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 AnomanderRake wrote:
The core rules changes are overshadowed for me by the fact that we're running on badly-balanced army books out of 8e.

Yep this

Tycho wrote:

Also, out of curiosity, for those of you who have played a few games - are you using the minimum recommended sizes for the new edition or are you sticking with the previous "standard" sizes? We haven't done the full 4x6 in 9th, but we did find that we tended to enjoy the games a little more using sizes larger than the recommended minimums.

Not surprising. For one it's not even recommended. Just minimum. And by the definition of word minimum is by definition not optimal. It's just smallest it functionally works(as in objectives don't fly off the board and there's some room to deploy your army)


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the_scotsman wrote:

Regular destroyers got a heavy nerf (assuming that the new S7 Ap-1 D1 profile is supposed to represent current regular destroyers and GW isn't planning that to be some kind of new option)

It's not gauss weapon so can't be current regular destroyers.

Wraiths, one of the most usable units in the codex, got nerfed.

Nerfed how? WS dropped? Attacks gained. This is actually same or better than before...And they gained point of armour save if they get hit by inv negating spell so buff.

We haven't actually seen any nerf to them.

Tomb Blades got one weapon profile buffed and another nerfed in super minor ways.

Gauss got buffed, tesla so far unchanged, what nerf particle got?


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Tycho wrote:

But we have auto-hit on 6. I can agree maybe -3 is a bit much, but really, would it be too much to even say you can be -1 from terrain effects, and that this is the ONLY stackable buff (so you could combine terrain with a spell to get -2 to hit)?

Do we want factions that are basically unable to meaningfully harm other faction?


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 Yarium wrote:

Game Length & Battlefield Size: It was a bold move to change the battlefield size, and it could've easily backfired if it didn't work well, but thankfully this isn't just a "meh" change, but is actually a great change! Combined with the game length going to just 5 turns instead of 6, and battles are more vicious affairs where you cannot wait and sit back. This helps produce fewer "non-games" (games that don't feel like games), because players are pushed into engaging each other up close and personal quickly.

What's so great about movement and deployment being less meaningful? Tactics removed for sake of brawl in the middle.

Funny. GW removes tactics and players are happy about it. Guess people just want to roll dice and see who wins it.


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Dudeface wrote:

Neither is wrong but one is infinitely more pessimistic than the other and I personally prefer not to spend my time assuming the worst.

Funny thing only time "we don't know full picture yet" have been proven correct with GW so far has been...when 8e marine codex v2 was even worse than it was leaked.

GW isn't hard to figure out, they aren't intending to make balanced game and rule changes are just for sake of marketing ploy. Thus it's easy to see ahead of time what's good and what's bad. GW is making their damned best to make sure even deafest person knows what GW wants you to buy next...


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 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I just played my first game Sunday and it was just 8th on steroids.
I played Slaanesh Daemons, and here's my battle report:
- I went first, charged across the table (easier than 9th than in 8th), and murdered everything.
- Had I gone second, I would've been shot off the board from across the table (easier in 9th than in 8th, though not because of the core rules) and had everything murdered.

I was playing a Marine player with 1x gigantic tank with the super antitank cannon (executioner or eradicator or exterminator or whatever), 6x Eradicator melta bois, 6x Aggressors, 1x inceptors, 10x assault intercessors in an Impulsor, 10x intercessors, 5x infiltrators, all in a marneus calgar bubble. All the terrain was Dense, but there were no ruins so it was just Dense. They were rocks and hills and trees.

Sounds like two people showed up to play 8th and not 9th.

8e at the CA19 missions wasn't all about who goes first.

9e ramped importance of going first with it's missions a lot.

Sounds pretty much like 9e game. Who goes first wins.

From what Goonhammer gathered for information so far going first averages out to a winrate of 57.9%.

Which is not insignificant, but far away from "Who goes first wins".


Source: https://www.goonhammer.com/go-first-and-prosper-looking-at-the-9th-edition-meta/

a_typical_hero wrote:
From what Goonhammer gathered for information so far going first averages out to a winrate of 57.9%.

Which is not insignificant, but far away from "Who goes first wins".


Source: https://www.goonhammer.com/go-first-and-prosper-looking-at-the-9th-edition-meta/

Damn near a 60/40 split isn't that bad? Holy gak. People really are ready to accept crap if it is shoveled by GW.

particle weapons iirc lost a point of strength from where they are now.

Unknown whether they're gaining some kind of special rule to compensate, which I believe they have none of currently.

Would be interesting if we had historic information to compare it with. Either for CA or for ITC.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

a_typical_hero wrote:
From what Goonhammer gathered for information so far going first averages out to a winrate of 57.9%.

Which is not insignificant, but far away from "Who goes first wins".


Source: https://www.goonhammer.com/go-first-and-prosper-looking-at-the-9th-edition-meta/

Damn near a 60/40 split isn't that bad? Holy gak. People really are ready to accept crap if it is shoveled by GW.

No idea how what I wrote and what you understood are in any way connected to each other.

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

a_typical_hero wrote:
From what Goonhammer gathered for information so far going first averages out to a winrate of 57.9%.

Which is not insignificant, but far away from "Who goes first wins".


Source: https://www.goonhammer.com/go-first-and-prosper-looking-at-the-9th-edition-meta/

Damn near a 60/40 split isn't that bad? Holy gak. People really are ready to accept crap if it is shoveled by GW.

No idea how what I wrote and what you understood are in any way connected to each other.

You seemed to be trying to moderate the "who goes first wins" claim by illustrating a 60/40 split favoring who goes first. That is worse than chess, a game in which the player who goes second *must steal the tempo from the other player or lose* as a matter of strategic certainty, and 40k doesn't even have Chess's alternating activation that can allow for a tempo-stealing interruption of enemy plans.

Out of curiousity I looked up the winrate for chess.

In chess, there is a general consensus among players and theorists that the player who makes the first move (White) has an inherent advantage. Since 1851, compiled statistics support this view; White consistently wins slightly more often than Black, usually scoring between 52 and 56 percent

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess

With the currently available informations we are at worst 5.9% points away from chess. That seems very little for such a strong reaction of yours.

So far this thread is making me think that:

• I'd much prefer a +1/-2 cap to hit mods (6 always hits)
• Secondary objectives need a rewrite
• 5 Turn limit and scoring at the beginning of a battle round make reserves much less effective
• New board sizes are total BS
• The old codexes dont work despite GW's claims

I haven't been able to play 9th yet myself, but if these points all have merit, I'm not in a rush to do so.. Kill Team will do in the meantime, and maybe I'll give that Horus Heresy a closer look while I'm at it.

Bad balance stops me at the door.

A lot to unpack in that article - thanks for posting it. The faction play and win rates are interesting - early days. Space Marines are popular, but certainly not unbeatable.The terrain layouts in the article offer some good examples. Our little tourney used five pieces of obscuring terrain for each table in a somewhat mirrored fashion. If you don’t use Obscuring Terrain you are kinda still playing 8th Edition.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

a_typical_hero wrote:
From what Goonhammer gathered for information so far going first averages out to a winrate of 57.9%.

Which is not insignificant, but far away from "Who goes first wins".


Source: https://www.goonhammer.com/go-first-and-prosper-looking-at-the-9th-edition-meta/

Damn near a 60/40 split isn't that bad? Holy gak. People really are ready to accept crap if it is shoveled by GW.

And in the later rounds of the tourney (i.e. in scenarios where player skill/power level is likely close), it really is like 60% to the first player. It's quite bad. (And really not comparable to chess, sorry a_typical_hero)

Yeah, I feel like there should be a -1 cap from unit abilities/stratagems only. Moving and firing heavy weapons and dense cover should not be included in the cap.

a_typical_hero wrote:
From what Goonhammer gathered for information so far going first averages out to a winrate of 57.9%.

Which is not insignificant, but far away from "Who goes first wins".


Source: https://www.goonhammer.com/go-first-and-prosper-looking-at-the-9th-edition-meta/

And all of those tournaments only used 1/2 the terrain that is needed for 9th, so can you really use this data? No.

Here is a pic to demostrate how bad the terrain was. When you can 100% clearly see 3 objectives in a row and other objectives just from 1 spot, that is bad.

As an aside, given that it seems 90% of venues, tournaments, GW stores, friendly games etc. apparently aren't using sufficient terrain, perhaps the game shouldn't be designed with the idea that every board will be absolutely inundated with such?

 vipoid wrote:
As an aside, given that it seems 90% of venues, tournaments, GW stores, friendly games etc. apparently aren't using sufficient terrain, perhaps the game shouldn't be designed with the idea that every board will be absolutely inundated with such?

or venues should get more terrain. I know its subjective but i love playing on dense boards with tons of terrain, where movement actually matters. And i got introduced to the game with a shooty army (Admech).

Deleting my opponent without needing to movei s unfun for me.

I get that terrain costs money but theres cheaper alternatives than GW that let you fill out tables nicely

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That is worse than chess, a game in which the player who goes second *must steal the tempo from the other player or lose* as a matter of strategic certainty, and 40k doesn't even have Chess's alternating activation that can allow for a tempo-stealing interruption of enemy plans.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
And in the later rounds of the tourney (i.e. in scenarios where player skill/power level is likely close), it really is like 60% to the first player. It's quite bad. (And really not comparable to chess, sorry a_typical_hero)

I didn't bring up the chess comparison in the first place, though? Either you want to compare it and then the deviance is rather small, or you don't want to. But then don't bring up the argument that chess has a better first turn winrate balance than 40k.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
And all of those tournaments only used 1/2 the terrain that is needed for 9th, so can you really use this data? No.
Here is a pic to demostrate how bad the terrain was. When you can 100% clearly see 3 objectives in a row and other objectives just from 1 spot, that is bad.

Disagree. You can absolutely use the presented data. Using too little terrain / placing it in a bad way skews the winrate in favour of who goes first.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I didn't wipe him out with shooting though. Terrain doesn't really slow me down, still, unless it is ruins I have to walk around.

i played my demon on a table with pipes and craters, these -2 to movement really slowed me down

I find the "not enough terrain" amusing since GW sells models with huge footprints and there's a nasty coherency rule for 6+ man squads. A table flooded with terrain is a nightmare to play with and sometimes flat out unplayable.

Terrain is ok when it covers 25%-30% of the table.

The example shown in the picture looks pretty ok to me. Objectives deployment may be not optimal but playing with more terrain features is a pain for any army than has more than 30 models.

 vipoid wrote:
As an aside, given that it seems 90% of venues, tournaments, GW stores, friendly games etc. apparently aren't using sufficient terrain, perhaps the game shouldn't be designed with the idea that every board will be absolutely inundated with such?

Or... we should acknowledge that tables lacking in terrain heavily favor superior ranged and artillery armies where heavily cluttered tables favor CQC and melee armies.

If you want balance between the two... apply terrain to nerf gunlines until you're happy they are sufficiently blunted. The rules simply are an outlet for designing the battlefield, everything done from that point on (army composition, objective location, terrain scatter, etc.) all change the % chance of win/loss depending on how favorable it is to your particular list against the opponent's.

I would prefer if people could use their imagination as opposed to having GW say in absolutes what you are required to put on the table. Our group understands how to incorporate the terrain we put on the table into our tactics and how it will affect our armies. We also know how to discuss with each other ahead of time if we see that the terrain is empowering a certain play style TOO much, and thankfully we have enough players and army types to keep us honest with that phase of setup.

Won't help you at all in tournament play, but pushing this off on GW as if they need to arbitrate from on high how you are supposed to play the game... come on. Does GW need to tell you when you need to go to work or get the kids off to school, too? If long-range shooting armies are turning the game into Hogan's Alley, then instead of moaning about "gunlines are too powerful with tank commanders able to suppress 4 out of 4 objectives with ease", perhaps discuss that shortcoming with the TOs to make sure they try to dress the tables to allow LESS of that interaction with deployment zones and objectives. I tend to see "well dressed" tables as... 1 central bit of terrain with others scattered around the edges of the table... you step past that ring of terrain and it is a huge board of no-man's land. The terrain has to interact with the board BETWEEN the players, not the other way around. Otherwise you end up with three tank commanders firing down a single alley controlling 80% of the objectives with their firing while cheapy guardsmen and chimeras score points on them.

I expect I am not articulate enough for Dakka, as usual, though... so enjoy flaming my thoughts

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
As an aside, given that it seems 90% of venues, tournaments, GW stores, friendly games etc. apparently aren't using sufficient terrain, perhaps the game shouldn't be designed with the idea that every board will be absolutely inundated with such?

or venues should get more terrain. I know its subjective but i love playing on dense boards with tons of terrain, where movement actually matters. And i got introduced to the game with a shooty army (Admech).

Deleting my opponent without needing to movei s unfun for me.

I get that terrain costs money but theres cheaper alternatives than GW that let you fill out tables nicely

The way most wargames solve this, including wargames designed by the company Games Workshop, is to make weapons with Range = Board extremely UNcommon, rather than having the most popular faction equipped with weaponry that fires at full effectiveness 3/4 of the width of the entire board.

the_scotsman wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
As an aside, given that it seems 90% of venues, tournaments, GW stores, friendly games etc. apparently aren't using sufficient terrain, perhaps the game shouldn't be designed with the idea that every board will be absolutely inundated with such?

or venues should get more terrain. I know its subjective but i love playing on dense boards with tons of terrain, where movement actually matters. And i got introduced to the game with a shooty army (Admech).

Deleting my opponent without needing to movei s unfun for me.

I get that terrain costs money but theres cheaper alternatives than GW that let you fill out tables nicely

The way most wargames solve this, including wargames designed by the company Games Workshop, is to make weapons with Range = Board extremely UNcommon, rather than having the most popular faction equipped with weaponry that fires at full effectiveness 3/4 of the width of the entire board.

The other aspect is that most other wargames I've seen don't use TLoS.

Hence, you don't have to represent every single tree in a forest in order to stop units from shooting through it, or board up every window to stop an entire squad being wiped because a square mm of the sergeant's banner was visible through it.

Do we want factions that are basically unable to meaningfully harm other faction?

The way it stands right now, so many things are completely meaningless. Completely. One of the points of 9th appears to be to correct the things in 8th that were overly dumbed-down. They generally accomplished this in a lot of areas, only to throw all of that away with to-hit cap. Being able to get to -2 using a combination of cover and 1 other thing (like a strat or psychic power) isn't going to make some factions "unable to hurt other factions", but it would make terrain more meaningful, and would also give the player going second a better shot.

You seemed to be trying to moderate the "who goes first wins" claim by illustrating a 60/40 split favoring who goes first. That is worse than chess, a game in which the player who goes second *must steal the tempo from the other player or lose* as a matter of strategic certainty, and 40k doesn't even have Chess's alternating activation that can allow for a tempo-stealing interruption of enemy plans.

I don't know why this is, but even suggesting that these missions still heavily favor player 1 seems to be a trigger for a lot of people. It's plainly obvious just by looking at the set up that player 1 is going to have an advantage. As long as progressives are scored the way they are, player 1 will have a steep advantage. At both achieving his objectives AND denying the opponent theirs. I've played around 30/40 games of 9th and seen it first hand many times.

The typical response chain goes like this:

1. You aren't playing with enough terrain
2. Oh - you have enough? Well see the problem is you don't have enough OBSCURING .... oh - you have that too?
3. See, the issue is your faction sucks ... oh, you're not using one of the bad ones?
4. WELL! 9th is VERY DIFFERENT you see. Based on my 2 games I've learned that you really do need to change your whole mind set ....

Most people are just trying to help, but some have gotten VERY upset at the suggestion. IDK why even suggesting this may be an issue is so controversial but there you have it. I'm not saying my amount of games is enough to claim a thing for certain, but FWIW, the people who get the most upset about the observation seem to be the ones who have either not played at all, or who have played less than 5 games .... idk ....

Could easily just be my group, but it the ability to go first, rush objectives, score the objectives top of turn and then move redundant squads to deny opponent objectives - it's pretty strong. I think that's why our groups smaller games were more enjoyable. At 1000 points, it's a little harder to abuse that tactic.

Tycho wrote:
The typical response chain goes like this:

1. You aren't playing with enough terrain
2. Oh - you have enough? Well see the problem is you don't have enough OBSCURING .... oh - you have that too?
3. See, the issue is your faction sucks ... oh, you're not using one of the bad ones?
4. WELL! 9th is VERY DIFFERENT you see. Based on my 2 games I've learned that you really do need to change your whole mind set ....

You're making fun of it, but 40k is having too many factors to be able to attribute why one side lost a game to a single thing. The board setup itself, your army, your army list, your personal skill, luck, your opponents army, your opponents army list, your opponents personal skill, the played mission, houserules, familiarity with the opponents army's tricks, ...

Friendly reminder that people are more likely to blame others / outside factors for why something bad happened to them instead of looking at their own failures. So asking questions to get to the root of "why did side A win the game" have to be allowed without brushing them all under the rug as white knighting on GW's behalf.

You're making fun of it, but 40k is having too many factors to be able to attribute why one side lost a game to a single thing. The board setup itself, your army, your army list, your personal skill, luck, your opponents army, your opponents army list, your opponents personal skill, the played mission, houserules, familiarity with the opponents army's tricks, ...

Friendly reminder that people are more likely to blame others / outside factors for why something bad happened to them instead of looking at their own failures. So asking questions to get to the root of "why did side A win the game" have to be allowed without brushing them all under the rug as white knighting on GW's behalf.

Um ... white knighting? Who's white knighting? I'm saying the missions themselves have a demonstrable design flaw. That's hardly white knighting. lol

Even the tourney results are slowly starting to bear that out. I was simply saying that, for some reason, stating that the missions really seem to give a strong advantage to player 1 appears to be a strong trigger for some, and that I get the same response each time I mention it. lol Notice I haven't actually even mentioned my personal win/loss rate.

I'm not sure what you're getting at?

Not saying that you are. If you understood it that way I expressed myself poorly. Sorry.

I'm aiming at your statement about how people start to go through other gaming factors when you say the missions favour going first.

a_typical_hero wrote:
Out of curiousity I looked up the winrate for chess.

In chess, there is a general consensus among players and theorists that the player who makes the first move (White) has an inherent advantage. Since 1851, compiled statistics support this view; White consistently wins slightly more often than Black, usually scoring between 52 and 56 percent

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess

With the currently available informations we are at worst 5.9% points away from chess. That seems very little for such a strong reaction of yours.

6% difference is a huge difference, spread over multiple games games. Just check how many games a person who always starts wins over a person who goes last in 100 games.

Not saying that you are. If you understood it that way I expressed myself poorly. Sorry.

I'm aiming at your statement about how people start to go through other gaming factors when you say the missions favour going first.

Ah. Sorry. It's not you it's me. lol I've been on Dakka too long. It's everyone else's fault darnnit!

Yeah, and honestly, generally, I'm a fan of going through a checklist like that as part of understanding a game (whether I won or lost) - did I make a mistake, was there enough terrain etc etc. I just find it funny in this case that people are so up in arms about . the "who goes first thing". Who knows, it could end up being wrong once more data comes out. It just doesn't seem like it, and the convo always goes the same way. lol

In discussions about balance it usually goes like this:

-> Something is unbalanced
-> You won't achieve perfect balance
-> We don't want perfect balance, we wan't good enough balance.

On average 7.9% points away from a 50/50 chance. Since 50/50 is not realistic, how far away from it is okay?