefully 50/50 shot against any other army built to the same standards.

Yep you're spot on about that. I do study game design (been doing it for 27 years now!) - conferences, design meetings, you name it. I've sat in it. With one caveat... point system CAN be used to BETTER enforce balance. The GW system has always been about structure, not balance (I have had this roundabout in these forums for years with people telling me to gtfo because points == balance not structure to most people).

Just last week this very topic was being discussed haha.

In a game based around mathematical probability you can get pretty close to getting good balance... but only in a set scenario (or small batch of scenarios). Since guy with rocket launcher may be worth 30 points in scenario A, but in scenario B where you have to move fast, guy with Rocket Launcher is only worth about 10 points because he can't fully use his gear (etc etc).

You can find the tangible values, the deterministic values, and build a base from that to build points off of if you are using balance as one of your goals.

It is the intangible pieces that make things hard.

I did this trio of videos for the conquest player base on how i calculate stats for my own machine learning output (for conquest)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX93AINW8gA&list=PLe9ZjKe25oMNH6q3_XU0QxkBt2mEm_F1y&index=5

It may or may not be entertaining to you.

GW games (40k, AOS) have the worst balance in the entire world of wargaming, and always have. Because they dont' use points for balance as much as they use it to grant the illusion of balance. Yet a powerlister's main goal is to make 2000 points operate as if it were 4000 points, and seek to IMBALANCE the game. And the closer you get to balance, the more people complain its "too bland". I found that out with doing AOS first fan comp system (azyr). It did great, but had a lot of heat for being "too balanced, too boring, you made listbuilding not matter anymore". Many players don't really want balance. They want structure and they want the ability to bust balance to feel clever.

I demand to see the posts complaining about "too balanced too boring and list building does not matter"

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Only if you've got an obsessive need to have points now, now, now!

So, they're releasing the points for free later? Did I miss something?

Codices are coming with a code for the app. App is going to get updated with points, etc for subscribers while owning the book in the app is also supposed to auto-update the digital copy you get that way even if not a subscriber.

Also, nobody's playing games right now. Probably won't be until late 2021.

Not everyone lives in america.

Much of the world is well on the way to recovery.

And even in america we have the death cults opening everything up and plenty of people to play there til they get sick.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Funny, I seem to remember people were saying all through 8th that GW had no interest in competitive balance and never will.

I mean you could have listened to us when we said that GW cares far more about casual and thematic balance but what do we know. We're just "filthy casuals".

I can get behind that philosophy but as always GW took the hamfisted approach to balance and fluff. You want people to take Boyz and CSM? Make them worth fielding at whatever point value they are at, don't just nerf cultists and grots into being unusable. Might as well just cut those units out of the codex while you are at it then. The way GW does it now pleases neither competitive nor fluffy players.