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.

Tiberias wrote:
Fair enough, I should have phrased the proposition more precisely from the beginning and also include buffing factions who have not received nerfs.

The question is then why does GW not do that? It is not very difficult to come to this conclusion and even if they playtested all books before releasing them (if they did it at all) and there was some semblance of balance there, they must have realized that it won't work if they don't release all books at the same.

OR this is all on purpose, because apparently there is no such thing as bad publicity....imbalance creates strong reactions, creates discussion and player engagement...idk, it just seems so inefficient and full of wasted potential.

In my opinion it's somewhere buried between business not seeing any value (read: extra money) in delivering the best rules possible, books earning them a lot of money despite all their obvious drawbacks and GW simply not having the capacity to design and release 20+ books in one go.
Sprinkle in a rules team with outdated processes and practices which has been operating unchecked from an ivory tower for decades and you end up with what we are looking at now.

 Ordana wrote:
The game would be better off if everyone was at DG level rather then putting the balance point at like Thousand Sons.

Nah, the current DG codex is written like trash (not to mention the terrible Plague Marine and Blightlord entries).

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
The game would be better off if everyone was at DG level rather then putting the balance point at like Thousand Sons.

Nah, the current DG codex is written like trash (not to mention the terrible Plague Marine and Blightlord entries).

Not quality of writing-overall power level.

 JNAProductions wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
The game would be better off if everyone was at DG level rather then putting the balance point at like Thousand Sons.

Nah, the current DG codex is written like trash (not to mention the terrible Plague Marine and Blightlord entries).

Not quality of writing-overall power level.

That goes hand in hand, or do you think it's just coincidence that nobody wants to take Plague Marines when they sorta have solid stats?

No, it really doesn’t.

Dark Eldar have boring, uninspired, and all-around mediocre writing.
They were and are incredibly strong.

Same for orks. The DG codex is well written, but weak. The ork codex was slapped together by an intern during their lunch break, but accidentally turned out strong.

 Jidmah wrote:
Same for orks. The DG codex is well written, but weak. The ork codex was slapped together by an intern during their lunch break, but accidentally turned out strong.

This, it feels disjointed, heavily uninspired ,and is saddled with plague marine syndrom.

And it isn't as if gw couldn't do better, the gsc dex f.e. shows that quite well.

 JNAProductions wrote:
No, it really doesn’t.

Dark Eldar have boring, uninspired, and all-around mediocre writing.
They were and are incredibly strong.

Yeah. Not sure why but I was really taken with the DG codex. It seemed to be an excellent blend of internal and external balance, with plausible options that you could choose to make up a range of different lists despite a relatively thin unit roster.
In practice it was kind of obvious certain things were competitive auto-takes, and say Plague Marines were a bit anaemic as compared with the Terminators - but for the meta as it was you could wing it - and people did. As a codex it compared well with the inevitable tediousness that is regular Marines and the buffed up, but still mechanically awkward (for... unknown reasons) Necrons.

But then yeah, you had DE. Who just seem completely uninspired, with nothing to suggest alternative, clever or interesting builds. Its just that almost to the datasheet every unit was undercosted. So competitive players could just run roughshod over tournaments - and casual players could run roughshod over their friends. Today there's still nothing especially fun about say Wracks - just that they are 8 points which is sort of busted by comparison to the game as a whole. And once even that power starts to be crept on there's really nothing there at all.

And its sort of been like that ever since. Partly I think its just the impact on me. I look at say the Tau codex and feel I should be inspired by fluff or by some desire for a Johnny snowflake list. Instead though it feels like list building just a mathematical problem to be solved (and other people rush ahead and do it for me anyway). I could for example take an army with a bunch of Piranhas and Ghostkeels - but it just feels... discordant. Like I'm deliberately making the wrong choice as compared with what the Codex writer wanted me to do.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
The game would be better off if everyone was at DG level rather then putting the balance point at like Thousand Sons.

Nah, the current DG codex is written like trash (not to mention the terrible Plague Marine and Blightlord entries).

Not quality of writing-overall power level.

That goes hand in hand, or do you think it's just coincidence that nobody wants to take Plague Marines when they sorta have solid stats?

I think the point is everything's relative. If everything was around the same power level as DG, then PM would be a perfectly fine unit and I think you'd see a lot more of them. They'd be good but not great, which seems fine for a Troops unit.

PM have the same issue as most marines - 3+ armor doesn't actually protect you from a whole lot of things, against many high RoF weapons it gets to reduced to 5+ or worse at which point they just get gunned down like orks.

Undoing nerfs would be turning back time in history.
It would be better to adapt the new codices accordingly, mainly Custodes these days.

Well, points adjustments can solve quite a lot of problems. Take cultists vs CSM. 50 points for 10 cultists now vs 60 points for 5 CSM. With just a 10 point difference, I honestly would take the 5 CSM. They are obsec and at least can do something in a fight rather than just die like flies as cultists do.

Maybe somebody will prove to me that mathematically, 10 cultists are still better. But what is 10 points going to buy me? One extra plasma gun? And I bet there are enough situations where the 5 CSM would be better instead.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Well, points adjustments can solve quite a lot of problems. Take cultists vs CSM. 50 points for 10 cultists now vs 60 points for 5 CSM. With just a 10 point difference, I honestly would take the 5 CSM. They are obsec and at least can do something in a fight rather than just die like flies as cultists do.

Maybe somebody will prove to me that mathematically, 10 cultists are still better. But what is 10 points going to buy me? One extra plasma gun? And I bet there are enough situations where the 5 CSM would be better instead.

Even then, in many cases, it's the age-old issue of having multiple units filling a more or less similar role. In that kind of situation, you will always have units that are better for their points and that will be the go-to units. And that's something that's only becoming more difficult now that we get ever more different units in our armies. The other day I for instance opened my old 3rd edition space marines codex and that's a world of difference compared to today's. 4 HQ, 2 Troops, 4 Elites, 2 Transports, 7 Fast Attack, and 6 heavy support. For a total of 25 units. Not counting subfaction-locked units and named characters, that's less than their current number of Elites. And even back then, there were plenty of cases where one option was clearly better than a competing one (See, chaplains vs. everything else). More options like that only makes it more likely that there's overlap in roles which leads to a preferred choice.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Well, points adjustments can solve quite a lot of problems. Take cultists vs CSM. 50 points for 10 cultists now vs 60 points for 5 CSM. With just a 10 point difference, I honestly would take the 5 CSM. They are obsec and at least can do something in a fight rather than just die like flies as cultists do.

Maybe somebody will prove to me that mathematically, 10 cultists are still better. But what is 10 points going to buy me? One extra plasma gun? And I bet there are enough situations where the 5 CSM would be better instead.

A recent example showing that point adjustments don't help much is Necrons.
Points were dropped at a wide front but it didn't Necrons help to climb in the tier list (bottom tier at Dec. 2021).

 wuestenfux wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Well, points adjustments can solve quite a lot of problems. Take cultists vs CSM. 50 points for 10 cultists now vs 60 points for 5 CSM. With just a 10 point difference, I honestly would take the 5 CSM. They are obsec and at least can do something in a fight rather than just die like flies as cultists do.

Maybe somebody will prove to me that mathematically, 10 cultists are still better. But what is 10 points going to buy me? One extra plasma gun? And I bet there are enough situations where the 5 CSM would be better instead.

A recent example showing that point adjustments don't help much is Necrons.
Points were dropped at a wide front but it didn't Necrons help to climb in the tier list (bottom tier at Dec. 2021).

Well, the CA changed that a bit. In the weeks after CA2022 dropped Necrons appear to be low mid-tier. DG is currently sharing bottom tier with Ultramarines around the 35% winrate.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Well, points adjustments can solve quite a lot of problems. Take cultists vs CSM. 50 points for 10 cultists now vs 60 points for 5 CSM. With just a 10 point difference, I honestly would take the 5 CSM. They are obsec and at least can do something in a fight rather than just die like flies as cultists do.

Maybe somebody will prove to me that mathematically, 10 cultists are still better. But what is 10 points going to buy me? One extra plasma gun? And I bet there are enough situations where the 5 CSM would be better instead.

A recent example showing that point adjustments don't help much is Necrons.
Points were dropped at a wide front but it didn't Necrons help to climb in the tier list (bottom tier at Dec. 2021).

Necrons seem to be doing a bit better recently, even managing a tournament win and some top 3 placings this last weekend.

There's also always the possibility that the points changes didn't go far enough or applied to the wrong units.

Necrons are currently rocking a 46% winrate(35 player) after last weekend which is within the 45-55% that represents ideal balance. Even Drukhari is sitting at 51%(19 players after this weekend, although that is probably also because the best players have all moved over to Custodes and Tau.

Custodes(66) and Tau(52) are, however, sitting at 65% winrate which is way too high. If we were to remove potential mirror matches we'd see winrate north of 70% which is crazy.

Amazingly enough Sisters of Battle(22) is sitting at 50% even after the latest nerfs(could be a spike that goes down), which I find impressive. Death Guard(23) went up one point to 38% from 37% the previous week so they are sitting tightly in bottom tier.

The biggest spike this weekend was Imperial Fists with a 60% winrate, but that is more or less a spike as these numbers represent only 3 IF who played during the last weekend.

Now, looking at the weekend data the poorest rates were(sub-40%):
- Aeldari 32%
- Astra Militarum 32%
- Blood Angels 27%
- Chaos Space Marines 35%
- Death Guard 38%
- Space Wolves 37%
- Thousand Sons 39%
- Raven Guard 33%
- Salamanders and Ultramarines 39%

There are 8th edition codexes here which is normal to see concerning the shifting of the power curve, but it is obvious that Death Guard and Thousand Sons are already falling behind along with their loyalist brethren.

 JNAProductions wrote:


Dark Eldar have boring, uninspired, and all-around mediocre writing.

I have to disagree with this, and perhaps it's because I'm a Crusade campaign player who doesn't chase the meta, but always seeks the story opportunities a codex provides, regardless of whether or not they are competitive, efficient, or optimal.

I definitely agree that equipment customization is problematic in the new dex compared to the wealth of arcane equipment that was once available to the datacards. I'm also not saying there isn't room for improvement.

But I like the Master upgrades available to each of the HQ's- I like the way they create differentiation of rank within the HQ slot. Story-wise, a Master Archon would command other Archons; this is the type of power dynamic that hasn't existed since they removed Dracons from the list. I also think it's interesting in terms of realspace raid vs raiding force- like mater level characters may be more likely to be in charge of a realspace raid, while lesser HQ's form raiding forces or support the masters of a realspace raid. It's also very characterful to determine which of the Drukhari "types" (Kabal Cult Coven) is the key player in the realspace raid- a force working under a master Haemonculus has a different feel than a force working under a Master Archon.

And of course, while Master level HQ's are suitable as leaders of realspace raids, it's not required- so storywise, what's the difference between an RSR lead be a Master HQ vs a regular HQ? Would the named characters and prestige units be more likely to participate in one or the other?

I think it is interesting that preferred retinues (Trueborn, Blood Brides and Haemoxocytes) exist again; of those, the Haemoxocytes are actually new to this edition, and effectively put Covens in a place that has more parity with Cults and Kabals. I don't have my dex to hand, so I forget whether or not preferred retinues are tied specifically to the Master rank.

Finally, the bespoke Crusade content in the Drukhari dex is some of the best we've seen this edition. I understand that this might not matter to you if you don't play Crusade, but this content is absolutely inspired. It is essentially a receipe to play Gangs of Commorragh within the core 40k rules set- it is essentially a minigame on its own. And the Ascendent lord is yet another spin on an HQ choice, so now you can have Ascendents, Masters and Regular HQ's from Kabals, Cults and Covens all interacting with each other to create the political intrigue that has always been present in the fluff. I'm not sure we've ever had as many opportunities to explore that political intrigue as we do now.

Ork crusade rules are mostly garbage though

Tiberias wrote:
So Custodes and Tau are pulling some very impressive numbers recently, too impressive in fact. Both factions are likely to get adjusted down the line, whether it's point increases and/or other tweaks. Whether or not you believe that Custodes and Tau should recieve big nerfs or only small adjustments, there is one thing most people can agree on: power creep in 9th edition is in full swing and it's not slowing down in any way shape or form judging by the multitude of Eldar leaks.

So let's pretend Custodes and Tau get nerfed tomorrow and GW does a competent job for once so these two factions are again in line with armies like Thousand Sons for example....decently strong, but not overpowered. Then the Eldar codex comes along and likely dominates the tournament scene for a few weeks as the new hotness before getting nerfed. Then the Tyranid codex comes along.....you see where this is going.
My point is, even if you were to nerf these new codices in a timely fashion should the need arise because the data suggests that action needs to be taken (which realistically won't happen anyway because GW takes a lot of time with these things) how does that help the older 9th ed factions who are already struggling? Maybe it's time to carefully undo some of the nerfs to Death Guard, Sisters and Space Marines for example in addition to adjusting the new codices?

They already desperately need to undo the point changes to sisters just to compensate for the 3 OTHER nerfs sisters got. Let alone the Custode+Tau Diumverate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Undoing nerfs would be turning back time in history.
It would be better to adapt the new codices accordingly, mainly Custodes these days.

Do you mean we shouldn't undo exiting nerfs and should focus on nerfing the new books or do you means we should wait for the next codex to match up to current custodes+Tau?

Because the second one has obvious problems, i.e. who the hell knows when your next book is coming?

The first one ignores factions that need help even IGNORING Custodes and Tau. Nerfing Custodes doesn't suddenly bump Deathguard up a tier. Nerfing Tau doesn't suddenly compensate for Thousand Sons not being able to mix subfactions anymore.

The point increases to space marines units now seem silly, but at the time seemed helpful. They could undo literally every points increase (and keep any decreases) that's happened on space marines at this point.

Really that last round of increases to dreadnoughts and the bike chap seem just straight up stupid. Redemptors weren't OP, they were simply the best option.

Seeing a unit in most of a factions lists does NOT mean it's OP. There are other factors at play. GW balance team just isn't smart enough to realize this.

Of course, they're so far behind in releases that these points increases might have been made with yet another SM codex print in mind. Who knows at this point.

Digital is the way forward, and anything else (printed codexes and points updates) is a band-aid on a bullet wound.

Quasistellar wrote:
Seeing a unit in most of a factions lists does NOT mean it's OP. There are other factors at play. GW balance team just isn't smart enough to realize this.

Yes, it might mean it's the only build that's competitive and everything else is trash.

GW seems to care too much about internal balance and not enough about external balance, though. Probably for sales reasons.

I am pretty new here and my opinion can't really count for much but I started buying models in the early 90s and have been a casual player for 25 years. After second edition it became obvious there was power creep and each new codex or mini that got released would dominate the game. This is a feature. . . Not a bug.

Some armies have gotten screwed over for longer but basically it goes in waves and GW seems to slowly react to the player base.

I took a nearly 15 year hiatus and came back near the tail end of 7th only to have my beloved deathwing suck ass in 8e and be furious because the Primaris marines made all my old minis look lame af. Anyways. I decided to look back into it and buy some minis and damn GW basically fixed everything I was complaining about: terminators have 3 wounds blah blah and there are cool new minis for my army and everything looks like it will be bad ass!

So it goes in waves. My army is awesome! Now it sucks! It's awesome again! And always: feth yeah some cool new minis but my old minis are bad ass again!

The thing is being a casual IDGAF about meta game or tier lists. I just got my dudes I like: I get that there are competitive players out there and this flux is frustrating as feth and balanced has never been a word I would have used for 40k gameplay. I mean: winning the coin toss seems to have been the deciding factor in the majority of games I have played besides whatever broken unit came out latest.

I know this isn't the focus of this discussion but I guess I enjoy the hobby part of this game the most and it's not because I suck at the game because I also suck at painting. But 'winning' a game of warhammer has always meant beer was drunk and a fun time was had by all.

I mean I think the best thing that ever happened to me in a game was like deep striking a greater daemon and having it fail a psychic check so bad it killed itself and everything several inches around it. I think I rolled 3 successive snake eyes. It was horrible for me but fething hilarious.

I guess I never thought of winning a game of 40k. My army looks like ass but I am proud because they are my dudes and they lose nearly every game but the real win was the friends I made along the way.

Just kidding.

I have no friends.

I think I just enjoy the zen activity of kitbashing, painting and math hammer.

You could undo all nerfs to Sisters barring the no mixed orders and they still wouldn't even remotely stack up to the current Top Tier, hell you could give just Sisters the special rule that they can mix orders on top of undoing all the nerfs and they just would be a good army again but still not even nearly comparable with the Top Tier.

And Sisters are by no means the weakest army right now, which just shows how disgusting the insane 9th Edition powercreep really is.

gunchar wrote:
You could undo all nerfs to Sisters barring the no mixed orders and they still wouldn't even remotely stack up to the current Top Tier, hell you could give just Sisters the special rule that they can mix orders on top of undoing all the nerfs and they just would be a good army again but still not even nearly comparable with the Top Tier.

And Sisters are by no means the weakest army right now, which just shows how disgusting the insane 9th Edition powercreep really is.

I do wonder if they've done focus testing on the different factions' playerbases, like ork and IG players will still play if their army isn't good because they're less entitled, but Custodes players will stop spending money if their stuff isn't overpowered so they keep them powerful.

...and Eldar players are going to complain no matter what, Hecaton?

 Dysartes wrote:
...and Eldar players are going to complain no matter what, Hecaton?

Maybe, lol. I feel like Eldar players are never satisfied. "Our list is overpowered and has terrible internal balance, figure that gak out." "Our gak is underpowered, figure that gak out." But I say that as someone who has Harlequins still.

The ideas I had about IG, Orks, and Custodes players were pure speculation.

I would argue that what GW does is make a new Codex strong. People then go out and buy the FOTM models that are seen to be OP. Months later it gets nerfed, rinse and repeat each codex. They are a business and in it to make money and Codex creep is their way to do this. Balance is not one of their issues. If it was we would not have the broken system that we have now.

GW is in it for the short haul of making money for shareholders. If it wanted long term balance it would make a long term plan to write all codex's at the same time. Models can be designed from a rules perspective rather than what seems to be the other way round for each codex enabling them time to design the mini's. They would still have the sales because of the new models but you would have a balance system.

IronBob wrote:
I would argue that what GW does is make a new Codex strong. People then go out and buy the FOTM models that are seen to be OP. Months later it gets nerfed, rinse and repeat each codex. They are a business and in it to make money and Codex creep is their way to do this. Balance is not one of their issues. If it was we would not have the broken system that we have now.

GW is in it for the short haul of making money for shareholders. If it wanted long term balance it would make a long term plan to write all codex's at the same time. Models can be designed from a rules perspective rather than what seems to be the other way round for each codex enabling them time to design the mini's. They would still have the sales because of the new models but you would have a balance system.

Is that why Thousand Sons weren't dominating the tournament scene when they came out?

Hecaton wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
...and Eldar players are going to complain no matter what, Hecaton?

Maybe, lol. I feel like Eldar players are never satisfied. "Our list is overpowered and has terrible internal balance, figure that gak out." "Our gak is underpowered, figure that gak out." But I say that as someone who has Harlequins still.

Probably because the latter is no fun, and the last time the former happened we were the bane of an entire edition. I wasn't even there for that edition and I get dirty looks for playing eldar because of it. Not to mention eldar as a faction need a necron-style top to bottom rework from a rules perspective due to how things have changed since the beginning of eldar rules stagnation and the upcoming codex still isn't that