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 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:
This is a long way of saying GW has stopped caring about balance in order to push inventory/sell models.

No, they just don't have a system to handle these sweeping changes appropriately. I guarantee you these balancing issues put a huge freeze effect on lots of people. Far more will drop out rather than buy a different army.

Of course they have a system to handle things getting better stats/abilities. It's called: Playtesting them and then giving them appropriate points costs. How can they justify a Starweaver costing the same as a Rhino? And a Voidweaver only 10 PPM more? I fear they've abandoned whatever system they previously used to determine unit prices, and are simply allowing the codex writers to price units however they want to.

Yea, but they're clearly not doing that. They just don't have the process or the people to make it work under this release timeline.

They could, they just don't want to spend the resources or risk the army books leaking.

we should be honest, 9th did start out in a good place.

Both Codex SM and Codex necrons did not break anything. Codex Death Guard and the space marine supplements (DW, SW, BA) did not make thigs worse either. Could say DA had a small issue with Deathwing, but it was totally overblown, mostly because of what came afterwards (and struggles a little more since you can only select one supplement secondary now).

Then came along drukhari and admech, these basically took the tier up a whole new level and we had problems with it. Tournaments were dominated by them.

Orks came out and had one build that was an issue, but the quickness and severity of the response was uncalled for IMHO, especially when they won't do that with other factions.

Sisters kinda took a step back from their 8th codex, but were still playable (albeit specific builds). They have been nerfed when probably didn't need to.

GK and TS looked decent out the gate but have since been rapidly overshadowed.

Now, we have Tau and Custodes that have taken the tier up again another level. Add to that harlequins and CWE (specific mechanics) and other codexes are just lacking terribly.

necrons have been given a nice boost recently, and I think marines need some serious points adjustments to be competitive, but I expect a new codex soon anyway.

It's like we're playing several different games. I think if you boost some necron/marine weapons to the now norm D3+3 stats, etc, we could have a decently balanced format with all books minus Tau, Custodes, CWE and Harlequins. Just let those 4 play in their own tournament, lol. Don't even want to know how busted Tyranids are going to be (I haven't checked full leaks)

I've had harlequins for ages, but it's more of a fun army for me (hey, I had 2 VWs when they were crap!), but seeing them completely emptied from my well stocked FLGS tells you everything you need to know.

It seems that the only way the game is fixed now is a 10th edition reset, which is exactly the MO of GW to make you feel like they are doing you a favour to balance the game. Well, not this guy, I'm done buying codexes after 9th.

l. Don't even want to know how busted Tyranids are going to be (I haven't checked full leaks)

They are going to punish harlequins and tau armies a lot. But you are right this just means that instead of 4 armies playing rock paper scissors, we are going to get 5. And everyone else sitting on the side with eyes wide open.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:


PL just has different problems than points do, it still needs to be balanced. The biggest difference to a game using points is that everyone has those little silly upgrades which you would never bother to pay a single point for.

The customization issue is mostly something that people keep parroting who have never really played any significant number of games using PL. There are too few units which can truly exploit it or even exploit it to a level of regular top competitive units. No matter how many upgrades you slap onto nobz or vanguard veterans, they still aren't going to be as good as spending the same amount of PL units that are actually competitive.
It's also worth noting that PL isn't "free upgrades". Worst case, it's upgrades at 50% off since it is calculated by adding the costs of the base unit to the cost of the most expensive configuration and dividing it by 40.

I think it is a problem, if how GW decided to price stuff in PL. If your GK infantry has an option to take heavy weapons, then in PL the unit costs in PL go up. But you never ever want to them, because they make your models actually worse at what they are suppose to do. Then there is armies like necron, which have no upgrades for their units, and armies with bucket loads of options, which under normal points were limited by specific upgrade cost. And the worse your army is the worse it becomes when your opponent gets buffed, on top of having the better army, especially when you are suddenly running a smaller army then before, because someone at GW decided that in deed a squad of 5 paladins is going to take 2 heavy weapons and max out on thunder hammers.

Thar's not how it works, Karol, read my post again. And necrons do have plenty of options.

To illustrate my point about the latest wave of codexes being a problem. Primarily Harlequins it has to be said.

Here is the top 16 from GT Manchester played this weekend 7 rounds so a large sample size.

Harlequins - 6
Harlequins souped into other Aeldari - 4
Crusher Stampede - 1
Custodes - 3
T'au - 2

They need to fix Harlequins yesterday

 bullyboy wrote:
we should be honest, 9th did start out in a good place.

Both Codex SM and Codex necrons did not break anything. Codex Death Guard and the space marine supplements (DW, SW, BA) did not make thigs worse either. Could say DA had a small issue with Deathwing, but it was totally overblown, mostly because of what came afterwards (and struggles a little more since you can only select one supplement secondary now).

Then came along drukhari and admech, these basically took the tier up a whole new level and we had problems with it. Tournaments were dominated by them.

Orks came out and had one build that was an issue, but the quickness and severity of the response was uncalled for IMHO, especially when they won't do that with other factions.

Sisters kinda took a step back from their 8th codex, but were still playable (albeit specific builds). They have been nerfed when probably didn't need to.

GK and TS looked decent out the gate but have since been rapidly overshadowed.

Now, we have Tau and Custodes that have taken the tier up again another level. Add to that harlequins and CWE (specific mechanics) and other codexes are just lacking terribly.

necrons have been given a nice boost recently, and I think marines need some serious points adjustments to be competitive, but I expect a new codex soon anyway.

It's like we're playing several different games. I think if you boost some necron/marine weapons to the now norm D3+3 stats, etc, we could have a decently balanced format with all books minus Tau, Custodes, CWE and Harlequins. Just let those 4 play in their own tournament, lol. Don't even want to know how busted Tyranids are going to be (I haven't checked full leaks)

I've had harlequins for ages, but it's more of a fun army for me (hey, I had 2 VWs when they were crap!), but seeing them completely emptied from my well stocked FLGS tells you everything you need to know.

It seems that the only way the game is fixed now is a 10th edition reset, which is exactly the MO of GW to make you feel like they are doing you a favour to balance the game. Well, not this guy, I'm done buying codexes after 9th.

Ummmmm, 2 wound basic tacticals for 18 points per pop, with all the rediculous Bolter patterns, was totally not ok. Nor was the entire Eliminator debacle.

Also, you could easily argue that SM broke 9th by sheer weight of releases. "we have to push back everything, because we are still shipping our new primaris captain or Primaris Land Speeder, or Primaris X,Y, and Z." Because that happened for all of the first half of 9th.

I think a big reason more people don't see the start of 9th as an issue is that many didn't even get to play it due to Covid.

FezzikDaBullgryn 803732 11334234 wrote:

Ummmmm, 2 wound basic tacticals for 18 points per pop, with all the rediculous Bolter patterns, was totally not ok. Nor was the entire Eliminator debacle.

Also, you could easily argue that SM broke 9th by sheer weight of releases. "we have to push back everything, because we are still shipping our new primaris captain or Primaris Land Speeder, or Primaris X,Y, and Z." Because that happened for all of the first half of 9th.

Marines, even when they were the only 9th codex were never a 70% win rate or higher. In 9th a large chunk of marine armies were under 50% win rate. And the releases thing seems bogus. Who has ever seen people use the primaris speeders, not predators or the ATV, when attack bikes exist? Out of the primaris characters the biker chaplain is used. Heavy intercessors were pushed back so far in to the edition, that by the time they were out, the game already made running them not valid. On the other hand something like ad mecha or DE codex made a ton of options valid, both for casual and tournament play.

 Ordana wrote:
Harlequins running roughshot over everyone, including CWE, unnerfed Tau and buffed Custodes kinda makes it hard for me to accept that the these codexes were balanced against eachother in test.

And before harlies it was Tau beating everything else. And before that it was Custodes, and before that it was Orks, and before that...

Most new codexes roflstomping everything that came before, even without changes just tells me that GW designers are in an uncontrolled arms race to the moon with themselves with absolutely no oversight or guidance.

Orkz had 1 build which in my opinion wasn't OP as much as it was people unwilling to change how they view/play against Orkz. A BUFFED Rukkatrukk averaged 3.5 hits a turn or 5 hits at 18' range at S5 AP-2 2dmg. It was 90pts for this thing btw.

The Harlequins ridiculous vehicle averages 2 shots at S12 -4AP 2D3 dmg at BS3 so it averages 1.3 hits a turn, it also gets 6 S6 -1 2dmg shots, so it averages 4 hits with that.

But yeah, orkz with a IDF buggy at 90pts was broken OP and totally ridiculous compared to this stuff.

 Sasori wrote:
I suspect we are going to see Starweavers go up 5 PPM and Voidweavers 10 PPM, with a possible +5 points to the prism cannon.

Flat out, if GW comes out and gives Starweavers a 5pt bump and Voids a 10pt bump i'll be furious. Those aforementioned squigbuggies took a 20pt nerf because top meta players were complaining. BTW at their height Orkz were still very much below a 70% win rate...I actually don't know if they even got to 65%. So hitting orkz with a plethora of nerfs across the board, including units that weren't even being taken but thing giving token nerfs to these units would be the cherry on top of how stupid GW is.



As far as using PL instead of pts. yeah no. You have units like a Tac Marine unit which could then take a Lascannon or a MM AND a melta AND a Combi-melta/PF on their sgt. That's something like 55-70pts of free stuff. What can my Boyz squad take? An overpriced PK and 1 guy can take a 10pt rokkit or a 5pt big shoota. Predators can take sponson weapons for free and a Pintle mount AND a HK missile. My Battlewagon can take....a Kill Kannon (overpriced at 5pts let alone the 10 it costs) and some big shootas. yeah no PL is even more broken than Points.

SemperMortis wrote:
.



As far as using PL instead of pts. yeah no. You have units like a Tac Marine unit which could then take a Lascannon or a MM AND a melta AND a Combi-melta/PF on their sgt. That's something like 55-70pts of free stuff. What can my Boyz squad take? An overpriced PK and 1 guy can take a 10pt rokkit or a 5pt big shoota. Predators can take sponson weapons for free and a Pintle mount AND a HK missile. My Battlewagon can take....a Kill Kannon (overpriced at 5pts let alone the 10 it costs) and some big shootas. yeah no PL is even more broken than Points.

PL is only broken if you try to break it....the rule is "don't be a dick".

Racerguy180 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
.



As far as using PL instead of pts. yeah no. You have units like a Tac Marine unit which could then take a Lascannon or a MM AND a melta AND a Combi-melta/PF on their sgt. That's something like 55-70pts of free stuff. What can my Boyz squad take? An overpriced PK and 1 guy can take a 10pt rokkit or a 5pt big shoota. Predators can take sponson weapons for free and a Pintle mount AND a HK missile. My Battlewagon can take....a Kill Kannon (overpriced at 5pts let alone the 10 it costs) and some big shootas. yeah no PL is even more broken than Points.

PL is only broken if you try to break it....the rule is "don't be a dick".

Why do people drone on about respecting the spirit of the rules? It happens in every system, setting and or universe. The problem with the "dont be a dick" is you never know where that line is. For some, it's just having a squad of dark reapers. For others, it's having a firstborn squad filled to the brim with heavy weapons.

And even worse, "dont be a dick" can be solved by using the more granular points.....

Anyway, let's not derail the thread with people who don't like numbers that reach above 9.

Pickled_egg wrote:
To illustrate my point about the latest wave of codexes being a problem. Primarily Harlequins it has to be said.

Here is the top 16 from GT Manchester played this weekend 7 rounds so a large sample size.

Harlequins - 6
Harlequins souped into other Aeldari - 4
Crusher Stampede - 1
Custodes - 3
T'au - 2

They need to fix Harlequins yesterday

Really disappointing, I'm only just coming back to the 40k scene and it looks like it's been a literal clown fiesta.

Karol wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn 803732 11334234 wrote:

Ummmmm, 2 wound basic tacticals for 18 points per pop, with all the rediculous Bolter patterns, was totally not ok. Nor was the entire Eliminator debacle.

Also, you could easily argue that SM broke 9th by sheer weight of releases. "we have to push back everything, because we are still shipping our new primaris captain or Primaris Land Speeder, or Primaris X,Y, and Z." Because that happened for all of the first half of 9th.

Marines, even when they were the only 9th codex were never a 70% win rate or higher.

What day was that? Codex SM & Codex Necron released the same day. (at least here in the USA)

Karol wrote:
Who has ever seen people use the primaris speeders, not predators or the ATV, when attack bikes exist? Out of the primaris characters the biker chaplain is used. Heavy intercessors were pushed back so far in to the edition, that by the time they were out, the game already made running them not valid. On the other hand something like ad mecha or DE codex made a ton of options valid, both for casual and tournament play.

Raises hand to having seen Primaris Speeders (2 different, in 2 different armies, owned by different people. 1x BA, the other = ?), Predators, & several ATVs.
The only Primaris character I haven't seen played is the Judiciar.
Heavy Intercessors? {shrugs} There's a few squads of these being used locally as well.

Racerguy180 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
.



As far as using PL instead of pts. yeah no. You have units like a Tac Marine unit which could then take a Lascannon or a MM AND a melta AND a Combi-melta/PF on their sgt. That's something like 55-70pts of free stuff. What can my Boyz squad take? An overpriced PK and 1 guy can take a 10pt rokkit or a 5pt big shoota. Predators can take sponson weapons for free and a Pintle mount AND a HK missile. My Battlewagon can take....a Kill Kannon (overpriced at 5pts let alone the 10 it costs) and some big shootas. yeah no PL is even more broken than Points.

PL is only broken if you try to break it....the rule is "don't be a dick".

That's honestly a weird reply to someone pointing out how lopsided PL is between units and between books. Some can't exploit it even if they wanted to, others have to magically 'know' where the line is.
Neither works for any sort of balance, let alone anyone's particular fetish for genitalia.

SemperMortis wrote:

As far as using PL instead of pts. yeah no. You have units like a Tac Marine unit which could then take a Lascannon or a MM AND a melta AND a Combi-melta/PF on their sgt. That's something like 55-70pts of free stuff. What can my Boyz squad take? An overpriced PK and 1 guy can take a 10pt rokkit or a 5pt big shoota. Predators can take sponson weapons for free and a Pintle mount AND a HK missile. My Battlewagon can take....a Kill Kannon (overpriced at 5pts let alone the 10 it costs) and some big shootas. yeah no PL is even more broken than Points.

Hey, good news! Using PL you're ork options aren't over-priced anymore.

Voss wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
.



As far as using PL instead of pts. yeah no. You have units like a Tac Marine unit which could then take a Lascannon or a MM AND a melta AND a Combi-melta/PF on their sgt. That's something like 55-70pts of free stuff. What can my Boyz squad take? An overpriced PK and 1 guy can take a 10pt rokkit or a 5pt big shoota. Predators can take sponson weapons for free and a Pintle mount AND a HK missile. My Battlewagon can take....a Kill Kannon (overpriced at 5pts let alone the 10 it costs) and some big shootas. yeah no PL is even more broken than Points.

PL is only broken if you try to break it....the rule is "don't be a dick".

That's honestly a weird reply to someone pointing out how lopsided PL is between units and between books. Some can't exploit it even if they wanted to, others have to magically 'know' where the line is.
Neither works for any sort of balance, let alone anyone's particular fetish for genitalia.

It's really kinda funny that players who want every advantage will seek out every advantage. PL hasn't been a problem with unbalancedness in all the games I've played with it. It's almost like who you play with is just as important as what type of game you're playing...

There is a line and it's different for everyone, the trick is to find those that like the same things. If you are not willing to put in the work to find them, you reap what you sow.

Tourney type feth you lists are NOT the only game(type) in town.

 bullyboy wrote:
we should be honest, 9th did start out in a good place.

You should be honest and admit it's been bad all along. There was a huge imbalance in CA20 between the best and worst factions. We were told that external and internal balance would be amazing for codexes in 9th, external balance between 9th ed codexes was good for 3 codexes, but because the bedrock of the edition was flawed the new codexes did not stack up evenly against existing codexes. Internal balance has been decent, but nothing to really write home about and it hasn't gotten a lot better since then. The gap between Reanimators and the Nightbringer and the gap between Custodes and Astra Militarum was huge for example, Drukhari was a whole new kettle of electric eels, 9th balance has not existed, burn that gak and let us have 10th.

The design hasn't been amazing either, faction secondaries break the main way to play 9th, Core is a failure, limiting power from pain and command protocols hasn't worked out, the most powerful SM army from last edition cannot even be played because GW writers are talentless hacks that don't want people to have fun with their minis and they just decided to gut the most powerful options instead of balancing them. The only thing you can praise 9th for is core rules and Crusade and most of the time most factions haven't had rules available to have the full Crusade experience because GW had to put the rules into codexes.

 Ordana wrote:
I think a big reason more people don't see the start of 9th as an issue is that many didn't even get to play it due to Covid.

I don't see how that can be the case, you didn't need to play it to understand it was garbage.

 vict0988 wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
we should be honest, 9th did start out in a good place.

You should be honest and admit it's been bad all along. There was a huge imbalance in CA20 between the best and worst factions. We were told that external and internal balance would be amazing for codexes in 9th, external balance between 9th ed codexes was good for 3 codexes, but because the bedrock of the edition was flawed the new codexes did not stack up evenly against existing codexes. Internal balance has been decent, but nothing to really write home about and it hasn't gotten a lot better since then. The gap between Reanimators and the Nightbringer and the gap between Custodes and Astra Militarum was huge for example, Drukhari was a whole new kettle of electric eels, 9th balance has not existed, burn that gak and let us have 10th.

Ok, you're not allowed to speak of balance anymore.....

And don't worry, you'll get 10th edition. Though I doubt you'll like it much.

ccs wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
The gap between Reanimators and the Nightbringer

Ok, you're not allowed to speak of balance anymore.....

Do you seriously think 110 pt Reanimators were as cost-efficient as 350 pt Nightbringer or do you just not understand the point of points?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:
This is a long way of saying GW has stopped caring about balance in order to push inventory/sell models.

No, they just don't have a system to handle these sweeping changes appropriately. I guarantee you these balancing issues put a huge freeze effect on lots of people. Far more will drop out rather than buy a different army.


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 Dysartes wrote:
I'd also be very surprised if we see any changes before the May version of the balance patch - given they're going to need to think about what, if anything, they want to change on the back of those results, get some form of playtester feedback (ideally), and get the file updated.

Yea anything in a dataslate is going to be a heavy handed mess ( if anything at all ) like 0-1 Voidweavers, because they won't adjust points.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:
Were there many armies in history that ended up with 98% win rates pre 8th ed? Because even if harlis dropped 20%. They would stil be at 78% which is broken as heck. a 78% win rate when playing an army with a 50% win rate, means you practically don't have to play the game to know which army will win.

The terrain didn't help. I wouldn't draw ultimate conclusions about Adepticon and Harlies even if they are busted as all get out. Not that it really matters at this point.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ordana wrote:
note, Adepticon ran the singles event on Thursday Friday. 4 rounds each. and Saturday Sunday is the team event.
It was a cut to top 16 after 4 games on Thursday and the ro16-finals were played Friday.
Top 16 was 4 Tau, 3 Harlequins, 2 Necrons, 2 CWE, 2 CWE+harlequins, 2 Custodes and 1 Ultramarine.
top 8 was 1 Tau, 1 Necron, 3 Harlequins and either 2 CWE and 1 CWE + Harlequin or the other way around, not 100% sure.
Top 4 was 1 Tau, 3 Harlequins.
finals was 2 Harlequins.

Thanks - I appreciate the clarity.

I am speculating with this take, but I am pretty certain GW is never going to say “yeah we power up the rules for models we need to sell.” So in this case I need to speculate, and all the evidence points towards GW using rules to sell models. Here’s my evidence

1) New models are typically getting weaker rules than they have in the past (look at how viable the new CWE and sister stuff have been competitively, not great, but not trash either). This makes perfect sense as new models sell regardless of rules. You just need to make sure their rules don’t detract from sales.

2) All anecdote evidence points to better rules selling models. Everytime I go to my FLGS I feel pretty certain I can find plenty of good looking models with bad rules on the shelves. I, however, won’t ever see meta-defining units in stock. And I mean ever (no custodes stuff recently, no tau broadsides, crisis suits, etc, now no harlequins). Check your own FLGS or online sellers if you don’t believe me. This happens everywhere. People like winning and therefor will buy into the units and armies that win more.

3) Your counterpoint to this is basically “GW would be ignoring the long-term costs by engaging in this behavior. They would never be dumb enough to ignore the diminishing play-base that a unbalanced game causes.”

First off ,I disagree that enough people are leaving the game right now for GW to be at a net-negative in profits. You are assuming that A) enough people are leaving right now to make a significant impact on GW’s bottom line and B) that these losses will offset the gains they make by forcing meta-hoppers to buy more. Looking at mobile gaming (and really any micro-transaction games) most of their profits come from “Whales.” I.E, the 1% who drop $1000’s to $10,000’s on the game over months.

GW is operating on a similar principle. Who cares if collector Larry quits the game if he only spends $250 on the hobby a year if Spike Steve went from spending $1000 a year to $2000? Heck it may not even be that Larry will quite since he cares more about modeling and painting over the game anyway. It’s only a problem if people like Steve quite, and they won’t do that easily since they are already so invested into the game.

Where it will hurt GW is when the camals back does break and people like me start getting disenfranchised. I stopped playing in 6th-7th for reasons similar to ones now. I spent around $1000 a year on this hobby in 8th. I have spent closer to $500 a year in 9th, and will be reducing it to 0$ until they make the effort of caring about balance. But this happens slowly, and companies almost always don’t pay attention to it until it’s too late and they’re down more customers than they expected.

@salt donkey explain Drukhari Raiders, Stormspeeder Hammerstrikes, Land Speeder Typhoons, Intercessors, Scout Squads, Vanguard Veterans, Chaplain Dreadnoughts, Reiver Squads, Nightbringer, Canoptek Reanimator with your theory. You cannot. The dart board theory holds true every time.

ccs 803732 11334338 wrote:

What day was that? Codex SM & Codex Necron released the same day. (at least here in the USA)

Adepticon just had harlis end with a 98% win rate, when adjusted for mirror matchs. I don't think, I have seen win rates like that even in 8 man tournaments.

Raises hand to having seen Primaris Speeders (2 different, in 2 different armies, owned by different people. 1x BA, the other = ?), Predators, & several ATVs.
The only Primaris character I haven't seen played is the Judiciar.
Heavy Intercessors? {shrugs} There's a few squads of these being used locally as well.

You very well know what I ment. I play a GK army with no NDKs and no power armoured dudes. Making an argument that GK are not a 4-5 NDK, 30x interceptors would be disingenuous. The stuff isn't played because it has horrible rules. The tanks are brutaly over costed with bad rules. And the characters, again aside for the biker chaplain, are better run as their classic counter parts, who do happen to have access to stuff like bikes or jetpacks.

The first real update to marine armies, which was primaris focused were the BT. And even they got a dud in form of their sword brethern unit, which is just a worse version of blade guard or venguard veterans.

Salt donkey wrote:


GW is operating on a similar principle. Who cares if collector Larry quits the game if he only spends $250 on the hobby a year if Spike Steve went from spending $1000 a year to $2000? Heck it may not even be that Larry will quite since he cares more about modeling and painting over the game anyway. It’s only a problem if people like Steve quite, and they won’t do that easily since they are already so invested into the game.

If there are 20 Larrys for every Spike Steve GW definitely cares. People like Steve instead can easily go with much cheaper recasts/3D printed models to keep chasing the flavour of the month. Once painted no one could notice the difference from an original model and a proper recast. Spike Steve doesn't care about original models or giving money to GW, he only wants to compete.

Further, Spike steve can't play alone.

In the end whale hunting on a plattform where you can't implement bots to supply player numbers (unlike mobile games) is stupid.

I don't think it's too farfetched to say that Spike *also* can get sick of of the burn and churn, even if they're more inclined to do it than others. Everyone has a limit, a GW is pushing it on a everyone.

Racerguy180 wrote:


PL is only broken if you try to break it....the rule is "don't be a dick".

What is the non dick weapons loadout of a crisis squad when using power levels?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:


PL is only broken if you try to break it....the rule is "don't be a dick".

What is the non dick weapons loadout of a crisis squad when using power levels?

Further, if you have 2 squads of them / rest of the army would also affect the rating no?

Its very hard to argue with "GW nerf the good stuff and buff the bad stuff to sell models" - because "nerfing the good stuff and buffing the bad stuff" is also how you'd go about balancing a game.

I say this every time - but I see very little evidence GW benefit commercially from people chasing the meta - at least in terms of factions. Such players undoubtedly do exist, but in my view they are (usually) reasonably well informed, and so buy very little direct from GW, or even FLGS with 20-25% discounts. They instead harvest secondary markets like ebay etc - or buy up armies from players giving up the game at a much bigger discount.

GW do benefit from churning hype amongst the plastic addicts. Which is I feel why the codexes are not all released at once. I can't be alone in thinking "new book, new army?" for almost every release. At least for me that has nothing to do with it being competitively broken or not. The pile of shame must be fed.

This isn't to say that if you had a Harlequins army, but didn't have any voidweavers because previously they were terrible, you wouldn't now go out and buy a few. But that's fully within the resources of $250 a year "Collector Larry" rather than $2000 a year "Spike Steve".

Its why I found Knights so oppressive during their 9ish month reign of terror back in 2018/19. With discounts etc, lots of people could just cough up £70-80 to chuck one in their army. And as the weeks went by, at least where I played, more and more people with imperial/chaos armies did. Whereas if they'd had to throw down £500+ on a brand new army, very few would bother.

If GW made Voidweavers broken OP to make $$ then surely they would have made a ton more boxes in prep for the codex release right?

And yet the kit is sold out and everyone that wants to buy one from GW can't and so will get them from other sources that don't make GW any money.

The simply truth is that even if GW buffs units to make money, they are just as incompetent at doing that as they are if they are trying their best to make balanced books.

 Ordana wrote:
If GW made Voidweavers broken OP to make $$ then surely they would have made a ton more boxes in prep for the codex release right?

And yet the kit is sold out and everyone that wants to buy one from GW can't and so will get them from other sources that don't make GW any money.

The simply truth is that even if GW buffs units to make money, they are just as incompetent at doing that as they are if they are trying their best to make balanced books.

It is possible for GW to try and do something and still be incompetent at it.

For example, lets say they are trying to make a well balanced game. The current domination of Tau, Custodes and Harlequins shows that they are failing at that.

Lets say they try to make their new kits OP to generate sales. The many new kits which were mediocre to bad rules-wise shows that they are failing at that.

Because here's the thing. If you want to be able to make your new kits powerful and so sell based on that, without it being so over the top as to be blatantly obvious (10s in every stat, 400 shoots at BS2+ etc.), you need to understand how your game works on a deep mechanical level to purposely create that.

In short, when it comes to designing a game, GW is incompetent regardless of what their intentions are.

Nah. GW was focussed on Dark Reapers, Rangers, new Guardians, Eldar Avatar, new Shining Spears, Shroud Runners, etc..


They didn't give a second thought to the Harlequins (and Ynnari) rules they had written by the intern. Hence they got the lottery of super-OP or unplayable. Harlequins got lucky.

Basically the same when they put all their brainpower into the shiny new Sisters Paragon Warsuits and such (and Lelith, almost the only Dark Eldar model with a 9th-ed.-style command phase ability) and didn't bother checking the rest of the Drukhari Codex which was a low-priority, no-models release as well.