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Backspacehacker exalted! could not agree more.

the lore/setting is the entire reason i still play 40K

RT was a parody of fantasy, 2nd was hero hammer skirmish. the hard setting of 40K solidified in 3rd and became all that we now understand of the grim dark setting of 40K. after Rick, Andy and the rest of the original team left nobody currently at GW understands what 40K is anymore.

They know what 40k is now, a money machine .

In short: I do not care if 40k is balanced for tournament play. My main priority is that it's *fun* to play across all skill levels.

In many ways, I feel like 40k has lost its most 'Fun' mechanics since when I started playing (at the start of 5th). I'm an Ork player at my core, and so the game came baked in with many options that were *suboptimal* but which were intensely fun to use. Shokk Attack Guns and template weapons and random psychic powers and armor facings - None of these made for well balanced tournament play, but they were extremely fun to use. The awesome feeling of deleting a whole squad of terminators versus the hilarity of accidentally teleporting into melee combat with them balanced out the general weakness of the gun.
On the other hand, vehicle damage rules never felt *fun* to me. The wide gulf in durability wasn't appropriate for every army, so while a Trukk blowing up in one unlucky shot might have been appropriate, a Rhino or a Leman Russ doing the same was not. I miss armor facings, but I don't miss vehicle rules in the slightest. Also, while unique rules or abilities for certain models was often fun, it also often led to wildly overpowered abilities, like Blood Angels dreadnoughts being able to shred entire hords in a single melee combat.

9th has taken some steps in the right direction. Waaagh! returning to an activated ability is great, because it's so much more *fun* to call a Waaagh! than to just have an Aura. The core 9th rules strike a good balance between streamlining and rewarding cohesive armies (unlike the Loyal 32/Detachment Spam of 8th, which never felt *fun*,) but if codex balance is better than it used to be, its only by a narrow margin (ignoring the outlier of Late 7th). The lack of USRs and the 'My special rules beat your special rules' edge cases are awkward and inconsistent.

I'm reasonably happy with 9th. The core rules are solid. I'd like to bring back more of the 'fun' rules that made older editions feel more narrative, but it's a tough line to walk between fair, streamlined rules and novel unique situations. My personal preference would be to lean more towards the fun, chaotic side, but I'm fine with the current state of the game.

Waaaghpower wrote:
In short: I do not care if 40k is balanced for tournament play. My main priority is that it's *fun* to play across all skill levels.

I agree, but "fun" also includes a minimum level of balance. I want thematic rules and variety between and within armies and I want armies built to represent a faction's fluff to also be strong on the tabletop. But I also don't want to see a thematic and background-accurate IG army get tabled every single game because no matter how fluffy and cool your list is, your army is useless on the battlefield. IME nothing is more demoralising for a new player than having to explain to them that the cool, well-painted new unit they just spent hours building and painting is terrible in the game. Worse still is having to explain that their entire army is terrible and will likely remain so for a long time.

Yes, there are ways to mitigate against this, but it's also not great to see players having to handicap themselves because their opponent has a terrible army, and many players don't want their opponents to do so either. It's also more difficult to self-balance the less experienced you are.

Wouldn't being balanced for tournament play make it balanced for everything else?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Wouldn't being balanced for tournament play make it balanced for everything else?

Define 'balanced for tournament play'? What does it look like in the real world.

Do you mean something like 'every codex should have one good power build' = balanced for tournament play?

Theres the 'how'. What costs and sacrifices are you willing to make? Will you homogenise a lot of options? Reduce the rosters? Decimate the strategems? Reduce the scale? Reduce the scope? Allow sideboards/multiple lists/multiple win conditions? Give everyone a plasma gun and a power weapon?

So, What does it look like in the real world?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Wouldn't being balanced for tournament play make it balanced for everything else?

Yes... But

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Wouldn't being balanced for tournament play make it balanced for everything else?

Depends what you mean by balance. From a competitive perspective every Codex would be balanced if there was at least one build that was at the same level of power as every other Codex. That doesn't mean that's the sort of balance that would appeal to non-competitive players.

For example, Craftworld Eldar have often been very powerful in competitive tournaments (not right now, but in the past it held true). Usually they achieved this power through skewed and unfluffy armies like 7 planes, jetbike spam, Wraith-construct spam, etc. This meant the average Eldar player's army was usually somewhere between OK and weak because a traditional army of Guardians, Aspects and some vehicles wasn't very good. My version of balanced would make the background-accurate lists the more powerful ones so people collecting a "normal" army for each faction would be on a level playing field.

Deadnight wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Wouldn't being balanced for tournament play make it balanced for everything else?

Define 'balanced for tournament play'? What does it look like in the real world.

Do you mean something like 'every codex should have one good power build' = balanced for tournament play?

Theres the 'how'. What costs and sacrifices are you willing to make? Will you homogenise a lot of options? Reduce the rosters? Decimate the strategems? Reduce the scale? Reduce the scope? Allow sideboards/multiple lists/multiple win conditions? Give everyone a plasma gun and a power weapon?

So, What does it look like in the real world?

Exactly. Balanced for tournament play doens't really mean anything. To me the definition of reasonable balance in 40k is when two players field average collections of models from different factions and have similar chances to win, assuming same luck and same experience/skills. For average collections of models I mean basically "highlander" oriented armies, with a bit of everything rather than spamming stuff. When that works reasonably I'm happy.

I couldn't care less if any faction has a spammy but equally powerful build that makes tournaments extremely balanced.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Wouldn't being balanced for tournament play make it balanced for everything else?

In my experience tournament players are perfectly happy to buy new armies every six months and don't particularly care if three quarters of the models in their Codex are garbage, so long as a large number of Codexes have at least one tournament-competitive netlist in them at any one time they interpret the game as "balanced".

Slipspace wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Wouldn't being balanced for tournament play make it balanced for everything else?

Depends what you mean by balance. From a competitive perspective every Codex would be balanced if there was at least one build that was at the same level of power as every other Codex. That doesn't mean that's the sort of balance that would appeal to non-competitive players.

That's just not true, internal balance is part of competitive balance.

My version of balanced would make the background-accurate lists the more powerful ones so people collecting a "normal" army for each faction would be on a level playing field.

What background? The one that says that the Emperor was saved by a man or the one that says the Emperor was saved by an immortal? Some people will fight you if you try to tell them that their skew list is unfluffy or that your highlander list lacks theme.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Wouldn't being balanced for tournament play make it balanced for everything else?

In my experience tournament players are perfectly happy to buy new armies every six months and don't particularly care if three quarters of the models in their Codex are garbage, so long as a large number of Codexes have at least one tournament-competitive netlist in them at any one time they interpret the game as "balanced".

Do you know what they are comparing with? A quarter of factions having one viable list each and the top faction having 2 builds and all the other factions having no viable builds. Casual players are happy if they have no competitive builds, because they can get their opponents to come down to their level.

Casual players are happy if they have no competitive builds, because they can get their opponents to come down to their level.

Not over in the US in my experience with the game over several regions.

Getting players to come down requires those players to have a large enough collection to do so.

The good majority of tournament players I have ever known keep their collections tight to whatever is competitive and ebay the rest to recoup costs and invest in the next churn build.

The biggest complaint I ever heard about toning down was from a large number of american players that simply only had one army - the competitive army.

Toning down was not something they were interested in doing because many people don't want to buy models just to tone down their army with.

I know there are people that WILL tone down but in the states its very difficult to find those players - at least in public stores where a lot of us go to get games.

 vict0988 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Wouldn't being balanced for tournament play make it balanced for everything else?

Depends what you mean by balance. From a competitive perspective every Codex would be balanced if there was at least one build that was at the same level of power as every other Codex. That doesn't mean that's the sort of balance that would appeal to non-competitive players.

That's just not true, internal balance is part of competitive balance.

I disagree. If you're talking about competitive play I think defining balance as every Codex having at least one build that is equal to the most powerful build from any other Codex is accurate. From a purely competitive angle, as long as a Codex has one good build that's fine. I didn't say it was desirable or optimal.

 vict0988 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
My version of balanced would make the background-accurate lists the more powerful ones so people collecting a "normal" army for each faction would be on a level playing field.

What background? The one that says that the Emperor was saved by a man or the one that says the Emperor was saved by an immortal? Some people will fight you if you try to tell them that their skew list is unfluffy or that your highlander list lacks theme.

The background GW chooses. It's their game, and they should be writing each Codex with a view to what typical armies of that faction should look like and balancing appropriately. People can try to justify any list, skew or otherwise, as fluffy all they like, doesn't mean I or GW have to agree with them. I'm not even suggesting banning skew lists completely, just not making them the optimal choice, by design.

Slipspace wrote:
I disagree. If you're talking about competitive play I think defining balance as every Codex having at least one build that is equal to the most powerful build from any other Codex is accurate. From a purely competitive angle, as long as a Codex has one good build that's fine. I didn't say it was desirable or optimal.

Balance: "a state in which different things occur in equal or proper amounts or have an equal or proper amount of importance"

If Flayed Ones never occur in competitive games and do not have a proper amount of importance in the game then the competitive meta is not balanced because Flayed Ones do not occur in proper amounts and do not have a proper amount of importance.

The background GW chooses. It's their game, and they should be writing each Codex with a view to what typical armies of that faction should look like and balancing appropriately. People can try to justify any list, skew or otherwise, as fluffy all they like, doesn't mean I or GW have to agree with them. I'm not even suggesting banning skew lists completely, just not making them the optimal choice, by design.

How will GW communicate this and measure whether it has been achieved?

How can you say casual is balanced if it's only the one type of casual that GW defines as casual?

I wasn't talking about skew, I was talking about spam. 3 Wave Serpents, 3 Falcons and 3 Wraithguard units is spammy, but it's not skew. It's "my Craftworld are experts at building and using Falcons and have lost a lot of guys in a past war so now they play it safe using Wraithguard and Transports" not "hehe your anti-infantry guns are useless because I only brought Wraithknights, Fire Prisms and a Character".

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Wouldn't being balanced for tournament play make it balanced for everything else?

In my experience tournament players are perfectly happy to buy new armies every six months and don't particularly care if three quarters of the models in their Codex are garbage, so long as a large number of Codexes have at least one tournament-competitive netlist in them at any one time they interpret the game as "balanced".

Basically this.

I think there is also the risk of the less-liked armies being being balanced only from the perspective of the armies playing against them. As in, their good units are nerfed but their bad units are never fixed.

 vict0988 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
I disagree. If you're talking about competitive play I think defining balance as every Codex having at least one build that is equal to the most powerful build from any other Codex is accurate. From a purely competitive angle, as long as a Codex has one good build that's fine. I didn't say it was desirable or optimal.

Balance: "a state in which different things occur in equal or proper amounts or have an equal or proper amount of importance"

If Flayed Ones never occur in competitive games and do not have a proper amount of importance in the game then the competitive meta is not balanced because Flayed Ones do not occur in proper amounts and do not have a proper amount of importance.

The background GW chooses. It's their game, and they should be writing each Codex with a view to what typical armies of that faction should look like and balancing appropriately. People can try to justify any list, skew or otherwise, as fluffy all they like, doesn't mean I or GW have to agree with them. I'm not even suggesting banning skew lists completely, just not making them the optimal choice, by design.

How will GW communicate this and measure whether it has been achieved?

How can you say casual is balanced if it's only the one type of casual that GW defines as casual?

I wasn't talking about skew, I was talking about spam. 3 Wave Serpents, 3 Falcons and 3 Wraithguard units is spammy, but it's not skew. It's "my Craftworld are experts at building and using Falcons and have lost a lot of guys in a past war so now they play it safe using Wraithguard and Transports" not "hehe your anti-infantry guns are useless because I only brought Wraithknights, Fire Prisms and a Character".

Or I've painted my stuff yellow & blue and am playing IYANDEN....

ccs wrote:

Or I've painted my stuff yellow & blue and am playing IYANDEN....

let people paint their armies whatever color they want, feth that "color scheme = rules" mentality.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ccs wrote:

Or I've painted my stuff yellow & blue and am playing IYANDEN....

let people paint their armies whatever color they want, feth that "color scheme = rules" mentality.

Yes let them paint them whichever colour they like. I'm not sure anyone said you couldnt.

Is the only reason people don't want to stick with a colour scheme is so you can just switch to the most op FOTM?

I painted my Salamanders like Salamanders and they're not gonna be anything else. Same goes for my Bloody Rose, Flawless Host & Metallica.

Racerguy180 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ccs wrote:

Or I've painted my stuff yellow & blue and am playing IYANDEN....

let people paint their armies whatever color they want, feth that "color scheme = rules" mentality.

Yes let them paint them whichever colour they like. I'm not sure anyone said you couldnt.

Is the only reason people don't want to stick with a colour scheme is so you can just switch to the most op FOTM?

I painted my Salamanders like Salamanders and they're not gonna be anything else. Same goes for my Bloody Rose, Flawless Host & Metallica.

No, people swap subfactions because they want to try different strategies. If i want to play a fast list of space marine but i painted them black because i like the scheme better, i shouldnt be forced to stick to iron hands.

I pick my color schemes purely on how they appeal to me visually. And as a new player, i knew nothing of the subfactions when i picked my color schemes.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ccs wrote:

Or I've painted my stuff yellow & blue and am playing IYANDEN....

let people paint their armies whatever color they want, feth that "color scheme = rules" mentality.

Yes let them paint them whichever colour they like. I'm not sure anyone said you couldnt.

Is the only reason people don't want to stick with a colour scheme is so you can just switch to the most op FOTM?

I painted my Salamanders like Salamanders and they're not gonna be anything else. Same goes for my Bloody Rose, Flawless Host & Metallica.

No, people swap subfactions because they want to try different strategies. If i want to play a fast list of space marine but i painted them black because i like the scheme better, i shouldnt be forced to stick to iron hands.

I pick my color schemes purely on how they appeal to me visually. And as a new player, i knew nothing of the subfactions when i picked my color schemes.

This. Paint shouldn't impact rules.

The only reasonable exception I can think of is, if you're running two different subfactions within the same army, or have a converted army that uses similar models for two different factions entirely (say, SoB and Marines) there should be enough distinction to make it clear what's what. But that's just an ease of play thing.

 JNAProductions wrote:

The only reasonable exception I can think of is, if you're running two different subfactions within the same army, or have a converted army that uses similar models for two different factions entirely (say, SoB and Marines) there should be enough distinction to make it clear what's what. But that's just an ease of play thing.

I usually tried to keep units unique between subfactions when i did soup (no cultists in both my Night lords and Alpha legion detachment for example) but i ended up just marking which unit was which using some cards/bluetac/rubberbands

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

The only reasonable exception I can think of is, if you're running two different subfactions within the same army, or have a converted army that uses similar models for two different factions entirely (say, SoB and Marines) there should be enough distinction to make it clear what's what. But that's just an ease of play thing.

I usually tried to keep units unique between subfactions when i did soup (no cultists in both my Night lords and Alpha legion detachment for example) but i ended up just marking which unit was which using some cards/bluetac/rubberbands

Yeah, as long as it works and is clear.

I mean, 40k is a complex game, so I'd imagine most people who play it deeply enough to have multiple subfactions are able to handle a little added mental overhead, but at the same time, it's good to try to minimize it.

Paint colours should I think influence rules. Personally Ihave stressed about colours because of background, … I don’t mind someone experimenting with rules as in, hey, today I wanna play my blue marines as salamanders to experiment with the new rules. But, do it more than once or twice without moving on either repainting or collecting salamanders and imho coolness points are lost, patience is lost, and frankly I lose interest in being a part of whatever this dude thinks he is doing with the game and hobby.

anyways, just mo, but yeah, modeling choices including paint schemes have implications and consequences.

 jeff white wrote:
Paint colours should I think influence rules. Personally Ihave stressed about colours because of background, … I don’t mind someone experimenting with rules as in, hey, today I wanna play my blue marines as salamanders to experiment with the new rules. But, do it more than once or twice without moving on either repainting or collecting salamanders and imho coolness points are lost, patience is lost, and frankly I lose interest in being a part of whatever this dude thinks he is doing with the game and hobby.

anyways, just mo, but yeah, modeling choices including paint schemes have implications and consequences.

That's fine-you're not required to play anyone you don't want to.

But that certainly shouldn't be the ONLY way to play it-for me personally, I don't really care what color your models are.

 vict0988 wrote:

I wasn't talking about skew, I was talking about spam. 3 Wave Serpents, 3 Falcons and 3 Wraithguard units is spammy, but it's not skew. It's "my Craftworld are experts at building and using Falcons and have lost a lot of guys in a past war so now they play it safe using Wraithguard and Transports" not "hehe your anti-infantry guns are useless because I only brought Wraithknights, Fire Prisms and a Character".

Its both spam and skew. 'I didn't do it on purpose' or 'I have a fluffy reason for it' doesn't change the play experience one jot for the person on the other side of the table.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ccs wrote:

Or I've painted my stuff yellow & blue and am playing IYANDEN....

let people paint their armies whatever color they want, feth that "color scheme = rules" mentality.

Yes let them paint them whichever colour they like. I'm not sure anyone said you couldnt.

Is the only reason people don't want to stick with a colour scheme is so you can just switch to the most op FOTM?

I painted my Salamanders like Salamanders and they're not gonna be anything else. Same goes for my Bloody Rose, Flawless Host & Metallica.

No, people swap subfactions because they want to try different strategies. If i want to play a fast list of space marine but i painted them black because i like the scheme better, i shouldnt be forced to stick to iron hands.

I pick my color schemes purely on how they appeal to me visually. And as a new player, i knew nothing of the subfactions when i picked my color schemes.

Are you actually saying you can't run a fast IH list? Like I don't even know how to respond to that. They're fething marines for crying out loud and have a bunch of really fast units(18" Landspeeder Storms, biked etc...) available to them...
Or is it you want to use the extra stuff that the "faster" marines get??? That seems to be the crux of it.

Racerguy180 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ccs wrote:

Or I've painted my stuff yellow & blue and am playing IYANDEN....

let people paint their armies whatever color they want, feth that "color scheme = rules" mentality.

Yes let them paint them whichever colour they like. I'm not sure anyone said you couldnt.

Is the only reason people don't want to stick with a colour scheme is so you can just switch to the most op FOTM?

I painted my Salamanders like Salamanders and they're not gonna be anything else. Same goes for my Bloody Rose, Flawless Host & Metallica.

No, people swap subfactions because they want to try different strategies. If i want to play a fast list of space marine but i painted them black because i like the scheme better, i shouldnt be forced to stick to iron hands.

I pick my color schemes purely on how they appeal to me visually. And as a new player, i knew nothing of the subfactions when i picked my color schemes.

Are you actually saying you can't run a fast IH list? Like I don't even know how to respond to that. They're fething marines for crying out loud and have a bunch of really fast units(18" Landspeeder Storms, biked etc...) available to them...
Or is it you want to use the extra stuff that the "faster" marines get??? That seems to be the crux of it.

Yes, they want to use the fast Marine traits for their fast Marines.

Is that a crime?

"Balance" is, ideally, that 2,000 points of whatever versus 2,000 points of whatever else has the same 50/50 chance to win.

The problem, is that that will only really work if armies are much more analogous to one another and things that lead to hard counters and the like are stripped out of the game.

Slipspace wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:
In short: I do not care if 40k is balanced for tournament play. My main priority is that it's *fun* to play across all skill levels.

I agree, but "fun" also includes a minimum level of balance. I want thematic rules and variety between and within armies and I want armies built to represent a faction's fluff to also be strong on the tabletop. But I also don't want to see a thematic and background-accurate IG army get tabled every single game because no matter how fluffy and cool your list is, your army is useless on the battlefield. IME nothing is more demoralising for a new player than having to explain to them that the cool, well-painted new unit they just spent hours building and painting is terrible in the game. Worse still is having to explain that their entire army is terrible and will likely remain so for a long time.

Yes, there are ways to mitigate against this, but it's also not great to see players having to handicap themselves because their opponent has a terrible army, and many players don't want their opponents to do so either. It's also more difficult to self-balance the less experienced you are.

Oh, I absolutely agree - Some level of balance is necessary across the board in order for the game to be fun, I was just trying to say that I don't want fun rules like the Shokk Attack Gun to be dropped in pursuit of perfect balance that 40k won't achieve anyways. I'd rather have an underpowered Shokk Attack Gun with a chance of genuinely effective damage spikes and hilarious side effects, than the bland middle-of-the-road gun that we have now.

Paint shouldn't impact rules, specially with the recent changes that banned subfaction mixing.

I mean, if someone has a mismatch collection of differently painted miniatures because they didn't want to compromise to one paint scheme (because it is an art, and repetitive art is boring), are you going to ban them from mixing their models into a viable army?