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.

If you were losing to Toxic Sac Hormagaunts with ANY Eldar army that just says more about you as a player than anything.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
If you were losing to Toxic Sac Hormagaunts with ANY Eldar army that just says more about you as a player than anything.

No, it only says more than anything about you not knowing how casual/narrative games look like. If I could built a winning answer to any possible Tyranid build? Of course I could. That is not the point of playing a "small group meta" though if I want Tyranid player to have any fun and stay in the group/in the hobby. Even more so - if we could construct well balanced, fun and close games of Tyranids vs Eldar during 7th using any models from both dexes we fancied, including "the most broken" FW Pale Courts rules it does speak volumes about our understanding of the game and problems of balance.

You cannot balance for list tailoring.

Points have to be made for tournament play, and that means that some units will underperform (or overperfom) in casual meta with known oponents, and there is no real way around that issue.

 Tyran wrote:
You cannot balance for list tailoring.

Points have to be made for tournament play, and that means that some units will underperform (or overperfom) in casual meta with known oponents, and there is no real way around that issue.

Of course you can and there are, they just involve tools other than points. Last dozen of pages of this thread are exactly about it.

"you cannot balance for list tailoring, just tournaments" seems self-contradictory when a lot of tournament lists are the very definition of List Tailoring, just targeting the current meta players rather than a specific local player.

If wraithlords/wraith units were the meta in 7th, toxin sac hormagaunts would have been in vogue. The reason they weren't is that they weren't useful when tailoring against the tournament meta.

Bringing a mawloc because it can thump invisible units badly (even though it is crap the rest of the time) is a PERFECT example of list tailoring...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, the random stats thing was developed specifically to push out people who over optimized characters.

No, it was not. It was the default early in DnD's history, and was a relic of a different attitude towards tabletop gaming, where roleplaying was at a minimum.

Hecaton wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, the random stats thing was developed specifically to push out people who over optimized characters.

No, it was not. It was the default early in DnD's history, and was a relic of a different attitude towards tabletop gaming, where roleplaying was at a minimum.

did....did you just suggest that early DnD had minimum role playing?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Bringing a mawloc because it can thump invisible units badly (even though it is crap the rest of the time) is a PERFECT example of list tailoring...

It's one of the reasons why I chose this very example. It was a very meta unit that was pretty much unusable outside of a very narrow meta context of 7th and the discussion about Mawloc price point is a "my fun trumps your fun" kind of discussion without any objective solution to the problem. What is important here is that we are not talking about adjusting price point by +/-10%. Mawloc was a 140pts unit that in the context of the meta could easily remove 100pts a turn in optimal conditions and be virtually untargetable throughout the entire game. In a casual context it rarely removed more than 70pts throughout the entire game, because he emerged permanently after the first attack and then was rendered useless and finally killed by any CC unit in the game.

And another problem to chew on - in 7th units should have completely different point tags for Eternal War missions and Maelstrom of War missions, because those were effectively two entirely different games with different optimal builds.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 auticus wrote:
What it is and what has been a thing for as long as I can remember now is that 40k (and AOS) are very expensive hobbies and people want to play but don't want to spend more money than they have to. So they find what the standard is. The standard being point size, scenario set, and terrain expectations. And then they build and buy a list around that and optimize for that. They are always the type of people that want full control over their environment, and tournament gaming gives them (usually) that avenue since its highly standardized.

You can't have a game where two people compete against one another, where one wins, and another loses, and give both players "full control". It's not feasible. The one area where people specifically don't have control is terrain.

That's not actually true, though, is it? That might be the ideal situation but in reality, unless you're playing on some sort of pre-generated board, both players nevertheless have to agree about what terrain is used, how much there is and where it's placed on the board. There's no Terrain Fairy who'll swoop in and do it for them (at least, not in any of the stores I've played in ).

And the players have to come to this arrangement, knowing that more/less terrain can impact their armies significantly.

Obviously planet bowling-ball gives a significant advantage to Tau, IG and other primarily shooting armies. However, more terrain gives a significant advantage to Orks, Tyranids and any other army that leans much more towards melee.

It's not fair if the shooting army can blow the melee army to bits from the other side of the board, but it's equally unfair if there are no lanes of fire so all the Guard player's long-range weapons are useless until his units are mere inches away from the enemy.

I guess what I'm saying is that, whilst not wanting terrain to have any impact at all is obviously silly, it can be difficult to find a happy medium that's as fair as possible for all armies.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
"you cannot balance for list tailoring, just tournaments" seems self-contradictory when a lot of tournament lists are the very definition of List Tailoring, just targeting the current meta players rather than a specific local player.

If wraithlords/wraith units were the meta in 7th, toxin sac hormagaunts would have been in vogue. The reason they weren't is that they weren't useful when tailoring against the tournament meta.

Bringing a mawloc because it can thump invisible units badly (even though it is crap the rest of the time) is a PERFECT example of list tailoring...

While true, the difference is that tournament list building is tailoring targeting a finite and relatively knowable entity, while tailoring in casual metas is pretty much an unknowable quantity as each casual meta is its own thing.

 Tyran wrote:


While true, the difference is that tournament list building is tailoring targeting a finite and relatively knowable entity, while tailoring in casual metas is pretty much an unknowable quantity as each casual meta is its own thing.

And thus point balance is completely meaningless in a casual meta, that is in a majority of games of 40K ever played, so we are back to "PLs acknowledge that and incentivize players to cross-tailor". Thank you.

nou wrote:

 Tyran wrote:


While true, the difference is that tournament list building is tailoring targeting a finite and relatively knowable entity, while tailoring in casual metas is pretty much an unknowable quantity as each casual meta is its own thing.

And thus point balance is completely meaningless in a casual meta, that is in a majority of games of 40K ever played, so we are back to "PLs acknowledge that and incentivize players to cross-tailor". Thank you.

Except its not, PL is a crap shoot of a balance mechanic, its like filling a water balloon with paint, and then throwing it at a wall and saying "Yep i painted that wall good"
Not all units are created equal in their PL because of the equipment they can take, it works in AoS because a lot of squads are all or nothing weapon choices. Vs 40k
For 7PL i can take 5 rubrics then equip a soul reaper, and all flamers on them for free, which is a LOT of points of free crap. You comapire that to what other units can do and its not even a competition of whose better.

PL in 40k is possible the WORST way to balance because it just opened up all the equipment slots to be ridiculous.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
did....did you just suggest that early DnD had minimum role playing?

When it was Gygax and Kuntz doing their thing in Wisconsin? Yeah. It had worldbuilding, but not as much roleplaying as modern players would define it. It was also more adversarial between the GM and players.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
PL in 40k is possible the WORST way to balance because it just opened up all the equipment slots to be ridiculous.

Yup. The difference in damage potential between a Harlequin troupe with all fusion pistols or all shuriken pistols can be immense.

nou wrote:

 Tyran wrote:


While true, the difference is that tournament list building is tailoring targeting a finite and relatively knowable entity, while tailoring in casual metas is pretty much an unknowable quantity as each casual meta is its own thing.

And thus point balance is completely meaningless in a casual meta, that is in a majority of games of 40K ever played, so we are back to "PLs acknowledge that and incentivize players to cross-tailor". Thank you.

I wouldn't say completely meaningless, it still provides structure and there is always that netlist that is built on point balance.

But yes, point balance simply cannot account all the "weird gak" that can happen in a casual meta.

Hecaton wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
did....did you just suggest that early DnD had minimum role playing?

When it was Gygax and Kuntz doing their thing in Wisconsin? Yeah. It had worldbuilding, but not as much roleplaying as modern players would define it. It was also more adversarial between the GM and players.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
PL in 40k is possible the WORST way to balance because it just opened up all the equipment slots to be ridiculous.

Yup. The difference in damage potential between a Harlequin troupe with all fusion pistols or all shuriken pistols can be immense.

I always use the example of rubrics, 10 rubrics is 14 PL, they can all take warp flamers which are 15 points a pop. thats 150 points, or roughly an additional 7.5 PL for free.

One could make the argument that such units are inherently damaging to the game and that warp flamers should be nerfed/inferno bolters buffed to the point they are equivalent with each other.

 Tyran wrote:
One could make the argument that such units are inherently damaging to the game and that warp flamers should be nerfed/inferno bolters buffed to the point they are equivalent with each other.

Thats the reason that warp flamers cost 15 points a model, and inferno bolters are free. The points ARE the balance you are looking for, that balance does not exist in PL and thats the whole points of why PL is dump in 40k.

Your options then become, Well do we distinguish the warpflamer from the inferno bolter and make the warp flamer cost more, OR do we just nerf the warpflamer and buff the inferno bolter so that they are not really distinguishable from each other.

PL is a microcosm of the problem of 8th and 9th and the stripping down of rules, by taking out these rules, you remove way to balance the game, because you no longer have the tools needed to balance it. It would be like plumber walking onto a job with a full bag of tools, or walking in with 2 wrenches, That big bag of tools will give you a lot more options to get the job done, that 2 wrenches your limited to what you can do with them.

The only way to balance out the game at this point, because the model range and army range has gotten so damn large, is you have to expand the rules, with a lot more <rule><x> type rules.
The example i always give is that GW really should make a Rending <x> rule, with x being the value of AP when you roll a 6 to hit. This gives GW the ability put rending x on under performing weapons in order to balance them out. LIke oh the HB is not doing great, give it a rending -2 see if that brings it up in line.

They need more rules like this to balance the game they have created, not less this whole one page of rules thing was a pipe dream.

I have to be honest - I can't be that accurate on the fine details of 7th edition Tyranid meta. To my mind Tyranids were not competitive and Mawlocs were okay but not the terror of tables - be it Superfriends or whatever - so.. I don't know what to say really. I'd probably leave them where they are and buff up other things first and then see what happens. I don't know whether toxic sac hormagaunts would have been good in "wraith meta" - but to my mind it wasn't a thing and they aren't.

As said, I think our disagreements are about how you define balance.

For me balance is basically a venn diagram. The first circle is every unit across every faction in 40k. The second is "units you'd expect to see going a reasonable distance in a competitive tournament". And the more units that are in the second, the more balanced the game is going to be.

Things not being as good in meta A as in meta B is not a balance issue. Because meta A could change to meta B if player C in meta A decides to change their build, their faction, or whatever. Or a new player joins the group which alters the games that comprise meta A.

I personally feel 40k is not especially meta driven. Top lists tend to be top lists full stop because they cram in efficiencies.

If I always stuff my list full of anti-tank, its not a balance problem if you insist on running tanks into me - and I get a really high win percentage and you feel there's nothing you can do about it as a result. You could change your list. Or at least play someone else apart from me. Or ask me to change my list because its boring. That's the problem with a list tailoring approach - it goes all the way down.

Points and points balance matters because when we talk about people running competitive builds, we mean points efficient ones - as opposed to I bring only A and you bring only anti-A and that results in a bad game.

If I turned up with pre-nerf Thicc City I don't think its good for some sort of meta skew reason. Its just because I get so much bang for my buck that its effective versus the vast majority of less efficient lists. Now GW have decided in this case rules changes are better than points ones - but I'm not sure this is some objective truth. They could have for instance put Talos points back up because there was no real reason they went down in the first place. With that said, a tweak of Artists of the Flesh is probably not unreasonable because it was clearly superior to the alternatives and I obviously agree internally balancing chapter tactic bonuses can't be done purely by points.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
did....did you just suggest that early DnD had minimum role playing?

When it was Gygax and Kuntz doing their thing in Wisconsin? Yeah. It had worldbuilding, but not as much roleplaying as modern players would define it. It was also more adversarial between the GM and players.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
PL in 40k is possible the WORST way to balance because it just opened up all the equipment slots to be ridiculous.

Yup. The difference in damage potential between a Harlequin troupe with all fusion pistols or all shuriken pistols can be immense.

I always use the example of rubrics, 10 rubrics is 14 PL, they can all take warp flamers which are 15 points a pop. thats 150 points, or roughly an additional 7.5 PL for free.

3 Crisis Suits each equipped with 1 burst cannon is 9 PL. Each suit can swap out that single burst cannon for 3 burst cannons plus a support system for zero PL increase. Triple the killing power for the same PL cost.

Tyel wrote:

For me balance is basically a venn diagram. The first circle is every unit across every faction in 40k. The second is "units you'd expect to see going a reasonable distance in a competitive tournament". And the more units that are in the second, the more balanced the game is going to be.

Things not being as good in meta A as in meta B is not a balance issue. Because meta A could change to meta B if player C in meta A decides to change their build, their faction, or whatever. Or a new player joins the group which alters the games that comprise meta A

So we do disagree.

Your definition of balance picks a meta - "the competitive tournament" (call it Meta A) - and says "things that are balanced here are balanced everywhere", whilst many players (arguably a majority of players) play casual games in Metas B-Z, each letter representing their own local scene.

The problem is that people don't always play tournament lists. A Leman Russ Tank Company may take you far in a tournament if you spend your last 500 points on 100 infantry models, but a "fluffy" Leman Russ Tank company with 20 models in 2 Chimeras may be garbage.

So you could reasonably expect to go far in a tournament with a Leman Russ Tank Company - it's "balanced" by your definition. But a casual version of the list, swapping out some of what makes the list strong in favor of some fluffy choices - can make it crap.

In meta V, though, more than 4 Leman Russes may be an absolute terror that no one can overcome (maybe the heaviest other vehicles are Vypers or something). Meaning now they are really good!

I myself have been a victim of just this, moving from a meta where Superheavy tanks were generally okay to play against (as people were comfortable with their strengths and weaknesses) and then I moved to a meta where 3 superheavies in an army actually caused arguments and player strife and I had to find an alternative army to play if I reliably wanted games.

And Superheavy tanks were not balanced for tournaments at all, so we have:
1 meta where superheavies were trash and needed a buff (tournaments)
1 meta where superheavies were fine (my starting location)
1 meta where superheavies literally caused strain on the community with their brokenness (where I moved to)

Balance can never happen in the real world with your "meta A-Z" example. Because as you said, in competitive meta, Leman russes might be balanced, but in Meta Z, where nobody brings any anti-tank weapons they might be god level.

So with that in mind, the best possible way to balance the game is by balancing the competitive meta so that everyone can base there "meta" off this version.

The problem I have with this meta is that the guys who are writing the balance updates are....terrible.

So you would balance off of the tournament players (Meta A) just because?

I would balance off the narrative players (Meta Q) at the same event, because they have tons of attendance and are more likely to have interactions in tune with casual, non-competitive play.

SemperMortis wrote:Balance can never happen in the real world with your "meta A-Z" example. Because as you said, in competitive meta, Leman russes might be balanced, but in Meta Z, where nobody brings any anti-tank weapons they might be god level.

So with that in mind, the best possible way to balance the game is by balancing the competitive meta so that everyone can base there "meta" off this version.

The problem I have with this meta is that the guys who are writing the balance updates are....terrible.

Unit1126PLL wrote:So you would balance off of the tournament players (Meta A) just because?

I would balance off the narrative players (Meta Q) at the same event, because they have tons of attendance and are more likely to have interactions in tune with casual, non-competitive play.

Just as I wrote above, "my fun trumps your fun" is not, by any means, an objective approach to balance.

Earlier in this thread there was a question raised about "why casual/narrative players want to regulate how I have my tournament oriented fun". The above is a good answer to that question.

nou wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:Balance can never happen in the real world with your "meta A-Z" example. Because as you said, in competitive meta, Leman russes might be balanced, but in Meta Z, where nobody brings any anti-tank weapons they might be god level.

So with that in mind, the best possible way to balance the game is by balancing the competitive meta so that everyone can base there "meta" off this version.

The problem I have with this meta is that the guys who are writing the balance updates are....terrible.

Unit1126PLL wrote:So you would balance off of the tournament players (Meta A) just because?

I would balance off the narrative players (Meta Q) at the same event, because they have tons of attendance and are more likely to have interactions in tune with casual, non-competitive play.

Just as I wrote above, "my fun trumps your fun" is not, by any means, an objective approach to balance.

Earlier in this thread there was a question raised about "why casual/narrative players want to regulate how I have my tournament oriented fun". The above is a good answer to that question.

Unless I am reading you wrong, are you actually saying that you do think that your fun trumps someone else's fun?

I am trying to figure out why we should "balance" armies for casual games instead of competitive games. What does casual mean? What are the casual players worried about when there are balance adjustments made due to tourney play?

So an over-powered unit or interaction should be preserved so that casual gamers can use it in their games? Is it that casual players want powerful combos/rules/units to be preserved for them?

Player skill absolutely factors in, but if it is over-powered on a top table then its going to be overpowered in a pickup game.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

Player skill absolutely factors in, but if it is over-powered on a top table then its going to be overpowered in a pickup game.

Just read into the Mawloc example above.

It seems that a big part of the balance problem comes from an expectation or desire for varied forces to be fairly equal in any encounter, which is pretty unrealistic. To reduce the chances of 'imbalance', GW has chosen to make victory conditions and battlefield layouts very similar to each other. This may allow players to reign in variables that might adversely affect their army, but it creates a rather dull gaming environment to me. Balancing a random game by this method is virtually impossible even when cutting down scenario variables, and most of the flavor is washed away with it.

This is a gross extension of the 'take all comers' philosophy whereas one plays the same force regardless of opponent or situation. We've always tailored our forces for individual games against known opponents. Some will cry 'list tailoring is unfair' but if both sides do it it isn't.

Generally we decide on or randomly generate a battle a week in advance to determine what armies are playing what scenario, the terrain type and its density. We often have a third party set up terrain but it isn't necessary. Both sides bring what they believe are the appropriate units to achieve victory.

We have charts for asymmetric forces in attack/defend scenarios where the defender has a reduced force but maybe has defensive obstacles. In those, we state the points the defender is allotted and then have players make a secret bid on how many points they think they need to win the scenario. The lower bid gets to attack.

This kind of battle would be very difficult to create on the fly with preset army lists. It wouldn't be fair nor would it make much sense, but these kind of scenarios are great fun when done well. This does require a collection that is larger than typically expected battle sizes, so it's not for everybody.

Not everyone can arrange to play this way, but the tangent advocating power levels over points sound more like a resignation than a solution to the balance issue. If points aren't effective, by extension power levels are less so.

Admittedly, we've long since altered GW's point values to reflect what we think is a more equitable standard, but even the most precise values attributed to a units worth will fail if one thinks somehow points alone can magically balance a game. Points are just the foundation, but if that foundation is way off balance is very difficult to achieve.

But a special forces team bringing speed boats, harpoons and scuba gear to a fight in the desert will never - and should never win an encounter with an appropriately outfitted enemy.

nou wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

Player skill absolutely factors in, but if it is over-powered on a top table then its going to be overpowered in a pickup game.

Just read into the Mawloc example above.

I read your Mawloc example. Admitting that I took a break in 7th and only have the context that you presented, they should balance the unit to what it does at a competitive level. Yes, the makeup of your meta might be different, but GW should balance to what they see in competitive games. If you are a "narrative" player seemingly in control over what your opponent brings (through mutual agreement/moral suasion) then you have created a hothouse meta reliant on that control. GW can't know about the controls that you have placed on yourselves.

Are you a narrative player that is also very concerned about the points? Why are narrative players worried about "nerfs" to their armies?

 Tyran wrote:
You cannot balance for list tailoring.

Points have to be made for tournament play, and that means that some units will underperform (or overperfom) in casual meta with known oponents, and there is no real way around that issue.

That's only the case if you take the approach that army lists must be made in a total vacuum, unrelated to any knowledge about what your opponent might bring. Doesn't that seem odd on the face of it? That the composition of an army has absolutely nothing to do with who it'll be fighting, or the terrain it'll be fighting on?

There is a real way around that issue, and it's to embrace 'list tailoring' by way of official mechanics- be it sideboard, partial deployment, or free-form summoning like what Warcaster is apparently doing. It might even be easier to balance the game without having to worry about a unit being either worthless or OP entirely depending on matchup.

There are many things that are fine at top tables that are absolutely bonkers anywhere else, but because they are fine on top tables its hand waived as fine.

At this point, the only way I'd ever play 40k again is in a group that cooperatively builds lists together with the goal of having an engaging and fun game for everyone as opposed to treating it like a sporting contest.

I acknowledge that such groups exist though here in the states those groups are rare and hard to find and work has to be done to build them (and you may go through a painful process of gamer politics if you are doing so in public) - but are much easier to find over in Europe where gaming clubs center around the experience for both players as opposed to a sporting contest where its competitive-only.

This has been a good thread.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Why are narrative players worried about "nerfs" to their armies?

Because we don't like being 'd over rules wise by GW anymore than you tourney players do?

Crusade, for ex,, is narrative. But unless some rules change indicates which of the 3 ways to play it applies to (such as the new flyer restriction), it applies to us as well.