Drukhari are OP, what next?

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**StrayIight**

Daedalus81 wrote:
StrayIight wrote:
It's what I'd hope the playtesting group are doing, as I can't see them having any real structure or organisation.

Yep. "Here's the book. Play it a few times and let us know what you think."

Yeah. Nail, head, and direct hit I fear.

**Insectum7**

StrayIight wrote:
Daedalus81 wrote:
StrayIight wrote:
It's what I'd hope the playtesting group are doing, as I can't see them having any real structure or organisation.

Yep. "Here's the book. Play it a few times and let us know what you think."

Yeah. Nail, head, and direct hit I fear.

Because it's free. More than that it's with the same people who basically do free advertising for GW, so for GW it's free playtesting and free increased product awareness and advertising. It's an aweaome deal for corperate.

**Tyran**

vict0988 wrote:

What are beta rules? Wide community testing, woah!

Beta testing is mostly done for performance and scalability, which are not really are relevant parameters on tabletop gaming, but are fundamental ones on videogames, specially multiplayer ones.

Also wide community beta rules is more of a marketing ploy than actual testing.

So is the making of ice cream, making ice cream isn't rocket science either.

The point is that it is something that requires professionals.

The second you stop caring about the consumer is the second you start going downhill. Gambling is not inherently unfriendly to consumers assuming the data on the mechanics of the gamble is available and people are given warnings not to spend more than they can afford. I am in no way advocating for GW to sacrifice profits, I am saying that the silly designers need to sacrifice their pride and put in a tiny bit of directed effort to make a more balanced and profitable game.

Gambling is inherently anti-consumer, as it is actually messes with our brains. So is marketing BTW.

**yukishiro1**

That's absolutely how it works, based on the statements of people who have been involved in it. There's nothing remotely systematic or organized about it. It's really just an incentive program for whoever they want to flatter, the free labor they get in return isn't the important part.

**Karol**

the_scotsman wrote:

Uh....Good? So you're saying Space Marines are achieving the goal of where a faction ought to be in competitive play? Solid but not overwhelming performance with an extremely high playrate in competitive play?

So why do we need to worry about marines again?

All I am saying is that DE seem to have been given a style of design distinct from marines. Marines design in 8th and 9th seem to be driven by one factor. Here is a classic marine unit, let us replace it with a primaris unit. Now this doesn't mean the primaris option are or have to be bad . But it does end up, and I know people don't like it when I do this, but this is like a bunch of countries decide to skim a pool of 1000 youths to get some good wrestlers each year. And they get some better and some worse ones. And then there is Dagestan, Kirgistan etc where there are wrestler clans and families that are known to have been wrestlers in the court of Timur, and when you see those wrestler fight you see the difference in optimisation. Marine good seems mostly not planed. The way GW was suprised that salamander armies can run on almost just aggresors. GW doesn't like to be suprised, so they nerfed it very fast. On the other hand they want stuff like harlis or DE works in a specific way, and there is nothing wrong in it, but their lists feel as if someone first build a list and give rules to units, and later assigned costs etc.

ah and I don't think that pre DE anyone worried about marines, if the played to win their games with proper armies. Aside for that very short lived time of salamanders being good. As far as core rules in 8th armies like SoB for example did much better and were more of a threat, most of the time. And just like with harlequins one have to remember that SoB, were good in 9th without a 9th update and a 9th codex. I think people worried more about them, or what certain soups are going to do to the playfield. Because clearly GW is not thinking much about that kind of a play in 9th.

**Cybtroll**

If GW really want to balance their game they should provide their app for free, including a way to report results (providing a reason to do so) and then grind the data...
Nowadays it's easy and essentially cheap.

Really, the idea that the entire process should be internally managed or done with internal resources is pretty obsolete.

Of course that would require a radical change in their overall products strategy.

To go back to the topic, I'll try next week a game against Drukhari. I'll bring a Dark Angel DW/RW army. Should be an heavyweight match, I'll let you in know how it goes

**the_scotsman**

StrayIight wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
I would assume you'd do what the community does when the codex leaks come out:

-theorycraft to try and find a few powerful combos (e.g. liquifier wracks in dark tech, Obrose Kabalite warriors with 30" range rapid fire poison, Black Heart or Obrose 5-man blaster squads, test of skill hellions, CoS razor succubus

-Test those models in a skew list and in a tac list against some common competitive builds, and provide some feedback.

you don't have to test every option on every unit in every subfaction. the strong combos are generally fairly clear from the get.

This is pretty much what I'd expect what we'd call 'exploratory testing' to look like in 40K. That's testing outside of a script, using experience of a product, environment, engine, game, whatever to find issues in a more unstructured manner. It's not great in terms of making sure you've covered everything, but it's useful for finding 'defects' that might otherwise be missed or are unusual interactions.

It's what I'd hope the playtesting group are doing, as I can't see them having any real structure or organisation.

True, its also not like any of these books are being released in a vacuum. They're revisions. You don't necessarily need to do extensive testing on drukhari beasts, or reavers, or scourges, or razorwing jetfighters or any other unit that's barely changing at all, just run some quick mathhammer to make sure those things are performing within the same range as other units near the same price point from other codexes. It's interactions with new rules and traits you really have to target, and it's clear that they do a lot of general, holistic, full-army tests and not any kind of focused problem-hunting.

**Karol**

Daedalus81 wrote:

Yep. "Here's the book. Play it a few times and let us know what you think."

And then we change the rules of the stuff you have been playtesting. And because we hid the names of the people who are in the design, now the playtesters can sparkle with their eyes and smile to the public, catching all the backlash.

**Tyran**

Cybtroll wrote:
If GW really want to balance their game they should provide their app for free, including a way to report results (providing a reason to do so) and then grind the data...

And that is how you get a lot of useless data because there is no way to assure its value and people will abuse such feature.

**Karol**

the_scotsman wrote:
[
True, its also not like any of these books are being released in a vacuum. They're revisions. You don't necessarily need to do extensive testing on drukhari beasts, or reavers, or scourges, or razorwing jetfighters or any other unit that's barely changing at all, just run some quick mathhammer to make sure those things are performing within the same range as other units near the same price point from other codexes. It's interactions with new rules and traits you really have to target, and it's clear that they do a lot of general, holistic, full-army tests and not any kind of focused problem-hunting.

That is very true. But still if I in my backwater place of living can get info 6 months back, that raiders are very good and kind of a undercosted. Then I assume that the testers and GW sees it too.

Although I was told by mr CCS, that the knowladge doesn't mean GW is interested in doing any changes. And hearing some historical evidance of undercosted stuff, this seems to hold a large chunk of truth.

**Daedalus81**

Cybtroll wrote:
If GW really want to balance their game they should provide their app for free, including a way to report results (providing a reason to do so) and then grind the data...
Nowadays it's easy and essentially cheap.

Really, the idea that the entire process should be internally managed or done with internal resources is pretty obsolete.

Of course that would require a radical change in their overall products strategy.

To go back to the topic, I'll try next week a game against Drukhari. I'll bring a Dark Angel DW/RW army. Should be an heavyweight match, I'll let you in know how it goes

There are so many malcontents I would be wary of trusting public data. There would be no way to separate the noise. Maybe an invite program where the results you post are anonymous so you don't fear getting punted.

**Karol**

Tyran wrote:
Cybtroll wrote:
If GW really want to balance their game they should provide their app for free, including a way to report results (providing a reason to do so) and then grind the data...

And that is how you get a lot of useless data because there is no way to assure its value and people will abuse such feature.

Not in a tournament setting, because the number of people who are willing to pay for a hotel and supply a wack list is rather small.

GW even without an app, should see that DE armies are running tax raiders, 3 units of wracks, drazh, styfe succubus and even specific weapon load outs. Now what they do with the info is another thing. Who knows maybe GW thinks that starting a DE army with 3 patrol boxs, is enough of a monetary entice for them to leave it like so for some time. \\\

But the most fun part what the playtester say is about the comming army that will reign the DE in. Which of course is nice. for that one army players. For everyone else it better not mean that we just get DE dropped to 68% win rates and a new army sitting at 70% plus.

**Turnip Jedi**

Insectum7 wrote:
Tyran wrote:
vict0988 wrote:

It really cannot be that hard to set up a functional playtesting and balancing system.

It takes money and it takes professional experience, which I don't think truly exists when it comes to the realm of tabletop gaming*, for debatable improvements. Sure professional testing would increase the quality of the game, but increased quality does not necessarily means more profit, and companies think in terms of profit.

*I mean, I googled it and it is all about amateur playtesting, apparently there is no such thing as professional tabletop testing.
I think it's pretty obvious GW us making enough money to do more than they're doing right now, regardless. The real question is are they motivated to do it? The answer appears to be "no".

and that's the answer, there is no reason for them to do anything, some squeeky wheels on the intertubes mean nowt so long as the spi...money flows

**vict0988**

Tyran wrote:
... Also wide community beta rules is more of a marketing ploy than actual testing.

Not really no, beta rules have been changed to improve balance based on testing done by the community, take Custodes FW units. They dominated tournaments which led to them getting stat and points changes.

So is the making of ice cream, making ice cream isn't rocket science either.

The point is that it is something that requires professionals.

You can make ice cream at home, didn't go so well last time I tried it and now I'm on a diet but there are Youtube videos on how to do it. So often when consumer advocates ask for rough balance you guys let perfection be the enemy of the good. I just want ice cream, it doesn't need to be made by scientists. 70+% win rate is not ice cream, it's just room temperature cream, 58% win rate is home made ice cream, 52% is factory ice cream.

Gambling is inherently anti-consumer, as it is actually messes with our brains. So is marketing BTW.

Hahaha, everything messes with your brain dude. Watch out for GMOs, they contain chemical compounds and atoms... Like everything else.

Turnip Jedi wrote:
and that's the answer, there is no reason for them to do anything, some squeeky wheels on the intertubes mean nowt so long as the spi...money flows

Why did the spice stop flowing in 6th and 7th?

**Tyran**

Karol wrote:

Not in a tournament setting, because the number of people who are willing to pay for a hotel and supply a wack list is rather small.

GW even without an app, should see that DE armies are running tax raiders, 3 units of wracks, drazh, styfe succubus and even specific weapon load outs. Now what they do with the info is another thing. Who knows maybe GW thinks that starting a DE army with 3 patrol boxs, is enough of a monetary entice for them to leave it like so for some time. \\\

But the most fun part what the playtester say is about the comming army that will reign the DE in. Which of course is nice. for that one army players. For everyone else it better not mean that we just get DE dropped to 68% win rates and a new army sitting at 70% plus.

Tournaments already kinda document this, and you still don't want to leave it to the individual player, because that DE player that just bought a lot of Wracks and Raiders really has an incentive of not reporting their wins.

**the_scotsman**

Karol wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:

Uh....Good? So you're saying Space Marines are achieving the goal of where a faction ought to be in competitive play? Solid but not overwhelming performance with an extremely high playrate in competitive play?

So why do we need to worry about marines again?

All I am saying is that DE seem to have been given a style of design distinct from marines. Marines design in 8th and 9th seem to be driven by one factor. Here is a classic marine unit, let us replace it with a primaris unit. Now this doesn't mean the primaris option are or have to be bad . But it does end up, and I know people don't like it when I do this, but this is like a bunch of countries decide to skim a pool of 1000 youths to get some good wrestlers each year. And they get some better and some worse ones. And then there is Dagestan, Kirgistan etc where there are wrestler clans and families that are known to have been wrestlers in the court of Timur, and when you see those wrestler fight you see the difference in optimisation. Marine good seems mostly not planed. The way GW was suprised that salamander armies can run on almost just aggresors. GW doesn't like to be suprised, so they nerfed it very fast. On the other hand they want stuff like harlis or DE works in a specific way, and there is nothing wrong in it, but their lists feel as if someone first build a list and give rules to units, and later assigned costs etc.

ah and I don't think that pre DE anyone worried about marines, if the played to win their games with proper armies. Aside for that very short lived time of salamanders being good. As far as core rules in 8th armies like SoB for example did much better and were more of a threat, most of the time. And just like with harlequins one have to remember that SoB, were good in 9th without a 9th update and a 9th codex. I think people worried more about them, or what certain soups are going to do to the playfield. Because clearly GW is not thinking much about that kind of a play in 9th.

Yeah, obviously primaris units are often intended to soft-squat existing firstborn options, and obviously the marine range is so sprawling that there's very little in terms of a coherent design philosophy for how they're supposed to play.

Drukhari have 3 general styles, and so they're able to design the rules more holistically with the full codex in mind. They know if they put an upgrade on a Raider to allow Rapid Fire weapons to fire out to full range, that the sole unit you're going to use that on is Kabalite Warriors (slash trueborn) and they know that firing at full range will put you out of range for all the available special weapon options, but not out of the range of the heavy weapon options.

Space marines with their 15 overlapping options for every single conceivable role, not so much. So the approach is more scattershot. It has to be, if marine players enjoy having a billion options for everything. Which they seem to, seeing as there's the massive unwillingness to even give up such distinct, unique unit choices as...let's see...Space Marine Bikers, instead of just running them as the new Space Marine Primaris tm Outriders tm armed with the COMPLETELY DIFFERENT twin bolt RIFLES instead of just regular old twin bolt GUNS.

Its like....how can I best explain this? let's say its like wrestling. Lets say theres a wrestler named Rock The Dwayne Johnson who is the most peoples' favorite wrestleman, and he's so much everyone's favorite that the wrestleboss mandates in everyone's contract that every other match they fight has to be against The Dwayne, but to keep it fresh and fun and interesting The Dwayne gets to have 16 different costumes and characters where sometimes he's a face, sometimes he's a heel, sometimes he's the tooth fairy, sometimes he's trying to warn the city of los angeles that there's a big earthquake coming but he has to fight this other wrestler first, sometimes hes a jungle explorer trapped in a board game, etc. Odds are good that The Dwayne is not going to be quite as good at any of his 16 different bits as the lesser known heel wrestler whose only bit is forcing his opponent to smell his stinky sock to knock him out as his signature finishing move. But because the wrestleboss said half the matches must be against The Dwayne, everyone will take his half-hearted tooth fairy bit over him just having the one character and personality trait of being a big strong oily man who does a thing with his eyebrow.

Unless the policy changes, and The Dwayne is not shoved down everyone's throat as The Mandatory Wrestler Everyone Must Always Fight and All Fans Must Consume, then he's never going to be able to particularly good at any one given thing. it's just the nature of the beast.

**Canadian 5th**

Let's be honest, a lot of GWs playtesting could be done with computer simulation against simulated targets. While the game does have a lot of unique units, it has relatively few offensive and defensive profiles, so you could pick a few of those and plot out how effective a set of attacks is against a good selection of defensive profiles. Then you fire specific weapons at that same unit and see if it's meeting expectations defensively. This, combined with proper on-table testing to make sure that the simulations match reality could make a better game.

I still hold that you can't perfectly test a game with as many moving pieces and intentional synergies as 40k has. It's just too much raw math, but it shouldn't be impossible to get close enough to avoid massive imbalances at release that get fixed via quarterly points updates as play data reaches the design team.

**Tyran**

vict0988 wrote:

Not really no, beta rules have been changed to improve balance based on testing done by the community, take Custodes FW units. They dominated tournaments which led to them getting stat and points changes.

If something is dominating tournaments then it isn't really beta testing is it? but published rules falsely advertised as beta rules.

You can make ice cream at home, didn't go so well last time I tried it and now I'm on a diet but there are Youtube videos on how to do it. So often when consumer advocates ask for rough balance you guys let perfection be the enemy of the good. I just want ice cream, it doesn't need to be made by scientists. 70+% win rate is not ice cream, it's just room temperature cream, 58% win rate is home made ice cream, 52% is factory ice cream.

And how is your home made ice cream any different from the already quite lax standards of GW using competitive players for testing?

Hahaha, everything messes with your brain dude. Watch out for GMOs, they contain chemical compounds and atoms... Like everything else.

But with different degrees, gambling does it to the point there is a reason minors are not allowed in casinos in most of the world.

**Xenomancers**

When it comes to game balance. The "professionals" that have the best grasp on balance are the actual players. There is no degree you could have which would give you a better grasp on the game balance than someone with 20 years of experience within that game itself. A lot of the balancing is just basic statistics too.

PPD
PPW

This is very simple stuff. Any disparities in these areas are obvious red flags. Any playtesting mechanic which lets flaws like that through on the PPW/PPD area basically proves that no effective testing is actually taking place.

**Karol**

Yeah, obviously primaris units are often intended to soft-squat existing firstborn options, and obviously the marine range is so sprawling that there's very little in terms of a coherent design philosophy for how they're supposed to play.

Drukhari have 3 general styles, and so they're able to design the rules more holistically with the full codex in mind. They know if they put an upgrade on a Raider to allow Rapid Fire weapons to fire out to full range, that the sole unit you're going to use that on is Kabalite Warriors (slash trueborn) and they know that firing at full range will put you out of range for all the available special weapon options, but not out of the range of the heavy weapon options.

yes I understand that, but again the difference between marines and something like DE right now is that. SM stuff, when it is actually broken vide salamander aggresor lists, they are that way unintentionaly. GW doesn't seem to be in favour of people building their entire army out of 9 boxs of ETB aggresors. And as I said this doesn't mean that primaris units, or even classic marine units can't be good or even very good.

It is the combinations of stuff with DE that are so striking, and which is also the core of the problem of fixing them with points changes. There is just too many things happening at once for it to not have been designed and put there on purpose. Maybe the whole DT thing is, again maybe, something that GW forgot about their own rules. Maybe the all patrols giving CP is that too. But raiders being undercosted, units in raiders being under costed, combination of non interaction, but with full efficiency between powerful units and being in open topped transports. The design/lore paradigma of glass cannon breaking apart on the reality of +5invs, with high T, or at least T that requires multi shot higher strenght weapons, when it comes to implementation.

Again just like with SM I was against nerfs, I do not wish for DE. I think that their armies should be fleets of venoms and raiders. That makes sense lore wise, and I think a large chunk of DE players like that way of playing. But there problem how efficient GW made skimmers and fly in 9th. I did not like being shot off the table in 8th, because someone saw a banner on my dude. I like the LoS blocking terrain rule. But clearly someone has not thought it over with transport that fly in mind. And it shows in the results of armies that have access to them too. The fact that raiders are over costed, and that their main weapon is probably over costed too is just a bonus, that brings them up from what harlequin did all 9th ed, to the place they are in right now.

But who knows, maybe when GW fixs psychic secondaries GK are going to become broken too and I am going to be defending their right to max out secondaries by turn 3. In the end it boils down to GW wanting or not wanting to do changes to DE. If they don't, then we will have a DE warping meta. There were metas like that in the past. If they do change something about DE, I hope the changes are big enough to bring them down to other armies level and doesn't turn out to be a WD codex Inari.

**Sim-Life**

Xenomancers wrote:
When it comes to game balance. The "professionals" that have the best grasp on balance are the actual players. There is no degree you could have which would give you a better grasp on the game balance than someone with 20 years of experience within that game itself. A lot of the balancing is just basic statistics too.

PPD
PPW

This is very simple stuff. Any disparities in these areas are obvious red flags. Any playtesting mechanic which lets flaws like that through on the PPW/PPD area basically proves that no effective testing is actually taking place.

This just plain isn't true. Players are the last people you should ask because they're heavily financially and emotionally invested into the hobby and will have very clear biases. They might be able to spot flaws or irregularities but that's a very different beast to balancing entire factions.

**Spoletta**

Xenomancers wrote:
When it comes to game balance. The "professionals" that have the best grasp on balance are the actual players. There is no degree you could have which would give you a better grasp on the game balance than someone with 20 years of experience within that game itself. A lot of the balancing is just basic statistics too.

PPD
PPW

This is very simple stuff. Any disparities in these areas are obvious red flags. Any playtesting mechanic which lets flaws like that through on the PPW/PPD area basically proves that no effective testing is actually taking place.

PPW and PPD are absolutely not the issue.
They are quite fine in the DE dex. Everything wrong about that dex comes from synergies and interactions.

Taken in a vacuum no single datasheet of DE is really that good. It is always due to a stratagem, a relic, a trait.

The only thing you could potentially catch in the DE dex is the court. And the court is not the best unit at its role, so we don't know for which standard the GW is gunning on those type of models.

**Karol**

I don't know mr S, raiders with the gun they have at 85 pts, breaking the barrier of just being efficient. The fact that they can ignore transport rules, fly etc is just a bonus. If orks had a 85pts trukk that is as efficient as raiders, ork armies would be a swarm of vehicles too.

Sam with Drazhar. If a person who plays the army, and is the armies playtesters, says that he would run him at 25 more points, then mistakes were made durning rules writing or cost determination.

**a_typical_hero**

Xenomancers wrote:
When it comes to game balance. The "professionals" that have the best grasp on balance are the actual players. There is no degree you could have which would give you a better grasp on the game balance than someone with 20 years of experience within that game itself. A lot of the balancing is just basic statistics too.

PPD
PPW

This is very simple stuff. Any disparities in these areas are obvious red flags. Any playtesting mechanic which lets flaws like that through on the PPW/PPD area basically proves that no effective testing is actually taking place.

*Looks at ALL the balance related discussion of various units and factions in the past on Dakka*

...really?

**Karol**

Sim-Life wrote:

This just plain isn't true. Players are the last people you should ask because they're heavily financially and emotionally invested into the hobby and will have very clear biases. They might be able to spot flaws or irregularities but that's a very different beast to balancing entire factions.

But that can be said about any statistic taken from human being, yet there are mechanisms that can compansate for the bias.

For example. As a designer you check how many wreck patrols have an actual homonculus as a leader and not drazhar. If the data says it is the majority of cases in and outside of tournaments, and you designed, we assume here, the rules for DT to be a homonculus coven, then this means something is working not as intended. If all raiders are run with the same type of weapon, and with same numbers, then the designers has to ask a question, if that is what he wanted. If it is what GW wanted, then it is cool. But it would be nice to some Designer to come out after the first two weeks of the DE codex, and say yes the DE codex is fine, works as intended, we will monitor if stuff doesn't work not as intended and if it does we will fix it. The both DE and non DE playing people would know what to expect in the next few months.

**the_scotsman**

Karol wrote:

It is the combinations of stuff with DE that are so striking, and which is also the core of the problem of fixing them with points changes. There is just too many things happening at once for it to not have been designed and put there on purpose.

I mean, I don't know what to say to this other than....no? I really don't think so?

Nothing about the entire Haemonculus Covens third of the book is broken without Dark Technomancers' interaction with one single, specific weapon option. We know from the TTT playtesters that at least one major weapon change (dark lances) was a late addition that the playtesters didnt get to test. DT worked VERY similarly to how it does now previously and was not nearly as much of a problem because back then, Liquifiers were S3, APd3, 8" range. It is INCREDIBLY easy to imagine DT liquifiers happening by this happening:

-playtesters get book
-Liquifiers are not S4 AP-2 12" range, maybe they're just S3 ApD3 12", and they're not nearly as powerful with DT.
-Some playtesters not playing DT tell GW "liquifiers feel a little weak at Strength 3 for 10 points - that's as much as a heavy flamer, and they're only a little bit better than a normal flamer.
-GW changes liquifiers to what they are now, DT liquifiers now wreck face.

Similiarly, the craziest stuff in the wych cults third of the book hinges almost entirely on stratagems from the Book of Rust - Competitive Edge, 1CP no overwatch strat, 4++ invuln strat, Fight Again strat comboing with the Book of Rust Reroll Wounds strat, No Fall Back Whip relic, Grave Lotus relic.

Did the playtesters who got the codex also get Book of Rust? If not, how would they have caught any of these interactions? Without Compedge+Razorflails, the succubus is maybe a little bit undercosted with particular combos, but not NEARLY as bonkers as she is with the relic+trait from BoR.

I'm sorry that a secret conspiracy by evil business monsters is easier for you to imagine than the kind of basic miscommunications that come up literally every day in my job in an R+D field.

Karol wrote:

Again just like with SM I was against nerfs, I do not wish for DE. I think that their armies should be fleets of venoms and raiders. That makes sense lore wise, and I think a large chunk of DE players like that way of playing. But there problem how efficient GW made skimmers and fly in 9th. I did not like being shot off the table in 8th, because someone saw a banner on my dude. I like the LoS blocking terrain rule. But clearly someone has not thought it over with transport that fly in mind. And it shows in the results of armies that have access to them too. The fact that raiders are over costed, and that their main weapon is probably over costed too is just a bonus, that brings them up from what harlequin did all 9th ed, to the place they are in right now.

you keep saying this, but I still do not really understand how fly is any crazier in 9th ed than it was in 8th ed ITC (which remember, was most of the 8th ed tournament scene that kept up stats). In 9th ed models with Fly lost fall back and charge, and if the model is taking advantage of the Obscuring terrain feature...then they didn't fly over it. They just rolled up behind it, then the models inside moved thru it to make their charge.

That's literally exactly the same as what they could do in 8th with ITC magic box terrain. In fact, it's less good, because the model with fly now can't fall back and charge, and it has to be behind the Obscuring terrain and not just sitting in the magic box of can't shoot me.

Being able to move over terain without penalty is occasionally nice, but generally speaking I think if you took Fly away from DE transports for some reason it'd be a less substantial nerf than a 15pt points nerf. I've played 3 games with my drukhari so far since the codex, and several more since 9th dropped, and I really don't recall many situations where being able to move over terrain with no penalty has been a particularly amazing benefit - mostly it's just nice how fast they are. you could and I do the exact same play pattern with a Goliath truck as with a Raider full of kabalites - the raider is better because a Dark Lance is better than a BS4+ twin autocannon and a heavy stubber, because raiders get actual chapter tactics instead of GSC which is stuck in the Codex 1.0 8th ed stone age, and because the unit that goes inside Raiders is way better than the unit that goes inside Goliaths.

**Tyran**

In a perfect world, GW would be using external professional testers, not their own designers and much less actual players. That's because while everyone has bias, external testers are the less biased while designers and players are the most biased.

Of course, we are far from in a perfect world.

**the_scotsman**

Karol wrote:
I don't know mr S, raiders with the gun they have at 85 pts, breaking the barrier of just being efficient. The fact that they can ignore transport rules, fly etc is just a bonus. If orks had a 85pts trukk that is as efficient as raiders, ork armies would be a swarm of vehicles too.

Sam with Drazhar. If a person who plays the army, and is the armies playtesters, says that he would run him at 25 more points, then mistakes were made durning rules writing or cost determination.

^yeah this is my exact point. Fly is just a very occasional bonus to the Raider, it's not some key core thing that makes it good, there are a gak ton of transports with Fly that are way worse than Raiders.

GSC basically do have a transport that's a very slightly worse raider for 85pts, and it pretty much is what competitive GSC armies are made up of. The problem is, it's got several things that it does worse than a raider (no chapter tactics, 6+ shrug instead of 5+ invuln, slightly worse guns) but the main problem with it is compared to Wyches and Kabalites and Wracks, Acolytes and Neophytes and Aberrants are a bad joke.

**Xenomancers**

Spoletta wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:
When it comes to game balance. The "professionals" that have the best grasp on balance are the actual players. There is no degree you could have which would give you a better grasp on the game balance than someone with 20 years of experience within that game itself. A lot of the balancing is just basic statistics too.

PPD
PPW

This is very simple stuff. Any disparities in these areas are obvious red flags. Any playtesting mechanic which lets flaws like that through on the PPW/PPD area basically proves that no effective testing is actually taking place.

PPW and PPD are absolutely not the issue.
They are quite fine in the DE dex. Everything wrong about that dex comes from synergies and interactions.

Taken in a vacuum no single datasheet of DE is really that good. It is always due to a stratagem, a relic, a trait.

The only thing you could potentially catch in the DE dex is the court. And the court is not the best unit at its role, so we don't know for which standard the GW is gunning on those type of models.

Uhh..It is exactly the problem and there is no arguing against it. It is plain and simple.

Why is the succubus and issue? Because it hits like a 250 point model and its 60 points. Relics being free damage - free PPD is an issue. Relics and WL traits not being balanced against each other...its an issue.
Why is the raider an issue? Cause its more durable than most transports that cost 20-30 points more...plus it has real firepower to boot. Points issue.

These are points issues. The issue with DT is also a points issue realistically. If every unit in the DE codex costed 20% more that could take DT...it would be more fair. Everything else would suck though. It all comes down to points...

**Spoletta**

You are proving my point.
Succubus is an issue? No. A certain combination of traits and relics on a subbus is.

Liquifiers are an issue? No, a certain combination is again responsible for the issue.

Are raiders op on datasheet? They are extremely good due to what they can bring. Without carrying capacity it would be a bad model. Transport capabilities is not something that PPW PPD analysis would take in consideration.