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 Tyran wrote:
Listbuilding is a fundamental part of the game because a big part of 40k is player's choice, it is building your army with your choices.

That's why every time GW takes a choice away from the player there is uproar.

Ehhhhhhh...
It has more to do with some people having invested time and effort into converting some of those choices. Or from models being invalidated.

If unmodeled wargear gets removed, we really don't see that same uproar.

nou wrote:

Is a netlist really "your army with your choices"? How exactly an officially given set of lists is different from a set of netlists that dominate the meta every time around?

You chose to copy/paste the netlist, obviously.

I think the feelsbad moments will actually decrease as tourney play gets more popular.

Increased awareness of it makes it easier to avoid if it isn't your thing. It will also push competitive players to put more effort into seeking out likeminded opponents rather than blundering into random pickups against casual players, as there will be more awareness and social stigma around guys labeled as baby seal-clubbers.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Yeah and once things moved from list building there was a big stink.

But I also want to bring up one of the darlings of 4th edition. I also abused this at the GT level heh the Imperial Guard leaf blower list.

You just sat there and rolled buckets of dice and removed enemies wholesale.

The mission didn't matter (its been a while, so I may be mis remembering some things) because just wiping out my opponents netted me the win.

It was so gross. And unfun. But I was winning tournaments so that was how I 'had fun' at the time. (and feel bad about it today because a lot of people jumped out of 40k specifically because of that build and not having fun playing against it)

EDIT: I know people attribute leaf blower to 5th edition (and it was part of that as well) but the word was used in 4th as well. That was the title of my army builder roster file "leaf blower" and I know that those were from 4th edition days as I jumped out of tournaments at the end of 4th and stuck with narrative in 5th.

Leaf blower could not exist in 4th as IG did not get vehicle squadrons until 5th, nor could all of their infantry take Chimeras unless they spent a doctrine point.

They didn't have a 4th edition codex, so you could only play 4th with the heavily constrained 3.5 Dex.

Well regardless, my last IG tournament list was from July 2007 (4th edition) and the name of the roster was entitled "Leaf Blower" which was the term being used at the time since I know I didn't invent it heh. Leaf blower in this case was a metric feth-ton of dice being rolled by as many guns as could fit in the list.

I see that the concept of "leaf blower" changed in 5th to be a form of mechanized list. Apparently per my google-fu when 5th dropped, a popular tournament IG player changed his list to be more mechanized and it was called Leaf Blower and that name stuck throughout the duration of 5th as well with that particular build. Or - there were two forms of Leaf Blower. The one running amuk in 4th and the one running amuk in 5th. At least in my region.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

artific3r wrote:
I think the feelsbad moments will actually decrease as tourney play gets more popular.

Increased awareness of it makes it easier to avoid if it isn't your thing. It will also push competitive players to put more effort into seeking out likeminded opponents rather than blundering into random pickups against casual players, as there will be more awareness and social stigma around guys labeled as baby seal-clubbers.

That will probably vary by locale to locale but in my area that was most definitely not the case. The moer tourney play got popular, the more feelsbad moments occurred. Players were then given a choice - either modify their attitude to like the tournament play and meta, or leave.

The competitive players I have known overall with some minor exceptions didn't seek out likeminded opponents. They sought out 40k players, and expected 40k players to all play tourney style. They didn't ask if their opponent wanted tourney style, the assumption was that was what was going to happen. Labeling them baby seal-clubbers didn't matter because that was just coming from people who they labeled as bad at the game and were just upset that they couldn't be good at the game so had to blame it on their army lists, when it was obviously player skill that mattered (but you had to drill deep into that thought to uncover what it really meant - and to most of them that meant choosing to run meta lists was as much a part of the skill of 40k as playing on the table)

 auticus wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

artific3r wrote:
I think the feelsbad moments will actually decrease as tourney play gets more popular.

Spoiler:

Increased awareness of it makes it easier to avoid if it isn't your thing. It will also push competitive players to put more effort into seeking out likeminded opponents rather than blundering into random pickups against casual players, as there will be more awareness and social stigma around guys labeled as baby seal-clubbers.

That will probably vary by locale to locale but in my area that was most definitely not the case. The moer tourney play got popular, the more feelsbad moments occurred. Players were then given a choice - either modify their attitude to like the tournament play and meta, or leave.

The competitive players I have known overall with some minor exceptions didn't seek out likeminded opponents. They sought out 40k players, and expected 40k players to all play tourney style. They didn't ask if their opponent wanted tourney style, the assumption was that was what was going to happen. Labeling them baby seal-clubbers didn't matter because that was just coming from people who they labeled as bad at the game and were just upset that they couldn't be good at the game so had to blame it on their army lists, when it was obviously player skill that mattered (but you had to drill deep into that thought to uncover what it really meant - and to most of them that meant choosing to run meta lists was as much a part of the skill of 40k as playing on the table)

I totally disagree.

I emphatically agree

 auticus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Yeah and once things moved from list building there was a big stink.

But I also want to bring up one of the darlings of 4th edition. I also abused this at the GT level heh the Imperial Guard leaf blower list.

You just sat there and rolled buckets of dice and removed enemies wholesale.

The mission didn't matter (its been a while, so I may be mis remembering some things) because just wiping out my opponents netted me the win.

It was so gross. And unfun. But I was winning tournaments so that was how I 'had fun' at the time. (and feel bad about it today because a lot of people jumped out of 40k specifically because of that build and not having fun playing against it)

EDIT: I know people attribute leaf blower to 5th edition (and it was part of that as well) but the word was used in 4th as well. That was the title of my army builder roster file "leaf blower" and I know that those were from 4th edition days as I jumped out of tournaments at the end of 4th and stuck with narrative in 5th.

Leaf blower could not exist in 4th as IG did not get vehicle squadrons until 5th, nor could all of their infantry take Chimeras unless they spent a doctrine point.

They didn't have a 4th edition codex, so you could only play 4th with the heavily constrained 3.5 Dex.

Well regardless, my last IG tournament list was from July 2007 (4th edition) and the name of the roster was entitled "Leaf Blower" which was the term being used at the time since I know I didn't invent it heh. Leaf blower in this case was a metric feth-ton of dice being rolled by as many guns as could fit in the list.

I see that the concept of "leaf blower" changed in 5th to be a form of mechanized list. Apparently per my google-fu when 5th dropped, a popular tournament IG player changed his list to be more mechanized and it was called Leaf Blower and that name stuck throughout the duration of 5th as well with that particular build. Or - there were two forms of Leaf Blower. The one running amuk in 4th and the one running amuk in 5th. At least in my region.

While it is indeed possible you titled your late 4th edition list "Leafblower", it has no meaning at the time to the community.

IG by late 4th were not winning tournaments regularly; with a badly out of date codex and points costs half a decade old.

The hallmarks of Leafblower in 5th were tons of artillery and templates to "leafblow" your opponent off the table. In 4th, this was effectively impossible - the lack of vehicle squadrons meant you could fit a maximum of 3 Large Blast ordnance templates in your list. In 5th, this changed to 9.

What does your 2007 "Leafblower" list look like? You can PM me if you wish but I should be able to tell what codex the list was from just by reading it.

It was a mix of templates and weight of fire. It was a ton of lasguns backed up by heavy weapon squads to deal with armor.

Another possible solution for reducing inadvertent seal-clubbing: add a step to the Core Rules where players decide what style of game they're playing. And by that I don't mean a few random lines in the intro paragraphs of the hobby section of the rulebook, I mean literally make it "Step 1) Determine the style of game you want to play". This makes it crystal clear to the rules lawyer-y competitive types that you need to get through this step with your opponent and reach an agreement before you can even have a game.

Make players sit down with each other and choose between well-defined descriptions of Casual, Narrative, and Competitive before they even put their lists together. It's critical that the descriptions are accurate, and promote the kinds of playstyles people want.

Competitive can be defined as mathematically optimal lists, no restrictions on spamming units for any mechanical edge, and the freedom to design your list to be as hard as you want (within the limits of the Matched Play ruleset) -- anything goes. Recommended only if both players have larger collections, or are very experienced with the game.

Casual can be defined as "you're not exclusively trying to beat your opponent into a pulp, and you're making an effort to build a list that is fun for both you and your opponent." Recommended for most players.

I thought GW's tongue-in-cheek +10 VP for painted models was a great way of handling a similar issue, because it was a resounding signal to WAAC players that painted armies are indeed the "way the game is meant to be played". Anecdotally, this edition I haven't heard nearly as many stories of casual players being bullied by flavor-of-the-month grey tides, and I think that +10 VP rule may have been a big contributor. It very effectively solved the feelsbad scenario of getting smashed by an unpainted army, likely piloted by a rules lawyer-y competitive type, and it doesn't at all affect the rest of the players out there who have some basic level of social awareness.

artific3r wrote:
Another possible solution for reducing inadvertent seal-clubbing: add a step to the Core Rules where players decide what style of game they're playing. And by that I don't mean a few random lines in the intro paragraphs of the hobby section of the rulebook, I mean literally make it "Step 1) Determine the style of game you want to play". This makes it crystal clear to the rules lawyer-y competitive types that you need to get through this step with your opponent and reach an agreement before you can even have a game.

Make players sit down with each other and choose between well-defined descriptions of Casual, Narrative, and Competitive before they even put their lists together. It's critical that the descriptions are accurate, and promote the kinds of playstyles people want.

Competitive can be defined as mathematically optimal lists, no restrictions on spamming units for any mechanical edge, and the freedom to design your list to be as hard as you want (within the limits of the Matched Play ruleset) -- anything goes. Recommended only if both players have larger collections, or are very experienced with the game.

Casual can be defined as "you're not exclusively trying to beat your opponent into a pulp, and you're making an effort to build a list that is fun for both you and your opponent." Recommended for most players.

I thought GW's tongue-in-cheek +10 VP for painted models was a great way of handling a similar issue, because it was a resounding signal to WAAC players that painted armies are indeed the "way the game is meant to be played". Anecdotally, this edition I haven't heard nearly as many stories of casual players being bullied by flavor-of-the-month grey tides, and I think that +10 VP rule may have been a big contributor. It very effectively solved the feelsbad scenario of getting smashed by an unpainted army, likely piloted by a rules lawyer-y competitive type, and it doesn't at all affect the rest of the players out there who have some basic level of social awareness.

Why do you need the rules writers to impose common courtesy for you. If you start playing against someone and you see they are being "that guy" just pack up and never play them again. If enough people in your community do this, then the amount of players that are available for "that guy" will diminish and they'll either change or move on. If your community adopts the tournament grinder mentality, then likewise, change to follow, keep playing your fluff lists and not care, or move on.

We don't need hand holding through social interactions to be a part of a rule-set in order to force jerks to stop being jerks... they won't stop being a jerk even if it's in writing. The only way to change a jerk is to hold them accountable for their poor attitude.

EDIT: As for the painted thing, I can't really relate, everyone who I've gotten into the game, the way I introduce it to them is through the hobby first then the game so we've always had games fully painted. We don't play often outside of our social group because we have an understanding of what each person is looking for in the hobby/game so a lot of these WAAC/grey tide style players never really rubbed us as bad as they may someone who relies solely on pic up games at a LGS.

artific3r wrote:
Another possible solution for reducing inadvertent seal-clubbing: add a step to the Core Rules where players decide what style of game they're playing.

I think this is a great point.

People might point out that there's already "three ways to play" as we discussed earlier. But really we're talking about a "schism" in the attitude and approach towards "matched play." One person's matched play is casual, TAC/fluff lists and another is meta-responsive, optimal, tuned min-maxed.

Beyond the list building though, there are other elements that feed into this difference. Setting up the terrain in a "symmetrical" layout (ala most tournaments) as opposed more organic or asymmetric arrangement says a lot about the type of game one is playing. What set of missions gets played is also a big part of it. Why aren't the crusade missions (or one's similar to that) not available for "matched" play. There is a lot of possibility that exists between either crusade and competitive-matched play that isn't currently part of the equation.

nou wrote:
If competitive players would be seriously about competition and measuring their skill in the actual game, the "pro league" tournament format should look something like this:

At the beginning of a new season, GW announces a set of 8-16 army lists. Those are fixed, 2000 pts lists that are the only lists legal in tournaments. Now burn and churn players will not mind buying new units, so that is not a problem. This creates a clear, hard and, most important, official divide between competitive and casual folks and at the same time provides a controllable and fair ground for tournaments. You can then level the field even further, by designing tournament mission packs and terrain layouts exactly for those armies. Another benefit - there is exactly zero room for min-maxing, the only leeway a player has is in choosing game time elements like relics, traits, etc. GW does not loose any money this way, because they directly control what tournament players have to buy and they will buy whatever won the last round before the next round starts. And then the season ends and the new is introduced, with new armies, so new units to buy. Moreover - now ANY unit can be a torunament unit, even thrash tier units, if only GW/offical TOs decide to make a "thrash tier units season", because every army in the tournament is on the same thrash level.

And what about casuals who want to participate in tournaments? Easy, the above is a "pro league", and next to it you can have an "open tournament" - no prizes, no glory, just an occasion to socialise and push minis around.

A win-win situation for everyone except for seal clubbers.

If they did this, I would actually consider attempting to play competitive events. This actually sounds like it would be fun and not just an exercise in which player can abuse listbuilding the most. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy listbuilding as an exercise in casual play, because I'm usually trying to build a list to fill a certain theme or my own concept of what an in-universe TOE/ORBAT might look like. When it comes to competitive gaming though I get no enjoyment out of it because the pool of viable units I can field is essentially cut down to somewhere between 1/5th and 1/3rd of the potential options available in most codexes, at which point I have less choice and flexibility than I would otherwise like.

 vict0988 wrote:

Except GW gets no data on how good any units are, only those specific lists and if you don't want to play that format with that list the game is going to have awful balance forever. Why would GW even be the best to set up this format? It was tournament organizers that invented Elder Dragon Highlander in MTG and it was popularized organically, not by Wizards of the Coast the owners of MTG. If you're interested in this format you could probably do a better job of setting up 8-16 balanced lists for it than GW could. But nobody actually wants to play this format, there is no organic interest, it's just a weird thought baby. It'd make more sense to do it with 500 pt lists, that way you can do a best of 3 format to increase the likelihood of the better player winning and I can have fun, tested and balanced lists to use for noob games.

I think the opposite is true - GW gets better data about the efficacy and playability of units because they can force players to take units that they otherwise wouldn't take, and they know which lists are using which units (something which I am not sure their current meta analysis is able to zero in on) and from that can likewise extrapolate that certain units might be over or underperforming specifically, as opposed to their current analysis capabilities which can only judge that based on armies as a whole. Plus, by enforcing pre-built lists, they can also control for variables that they currently have no control over.

If anything, this is the means by which GW might get the highest quality data available.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

artific3r wrote:

Why do you need the rules writers to impose common courtesy for you.

Because the issues we're seeing in this thread stem from a lack of basic common courtesy among 40k players. Let's face it, wargamers are not the most socially aware crowd. The game's complexity and high level of investment attracts rules lawyer-y types who probably need the common courtesy stuff spelled out for them. Otherwise, if the rules say it is Good and Cool to show up to a pickup game with 170 wracks, then that's what some of our less socially attuned people are going to do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mezmorki wrote:

artific3r wrote:
Another possible solution for reducing inadvertent seal-clubbing: add a step to the Core Rules where players decide what style of game they're playing.

I think this is a great point.

People might point out that there's already "three ways to play" as we discussed earlier. But really we're talking about a "schism" in the attitude and approach towards "matched play." One person's matched play is casual, TAC/fluff lists and another is meta-responsive, optimal, tuned min-maxed.

Exactly. GW needs a tighter definition of what Matched Play is. And what Casual Play is. And what most people (especially newcomers) should probably be playing.

Unfortunately as it stands, Matched Play has become synonymous with "balanced play" because Matched is the only game mode GW actively supports with its balance updates. So of course the default playstyle is Matched Play, because people will always gravitate toward whatever game mode is seen as the most "fair". And since Matched Play doesn't have a rule against clubbing baby seals, and given that 40k attracts a lot of nerds with not-so-great social skills...

artific3r wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

artific3r wrote:

Why do you need the rules writers to impose common courtesy for you.

Because the issues we're seeing in this thread stem from a lack of basic common courtesy among 40k players. Let's face it, wargamers are not the most socially aware crowd. The game's complexity and high level of investment attracts rules lawyer-y types who probably need the common courtesy stuff spelled out for them.

Could just not play with those people, find a group of like minded individuals.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

artific3r wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

artific3r wrote:

Why do you need the rules writers to impose common courtesy for you.

Because the issues we're seeing in this thread stem from a lack of basic common courtesy among 40k players. Let's face it, wargamers are not the most socially aware crowd. The game's complexity and high level of investment attracts rules lawyer-y types who probably need the common courtesy stuff spelled out for them.

Could just not play with those people, find a group of like minded individuals.

That's what I do. My suggestion above was more about offering a solution to the problems with the player community as a whole. Something that GW could implement and save a lot of players a lot of grief.

+1 to having a difference in the rules between hyper competitive vs narrative.

Could just not play with those people, find a group of like minded individuals.

Variety of reasons. Not withstanding that what I'm used to is people want to play at the store with their friends, and if their friends are hyper competitive people, they endure it.

Peoples' feelings get hurt if they are excluded. Social contracts, etc...

Not playing with your friends because they are hyper competitive is not the answer for a lot of people. Especially since that causes rifts in personal relationships that aren't worth it.

Having rules define boundaries ARE.

Tyel wrote:
I like you Vict - but I'm not sure I'd agree with your memory.
The biggest prediction I'd say Dakka got wrong was that assault would be useless. This was rooted in the idea that 8th (and specifically 8th ITC) was devolving into castled up gunlines that hid in the corner. 9th's core rules did nothing for units trying to cross the table to get to do any damage - so how would they prove effective? Well it turns out the Primary objective does a good job of stopping that hide in the corner approach, as if you do your opponent will just run away with the Primary. But it was hard to make that leap without experience.

With regards to this I wonder when the obscuring rule was first made known. I think we were working with a partial picture when it seemed every new reveal was another death blow to melee units. Similarly back then we didn't know what an ideal terrain board looked like (neither did GW I think) because once they started running the opens they realised you need 4 giganticly based pieces of obscuring terrain with true line of sight blocking ruins stuck on top with all the windows sealed off.

I think we might start to find that it was the initial 9th edition points given to the shootiest factions (Guard and Tau) that made shooting look worse than it is. Having taken some Tau for a test drive, I can tell you that shooting people off the board seems a perfectly valid strategy again. We have already seen several very shooty factions/builds succeed (Ork buggy spam, Ork plane spam, AdMech troop spam, AdMech plane spam, GK/TS are very shooty but part of the shooting is moved to the psychic phase). A lot of the older 9th edition codexes we based the "wow melee is amazing now" concept on are struggling into the shooty lists. Dark Eldar are a melee faction and once they get sensible points costs it will feel a very shooty edition again I think.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

artific3r wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

artific3r wrote:

Why do you need the rules writers to impose common courtesy for you.

Because the issues we're seeing in this thread stem from a lack of basic common courtesy among 40k players. Let's face it, wargamers are not the most socially aware crowd. The game's complexity and high level of investment attracts rules lawyer-y types who probably need the common courtesy stuff spelled out for them.

Could just not play with those people, find a group of like minded individuals.

Unfortunately for some, it is not feasible for distance/availability/etc...

I'm very happy when I came back to GW stuff that I found a flgs that had all types of players.

I go away to play one last Bretonnian campaign in TW:WH2 and come back to the good old "blame the consumer" arguments.

That's not what this page has been about though? I guess it could be taken that way by stripping out absolutely all nuance, but still...

artific3r wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:

artific3r wrote:
Another possible solution for reducing inadvertent seal-clubbing: add a step to the Core Rules where players decide what style of game they're playing.

I think this is a great point.

People might point out that there's already "three ways to play" as we discussed earlier. But really we're talking about a "schism" in the attitude and approach towards "matched play." One person's matched play is casual, TAC/fluff lists and another is meta-responsive, optimal, tuned min-maxed.

Exactly. GW needs a tighter definition of what Matched Play is. And what Casual Play is. And what most people (especially newcomers) should probably be playing.

Unfortunately as it stands, Matched Play has become synonymous with "balanced play" because Matched is the only game mode GW actively supports with its balance updates. So of course the default playstyle is Matched Play, because people will always gravitate toward whatever game mode is seen as the most "fair". And since Matched Play doesn't have a rule against clubbing baby seals, and given that 40k attracts a lot of nerds with not-so-great social skills...

For the edification of others, I'd also mention that the language and tone conveyed by "matched" play today leans towards competitively-minded, "tournament-style" play. There are a lot of queues to this effect. First is calling it "matched" play. Second are things like having the control points setup in a symmetrical arrangement on the map. These are the missions that are used in official tournaments, etc.

So while one might say, "just don't play with those people" ... the issue is that the matched play rules speak directly to the inclinations of competitive-minded players.

I'd like love to see match play presented such that you could play a "casual match "or a "tournament-style match" - with some actual rule differences and setting different expectations between the two.

 auticus wrote:
+1 to having a difference in the rules between hyper competitive vs narrative.

Once again, I have to iterate this does not work unless you can have GW externally balance. We have many examples of one army's TAC being better than another army, yes or no?

I'm not seeing how TAC armies are relevant to having tournament rules vs casual rules vs narrative rules or how balance has anything to do with these things.

Tournament rules are rules that state you are playing tournament style, balls to the wall, min/max, symetrical battlefields, etc.

Casual rules would be more about a default style where you aren't trying to club baby seals and where the scenarios and battlefields aren't dictated by whats taken at the ITC.

Narrative rules would be narrative restrictions to make your armies resemble those in the narrative as well as missions and scenarios that were narratively driven as opposed to being about tournament symmetry.

 auticus wrote:
I'm not seeing how TAC armies are relevant to having tournament rules vs casual rules vs narrative rules or how balance has anything to do with these things.

Tournament rules are rules that state you are playing tournament style, balls to the wall, min/max, symetrical battlefields, etc.

Casual rules would be more about a default style where you aren't trying to club baby seals and where the scenarios and battlefields aren't dictated by whats taken at the ITC.

Narrative rules would be narrative restrictions to make your armies resemble those in the narrative as well as missions and scenarios that were narratively driven as opposed to being about tournament symmetry.

The big difference is:
Restraint is on GW for Tourney Balance & Restrictions like RO3/1use of each strat per phase/etc. Bonuses like no holds barred

Restraint is on PLAYERS for Non-Tourney bonuses/restrictions like WYSIWYG for colour/weapon/chapter/whatever

Restraint is on players, that part I agree, but players are going to do what the rules say they can.

The problem as I see it is that everywhere you look its tournament style rules in effect 24/7 and I would like to see them actually differentiate the style of play in legalese so that players can't just ignore those.

 auticus wrote:
Restraint is on players, that part I agree, but players are going to do what the rules say they can.

The problem as I see it is that everywhere you look its tournament style rules in effect 24/7 and I would like to see them actually differentiate the style of play in legalese so that players can't just ignore those.

Current 40k is trying to have some legalese in it and they're still screwing up so be careful what you with for.

Yep, I'm basically asking GW to provide:

1. Tighter definitions of Casual and Competitive.

2. A formal step at the start of the Core Rules where both players must agree on which mode they want to play.

3. A version of Casual that receives most or all of the same balance updates as Competitive, but where the goal of listbuilding is to create a fun experience for BOTH players, rather than crushing your opponent into the dirt.

artific3r wrote:
Yep, I'm basically asking GW to provide:

1. Tighter definitions of Casual and Competitive.

2. A formal step at the start of the Core Rules where both players must agree on which mode they want to play.

3. A version of Casual that receives most or all of the same balance updates as Competitive, but where the goal of listbuilding is to create a fun experience for BOTH players, rather than crushing your opponent into the dirt.

Yes, ^^^^^^^ all of that.

I think actual, tangible, differences could be along the following lines:

(a) Casual has a broader diversity missions, in comparison to using the ITC-style missions only. Crusade style missions should be employed.

(b) Even when using ITC missions, they should be less rigid. Objectives can be setup within 6" of the indicated locations for example (instead of perfectly symmetrical objecives). Terrain should be asymmetric in its layout.

(c) [I'm hesitant to suggest this... but....] for casual play, players use a single basic detachment structure (e.g. Battalion). I don't know how you really quantify / measure a min-maxed meta list versus a fluff list, but someway to shape/define this would be good.

artific3r wrote:
Because the issues we're seeing in this thread stem from a lack of basic common courtesy among 40k players. Let's face it, wargamers are not the most socially aware crowd. The game's complexity and high level of investment attracts rules lawyer-y types who probably need the common courtesy stuff spelled out for them. Otherwise, if the rules say it is Good and Cool to show up to a pickup game with 170 wracks, then that's what some of our less socially attuned people are going to do.

Well it comes down from the top. GW writes shoddy, exploitative rules and that sets the tone for the community. If GW puts lackadaisical effort into writing the rules, why should players put any more into following them?

Racerguy180 wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I'm not seeing how TAC armies are relevant to having tournament rules vs casual rules vs narrative rules or how balance has anything to do with these things.

Tournament rules are rules that state you are playing tournament style, balls to the wall, min/max, symetrical battlefields, etc.

Casual rules would be more about a default style where you aren't trying to club baby seals and where the scenarios and battlefields aren't dictated by whats taken at the ITC.

Narrative rules would be narrative restrictions to make your armies resemble those in the narrative as well as missions and scenarios that were narratively driven as opposed to being about tournament symmetry.

The big difference is:
Restraint is on GW for Tourney Balance & Restrictions like RO3/1use of each strat per phase/etc. Bonuses like no holds barred

Restraint is on PLAYERS for Non-Tourney bonuses/restrictions like WYSIWYG for colour/weapon/chapter/whatever

But why should players enforce someone using their Word Bearers as a different Legion? Have you seen the current Word Bearer rules?

Here's a stab at defining Casual vs Competitive listbuilding.

In Casual the goal is to build a list that lets both players have a fun and engaging experience. Usually this means having a good variety of units in your army and not skewing your list with too much of one thing (eg. Heavy Support, Troops, Flyers, etc). When in doubt, have a talk with your opponent about what style of list is acceptable.

In Competitive the goal is to build the absolute hardest list you can, using every tool available to you in your (hopefully) large collection. Recommended for experienced players with extensive collections who want to play against the most challenging competitive lists.

GW would be expected to put as much effort into balancing Casual as it does with Competitive. As long as Casual Mode is perceived to be as "fair" as Competitive, then it will likely gradually become the default style of play. The problem right now is that Open Play is totally unsupported (therefore, perceived as less balanced and therefore less fair), and Crusade is just way too much complexity and overhead for the pickup game culture that is popular in the US.

Tyel wrote:
Case in point. The Knights codex was released in early June 2018 - and the Castellan was a new model you had to get hold of. By 28th September GW released a FAQ that sought to reign in the combination of smash captains and knights. ( https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/09/28/28th-sept-warhammer-40000-big-faq-2-the-low-downgw-homepage-post-1/ )

If GW has noticed something is an issue at competitive events - you can bet it was there earlier than that. From what I remember "Knight meta" became a thing more or less instantly. Guard+BA CP farming was also widely known by this point. I think we are talking week 6 at the latest (2 is more likely tbh - but I can't immediately identify the tournament) - certainly not 36, as that's approaching when the 2020 April FAQ came in to put the Castellan down.

GW made changes based on the Nova Open results it says in their article, the Castellan got 3/3 top 3 spots, so I think we can agree that the Castellan was ruling the meta around 3 months after the book's release which fits with the story I've heard on podcasts, I know that the Primaris Rhino and Necron Croissants saw success before the official models came out, sometimes it is that obvious and I might have been misinformed about the history of the Castellan's dominance.

I think Knight meta was more than just the Castellan, 4 regular Knights could stomp an unprepared list, I remember getting smashed so hard a few times that my competitive list for the remainder of 8th had basically nothing but S5 and S10 weapons.

I don't want to defend GW too much here, because I'm often beating the same drum about how the janitorial staff could have warned GW that Iron Hands/Drukahri/AdMech would be OP.

nou wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Listbuilding is a fundamental part of the game because a big part of 40k is player's choice, it is building your army with your choices.

That's why every time GW takes a choice a way from the player there is uproar.

Is a netlist really "your army with your choices"? How exactly an officially given set of lists is different from a set of netlists that dominate the meta every time around?

Have you checked 9th edition Necron lists? There is no netlist. It's the Wild West, anything goes. As long as you have a unit of 20 Warriors at least, but I'm not going to complain about that, if 1 Monolith became near-mandatory as well, then things would truly be as they should be.

nou wrote:
And you are wrong about balancing only a specific subset of units, because, as I wrote, you can compose such lists from any units in the game. Then play a season with those units, then e.g. replace half of every list with other units and do an iterative balancing, so many times proposed in this thread as an ultimate solution to establish "good enough". With a proper design, you could cover a very large amount of units in just two-three seasons this way.

I think you need at least 10 lists to test a faction, with Space Marines and a few others ballooning in the number of datasheets available I'd say the average is 20 lists. So it'd take 10 years to test the game this way. In the current format people will organically try a variety of lists in tournaments and people will copy those that do well making it relatively easy to spot where the problems are in the case of an OP faction or where the problems aren't in the case of an UP faction.

The kind of testing where the janitorial staff test 20 different lists for each faction should be done after rules finalization to help finalize pts costs for publication and after step 1 which is estimating pts values based on pts-efficiency math done the Indian you hired on Fiverr.