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 Blackie wrote:
Number aren't information, they must be put into some context. Always.

So don't take those numbers as truth, because they're not. SW for example aren't better than Ultramarines, Ravenguard, White Scars and maybe other chapters and yet their winning rate is pretty higher than those other chapters in that table.

And yes, Harlequins can be competitive, but top tier? I wouldn't be so sure. Actually I wouldn't even be sure that they're the top xeno army. They're also an army with just 8 datasheets so if they really become a thing they would probably be quite easy to counter.

Space Wolves at the time of these tournaments were fully obsec still.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Harles aren't at the top. Being at the top of win rate doesn't mean you're the strongest faction, if you don't actually win events. And they aren't at the top of the win tables anyway; Salamanders are.

Harles have won precisely nothing so far in 9th in terms of major events. Zilch.

Space Marines are the faction to beat. The fact that lots of people play space marines and don't do great with them doesn't mean that it isn't Space Marines armies that are winning events.

But we've had discussions on here and it was considered unfair to monitor marine chapters independently, since they all use the same core models and have minor variations when compared to actual factions.

So marines are winning tournaments at a 52% win rate. Or if you like, a handful of good players are being dragged down by a lot of mediocre ones and mirror matches.

Dudeface wrote:


But that makes the dark eldar and harlequins the best army in this meta It's no more marine dominated than previous years I don't think? Maybe by a small percentage, but the good players will want to bring that which excels best against the moat popular army, so as much as marine form the pivot for the meta, they're not dominating it clearly.

Sure I will "concede" that, given a meta where nearly half the players are playing marines or armies constructed very similarly to marines, taking a list that is not marines and is completely tailored to beat marines is the best decision.

I'll take "how a metagame works" for 300, alex.

The same exact thing happened with Eldar in 7th. They were by very far the most popular faction to play, but frequently did not have particularly bonkers winrates compared to factions that made up a tiny fraction of the playerbase, were tailored to beat Eldar specifically, and did that well sweeping tournaments where 2/3 of their matchups were vs nearly identical eldar lists.

Strangely, dakka at the time did not seem to think that was due to some secret, underlying weakness of the scatbike+Wk list meaning it was in no way in need of any nerfs or corrections. And they certainly didn't think whatever countermeta list beat all those eldar was secretly "the strongest army in the game" because it was incredibly clear that it was DEPENDENT on facing not just eldar, but specifically scatbike+WK eldar lists to do as well as it was doing.

Take Dark Technomancers Drukhari spamming Wracks with Ossefactors and Hexrifles. Against marines, where you MUST take out a single buff aura character immediately and damage 2 ossefactors+damage 2 splinter venoms are extremely effective, those units are absolutely the tool for the job.

Against anyone else, the prospect of a 75 point unit that packs literally two shots that do basically nothing to vehicles and very little to light infantry is a liiiittle bit of a headscratcher.

Let's face it, we're not going to get perfect data from any set of games where the players are choosing lists to tailor to meta.
About the only way I can see of doing it fairly, is to have each faction represented an equal number of times, and either have the same players playing their chosen list against all other factions, or tell them that they'll get to play 'n' number of factions at random, but each faction has an equal chance of occurring.

That way you get players still familiar with the armies they're wielding, but forced to come up with a list that isn't set on one particular enemy.

Analyzing any sort of winrate off of a minuscule amount of games and also not breaking down the matchups is a pointless endeavor.

30 games is not enough to get a clear picture of Harlequin strength and while 420 gives you a good sample size for Marines, we also don't know what the winrates are vs non-Marine armies.

regarding lists designed to kill Marines that's been the norm as long as I've been playing, TAC lists where always designed to take on the most common army Marines. so... this isn't that abnormal.

Well if GT and majors win rate is equal to that of RTT, its expected that some armies will suddenly get higher than expected WR.
In 8 man RTT one army can potentially have better mashups and show amazing results.

For instance in Flying Monkyes there were 3 harlequin players:
1. With 5 wins from 6 games
2. With 3 wins from 6 games
3. With 2 wins from 6 games

That is 55.5% WR that is pretty good,but for instance custodes have 53.5% wr from 12 players.
Its easier 1 good player from 3 to get the faction good WR than 1 from 12 good player to do the some.


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 buddha wrote:
I called harlequins as one of the top three predicted factions along with marines and custodes so I'm not surprised.

What I was very surprised by though is how chaos, particularly Death Guard, has just fallen flat on the tournament scene. I had them up there as being tourny terrors and they haven't broken a top 10 at a GT so far.

Death Guard were 3 in the Flying Monkeys and i think that is the only Major till now.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Space Wolves at the time of these tournaments were fully obsec still.

Yeah, and I don't see it as an OP ability that grants a +15% winning rate compared to other chapters. I play Deathskullz all the time and while obj sec is certainly good it doesn't let you win the game alone. Other chapters have way more efficient rules.

I'm saying that these tournaments don't reflect current state of 40k as the edition is pretty new and due to the pandemic there aren't many players around. Meta is simply not settled yet, so it's easy to surprise people with combinations that they aren't familiar with.

It reminds me of the ork results on the 2017 ITC list that someone posted recently. Orks had a nice winning rate then but those lists were just pure anti tournament meta and based on 3 turns game with ITC house rules. The same very lists were pretty mediocre if not pure garbage in real full games, despite looking solid mid tiers according to those data. Index 8th orks were probably the worst orks ever, and yet according to that table they weren't. Numbers aren't information, they must be elaborated and put into a context to provide information.

SW aren't significantly better than other chapters, that's a fact. Regardless of the most recent tournament results.

Yeah, and I don't see it as an OP ability that grants a +15% winning rate compared to other chapters.

You seem to not understand how win ratios work then. Having 65% win avarge in any sport would be considered domination of the field. Specialy in a tournament setting, because there are some sly dudes who have a 90% win ratio by being a ski jumper in Dubai etc

If a team had a 70% win ratio in a game, you get something like Bayern M. in the Bundesliga. And there are rules set up in the Bundersliga just so first the win raito doesn't go up, and second to make it as hard as possible for Bayern M to win in the first place.

Karol wrote:

Yeah, and I don't see it as an OP ability that grants a +15% winning rate compared to other chapters.

You seem to not understand how win ratios work then. Having 65% win avarge in any sport would be considered domination of the field. Specialy in a tournament setting, because there are some sly dudes who have a 90% win ratio by being a ski jumper in Dubai etc

If a team had a 70% win ratio in a game, you get something like Bayern M. in the Bundesliga. And there are rules set up in the Bundersliga just so first the win raito doesn't go up, and second to make it as hard as possible for Bayern M to win in the first place.

Imagine a league wherein the 5 best German soccer teams competed against the 5 best Indian soccer teams, you would imagine that overall the German soccer teams would have a massively high win-rate. Because in real competitive sports the worst countries have already been locked out from playing and the worst teams in even the overall strongest countries are not allowed to participate either. So just like you in Warhammer see the best playing against the best with SM, in competitive sports you see the best competing against the best. Why are Necrons and Deathwatch allowed to compete in events if we already know they are going to lose? Because tournaments are not about finding the best faction in the game, or providing interesting games that get huge investment deals, to a degree it's not even about finding the best player.

Karol wrote:

Yeah, and I don't see it as an OP ability that grants a +15% winning rate compared to other chapters.

You seem to not understand how win ratios work then. Having 65% win avarge in any sport would be considered domination of the field. Specialy in a tournament setting, because there are some sly dudes who have a 90% win ratio by being a ski jumper in Dubai etc

If a team had a 70% win ratio in a game, you get something like Bayern M. in the Bundesliga. And there are rules set up in the Bundersliga just so first the win raito doesn't go up, and second to make it as hard as possible for Bayern M to win in the first place.

Yeah and it you think that SW currently dominate the meta because in that table they have 63% you have no clue about 40k really works. You simply read a number and make your conclusions without context.

As I said SW abilities don't worth a +15% winning rate compared to other SM faction. Of course it's a personal idea and only time will tell the real state of 40k, but you could agree that a winning ratio on ITCs events doesn't always reflects the truth, especially in a moment like this with a complete new edition that started a few weeks ago and people not being able to play without un-natural limitations or not being to play at all.

Also the comparison between Bayern M and 40k overpowered factions is totally unfair, as no one could nerf Bayern even if it dominates for 30 years the german League while GW actually nerfs the overpowered faction after a few months of domination. Or it just buffs something else, while the german league can't favor other teams in order to compete.


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 vict0988 wrote:

Because in real competitive sports the worst countries have already been locked out from playing and the worst teams in even the overall strongest countries are not allowed to participate either.

This is false, in real competitive sports everyone is allowed to partecipate. But they must qualify first, simple.

Every country in the world, except those ones that are at war or not recognized by many, are allowed to partecipate to the world cup or olympics, that is true for any sport. And any team can try to reach the A league in every country, it just needs to deserve it by winning lower leagues. RB Leipzig didn't exist until 10 years ago, and started from the amateurs: now it's the second or third german football club, it also reached the semi-finals in 2020 Uefa Champions League.

 Blackie wrote:

Karol wrote:

Yeah, and I don't see it as an OP ability that grants a +15% winning rate compared to other chapters.

You seem to not understand how win ratios work then. Having 65% win avarge in any sport would be considered domination of the field. Specialy in a tournament setting, because there are some sly dudes who have a 90% win ratio by being a ski jumper in Dubai etc

If a team had a 70% win ratio in a game, you get something like Bayern M. in the Bundesliga. And there are rules set up in the Bundersliga just so first the win raito doesn't go up, and second to make it as hard as possible for Bayern M to win in the first place.

Yeah and it you think that SW currently dominate the meta because in that table they have 63% you have no clue about 40k really works. You simply read a number and make your conclusions without context.

As I said SW abilities don't worth a +15% winning rate compared to other SM faction. Of course it's an idea and only time will tell the real state of 40k, but you could agree that a winning ratio on ITCs events doesn't always reflects the truth, especially in a moment like this with a complete new edition that started a few weeks ago and people not being able to play without un-natural limitations or not being to play at all.

Also the comparison between Bayern M and 40k overpowered factions is totally unfair, as no one could nerf Bayern even if it dominates for 30 years the german League while GW actually nerfs the overpowered faction after a few months of domination. Or it just buffs something else, while the german league can't favor other teams in order to compete.

Sports DO limit teams in multiple ways. Financial Fair Play in football and NBA salary caps are there to ensure that even the little guys have a chance before the gap becomes too wide to ever bridge. They do that because they know that by widening the gap you will only end up hurting the sport in the long run.

GW doesn't seem to care about it. The Marine fatigue is more real than any other moment in the last 15 years I have been following this game. How many more months until people start selling or shelfing their armies just because they can't play any more? How many Tyranid players are you going to see on the next tournament if their 9th codex is also lackluster, like all the previous 3 before it? When will the tournaments become 90% marine vs marine? What will the Marine players do then? Are they going to keep playing or also quit?

Even in the apogee of the castelan oppression, even in 7th - call me scatterbike- madness, there has not been nearly as much resentment against the dominating faction as it is now. It is not just the strong rules, it's the 100+ kit releases in a freaking row with no sign of slowing down, it's the codex + codex 2.0 + supplements + PA + new fresh codex early in 9th edition.

People think that WHFB died because 8th edition changed the game from tabletop strategy to MMO style. But WHFB died in 7th edition, where the grand tournaments had 250 players, 210 of which were Chaos Daemons. That was what made them push 8th edition faster, when people were not ready and not interested for yet more codexes. Well, we are now close to the point where in 250 player tournaments, 200 of them will be Space Marines. Wonder what will happen next.

My local 40k community is alive and well with lots of different factions without any player or list dominating. It is even growing and getting new players every month.

I could not care less how the tourney scene looks like, as that has 0 effect on my enjoyment.

If competitive gaming in a balanced environment is important for you, Warhammer is the wrong game to begin with.

a_typical_hero wrote:
My local 40k community is alive and well with lots of different factions without any player or list dominating. It is even growing and getting new players every month.

I could not care less how the tourney scene looks like, as that has 0 effect on my enjoyment.

If competitive gaming in a balanced environment is important for you, Warhammer is the wrong game to begin with.

Well my local gaming community has shifted completely to AoS and historical games so...

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

Karol wrote:

Yeah, and I don't see it as an OP ability that grants a +15% winning rate compared to other chapters.

You seem to not understand how win ratios work then. Having 65% win avarge in any sport would be considered domination of the field. Specialy in a tournament setting, because there are some sly dudes who have a 90% win ratio by being a ski jumper in Dubai etc

If a team had a 70% win ratio in a game, you get something like Bayern M. in the Bundesliga. And there are rules set up in the Bundersliga just so first the win raito doesn't go up, and second to make it as hard as possible for Bayern M to win in the first place.

Yeah and it you think that SW currently dominate the meta because in that table they have 63% you have no clue about 40k really works. You simply read a number and make your conclusions without context.

As I said SW abilities don't worth a +15% winning rate compared to other SM faction. Of course it's an idea and only time will tell the real state of 40k, but you could agree that a winning ratio on ITCs events doesn't always reflects the truth, especially in a moment like this with a complete new edition that started a few weeks ago and people not being able to play without un-natural limitations or not being to play at all.

Also the comparison between Bayern M and 40k overpowered factions is totally unfair, as no one could nerf Bayern even if it dominates for 30 years the german League while GW actually nerfs the overpowered faction after a few months of domination. Or it just buffs something else, while the german league can't favor other teams in order to compete.

Sports DO limit teams in multiple ways. Financial Fair Play in football and NBA salary caps are there to ensure that even the little guys have a chance before the gap becomes too wide to ever bridge. They do that because they know that by widening the gap you will only end up hurting the sport in the long run.

GW doesn't seem to care about it. The Marine fatigue is more real than any other moment in the last 15 years I have been following this game. How many more months until people start selling or shelfing their armies just because they can't play any more? How many Tyranid players are you going to see on the next tournament if their 9th codex is also lackluster, like all the previous 3 before it? When will the tournaments become 90% marine vs marine? What will the Marine players do then? Are they going to keep playing or also quit?

Even in the apogee of the castelan oppression, even in 7th - call me scatterbike- madness, there has not been nearly as much resentment against the dominating faction as it is now. It is not just the strong rules, it's the 100+ kit releases in a freaking row with no sign of slowing down, it's the codex + codex 2.0 + supplements + PA + new fresh codex early in 9th edition.

People think that WHFB died because 8th edition changed the game from tabletop strategy to MMO style. But WHFB died in 7th edition, where the grand tournaments had 250 players, 210 of which were Chaos Daemons. That was what made them push 8th edition faster, when people were not ready and not interested for yet more codexes. Well, we are now close to the point where in 250 player tournaments, 200 of them will be Space Marines. Wonder what will happen next.

Given tournaments historically have always had 20-30% marine population iirc id argue a lot of the 'marine fatigue' is a self feeding community issue. Yes they're releasing more marine stuff, but that's money marine players have to pass away at this point, it hurts them more than anyone else. If you don't play marines, congrats you've spent less for a consistent ruleset and your kits aren't doubling in price for fewer models.

My local community, which has a broad spectrum of players, saw a huge drop in activity because of the 2.0 Marine Codex.

People weren't wanting to play versus Marines and Marine players weren't able to get any games. They couldn't even play mirror match-ups because they were sick of playing Loyalists v Loyalists all the time. If you're a narrative-minded player there's only so many times you can justify a "training exercise" between Ultramarines and Imperial Fists.

Saying the issue is only applicable to the competitive scene is ridiculous. It arguably affects the casual/average game more, mainly because to even fight on an even footing with Astartes you NEED to bring a competitive list and even then when 80% of your normal games are against Marines it really kills your desire to play. Even now, with things opening up a little, people are searching for games with the caveat of wanting no Marines.

 Bosskelot wrote:
Saying the issue is only applicable to the competitive scene is ridiculous. It arguably affects the casual/average game more, mainly because to even fight on an even footing with Astartes you NEED to bring a competitive list and even then when 80% of your normal games are against Marines it really kills your desire to play. Even now, with things opening up a little, people are searching for games with the caveat of wanting no Marines.

And I argue it affects the casual games less as you are able to communicate with your opponent before the game what level of competitiveness you are looking for. In a casual environment people play what they like and own, not necessarily what is the latest net list.

In a tournament environment the level of competitiveness is clear from the get go. But if your army isn't the top dog or can counter the meta list, you are out of luck and in for some bad games.
In a casual environment, if you play Slaanesh and Nurgle gets a buff, you don't care because you are a Slaanesh player. The internet will be full with threads about how Nurgle is breaking the meta and makes every other army obsolete and every Nurgling will kill 5 times the point value of every Imperial unit. And it has 0 effect on you and your other players, because they play Khorne, Eldar and Knights. That two Nurgle players in your group? See the beginning of my post.

Dudeface wrote:
So marines are winning tournaments at a 52% win rate. Or if you like, a handful of good players are being dragged down by a lot of mediocre ones and mirror matches.

Rather they are winning _games_ 52% rate. Which includes lots of mirror match that drags result toward 50%.

You play 10 marine vs marine games win rate is exactly 50%...If you play 10 games vs marines and 1 vs non-marine that you always win marine win rate would be 54%. Doesnt' mean that next non-marine player would be cheery about his chances of winning seeing he would be looking to be first non-marine to win vs marine...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackie wrote:

Yeah, and I don't see it as an OP ability that grants a +15% winning rate compared to other chapters. I play Deathskullz all the time and while obj sec is certainly good it doesn't let you win the game alone. Other chapters have way more efficient rules.
.

You compare obsec INFANTRY vs obsec ANYTHING.

Every single dreadnought, rhino, repulsor, impulsor, outrider, TFC. It's a unit, it's an obsec.

"wee" bit different.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:

Yeah, and I don't see it as an OP ability that grants a +15% winning rate compared to other chapters.

You seem to not understand how win ratios work then. Having 65% win avarge in any sport would be considered domination of the field. Specialy in a tournament setting, because there are some sly dudes who have a 90% win ratio by being a ski jumper in Dubai etc

If a team had a 70% win ratio in a game, you get something like Bayern M. in the Bundesliga. And there are rules set up in the Bundersliga just so first the win raito doesn't go up, and second to make it as hard as possible for Bayern M to win in the first place.

Think he meant he doesn't see the wolf obsec rule being OP enough to give that 15% win rate boost. As in reason for the win rate lies somewhere else.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Well my local gaming community has shifted completely to AoS and historical games so...

Why did the Non-Marine players stop playing each other?

topaxygouroun i wrote:

Sports DO limit teams in multiple ways. Financial Fair Play in football and NBA salary caps are there to ensure that even the little guys have a chance before the gap becomes too wide to ever bridge. They do that because they know that by widening the gap you will only end up hurting the sport in the long run.

Yeah, it's like allowing both players to start with 12CPs or bring both 2000 points armies, instead of giving player A a 1500 points list and player B a 2000 points one. These are rules that are applied for anyone like those ones listed in the 40k rule book and if a team becomes impossible to defeat those rules won't limit it. A team that manages to win for a long period and followed the rules can't be crippled by the league association just for the sake of the game. Juventus and Bayern won their league consecutively for almost a decade since now, PSG only missed the title once in the same time, and we're talking about 3 of the most 5 competitive football leagues in Europe (AKA in the world).

GW instead is able to introduce straight nerfs or buffs to specific factions in order to have a more balanced game, or simply to promote a specific faction to increase sales, that's the difference. For how long did AM dominated the competitive scene in 8th? What about Aeldari in soups or standalone armies? Chaos? The very hated Iron Hands are top tiers since one year? One year and a half? I bet they won't dominate the scene at the end of 9th edition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

a_typical_hero wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Well my local gaming community has shifted completely to AoS and historical games so...

Why did the Non-Marine players stop playing each other?

I did in 3rd. For fluff reasons though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:


Think he meant he doesn't see the wolf obsec rule being OP enough to give that 15% win rate boost. As in reason for the win rate lies somewhere else.

Exactly that, thanks.

a_typical_hero wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Well my local gaming community has shifted completely to AoS and historical games so...

Why did the Non-Marine players stop playing each other?

because 8th ruleset was overall a bit lackluster in regards to many things, like terrain, not to mention that there are factions out there, that are internally really wonkily balanced, which especially for narrative players can become an massive issue. Especially if people still want to play a match without a forgone conlusion with an army modeled after the lore of the faction / subfaction.

The bad balance does indeed reach quite heavily into casual or narrative sphere, especially if you want to run a campaign with custom scenarios which are supposed to be inherently unbalaced for story telling , only to exemplify the issues of certain units and combinations..

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
Saying the issue is only applicable to the competitive scene is ridiculous. It arguably affects the casual/average game more, mainly because to even fight on an even footing with Astartes you NEED to bring a competitive list and even then when 80% of your normal games are against Marines it really kills your desire to play. Even now, with things opening up a little, people are searching for games with the caveat of wanting no Marines.

And I argue it affects the casual games less as you are able to communicate with your opponent before the game what level of competitiveness you are looking for. In a casual environment people play what they like and own, not necessarily what is the latest net list.

In a tournament environment the level of competitiveness is clear from the get go. But if your army isn't the top dog or can counter the meta list, you are out of luck and in for some bad games.
In a casual environment, if you play Slaanesh and Nurgle gets a buff, you don't care because you are a Slaanesh player. The internet will be full with threads about how Nurgle is breaking the meta and makes every other army obsolete and every Nurgling will kill 5 times the point value of every Imperial unit. And it has 0 effect on you and your other players, because they play Khorne, Eldar and Knights. That two Nurgle players in your group? See the beginning of my post.

No, my point is that the inherent and easy power of Marines basically forces you into making a competitive list to face them. You cannot bring a casual fluffbunny list and expect to get an enjoyable or even fun game versus the army, even if your Marine opponent is trying to bring one themselves.

The aggressive undercosting, inherent stackable bonuses and straightforward nature of the Codex makes building a strong list incredibly simple. So simple in fact people will often do it without realizing. Unlike other armies you have to actively try hard to make a "friendly" list with Marines and this is exacerbated even further with the 9th rules and missions massively favouring how the army is structured. A Guard player can construct a "normal" list and basically be giving their opponent a guaranteed 30 VP's because of how Secondaries have been designed. A Marine player will rarely ever give any Secondaries up in their army construction so they're coming into most games with a massive VP advantage.

I've played plenty of games against the army, with friends who are honestly not trying to take hyper-optimized lists (neither of us are) and it's just been an absolute slaughter. If I take comp list and they take a comp list it's actually a lot fairer, but LSM are so incredibly busted at the average/casual level as to make them incredibly problematic. We've already run into this issue in the local Crusade Campaign with narrative Marine armies basically crushing all before them with no effort whatsoever and causing some people to accuse the players of tryharding or being WAAC.

a_typical_hero wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Well my local gaming community has shifted completely to AoS and historical games so...

Why did the Non-Marine players stop playing each other?

You ever played in a club where half the people couldn't play against the other half? It brings the whole mood of the club down. Johnny declines a game from Tim but will play Tom, then Tim feels like wtf, especially since all the players are friends. So instead of getting into drama, they all shift to a game system where they can all play and have fun instead.

Not Online!!! wrote:
because 8th ruleset was overall a bit lackluster in regards to many things, like terrain, not to mention that there are factions out there, that are internally really wonkily balanced, which especially for narrative players can become an massive issue. Especially if people still want to play a match without a forgone conlusion with an army modeled after the lore of the faction / subfaction.

The bad balance does indeed reach quite heavily into casual or narrative sphere, especially if you want to run a campaign with custom scenarios which are supposed to be inherently unbalaced for story telling , only to exemplify the issues of certain units and combinations..

I understand your points, but topaxygouroun talked about Marine fatigue and their text heavily implied that the power of Marines was the deciding factor for people to switch games.

 Bosskelot wrote:
No, my point is that the inherent and easy power of Marines basically forces you into making a competitive list to face them. You cannot bring a casual fluffbunny list and expect to get an enjoyable or even fun game versus the army, even if your Marine opponent is trying to bring one themselves.

The aggressive undercosting, inherent stackable bonuses and straightforward nature of the Codex makes building a strong list incredibly simple. So simple in fact people will often do it without realizing. Unlike other armies you have to actively try hard to make a "friendly" list with Marines and this is exacerbated even further with the 9th rules and missions massively favouring how the army is structured. A Guard player can construct a "normal" list and basically be giving their opponent a guaranteed 30 VP's because of how Secondaries have been designed. A Marine player will rarely ever give any Secondaries up in their army construction so they're coming into most games with a massive VP advantage.

I've played plenty of games against the army, with friends who are honestly not trying to take hyper-optimized lists (neither of us are) and it's just been an absolute slaughter. If I take comp list and they take a comp list it's actually a lot fairer, but LSM are so incredibly busted at the average/casual level as to make them incredibly problematic. We've already run into this issue in the local Crusade Campaign with narrative Marine armies basically crushing all before them with no effort whatsoever and causing some people to accuse the players of tryharding or being WAAC.

For comparison's sake I would like to showcase typical army lists in our gaming group, I leave it to you to judge their respective power level. I'm going from memory, so points / composition might be a bit off. We are playing 1000p games currently:

Blood Angels


Tau


Necrons


Chaos Daemons


With these lists we do have even games that usually come down to one or two objectives being secured (or not) for one side to determine victory overall.

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
Saying the issue is only applicable to the competitive scene is ridiculous. It arguably affects the casual/average game more, mainly because to even fight on an even footing with Astartes you NEED to bring a competitive list and even then when 80% of your normal games are against Marines it really kills your desire to play. Even now, with things opening up a little, people are searching for games with the caveat of wanting no Marines.

And I argue it affects the casual games less as you are able to communicate with your opponent before the game what level of competitiveness you are looking for. In a casual environment people play what they like and own, not necessarily what is the latest net list.

In a tournament environment the level of competitiveness is clear from the get go. But if your army isn't the top dog or can counter the meta list, you are out of luck and in for some bad games.
In a casual environment, if you play Slaanesh and Nurgle gets a buff, you don't care because you are a Slaanesh player. The internet will be full with threads about how Nurgle is breaking the meta and makes every other army obsolete and every Nurgling will kill 5 times the point value of every Imperial unit. And it has 0 effect on you and your other players, because they play Khorne, Eldar and Knights. That two Nurgle players in your group? See the beginning of my post.

Except it's super hard for marines to make army that doesn't simply run over anything but competive lists from NPC factions. Hell even using lots of troops isn't even protection. You need to really create weird specifically weak lists to make it even for the NPC faction. GW isn't being subtle about master faction being superior to NPC's.

a_typical_hero wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
because 8th ruleset was overall a bit lackluster in regards to many things, like terrain, not to mention that there are factions out there, that are internally really wonkily balanced, which especially for narrative players can become an massive issue. Especially if people still want to play a match without a forgone conlusion with an army modeled after the lore of the faction / subfaction.

The bad balance does indeed reach quite heavily into casual or narrative sphere, especially if you want to run a campaign with custom scenarios which are supposed to be inherently unbalaced for story telling , only to exemplify the issues of certain units and combinations..

I understand your points, but topaxygouroun talked about Marine fatigue and their text heavily implied that the power of Marines was the deciding factor for people to switch games.

well theres the other side of the coin, regardless what get's released, there's allways marines as "side"-dish on top, meanwhile we have factions that still have units older then many players, or factions with rulesupport so margialized they didn't even need to bother to show up after the first batches of dexes.
Regardless where you look, it 's marines this marines that more often then not. Meanwhile factions like DE or Aeldari are stuck in an deinvestment cycle not unlike SoB were. It's the feeling of beeing fundamentally forgotten.

Factions of forgeworld which in theory should be a huge part of their respective factions, like R&H for chaos, just got squatted but people should be happy , especially narrative players, that their faction a supposedly technologically stagnant juggernautn hold together by the sheer collective willpower and brutality of a totalitarian feudal system , get's another floaty tank. Not to mention players of the former faction pretty much just deciding to leave 40k because they have no interest in collecting another army.

Best case scenario would be decent rules support at any point for any faction AND model support beeing spread out propperly, GW instead spreads rulessupport out and model support for most factions is just a bulk and then nothing for the forseable future. Excluding the token HQ char...

This is what is fundamentally creating "marine -Fatigue" imo.



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topaxygouroun i wrote:

a_typical_hero wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Well my local gaming community has shifted completely to AoS and historical games so...

Why did the Non-Marine players stop playing each other?

You ever played in a club where half the people couldn't play against the other half? It brings the whole mood of the club down. Johnny declines a game from Tim but will play Tom, then Tim feels like wtf, especially since all the players are friends. So instead of getting into drama, they all shift to a game system where they can all play and have fun instead.

This is where the casual scene get's basically out.
Often there's a bit more leeway for unbalanced-ness in casual. a bit is bold for a reason..
But when the experience becomes that one faction as a whole has to actually try to skew lists into weaker forms, and still has a tendency to outperform a f.e. fluffy infantry regiment, or an Iron warrior gun line, or or or.

tneva82 wrote:
Except it's super hard for marines to make army that doesn't simply run over anything but competive lists from NPC factions. Hell even using lots of troops isn't even protection. You need to really create weird specifically weak lists to make it even for the NPC faction. GW isn't being subtle about master faction being superior to NPC's.

Please see the lists I posted from above. I don't feel like I'm building a specifically weak list tailored to the NPCs around me. Apart from the Chaos Daemon list, the others don't look super optimised either.

a_typical_hero wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Except it's super hard for marines to make army that doesn't simply run over anything but competive lists from NPC factions. Hell even using lots of troops isn't even protection. You need to really create weird specifically weak lists to make it even for the NPC faction. GW isn't being subtle about master faction being superior to NPC's.

Please see the lists I posted from above. I don't feel like I'm building a specifically weak list tailored to the NPCs around me. Apart from the Chaos Daemon list, the others don't look super optimised either.

Pretty sure you can't fit the daemon list. LoC is 270, KoS are 210 each on the cheap version, so 690 right there. 30 PB without banner or instrument is 270, so we're already over by 60 and you're still missing two nurgling units at 54 each MSU, so it's basically a 1168 pt list.

Also, I find your thinking weird: "Look bro, I don't feel like building weak lists with my marines, so if you want to stand a chance against me better get on that triple greater daemon plan and soon".

Well, I view the results above with a grain of salt.
We already play with 9th ed rules and 8th ed codices.
This is nothing new - a new edition is released and the codices lack behind (bar the introduction of the 8th ed where we got the indices).
I'm really looking forward to the new SM codex with supplements of some (founding and nonfounding) chapters.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Pretty sure you can't fit the daemon list. LoC is 270, KoS are 210 each on the cheap version, so 690 right there. 30 PB without banner or instrument is 270, so we're already over by 60 and you're still missing two nurgling units at 54 each MSU, so it's basically a 1168 pt list.

Also, I find your thinking weird: "Look bro, I don't feel like building weak lists with my marines, so if you want to stand a chance against me better get on that triple greater daemon plan and soon".

As I wrote, I'm going from memory. Might have been one KoS less but some kind of support character for the PBs.

You misunderstand me due to language barrier.

I don't mean "I didn't feel like adapting to the others, so deal with what I bring".

I mean "I don't feel that the BA list I made is weaker on purpose to account for non-Marines around me".