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 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Then why are you fighting so hard against people that want listbuilding to matter less in 40k?

What's written in that post doesn't have anything to do with that desire.

"Listbuilding should matter less" is not addressed by, concerned with, or even really that relevant to "Listbuilding always matters."

What I want is for people to demonstrate a system by which 40k can change in this direction without destroying the things that 40k has had since its inception.

Merely having a desire for something is useless unless one actually takes tangible steps to change what they have issues with for the better. With the exception of Mezmorki very few players actually take this step and progress beyond whining about how the game should be. Even Mezmorki's system is highly unlikely to have changed 40k such that list building isn't the most important factor in who wins a game.

Thus I challenge all who have opposed me to present a system by which 40k can be balanced such that list building is not the largest determiner of skill, which keeps intact the scope and scale of the game as it presently exists, and which remains popular enough to maintain the current level of interest in 40k.

If you pay people to be game designers, they will design games. If you don't pay them to be game designers, they won't design games.

Inability or unwillingness to do the 40k designer's jobs for them does not make someone's criticism of those designers and the jobs they do invalid.

Your challenge proves nothing, is not required for either argument to be sound or valid, and is a stupid waste of time.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
I'd argue that there aren't arbitrarily good or bad units in 40k either

You were arguing that either Conscripts or Infantry need to be objectively inferior to the other and that actually balancing them is impossible.

That means one needs to be good and the other needs to be bad. That's a trap choice. That's what you've been saying is good and/or necessary.

That is what we are talking about. Stop derailing it by shifting goalposts to 'maybe they're balanced how they are because of the codex they're in'. We're talking about trap choices, ie things that are objectively bad but not readily apparent as such.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Argument to popularity isn't an argument at all.

In the case of a game that requires other players it is. How many laments of 'I can't find anybody to play with for [insert game here]' have we seen on this forum over the years?

I see the problem, you've missed the whole "40k is a designed game" thing.

The claim is that 40k should be designed such that listbuilding should matter less.
Scope and scale are part of game design.
Therefore, claiming that "scope and scale prevent the game from being designed such that listbuilding should matter less" is, by Premise 1 and 2, saying that "game design prevents the game from being designed such that listbuilding should matter less."

This is not only a tautology, but also utterly irrelevant and trivial, because changing the game design is the entire point.

Please present me with a system by which a force of Guardsmen with nothing heavier than a heavy bolter in their armory can ever beat a list that maximizes its use of effective armor? Unless you can solve this issue 40k cannot be balanced as you wish it to be.

 Canadian 5th wrote:


Thus I challenge all who have opposed me to present a system by which 40k can be balanced such that list building is not the largest determiner of skill, which keeps intact the scope and scale of the game as it presently exists, and which remains popular enough to maintain the current level of interest in 40k.

random missions drawn from a pack before the game, with no faction-specific secondaries.
Poof, TAC become the norm since you need to be able to play multiple varied missions. Player skill then shifts more towards the in-game skill than the excel skill.

Oh, and thats assuming the mission pack is balanced in itself.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
And in 40k, the degree is too high for the game to be fun.

If that's the case why isn't this reflected in the game's popularity or GW's profitability? If 40k is as awful and unplayable as people on this forum claim why is it that only a tiny tiny minority of us seem to notice?

40k isnt bad, its fun most of the time, and people have too many $$ invested into it to all drop it when were its in a slump.
40k also is riding hard on its IP momentum. Being THE wargame that everyone knows about and that LGSs have in stock (and the warhammer stored themselves) makes it hard for the game to go anywhere but up.

Again, i enjoy 40k, that doesn't prevent me from passing judgment on certain aspects of it.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Please present me with a system by which a force of Guardsmen with nothing heavier than a heavy bolter in their armory can ever beat a list that maximizes its use of effective armor? Unless you can solve this issue 40k cannot be balanced as you wish it to be.

Trivial. Use army building or mission rules to discourage the case where someone brings a force of Guardsmen with nothing heavier than a heavy bolter or conversely make the ability to kill the enemy less relevant to winning the mission. 40k already does this.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If you pay people to be game designers, they will design games. If you don't pay them to be game designers, they won't design games.

I don't care if 40k changes or stays the same so why would I do this?

Inability or unwillingness to do the 40k designer's jobs for them does not make someone's criticism of those designers and the jobs they do invalid.

Your challenge proves nothing, is not required for either argument to be sound or valid, and is a stupid waste of time.

Then you cannot prove that 40k can be both balanced and maintain its current scope and scale.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Argument to popularity isn't an argument at all.

In the case of a game that requires other players it is. How many laments of 'I can't find anybody to play with for [insert game here]' have we seen on this forum over the years?

No, it isn't, because that's not how arguments work. Argumentum ad populum is a fallacy, and we're in the realm of theory and philosophy right now, not practicality.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:


Thus I challenge all who have opposed me to present a system by which 40k can be balanced such that list building is not the largest determiner of skill, which keeps intact the scope and scale of the game as it presently exists, and which remains popular enough to maintain the current level of interest in 40k.

random missions drawn from a pack before the game, with no faction-specific secondaries.
Poof, TAC become the norm since you need to be able to play multiple varied missions. Player skill then shifts more towards the in-game skill than the excel skill.

Oh, and thats assuming the mission pack is balanced in itself.

That actually kills more lists than it creates. No instead of allowing for people to experiment with skew lists you've essentially made it so that TAC lists are the only viable option and narrowed the scope of the game from where it presently exists.

Congratulations you've just killed 40k.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If you pay people to be game designers, they will design games. If you don't pay them to be game designers, they won't design games.

I don't care if 40k changes or stays the same so why would I do this?

I have no idea. It's your challenge, not mine.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Inability or unwillingness to do the 40k designer's jobs for them does not make someone's criticism of those designers and the jobs they do invalid.

Your challenge proves nothing, is not required for either argument to be sound or valid, and is a stupid waste of time.

Then you cannot prove that 40k can be both balanced and maintain its current scope and scale.

That's because I'm not trying to prove that.

Can you show where I am?

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:


Thus I challenge all who have opposed me to present a system by which 40k can be balanced such that list building is not the largest determiner of skill, which keeps intact the scope and scale of the game as it presently exists, and which remains popular enough to maintain the current level of interest in 40k.

random missions drawn from a pack before the game, with no faction-specific secondaries.
Poof, TAC become the norm since you need to be able to play multiple varied missions. Player skill then shifts more towards the in-game skill than the excel skill.

Oh, and thats assuming the mission pack is balanced in itself.

That actually kills more lists than it creates. No instead of allowing for people to experiment with skew lists you've essentially made it so that TAC lists are the only viable option and narrowed the scope of the game from where it presently exists.

Congratulations you've just killed 40k.

so 40k == skew list in your mind?

We'll never agree on anything then, i think im done here.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Trivial. Use army building or mission rules to discourage the case where someone brings a force of Guardsmen with nothing heavier than a heavy bolter or conversely make the ability to kill the enemy less relevant to winning the mission. 40k already does this.

Doesn't 9th edition already do this with secondaries that discourage vehicle heavy lists and missions that reward holding them with infantry bodies?

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Trivial. Use army building or mission rules to discourage the case where someone brings a force of Guardsmen with nothing heavier than a heavy bolter or conversely make the ability to kill the enemy less relevant to winning the mission. 40k already does this.

Doesn't 9th edition already do this with secondaries that discourage vehicle heavy lists and missions that reward holding them with infantry bodies?

Yes. That's why I said 40k already does this. (in literally the same post you quoted. In the quote. At the end.).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That's because I'm not trying to prove that.

Can you show where I am?

You must be, otherwise, you wouldn't be debating 40k which contains a certain scope and scale of models.

Let me ask you bluntly, can 40k be as you desire it to be without removing any currently extant model from the range and keeping model counts roughly the same as they are now?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
so 40k == skew list in your mind?

We'll never agree on anything then, i think im done here.

No, but 40k must retain the ability for such matchups to occur else you've removed a lot of player choice from the list building and model collecting phase of the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Trivial. Use army building or mission rules to discourage the case where someone brings a force of Guardsmen with nothing heavier than a heavy bolter or conversely make the ability to kill the enemy less relevant to winning the mission. 40k already does this.

Doesn't 9th edition already do this with secondaries that discourage vehicle heavy lists and missions that reward holding them with infantry bodies?

Yes. That's why I said 40k already does this. (in literally the same post you quoted. In the quote. At the end.).

Then what are you arguing exactly? If 40k is already doing the thing you desire it to do what more do you want?

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That's because I'm not trying to prove that.

Can you show where I am?

You must be, otherwise, you wouldn't be debating 40k which contains a certain scope and scale of models.

Let me ask you bluntly, can 40k be as you desire it to be without removing any currently extant model from the range and keeping model counts roughly the same as they are now?

Why would I want to do that? The amount of bloat in the current model ranges is much too large.

You have army lists for:
- the FBI (inquisition)
- the Army (Imperial Guard)
- the Department of Homeland Security (Deathwatch)
- the Catholic Church (Sisters of Battle)
- the Marines (Marines)
- electronic warfare specialists (Sisters of Silence)

What we have now is a game that allows for a firefight between the FBI leading a team of electronic warfare specialists against a company of M1 Abrams tanks supported by attack helicopters and artillery. And that's just within ONE of the game's THREE superfactions!

That's patently ridiculous so I see no reason to preserve it.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Then what are you arguing exactly? If 40k is already doing the thing you desire it to do what more do you want?

Because there's more to "make listbuilding matter less" than answering a trivial example thrown out by someone who barely understands the argument they're trying to counter?

 Canadian 5th wrote:
No, but 40k must retain the ability for such matchups to occur else you've removed a lot of player choice from the list building and model collecting phase of the game.

VladimirHerzog only suggested random missions, as a way to incentivize (not require) lists that can handle a variety of missions. That doesn't eliminate 'the ability for such matchups to occur'. You can still take a skew list if you want. It just might not be superior to a TAC list, depending on the mission.

You're not actually complaining about diversity of lists possible. A game where TAC lists built to the missions can go toe-to-toe with hyperspecialized skew lists would be an improvement in that regard.

You're just complaining that skew lists wouldn't be optimal anymore.

 catbarf wrote:
You were arguing that either Conscripts or Infantry need to be objectively inferior to the other and that actually balancing them is impossible.

That means one needs to be good and the other needs to be bad. That's a trap choice. That's what you've been saying is good and/or necessary.

That is what we are talking about. Stop derailing it by shifting goalposts to 'maybe they're balanced how they are because of the codex they're in'. We're talking about trap choices, ie things that are objectively bad but not readily apparent as such.

Mathematically one of those two options will always be better for a given list than the other. This cannot be avoided due to the nature of both math and logic. This does mean that objectively one will be better than the other but it doesn't mean that the other is unplayable. What it means is that the weaker option will be a trap, a drain on list efficiency, that it takes a skilled list builder to avoid.

Do you dispute this?

You dont really need to increase the amount of rules to make different unit types matter. 40k is really shallow and yet very complex. You could reduce the overall amount of special rules by 50% and use half of that amount of text to make more engaging core rules.

In lotr you have maybe 5 times the core rules of 40k but except some new heroes all the army rules fit in 2 books. One for LotR and one for the Hobbit(Rivendell, most of the white council and the eagles are the same as in the other book) and half the books is scenarios and pictures and not even rules. On the other hand most army wide special rules are only a sentence or two long and the rest are mostly made up of keywords from the core rules.

What makes Cavalry or Monsters special are the few pages in the core book that handles them. Quite a few more interesting and tactical things that matters than 40k unit types. Most monsters or cavalry by themselves only have a keyword or two besides their unit type. Core rules that matters and not special rules that are different for every army.

In 40k what separates unit types are mostly if they are infantry and can go through terrain or not and what weapons they can shoot with into combat. You cant really do much to separate unit types since unit and terrain interactions are so few and streamlined. It is better than 8th but not by much. Earlier editions had more of a reason of taking certain unit typess. Before you could run/advance infantry almost had to take transports to make up for their lack of speed. If they wanted to shoot they mostly had to stay still or only fire pistols/short range. Made them much slower than vehicles or bikes. Marines on foot went from max 6" move a turn to a potential of 13"+ inches on a smaller table.


Lotr have fewer units than 40k since they lack the bloat so the game is very balanced. I don't think there are any trap units like in 40k that are just bad. You can of course build bad lists but unless you try to make it bad and instead take a bit of everything you will have quite the balanced army by design. Taking only support heroes, like 10 orc shamans, or stacking pointless unit upgrades, mass banners or warhorns, will ofc make a worthless list but you have to work pretty hard to do that.

40k need more detailed core rules and more varied mission types. You cant balance it just with secondaries if the first 2 is lacking.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Why would I want to do that? The amount of bloat in the current model ranges is much too large.

You have army lists for:
- the FBI (inquisition)
- the Army (Imperial Guard)
- the Department of Homeland Security (Deathwatch)
- the Catholic Church (Sisters of Battle)
- the Marines (Marines)
- electronic warfare specialists (Sisters of Silence)

What we have now is a game that allows for a firefight between the FBI leading a team of electronic warfare specialists against a company of M1 Abrams tanks supported by attack helicopters and artillery. And that's just within ONE of the game's THREE superfactions!

That's patently ridiculous so I see no reason to preserve it.

If you made your changes how many existing armies would become unplayable in your version of the game? What effect do you think this would have on the health of the game?

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
You were arguing that either Conscripts or Infantry need to be objectively inferior to the other and that actually balancing them is impossible.

That means one needs to be good and the other needs to be bad. That's a trap choice. That's what you've been saying is good and/or necessary.

That is what we are talking about. Stop derailing it by shifting goalposts to 'maybe they're balanced how they are because of the codex they're in'. We're talking about trap choices, ie things that are objectively bad but not readily apparent as such.

Mathematically one of those two options will always be better for a given list than the other. This cannot be avoided due to the nature of both math and logic. This does mean that objectively one will be better than the other but it doesn't mean that the other is unplayable. What it means is that the weaker option will be a trap, a drain on list efficiency, that it takes a skilled list builder to avoid.

Do you dispute this?

Yes, because the value of a unit could depend more on what the tabletop requirements are rather than the contents of the rest of the list. Say that, in general, Conscripts are worse than guardsmen, but there's a good chance in a mission pack of getting a mission where, say, only units that started the game as 30 models can hold objectives?

Voila, a reason to take conscripts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Why would I want to do that? The amount of bloat in the current model ranges is much too large.

You have army lists for:
- the FBI (inquisition)
- the Army (Imperial Guard)
- the Department of Homeland Security (Deathwatch)
- the Catholic Church (Sisters of Battle)
- the Marines (Marines)
- electronic warfare specialists (Sisters of Silence)

What we have now is a game that allows for a firefight between the FBI leading a team of electronic warfare specialists against a company of M1 Abrams tanks supported by attack helicopters and artillery. And that's just within ONE of the game's THREE superfactions!

That's patently ridiculous so I see no reason to preserve it.

If you made your changes how many existing armies would become unplayable in your version of the game? What effect do you think this would have on the health of the game?

I'm not proposing making any changes, so I can't answer either of those questions. The specific nature of the required changes is up to the game designers - they could scope it so that M1 Abrams tank companies supported by attack helicopters never fight the FBI leading EW specialists. Or they could add EW missions where the tank company better include some EW specialists of its own and the FBI/EW teams actually have a major advantage.

Or you could make one of a whole host of changes limited only by your innovation and imagination to improve the game. Unfortunately, I am not paid by you or anyone else enough to do this task on my own.

 catbarf wrote:
VladimirHerzog only suggested random missions, as a way to incentivize (not require) lists that can handle a variety of missions. That doesn't eliminate 'the ability for such matchups to occur'. You can still take a skew list if you want. It just might not be superior to a TAC list, depending on the mission.

You're not actually complaining about diversity of lists possible. A game where TAC lists built to the missions can go toe-to-toe with hyperspecialized skew lists would be an improvement in that regard.

You're just complaining that skew lists wouldn't be optimal anymore.

Skew lists, at least many forms of them, aren't currently optimal either.

Hi all,

Anyone else finding these secondary objectives are just very poorly thought out? Sure they give you the chance to score how you wish - but they are designed in such a way that certain armies are at a huge disadvantage by default.

As an example, armies that have squishy units combined with tanks and monsters (Drukhari, Tyranids and Guard come to mind) - you can easily take 2 secondaries to score points for killing the squishy units (eg, Kabalites, Gaunts, Infantry) and to kill vehicles (Venom, Sentinels, Carnifex).

Armies that are more elite-based on the other hand have a huge advantage in this respect. Custodes for example offer very little opportunities for these objectives .

Obviously the primaries are where the real points are, but with armies like Space Marines getting their historic buffs to shots, attacks, doctrines etc - they can quickly make short of those same armies as mentioned earlier so that even if they make it to the objective - they don’t get to stay on it.

Unless the new Codexes do something to change this, then I can’t see how those armies would be able to overcome such an obvious disadvantage from a gameplay mechanic. Assuming that wasn’t the plan to get us all buying space marines......

The OP was complaining, primarily, about a lack of balance and a lack of list diversity. Hence why I assume that any change would address both of these issues at once and not seek to force a TAC style of list on everybody.

Also, you do realize that a skew list can be a TAC list, right? Do I need to provide examples of such skew lists or shall I assume you can recall past metas clearly?

Can you plainly state what you're arguing, Canadian 5th?

You seem to be all over the place, and not really making a coherent argument.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes, because the value of a unit could depend more on what the tabletop requirements are rather than the contents of the rest of the list. Say that, in general, Conscripts are worse than guardsmen, but there's a good chance in a mission pack of getting a mission where, say, only units that started the game as 30 models can hold objectives?

Voila, a reason to take conscripts.

How are Custodians, Space Marines, Eldar, Sisters, Knights, Necrons, Dark Elder, and others I'm surely missing meant to play that mission?

I'm not proposing making any changes, so I can't answer either of those questions. The specific nature of the required changes is up to the game designers - they could scope it so that M1 Abrams tank companies supported by attack helicopters never fight the FBI leading EW specialists. Or they could add EW missions where the tank company better include some EW specialists of its own and the FBI/EW teams actually have a major advantage.

Or you could make one of a whole host of changes limited only by your innovation and imagination to improve the game. Unfortunately, I am not paid by you or anyone else enough to do this task on my own.

Your two suggestions both hurt the game in terms of matched play and are complete nonstarters. Removed - don't be rude to the other posters please

 JNAProductions wrote:
Can you plainly state what you're arguing, Canadian 5th?

You seem to be all over the place, and not really making a coherent argument.

My argument is that 40k, as it exists, is impossible to balance such that list building doesn't dominate gameplay, and more specifically the outcome of the gameplay, without drastically changing the scope and scale of the game. The logic for this involves the number of unique combinations of units that exist within each codex without factoring in wargear options or unique subfaction traits. I have previously demonstrated the math behind this first claim using Space Marines as the example codex in other threads and will provide it again if asked. The logic also involves the skew inherent to the game as we must factor in units such as Nurglings or Grots next to units like Titans and Knights and the game desires them to be able to face off against one another and have meaningful unit to unit and model to model interactions between the two extremes. Finally, my argument rests on not being to change either of these factors without alienating the existing player base of the game to such an extent that the game sees a sharp decline in popularity.

In brief, 40k is next to impossible to fix in the way most posters in this thread desire it to be without changing it to such an extent that it ceases to be 40k as it has existed for decades.

I am a big fan of the Age of Sigmar missions. All are very diverse, so you need to plan for them all with the one list., which encourages a diverse list. Playing Knife to the Heart, requires different tools than Places of Arcane power.

40k missions (now, and with the ITC before), are pretty much all the same mission, but with secondary's adding slightly different scoring mechanisms. The same type of army does well in all the missions.

I was more of a fan of the Chapter Approved Matched play missions in 8th, as they were diverse and all played very differently, so you needed to actually take different missions in account when list building.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
You were arguing that either Conscripts or Infantry need to be objectively inferior to the other and that actually balancing them is impossible.

That means one needs to be good and the other needs to be bad. That's a trap choice. That's what you've been saying is good and/or necessary.

That is what we are talking about. Stop derailing it by shifting goalposts to 'maybe they're balanced how they are because of the codex they're in'. We're talking about trap choices, ie things that are objectively bad but not readily apparent as such.

Mathematically one of those two options will always be better for a given list than the other. This cannot be avoided due to the nature of both math and logic. This does mean that objectively one will be better than the other but it doesn't mean that the other is unplayable. What it means is that the weaker option will be a trap, a drain on list efficiency, that it takes a skilled list builder to avoid.

Do you dispute this?

I absolutely dispute that.

The idea that one of two choices must always beobjectively better than the other is absolutely laughable if you've played games with deeper decision-making, where different choices provide different capabilities rather than redundant, easily-compared ones. That's what we've been saying. Try to play Infinity with this spreadsheet mentality and you're going to lose.

It is entirely possible to design a game where two choices are equally viable because they're different and enable different tactics.

I'll be honest, you really sound like someone who hasn't played games besides 40K and has very limited experience in game design. You keep insisting that things that are common practice outside the GW sphere are outright impossible, and then try to argue that they don't count despite having no actual experience with the games in question.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes, because the value of a unit could depend more on what the tabletop requirements are rather than the contents of the rest of the list. Say that, in general, Conscripts are worse than guardsmen, but there's a good chance in a mission pack of getting a mission where, say, only units that started the game as 30 models can hold objectives?

Voila, a reason to take conscripts.

How are Custodians, Space Marines, Eldar, Sisters, Knights, Necrons, Dark Elder, and others I'm surely missing meant to play that mission?

Some units that can accomplish that task?

 Canadian 5th wrote:

I'm not proposing making any changes, so I can't answer either of those questions. The specific nature of the required changes is up to the game designers - they could scope it so that M1 Abrams tank companies supported by attack helicopters never fight the FBI leading EW specialists. Or they could add EW missions where the tank company better include some EW specialists of its own and the FBI/EW teams actually have a major advantage.

Or you could make one of a whole host of changes limited only by your innovation and imagination to improve the game. Unfortunately, I am not paid by you or anyone else enough to do this task on my own.

Your two suggestions both hurt the game in terms of matched play and are complete nonstarters.

[Citation needed]

 Canadian 5th wrote:
You are playing the part of the screaming child demanding a change for which you will invest no effort beyond your incessant wailing.

Yep, this is exactly correct and not an unfair or disingenuous assertion at all. I definitely haven't been putting effort into anything I've said here and am in fact indistinguishable from a screaming child. You've found me out! (Also ad-hominem attacks are a fallacy, so that's what, your fifth? Sixth? I've lost count).

 Canadian 5th wrote:
In brief, 40k is next to impossible to fix in the way most posters in this thread desire it to be without changing it to such an extent that it ceases to be 40k as it has existed for decades.

40k hasn't been in the 8th/9th paradigm for "decades". 5th came out in 2008, so it hasn't even been in the 6th-8th edition paradigm for decades. In fact, it hasn't been a single decade since the release of 6th edition. Want to know what factions of the ones I listed existed in 5th edition 40k?

The Army (Imperial Guard)
The Catholic Church (Sisters of Battle)
The Marines (Marines)

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
You were arguing that either Conscripts or Infantry need to be objectively inferior to the other and that actually balancing them is impossible.

That means one needs to be good and the other needs to be bad. That's a trap choice. That's what you've been saying is good and/or necessary.

That is what we are talking about. Stop derailing it by shifting goalposts to 'maybe they're balanced how they are because of the codex they're in'. We're talking about trap choices, ie things that are objectively bad but not readily apparent as such.

Mathematically one of those two options will always be better for a given list than the other. This cannot be avoided due to the nature of both math and logic. This does mean that objectively one will be better than the other but it doesn't mean that the other is unplayable. What it means is that the weaker option will be a trap, a drain on list efficiency, that it takes a skilled list builder to avoid.

Do you dispute this?

there it is, THATS what we mean and are looking for.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes, because the value of a unit could depend more on what the tabletop requirements are rather than the contents of the rest of the list. Say that, in general, Conscripts are worse than guardsmen, but there's a good chance in a mission pack of getting a mission where, say, only units that started the game as 30 models can hold objectives?

Voila, a reason to take conscripts.

How are Custodians, Space Marines, Eldar, Sisters, Knights, Necrons, Dark Elder, and others I'm surely missing meant to play that mission?

they gave you a quick example, not a definitive "its in the next mission pack as-is 100%". If you can't understand that from their comment then im sorry for you.

Just having a mission where firepower isnt necessary and bodies are would make conscripts better than guardsmen and doesnt prevent other armies from playing them.

 catbarf wrote:
I absolutely dispute that.

The idea that one of two choices must always beobjectively better than the other is absolutely laughable if you've played games with deeper decision-making, where different choices provide different capabilities rather than redundant, easily-compared ones. That's what we've been saying. Try to play Infinity with this spreadsheet mentality and you're going to lose.

That's laughably and provably false. Yes, if I as a human player try to play Infinity with a spreadsheet mentality I'm going to lose just the same as if I took the same approach to playing Chess or Go. However, there are objectively correct options and with enough time and computational power, any game that relies on logic can be mathematically optimized. Your arguing at a different and more limited scale than I am, I'm arguing that at an absolute scale no game can ever be balanced, at a human scale people think dice are actually random...

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
I absolutely dispute that.

The idea that one of two choices must always beobjectively better than the other is absolutely laughable if you've played games with deeper decision-making, where different choices provide different capabilities rather than redundant, easily-compared ones. That's what we've been saying. Try to play Infinity with this spreadsheet mentality and you're going to lose.

That's laughably and provably false. Yes, if I as a human player try to play Infinity with a spreadsheet mentality I'm going to lose just the same as if I took the same approach to playing Chess or Go. However, there are objectively correct options and with enough time and computational power, any game that relies on logic can be mathematically optimized. Your arguing at a different and more limited scale than I am, I'm arguing that at an absolute scale no game can ever be balanced, at a human scale people think dice are actually random...

For someone who makes a big deal about logic, you sure do employ a lot of unsupported assertions, fallacies, invalid and unsound arguments, and outright false claims (such as your 40k "decades" one).

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
I absolutely dispute that.

The idea that one of two choices must always beobjectively better than the other is absolutely laughable if you've played games with deeper decision-making, where different choices provide different capabilities rather than redundant, easily-compared ones. That's what we've been saying. Try to play Infinity with this spreadsheet mentality and you're going to lose.

That's laughably and provably false. Yes, if I as a human player try to play Infinity with a spreadsheet mentality I'm going to lose just the same as if I took the same approach to playing Chess or Go. However, there are objectively correct options and with enough time and computational power, any game that relies on logic can be mathematically optimized. Your arguing at a different and more limited scale than I am, I'm arguing that at an absolute scale no game can ever be balanced, at a human scale people think dice are actually random...

Okay, sure. In a specific circumstance, for a specific set of missions, it's theoretically possible with a universal computer to determine that Unit A operates at 102% efficiency, while Unit B is only 100% and Unit C is 99%.

No one is asking for absolutely, 100% perfect balance, because yes, that's not possible. But I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for BETTER balance-considering the mess that 40k is now, they could do a LOT better.