Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 kodos wrote:

GW said it is impossible to write better rules with that amount of models to support, and there cannot be less units

Oh I guess I must have just imagined the swathes of DE units that GW outright deleted.

And, you know, the entire army that they just deleted.

That was 25ish years ago?????





Oh wait your talking about the recent ones, not the one that kicked it all off.

 vipoid wrote:

 kodos wrote:

GW said it is impossible to write better rules with that amount of models to support, and there cannot be less units

Oh I guess I must have just imagined the swathes of DE units that GW outright deleted.

And, you know, the entire army that they just deleted.

Wait so I imagined the Librarian on a bike? I imagined half of the Badab characters that existed?

Toofast wrote:

 kodos wrote:


GW Marketing tries to advertise that balance is only important for events, while it is actually important for casual pick up games as events don't care and make their own rules anyway

It's most important for pickup games. A competitive player is going to look at the codex and pick the best units. A casual player is going to buy models they like. The problem is when someone buys the models they like and either blows all their friends off the table by T3 without even trying to be competitive if they like Dark Eldar or gets stomped by everyone without having a chance if they like Tau/Necrons. Competitive players will always find broken combos to abuse because the game is just too big not to have some, but casual players shouldn't get their teeth kicked in just because they happened to like the look of a certain faction.

Alternatively, truly "competitive players" don't have to find broken combos to abuse...because competition involves a level-ish playing field to start with.

Worth mentioning anyways that most of the "competitive players" aren't even looking at the codex in these situations. They don't know how their book works half the bloody time, they just copy/paste a list someone else placed at an event with.

Depends on your definition of competitive.

My definition of competitive is similar though - to me level playing field, let playing skill on the table decide.

To others, list building dominance is part of that competitive and winning the game before it starts is part of competitive.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Toofast wrote:

 kodos wrote:


GW Marketing tries to advertise that balance is only important for events, while it is actually important for casual pick up games as events don't care and make their own rules anyway

It's most important for pickup games. A competitive player is going to look at the codex and pick the best units. A casual player is going to buy models they like. The problem is when someone buys the models they like and either blows all their friends off the table by T3 without even trying to be competitive if they like Dark Eldar or gets stomped by everyone without having a chance if they like Tau/Necrons. Competitive players will always find broken combos to abuse because the game is just too big not to have some, but casual players shouldn't get their teeth kicked in just because they happened to like the look of a certain faction.

Alternatively, truly "competitive players" don't have to find broken combos to abuse...because competition involves a level-ish playing field to start with.

Worth mentioning anyways that most of the "competitive players" aren't even looking at the codex in these situations. They don't know how their book works half the bloody time, they just copy/paste a list someone else placed at an event with.

It cites the source for its claim or else it gets the hose again

 auticus wrote:
Depends on your definition of competitive.

My definition of competitive is similar though - to me level playing field, let playing skill on the table decide.

To others, list building dominance is part of that competitive and winning the game before it starts is part of competitive.

I think building competitive lists is totally fine and can be part of an interesting competition to find the best list for the local meta as long as both players are playing with the same goal in mind there's no problem there. What's toxic is someone clearly communicating they want a casual game/event and people ignoring it. It is super annoying when people try to police things that shouldn't be policed though, like whining over someone taking 3 Repulsor Executioners at a point in time where it's fairly weak, it only becomes infuriating when someone refuses to listen to the fact that Repulsor Executioners were good that one time but not now.

 vipoid wrote:

 kodos wrote:

GW said it is impossible to write better rules with that amount of models to support, and there cannot be less units

Oh I guess I must have just imagined the swathes of DE units that GW outright deleted.

And, you know, the entire army that they just deleted.

Yeah, the same old corsairs and R & H argument..... always ignoring that those weren't proper GW armies as they've never been on the GW catalogue.

GW doesn't really delete units from official codexes, let alone entire factions (barring squats, 30 years ago!), unless they didn't have an official kit and were available only through conversions/kitbashing. Stuff from FW or WD isn't (or wasn't) entirely supported and that's a different story.

In most cases when GW deletes some old stuff it replaces it with some updated but still different counterpart, like Ork Mek Gunz and the current buggies pushed Big gunz and the older buggies into legends or new Ghaz invalidated the old model.

EviscerationPlague wrote:Wait so I imagined the Librarian on a bike? I imagined half of the Badab characters that existed?

vipoid wrote:Oh I guess I must have just imagined the swathes of DE units that GW outright deleted.
And, you know, the entire army that they just deleted.

ok, so there are now less units in 9th than there was in 8th/7th/6th/5th/4th/3rd/2nd?
never played RT, so maybe this was the Edition that hat more units?

Maybe I am just too stupid for fanboy talk or it is because englisch is not my native language but "unit X was removed" does not contradict the "there cannot be less units (for GW)"

just proof me that for each unit that was removed, no new one was added, because the last time I looked into the books the number of units removed was way lower than those that were added
and just because your snowflake "never had a model" unit was removed, does not mean no other unit was added

but I guess GW just reduced the number of units from 7th to 9th to get their points updates books done

 Blackie wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 kodos wrote:

GW said it is impossible to write better rules with that amount of models to support, and there cannot be less units

Oh I guess I must have just imagined the swathes of DE units that GW outright deleted.

And, you know, the entire army that they just deleted.

Yeah, the same old corsairs and R & H argument..... always ignoring that those weren't proper GW armies as they've never been on the GW catalogue.

I'm sure that makes the people that played those armies (and Elysians) feel better.

To my mind the problem with "balance" is you cover a lot of things. So it means different things to different people.

As a game, 40k is a function of list building, gameplay and luck. Which is basically saying there are things you can do to skew the odds before the game, during the game, and what the outcome of the roll actually is.

So really discussing imbalance in lists is a question of how much list building trumps gameplay and isn't sufficiently moderated by luck.

If 9th is "the tournament edition" its in trying to make that gameplay side matter more. Because it often mattered very little in earlier editions. While they wouldn't run such a list - I'm fairly confident the better players, your Sieglers etc, could bring a pile of anything, and probably be odds on to beat me even if I'm running the Dark Eldar top meta death list. Because they'd (mostly) get the "gameplay" part right - while I make mistakes all over the place. So to win the dice would have to really be in my favour.

And I feel this is different to say 7th - because if I picked any of the top lists there, and forced someone to play a bad 7th edition list (or about half the factions in the game), I feel there's no hope "gameplay" is going to drag you out of it. Barring an absurd skew of luck, I'd mop you off the table while you'd struggle to kill a unit a turn.

I think its a boring whine - but I feel the main issue 9th has for casual players isn't points balance but that everything dies incredibly quickly. Certain factions undoubtedly have points advantages but its not really a faction issue. Two not particularly good players, playing unoptimised armies, in an unguarded, rush forward and attack whatever you can way, can easily (on strong dice) end up doing 1000 points of damage in a turn, and so the game is essentially decided (again, barring a major intervention from dice) by the bottom of turn 2.

I'm not convinced this is a UK/Europe/US divide. Obviously it happens less if everyone sticks half their army into reserve or brings less damaging options - but its still not really been my experience.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
GW could absolutely reduce the number of models/units in the game.

They already deleted Renegades and Heretics (and a whole slew of other models/units like Elysians, Lords of Chaos on demonic steeds, etc).

They just choose not to.

They could, if they wanted, simply combine units. It would probably make many players fething mad, but in general it would probably be a net positive. They combined a lot of unit options in AoS as well as some in the new GSC book(at least on metamorphs iirc) and I think it makes the playing simpler and overall better.

The problem is that some people want 40k to be a roleplay system(with ton of options and units) and others want a wargame that is much more concise, and GW wants to go fish both crowds.

Tyel wrote:
To my mind the problem with "balance" is you cover a lot of things. So it means different things to different people.

As a game, 40k is a function of list building, gameplay and luck. Which is basically saying there are things you can do to skew the odds before the game, during the game, and what the outcome of the roll actually is.

So really discussing imbalance in lists is a question of how much list building trumps gameplay and isn't sufficiently moderated by luck.

If 9th is "the tournament edition" its in trying to make that gameplay side matter more. Because it often mattered very little in earlier editions. While they wouldn't run such a list - I'm fairly confident the better players, your Sieglers etc, could bring a pile of anything, and probably be odds on to beat me even if I'm running the Dark Eldar top meta death list. Because they'd (mostly) get the "gameplay" part right - while I make mistakes all over the place. So to win the dice would have to really be in my favour.

And I feel this is different to say 7th - because if I picked any of the top lists there, and forced someone to play a bad 7th edition list (or about half the factions in the game), I feel there's no hope "gameplay" is going to drag you out of it. Barring an absurd skew of luck, I'd mop you off the table while you'd struggle to kill a unit a turn.

I think its a boring whine - but I feel the main issue 9th has for casual players isn't points balance but that everything dies incredibly quickly. Certain factions undoubtedly have points advantages but its not really a faction issue. Two not particularly good players, playing unoptimised armies, in an unguarded, rush forward and attack whatever you can way, can easily (on strong dice) end up doing 1000 points of damage in a turn, and so the game is essentially decided (again, barring a major intervention from dice) by the bottom of turn 2.

I'm not convinced this is a UK/Europe/US divide. Obviously it happens less if everyone sticks half their army into reserve or brings less damaging options - but its still not really been my experience.

So if the top tier tournament player played a pyrovore spam list and you brought a meta Dark Eldar list you still think you'd lose because he's better at gameplay?

The aim of balance in 40k should be that all army compositions should have a chance to win via player skill. I'm not saying all armies should have a 50% win rate but if I did decide I wanted to run a pyrovore spam list there should be a way for me to win with it because eventually I'd be able to overcome other lists via player skill and knowing how to adapt the army to different situations.

When I played WmH competitively I played warcasters that were considered low tier and enjoyed doing so because figuring them out, testing lists and figuring what other units supported them well. Beating opponents who used what were considered "better" warcasters was incredibly fun and satisfying. I placed high in a Masters tournament using what was considered the worst warcaster in the faction simply because I knew how to use her abilities well. That just wouldn't happen in 40k. If I brought low tier units to a game regardless how well I played them I'd just have a bad time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eldarsif wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
GW could absolutely reduce the number of models/units in the game.

They already deleted Renegades and Heretics (and a whole slew of other models/units like Elysians, Lords of Chaos on demonic steeds, etc).

They just choose not to.

They could, if they wanted, simply combine units. It would probably make many players fething mad, but in general it would probably be a net positive. They combined a lot of unit options in AoS as well as some in the new GSC book(at least on metamorphs iirc) and I think it makes the playing simpler and overall better.

The problem is that some people want 40k to be a roleplay system(with ton of options and units) and others want a wargame that is much more concise, and GW wants to go fish both crowds.

This is where I feel like GW should go with the Three Ways To Play gak they're peddling. Condensed data sheets for Matched, expanded data sheets for Narrative/Open. They'd even get to publish TWO codexes for each army, one for Matched and one for Narritive. Imagine how happy GW would be having two books per army? The community would probably even thank them and tell them it was the best idea they ever had.

When reading discussions about balance, like this one, I always wonder if people who advocate that „good enough” balance is possible (and just for the sake of cutting out this part of discussion for a moment lets define „good enough” simply as „player skill ammounts to 50% of victory”) in a wargame with such enormous faction/unit spectrum, have ever done even a simple game dev excercise. It is really eyes opening when you go „to the other side” for a brief moment and educate yourself a bit instead of continously moan about things you have no clue about… You may then discover that points do not work because they mathematically cannot work (on a math level „a bit” higher than simple algebra) if interaction exist in the game which are dependant on the factors external to the unit you try to cost, which include such basic aspects as AP vs SV; that in order to even fake „good enough” well, good enough, you have to put in place match time or game time adjustment/handicap mechanics like sideboards or initiative rolls that favour the loosing side etc; that the existence of such things, demanded by the playerbase, like synergies or meaningfull listbuilding go directly against balance, and so on.

40K won’t ever be balanced because the playerbase actively demands unbalanced machanics to exist in the game and opposes such concepts like sideboards, because it is in ruts so deep, that it’s not even funny anymore. It then screams about fixing balance by „adequately assigning cost to a unit”, but adjusting points for „busted units” is not balancing the game, it is applying band aids on an utterly disfunctional system, because points do not work as playerbase think they work.

And regarding the whole „the game should be balanced for the tournament meta” discussion, this does not improve the casual meta, because if you tone down units that benefit from a certain synnergy and as such are spammed in a tournament context, then those very same units become thrash in contexts where they do not benefit from said synnergies, so they actively handicap the casual player who brought them to the table. That is really game design 101.

I don't think that 40k as it is now can be balanced, I agree. It needs a serious overhaul for anything like balance to seriously enter the discussion, rather than be a hypothetical like we're mentioning. However, points do work to get us to good enough. AP vs SV can be accounted for via points, and you don't need side boards or handicaps in order to reach good enough. If other games can make it so people can run meme tier lists and win off skill alone, I genuinely cannot believe that the biggest company in miniature wargaming can't do it.

I could balance 40k "from the other side" as it were, with reliable team members.

Step 1 would upset everyone though: roll back constant model releases and the bazillion units in the game to less than a hundred, maybe 200 datasheets tops. Then go from there.

You'd make it boring as f*&^.

The large number of units available is WHY I (and many others) think 40k is better than any other game, no matter how superior its rules may be.

nou wrote:
When reading discussions about balance, like this one, I always wonder if people who advocate that „good enough” balance is possible (and just for the sake of cutting out this part of discussion for a moment lets define „good enough” simply as „player skill ammounts to 50% of victory”) in a wargame with such enormous faction/unit spectrum, have ever done even a simple game dev excercise. It is really eyes opening when you go „to the other side” for a brief moment and educate yourself a bit instead of continously moan about things you have no clue about… You may then discover that points do not work because they mathematically cannot work (on a math level „a bit” higher than simple algebra) if interaction exist in the game which are dependant on the factors external to the unit you try to cost, which include such basic aspects as AP vs SV; that in order to even fake „good enough” well, good enough, you have to put in place match time or game time adjustment/handicap mechanics like sideboards or initiative rolls that favour the loosing side etc; that the existence of such things, demanded by the playerbase, like synergies or meaningfull listbuilding go directly against balance, and so on.

40K won’t ever be balanced because the playerbase actively demands unbalanced machanics to exist in the game and opposes such concepts like sideboards, because it is in ruts so deep, that it’s not even funny anymore. It then screams about fixing balance by „adequately assigning cost to a unit”, but adjusting points for „busted units” is not balancing the game, it is applying band aids on an utterly disfunctional system, because points do not work as playerbase think they work.

And regarding the whole „the game should be balanced for the tournament meta” discussion, this does not improve the casual meta, because if you tone down units that benefit from a certain synnergy and as such are spammed in a tournament context, then those very same units become thrash in contexts where they do not benefit from said synnergies, so they actively handicap the casual player who brought them to the table. That is really game design 101.

Siegler has a 100% win rate in tournaments this ITC season if I recall correctly, the average AdMech player has a 70% win rate, the average Necron player has a 45% win rate. All you have to do is bake skill expression into the game, choosing secondaries has skill expression, deployment, movement, game knowledge, order of operations when it comes to shooting and melee.

Synergy should be a part of list building, when you cut out all the obviously bad choices from list building by balancing points well enough you leave internal list synergy which will have a fair impact. Rhinos in Primaris armies should not be good, they don't need to be, Rhinos just need to be good for a few units or strategies instead of always bad or always good. You can play casually and still have a list with internal synergy, it's kind of hard to make a list where you cannot say in some way that things synergize.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I could balance 40k "from the other side" as it were, with reliable team members.

Step 1 would upset everyone though: roll back constant model releases and the bazillion units in the game to less than a hundred, maybe 200 datasheets tops. Then go from there.

GW cannot even balance the options on a single datasheet, so the people that argue GW should be doing what you suggest are wrong. You will absolutely have less balance with more options, but I also think it's possible to overplay that factor in how balanced 40k becomes. The simple "nerf popular options in OP factions and buff unpopular options in UP factions" will gradually make everything from balance inside a single datasheet to balance between datasheets in a faction to balance between factions better over time as competitive players seek out the most efficient options and take the less efficient options less and less.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I don't think that 40k as it is now can be balanced, I agree. It needs a serious overhaul for anything like balance to seriously enter the discussion, rather than be a hypothetical like we're mentioning. However, points do work to get us to good enough. AP vs SV can be accounted for via points, and you don't need side boards or handicaps in order to reach good enough. If other games can make it so people can run meme tier lists and win off skill alone, I genuinely cannot believe that the biggest company in miniature wargaming can't do it.

So please tell me, how much is an AP-4 D2 worth in a competitive meta context, when the top dog army, so the most popular on the top tables is Drukhari, and how much the same weapon is worth, when the top dog army is Space Marines?

PenitentJake wrote:
You'd make it boring as f*&^.
The large number of units available is WHY I (and many others) think 40k is better than any other game, no matter how superior its rules may be.

I fail to see how 400 units with 100 useful ones is less boring than 200 useful units, but I also fails to see why change for the sake of change to make you buy overpriced stuff is something we should be grateful and say big thanks to GW

PS:
and than I don't understand how people are coming up with "40k is impossible to balance" but at the same time not identifying "official balance patch" as scam
so either 40k can be balanced, GW tries and we should keep pay for it, or 40k cannot and GW trying is a scam to make people pay for a useless product

PenitentJake wrote:
You'd make it boring as f*&^.

The large number of units available is WHY I (and many others) think 40k is better than any other game, no matter how superior its rules may be.

Well thats untrue.
When this came up before I went to see how many units JUST Khador had in WmH and it was around 90ish? Not including unit attachments/weapons teams.
Infinity Nomads has 69ish units (nice) according to 1d4chan
The Malifaux app says Resurrectionists have 74 cards in their roster.

By comparison Tyranids have circa 50 units, including Forgeworld and Legend models. Imperial Guard have around 50 in their codex not including FW and Legend stuff.

And thats only one faction in each game. Basically what I'm saying is you're talking gak.

nou wrote:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I don't think that 40k as it is now can be balanced, I agree. It needs a serious overhaul for anything like balance to seriously enter the discussion, rather than be a hypothetical like we're mentioning. However, points do work to get us to good enough. AP vs SV can be accounted for via points, and you don't need side boards or handicaps in order to reach good enough. If other games can make it so people can run meme tier lists and win off skill alone, I genuinely cannot believe that the biggest company in miniature wargaming can't do it.

So please tell me, how much is an AP-4 D2 worth in a competitive meta context, when the top dog army, so the most popular on the top tables is Drukhari, and how much the same weapon is worth, when the top dog army is Space Marines?

I don't know. I also don't need to know. I'm not a multi million dollar company running the most successful wargame in the world. How about making it so not one army is the top dog, so a take all comers list is best?

 Sim-Life wrote:
So if the top tier tournament player played a pyrovore spam list and you brought a meta Dark Eldar list you still think you'd lose because he's better at gameplay?

The aim of balance in 40k should be that all army compositions should have a chance to win via player skill. I'm not saying all armies should have a 50% win rate but if I did decide I wanted to run a pyrovore spam list there should be a way for me to win with it because eventually I'd be able to overcome other lists via player skill and knowing how to adapt the army to different situations.

When I played WmH competitively I played warcasters that were considered low tier and enjoyed doing so because figuring them out, testing lists and figuring what other units supported them well. Beating opponents who used what were considered "better" warcasters was incredibly fun and satisfying. I placed high in a Masters tournament using what was considered the worst warcaster in the faction simply because I knew how to use her abilities well. That just wouldn't happen in 40k. If I brought low tier units to a game regardless how well I played them I'd just have a bad time.

I'm not really following what you mean.

Yes, I think if you handed a top tier tournament player a decent 2k Tyranid list that happened to include 9 Pyrovores, they'd have a decent chance against me. I don't know if they'd win - we'd have to play and find out. But if they play better than me, they can probably make up being 50 points or however many you think they are down for bring Pyrovores. Obviously at some point you could make a bad enough Tyranid list that they are going to struggle to make up the difference - but I'm not really sure how that connects with your next paragraph about WmH.

List building in WmH was still about certain abilities and then statistics. The advantage of playing "bad" warcasters was that people would be less aware of these abilities as against those which were on meta and so seen all the time. But it was still all about synergy. If you took a bad warcaster, with a bunch of bad units which didn't work with those abilities, you were almost certainly in for a bad time, unless your opponent was just making a load of mistakes. Which sort of brings us back to the above. Do you really think you can't beat people who are worse than you at 40k with a "not meta" list?

nou wrote:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I don't think that 40k as it is now can be balanced, I agree. It needs a serious overhaul for anything like balance to seriously enter the discussion, rather than be a hypothetical like we're mentioning. However, points do work to get us to good enough. AP vs SV can be accounted for via points, and you don't need side boards or handicaps in order to reach good enough. If other games can make it so people can run meme tier lists and win off skill alone, I genuinely cannot believe that the biggest company in miniature wargaming can't do it.

So please tell me, how much is an AP-4 D2 worth in a competitive meta context, when the top dog army, so the most popular on the top tables is Drukhari, and how much the same weapon is worth, when the top dog army is Space Marines?

*Astra Militarum are very strong and spam plasma on Veterans = big nerf on plasma for Veterans.
*Astra Militarum are strong but never take plasma on Veterans = small buff on plasma for Veterans.
*Astra Militarum are weak and spam plasma on Veterans = no change on plasma for Veterans.
*Astra Militarum are very weak and never take plasma on Veterans = big buff on plasma for Veterans.

A big buff decreases the overall unit cost by 20%, a small buff decreases the overall unit cost by 10%, a small nerf increases the overall unit cost by 10%, a big nerf increases the overall unit cost by 20%. Adjust based on other adjustments that are being made and updates to missions and core rules.

The initial cost for an option should be based on effectiveness against a broad range of units, valuing specialization over versatility in the case of long-range and mobile units or versatility in the case of short-ranged and slow units.

The reason GW messes up balance is that after receiving feedback on how good the AP-4 DD6 gun is for 0 points they change it to AP-4 D3+D3 and all the feedback they previously got on balance is void so they have effectively not tested the gun at all. Then they release the gun as AP-4 D3+D3 for 0 points and it predictably turns out to be OP. The stats should be decided on by the casual crowd based on what feels right and fun for both players and points should be decided on by the competitive crowd based on what will generate the most balanced game.

Tyel wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
So if the top tier tournament player played a pyrovore spam list and you brought a meta Dark Eldar list you still think you'd lose because he's better at gameplay?

The aim of balance in 40k should be that all army compositions should have a chance to win via player skill. I'm not saying all armies should have a 50% win rate but if I did decide I wanted to run a pyrovore spam list there should be a way for me to win with it because eventually I'd be able to overcome other lists via player skill and knowing how to adapt the army to different situations.

When I played WmH competitively I played warcasters that were considered low tier and enjoyed doing so because figuring them out, testing lists and figuring what other units supported them well. Beating opponents who used what were considered "better" warcasters was incredibly fun and satisfying. I placed high in a Masters tournament using what was considered the worst warcaster in the faction simply because I knew how to use her abilities well. That just wouldn't happen in 40k. If I brought low tier units to a game regardless how well I played them I'd just have a bad time.

I'm not really following what you mean.

Yes, I think if you handed a top tier tournament player a decent 2k Tyranid list that happened to include 9 Pyrovores, they'd have a decent chance against me. I don't know if they'd win - we'd have to play and find out. But if they play better than me, they can probably make up being 50 points or however many you think they are down for bring Pyrovores. Obviously at some point you could make a bad enough Tyranid list that they are going to struggle to make up the difference - but I'm not really sure how that connects with your next paragraph about WmH.

List building in WmH was still about certain abilities and then statistics. The advantage of playing "bad" warcasters was that people would be less aware of these abilities as against those which were on meta and so seen all the time. But it was still all about synergy. If you took a bad warcaster, with a bunch of bad units which didn't work with those abilities, you were almost certainly in for a bad time, unless your opponent was just making a load of mistakes. Which sort of brings us back to the above. Do you really think you can't beat people who are worse than you at 40k with a "not meta" list?

My point was that playing a dud list in 40k cannot be compensated for with player skill. A bad list in 40k will always be a bad list. Other games you can make up for your lists shortcomings by being a good player.

Sim-Life wrote:

Well thats untrue.
When this came up before I went to see how many units JUST Khador had in WmH and it was around 90ish? Not including unit attachments/weapons teams.
Infinity Nomads has 69ish units (nice) according to 1d4chan
The Malifaux app says Resurrectionists have 74 cards in their roster.

By comparison Tyranids have circa 50 units, including Forgeworld and Legend models. Imperial Guard have around 50 in their codex not including FW and Legend stuff.

And thats only one faction in each game. Basically what I'm saying is you're talking gak.

To be fair to jake, # of units isn't the end of it. An iron fang is an iron fang. An assault kommando is an assault kommando. Vlad will always be Vladimir, and always with the same spells feat and weapons. Min or max sizes. No variety in weapon loadouts. 3 poses per unit type. Even the modern 'monoposish' gw sculpts often have dramatically different aesthetics.

Now I know we disagree on a lot of stuff but I, like you, lean towards 'less is more'. That said there is a genuine and legitimate chain of thought that jake represents, especially in non-competitive scenes that wants loads of in-unit variety and options regardless of their power or efficiency.

Reducing/setting fire to the games rosters might appeal to you or me, it doesn't make jake wrong.

Sim-Life wrote:
My point was that playing a dud list in 40k cannot be compensated for with player skill. A bad list in 40k will always be a bad list. Other games you can make up for your lists shortcomings by being a good player.

Realistically though, only to an extent. Player skill only yakes you so far, in any game.

There's a reason masters winners take haley 2 or 3 and don't take pStryker. And until pStryker wins a masters against top tier builds, I don't think it's a particularly fair claim.

And a bad list being bad is relative. Against a tip tier list? In an absolute sense? Sure. Denial of that is silly. In a relative sense? against, say, another bad list played in the grass leagues? Different story. To those of us who lean towards narrative and 'game-building' as a crucial component of our games, this underpins a lot of our thinking.

Cheers.

I consider myself a narrative player, and I think there are too many different units in 40k right now - to the point where it doesn't make narrative sense.

I was a narrative player in 4th, too, where army theme was achieved through customization rules and conversions rather than a quintillion units.

An IG platoon was a single "unit entry" (datasheet) but had a bazillion different customization options (Drop Troops for a Valkyrie-borne regiment, Mechanized gave them all Chimeras they couldn't normally access, Jungle Fighters made them lighter infantry with better stealth, Carapace Armor made them heavier infantry than the normal, etc.)

So for a single datasheet you had something like 24 different combinations to really capture your army's fluff.

I actually feel like there is less variety today, because whilst there are more datasheets, there are far far fewer options to express your theme.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Tyel wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
So if the top tier tournament player played a pyrovore spam list and you brought a meta Dark Eldar list you still think you'd lose because he's better at gameplay?

The aim of balance in 40k should be that all army compositions should have a chance to win via player skill. I'm not saying all armies should have a 50% win rate but if I did decide I wanted to run a pyrovore spam list there should be a way for me to win with it because eventually I'd be able to overcome other lists via player skill and knowing how to adapt the army to different situations.

When I played WmH competitively I played warcasters that were considered low tier and enjoyed doing so because figuring them out, testing lists and figuring what other units supported them well. Beating opponents who used what were considered "better" warcasters was incredibly fun and satisfying. I placed high in a Masters tournament using what was considered the worst warcaster in the faction simply because I knew how to use her abilities well. That just wouldn't happen in 40k. If I brought low tier units to a game regardless how well I played them I'd just have a bad time.

I'm not really following what you mean.

Yes, I think if you handed a top tier tournament player a decent 2k Tyranid list that happened to include 9 Pyrovores, they'd have a decent chance against me. I don't know if they'd win - we'd have to play and find out. But if they play better than me, they can probably make up being 50 points or however many you think they are down for bring Pyrovores. Obviously at some point you could make a bad enough Tyranid list that they are going to struggle to make up the difference - but I'm not really sure how that connects with your next paragraph about WmH.

List building in WmH was still about certain abilities and then statistics. The advantage of playing "bad" warcasters was that people would be less aware of these abilities as against those which were on meta and so seen all the time. But it was still all about synergy. If you took a bad warcaster, with a bunch of bad units which didn't work with those abilities, you were almost certainly in for a bad time, unless your opponent was just making a load of mistakes. Which sort of brings us back to the above. Do you really think you can't beat people who are worse than you at 40k with a "not meta" list?

My point was that playing a dud list in 40k cannot be compensated for with player skill. A bad list in 40k will always be a bad list. Other games you can make up for your lists shortcomings by being a good player.

Admech has like a 46% winrate right now? Yet Siegler is in the top 8 of the LVO.

I will take Siegler with the worst list you can think of over an 'average' player with the best list you can think of.
Player skill is still a MASSIVE part of 40k. People like to ignore that to feel better when they lose

 kodos wrote:
there is literally nothing GW can do to make better rules in the first place

That's a hot take. There's an illiterate homeless guy sleeping on the bench outside my store right now that could probably write better rules than some of the stuff they come up with.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:
People at your locals sound like gits, as a veteran it's partly your job to help police it IMO. It's common etiquette to tune lists, because most people acknowledge the game isn't supposed to be over before it's begun. Ultra-lethality is neither casual nor competitive, game pace preference is personal taste unrelated to how competitive or narrative you like your game.

Tune your list according to what metrics? What if I just like the grimaldus and helbrecht models? Am I supposed to buy/build/paint a regular Marshal and Castellan just to appease people with weaker list? How many "good units" is too many? What if I'm playing crusher stampede because I like big bugs?

When I make a list, my criteria is x points and battleforged. I'm not sure how else I'm supposed to make a list as that's what the rulebook tells me. Who is this universal, independent arbitrator of what is a "fair list" and what is "cheese"?

You could always run them as the non-named versions??? Or did that not occur to you?