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 wuestenfux wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
I can't play casual games with my infantry Harlequins because every time I win it's because of my broken models and not because I outplayed my opponent. When they win obviously everything is fine.

Well, I don't play casual games with tier 1 armies. GK were top tier for a while as are Harlies now. Similarly for Drukhari.
My opponents are pissed off if I run such an army which is better suited for competitive play or tourneys.
For casual play, I'm more into BA or Ultramarines and also the Eldar/CW which at least in my book are not top tier.

It's the only army I have together right now. Working on orks.

But you're implying that I did something wrong, and I didn't. I bought an army I enjoy thematically and am playing it in not the most busted way possible. But because GW couldn't balance a perfect sphere on flat ground, I get grief for it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dysartes wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
I can't play casual games with my infantry Harlequins because every time I win it's because of my broken models and not because I outplayed my opponent. When they win obviously everything is fine.

What are the usual OpFor options in your group, Hecaton?

If everyone else is playing the likes of Guard, Daemons and Orks, I could kinda see their POV.

A lot of space marines, who are the ones who have an issue with my army choice the most, some Tau and Necrons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
By catering to the tournament expectations GW have optimized the fun out of their game.

They have not catered to tournament players. I love playing in minis tournaments and I don't feel catered to - I can't trust the balance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tiberias wrote:
I guess thats the whole point of making this thread: if you have the opportunity to constructively talk to your gaming partner/group, the meta should not affect your enjoyment of the game that much. Well, IF the goal is to have fun together and not to play competitively or practice for a tournament.

You're implying that playing a game to win is not having fun. That's absolute bull. I find scrubby "participation trophy" kind of play absolutely unfun, and I respect opponents who do their best to outthink and outplay me. Toning things down to equalize for player skill is the most braindead way to play 40k I can think of - a minis game should feel like a battle of wits. Infinity or ASOIAF often does. 40k almost never does.

Other people have fun playing other ways; I like narrative sorts of things a lot. I like the setting, after all, and it's cool to develop characters for your armies. But this idea that the only proper way to have fun is by re-balancing the game is absolute bunk. How about GW balance it right from the start so I don't have to spend time becoming an amateur game designer?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
What you're meaning to say is, in reality:
First game: no hacking, no fireteams, no sectorials, no real interactions between things.
Second game: hacking gets introduced.
Third game: Camo, MSV
Beyond that: Git gud and netlist.

There's a lot less netlisting in Infinity than in 40k, kid.

Hecaton wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
I guess thats the whole point of making this thread: if you have the opportunity to constructively talk to your gaming partner/group, the meta should not affect your enjoyment of the game that much. Well, IF the goal is to have fun together and not to play competitively or practice for a tournament.

You're implying that playing a game to win is not having fun. That's absolute bull. I find scrubby "participation trophy" kind of play absolutely unfun, and I respect opponents who do their best to outthink and outplay me. Toning things down to equalize for player skill is the most braindead way to play 40k I can think of - a minis game should feel like a battle of wits. Infinity or ASOIAF often does. 40k almost never does.

Other people have fun playing other ways; I like narrative sorts of things a lot. I like the setting, after all, and it's cool to develop characters for your armies. But this idea that the only proper way to have fun is by re-balancing the game is absolute bunk. How about GW balance it right from the start so I don't have to spend time becoming an amateur game designer?

God you are so full of yourself it's actually unbelievable. Btw how long until you derail the thread by starting to accuse people again of being fascists because they play an imperium faction and enjoy the lore? Seen it so often it's basically a given with you.

How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy? You still have to play against the person an win.

I also did not imply that winning is not fun. The feth did you get that from again? The point is that playing against harlequin void weavers with guard is a forgone conclusion and not fun for the guard player....you can try to remedy that at least in a friendly game by talking to the person you are playing with and maybe agreeing that the Harlequin player tries out a more experimental list, that maybe even specifically plays badly into guard. Guard player actually gets to play the game, Harlequin player doesn't win by default. How is that concept so difficult to understand?

How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy?

If my opponent would tell me that he is not going to use certain grabs , because he is a head+ higher then me, I would either think he is trying to play match ups or trying to pre game make me angry, by making fun of me. Plus the whole argument only works if all or most players own big collections, maybe even multiple armies. If most or everyone has close to what is the avarge match played game for given edition, an opponent may not have models to replace the good ones. And in some cases like DE gunboats full of troops, I don't even know if someone could replace them with something.

Guard player actually gets to play the game, Harlequin player doesn't win by default. How is that concept so difficult to understand?

If the other side doesn't play to their best ability, and plays on purpose then it not playing. those it either pretending to play or something like grand parents letting you win at chess or vist.

There's a lot less netlisting in Infinity than in 40k

But that is because in infinity taking one less optimal option doesn't cripple the army. People even play less efficient armies, because the "bad" ones in most cases still allow you to play. If someone builds a demi company of marines or a footslogger harlequin army with no vehicles, they are not going to have a good time playing. And the difference between a good and bad option in a codex is huge. Just to use my factions strikes and termintors as an example.

Karol wrote:

How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy?

If my opponent would tell me that he is not going to use certain grabs , because he is a head+ higher then me, I would either think he is trying to play match ups or trying to pre game make me angry, by making fun of me. Plus the whole argument only works if all or most players own big collections, maybe even multiple armies. If most or everyone has close to what is the avarge match played game for given edition, an opponent may not have models to replace the good ones. And in some cases like DE gunboats full of troops, I don't even know if someone could replace them with something.

Guard player actually gets to play the game, Harlequin player doesn't win by default. How is that concept so difficult to understand?

If the other side doesn't play to their best ability, and plays on purpose then it not playing. those it either pretending to play or something like grand parents letting you win at chess or vist.

Geez what kind of hellhole do you live in? If you play a game with a friend and you know your army has a 75%winrate and your buddy's army has a 30% winrate because it's still an 8th Ed codex for example....so you both agree that the person with the 75% winrate army takes a more experimental or fun list so that both actually get to play the game, you still have to actually play the game! How is that letting the other person win or making fun of them?

And the limited collection argument is moot in this specific example, because you can actually play 1500p or 1000p games....even 1250p games. Shocking I know.

Why do you engage with Karol in these ways - don't take the bait!

Umbros wrote:
Why do you engage with Karol in these ways - don't take the bait!

I'm just sick of this BS reasoning by parts of the community. People complain about the meta, about the game being too lethal and too unbalanced and at the same time the very same people complain about participation trophies when you suggest that at least for friendly games you can actually try to do something about it, so that the game may even be enjoyable for both parties?! Come the feth on.

Tiberias wrote:

Umbros wrote:
Why do you engage with Karol in these ways - don't take the bait!

I'm just sick of this BS reasoning by parts of the community. People complain about the meta, about the game being too lethal and too unbalanced and at the same time the very same people complain about participation trophies when you suggest that at least for friendly games you can actually try to do something about it, so that the game may even be enjoyable for both parties?! Come the feth on.

on here it's pretty much only Karol that's pretending the community is like that, 99% of people ive played would much rather accomodate to a weaker army and have a real game than curbstomp a noob with a meta list

My army has no chance against Crusher Stampede, Harlequins, Custards, Eldar, Tau. I have a chance albeit slight, against Drukhari and Ad-Mech.

So the game is fairly boring at the competitive level since if you aren't playing one of the above mentioned armies you really don't have much of a chance to win.

There are a lot more people that have crushing communities than you may believe.

Its just that most people just aren't interested in the forum drama or conflict so just keep their mouth shut about it.

Competitive groups exist, and flourish, in many areas and in those groups people don't play down to others. They expect others to up their game instead.

They also won't deviate from 2000 points because thats not tournament standard, and "friendly games" are to a lot of people a tuning game to practice for the next tournament.

Thats exactly the community I left and one reason i sold all my gw stuff off. You either chased the meta with them or you didn't get any games in.

Yikes, man… I would hide in my hole and paint and listen to chess tournaments…

 auticus wrote:
There are a lot more people that have crushing communities than you may believe.

Its just that most people just aren't interested in the forum drama or conflict so just keep their mouth shut about it.

Competitive groups exist, and flourish, in many areas and in those groups people don't play down to others. They expect others to up their game instead.

They also won't deviate from 2000 points because thats not tournament standard, and "friendly games" are to a lot of people a tuning game to practice for the next tournament.

Thats exactly the community I left and one reason i sold all my gw stuff off. You either chased the meta with them or you didn't get any games in.

Isn't that a bit of a black and white fallacy? It can't just be either pure competitive or let's play crusade. I refuse to believe that there are no competitive communities who won't "play down" to others or deviate from 2000p.

Edit: and what's preventing a FLGS from introducing and evening "anti-meta" with purposefully experimental and fun lists in addition to having competitive events? Worst thing that could happen is that people actually have fun and attract new players who might be dissuaded by the apparently extremely toxic competitive scene.

"playing down" to others requires immense knowledge of the game.

Two new players, one picks up Khorne Daemons and the other Custodes.

Even without running any jetbikes, the Custodes army will just crush the Khorne army. "Playing down" requires essentially not playing custodes - which is what I was trying to illustrate earlier with Baneblades.

Asking people to play down is telling them to switch armies because the army is too good, which is exactly as sinful as asking people to play up and telling them to switch armies because the army is too bad.

The real solution is for the game developer to balance their game, and allow players to buy what is cool, instead of forcing the players to buy models based on their game performance. Because that's what this is. Either the bad player must buy good models to update their army, or the good player must buy bad models to update theirs.

In my experience, folks preparing for a tourney are not looking to stomp a casual player. They are looking to practice under tourney conditions. As such, I find that even folks who play in tourneys are prepared to tone things down when asked or aware of the situation. Now, they may find that their table time is too limited so they focus on tourney prep games. There is nothing wrong with that. I play in local tourneys and I am happy to adjust since what exactly am I fighting for on a given Saturday pick-up game?

We put pick-up games on hold during COVID as all matches had to be pre-arranged due to contact tracing requirements. We were able, therefore, to determine what the other player was looking for before the game. It was fairly straightforward with no drama. Its an effective practice to avoid major mismatches.

At a pickup game I am thinking about 70% competitiveness in terms of list tuning. I am prepared to tune it down for a new or returning player.

At tourneys, if you have an off-meta army then the magic of Swiss Pairing should give you better games as the rounds progress. In any case, you probably know going in what you are in for. Doesn't always work out, but we Marine players joked before our last tourney that we'd only ever have to face Tau and Custodes in the first round and then they could have fun bashing each other for top honours while we fought each other at the "kids' tables" for the wooden spoon.

Tiberias wrote:


Isn't that a bit of a black and white fallacy? It can't just be either pure competitive or let's play crusade. I refuse to believe that there are no competitive communities who won't "play down" to others or deviate from 2000p.

We can nitpick it and call it logical fallacy all day long. Thats fine. At the end of the day, if one can't find games that they enjoy it doesn't matter if its a logical fallacy. They can't find games they enjoy and don't want to go through the hassle of fighting to get games that aren't super competitive.

I'm sure that there are competitive communities that will play down - and here's the thing - I NEVER SAID THAT ALL COMPETITIVE COMMUNITIES WERE LIKE THAT - I said that the one I came out of was like that. Because its great if you come from a community that plays down or knows what for-fun is, I applaud you! And everyone that has that. Thats great! If you don't have that though - you have an uphill nasty battle of trying to get people to play in a non competitive casual / for-fun way in a very competitive region - there is a lot of gamer politics and turf wars to get through that to a lot of people isn't really worth it. The juice isn't really worth the squeeze, and having a great community 100 miles away in a different town is wonderful - except no one really expects people to up and move just to have a better gaming group.

Edit: and what's preventing a FLGS from introducing and evening "anti-meta" with purposefully experimental and fun lists in addition to having competitive events?

They would have been boycotted by the competitive player group that was massive, and lost a lot of business, so they didn't involve themselves in gaming drama and just let people play however they wanted on their tables so long as they were spending money. This did happen and did cause the stores that tried that to end up getting rid of their tabletop gaming stock, because the competitive gamers were the lion's share of the business (the only store in that area immune seemed to be the GW store which had a 60 minute table limit so few people actually played there, they just bought stuff)

TLDR - when you have to fight and politic to get fun games in - its not worth the effort to some people. I did it for 20+ years, and that included being screamed at, my facebook hacked, being challenged to fight in the parking lot for "teaching players wrong", and all other kinds of drama i'd never repeat again just to play narrative 40k/warhammer which lit a powder keg to the very deep competitive playing group that took offense to public games being played like that.

The group that was very popular where I left would never play down. Ever. They expected you to play up or go home. They say it all the time on their discord. I sat there and watched two players in that group come to the store, unpack, and the one guy go "i can't beat your list, i didn't bring the right list, do you want to do something else?" and they played xwing instead, because the concept of the other guy toning down was the equivalent of a moderate to severe insult to those people that would cost you opponents and being part of the community.

Jesus fething christ, that sounds horrible. That community sounds like it's mainly made up of douchebags.

Here is how the "meta" affects me.

My typical opponent plays Guard, Grey Knights and Imperial Fist.

I have Black Templars, CSM, Daemons, Tyranids, Death Guard, GSC, Thousand Sons, Chaos Knights, Orks, Ad Mech, Sisters and Necrons.

We run the absolute gamut of the meta spread and it can be infuriating trying to get an even slightly fun game. My Black Templars pretty much walk over any army he puts up even though they are not a very powerful army. Chaos is in such a place that I don't even want to play them against any of the above. Been playing with the new Nid codex in a couple of games and even his nastiest Grey Knights list has no chance against it.

Now, we can get some decent games with Thousand Sons and Grey Knights, Death Guard vs IG can be pretty decent if I don't go too crazy with my list and Necrons can actually go well against any of his armies.

This game is an absolute mess of garbage codexs that leaves me feeling like there are different tiers you have to play certain armies against with no possible games between the tiers being anything but a curb stomping. A meta list for Harlies or a for fun list of Harlies is still in a different league than a CSM list. I can not for the life of me understand people who see 40k as a battle of wits between two players, that is like saying that the middle school football team should just play better to beat the NFL team.

Tiberias wrote:

Spoiler:

 auticus wrote:

Tiberias wrote:


Isn't that a bit of a black and white fallacy? It can't just be either pure competitive or let's play crusade. I refuse to believe that there are no competitive communities who won't "play down" to others or deviate from 2000p.

We can nitpick it and call it logical fallacy all day long. Thats fine. At the end of the day, if one can't find games that they enjoy it doesn't matter if its a logical fallacy. They can't find games they enjoy and don't want to go through the hassle of fighting to get games that aren't super competitive.

I'm sure that there are competitive communities that will play down - and here's the thing - I NEVER SAID THAT ALL COMPETITIVE COMMUNITIES WERE LIKE THAT - I said that the one I came out of was like that. Because its great if you come from a community that plays down or knows what for-fun is, I applaud you! And everyone that has that. Thats great! If you don't have that though - you have an uphill nasty battle of trying to get people to play in a non competitive casual / for-fun way in a very competitive region - there is a lot of gamer politics and turf wars to get through that to a lot of people isn't really worth it. The juice isn't really worth the squeeze, and having a great community 100 miles away in a different town is wonderful - except no one really expects people to up and move just to have a better gaming group.

Edit: and what's preventing a FLGS from introducing and evening "anti-meta" with purposefully experimental and fun lists in addition to having competitive events?

They would have been boycotted by the competitive player group that was massive, and lost a lot of business, so they didn't involve themselves in gaming drama and just let people play however they wanted on their tables so long as they were spending money. This did happen and did cause the stores that tried that to end up getting rid of their tabletop gaming stock, because the competitive gamers were the lion's share of the business (the only store in that area immune seemed to be the GW store which had a 60 minute table limit so few people actually played there, they just bought stuff)

TLDR - when you have to fight and politic to get fun games in - its not worth the effort to some people. I did it for 20+ years, and that included being screamed at, my facebook hacked, being challenged to fight in the parking lot for "teaching players wrong", and all other kinds of drama i'd never repeat again just to play narrative 40k/warhammer which lit a powder keg to the very deep competitive playing group that took offense to public games being played like that.

The group that was very popular where I left would never play down. Ever. They expected you to play up or go home. They say it all the time on their discord. I sat there and watched two players in that group come to the store, unpack, and the one guy go "i can't beat your list, i didn't bring the right list, do you want to do something else?" and they played xwing instead, because the concept of the other guy toning down was the equivalent of a moderate to severe insult to those people that would cost you opponents and being part of the community.

Jesus fething christ, that sounds horrible. That community sounds like it's mainly made up of douchebags.

The sad part is, the communities like this really are not douchebags, its just most people want to play games, and most people will simply go with the, well i would rather play then not play, so they fall into the meta chasing scene to play games. No one wants to set up just to remove models, so they also chase the metas, and it just becomes the standard.

current 40k, has attracted literally the worst kind of fandom at this point, its the hard core MTG style players that are just aweful to deal with. 40k has been netorious for not the greatest community, but up until now it was mostly filled with socially awekward people, and the occasionally guard sperg. now its filled with hyper competative people who take pushing dollies around a table way to seriously, and a lot of people are swept into that because its either play like taht, or dont play.

Its why im looking greatly forward to HH, as HH has a bigger emphasis on fluff and narrative then it does over sweaty tournament lists.

I have not been in the hobby as long as many here, but i have been in it since 6th, about mid 6th, and i have never ever seen the game this awful, i have never seen the community this bad.

Kanluwen wrote:And by this, yes I am taking shots at anyone who suggests you need to memorize everything in a codex or the rules. There's nothing preventing you from making a cheat sheet, index cards, or using things like the datacards.

I'm all for play aids, but if we're at the point where the best advice is to accept not being able to remember the rules and keep play aids on hand, that's a huge problem. Particularly when you have to DIY play aids to keep track of things like Custodes ka'tahs.

I never had to spend 3rd-5th with my nose in the book because there was too much stuff to remember, or constantly having to be reminded by my opponent of abilities that his units have because there's too much to keep straight. I've played games of Horus Heresy, even, where we didn't have to check a rulebook more than once per turn. For the most part I could do that in 8th- except when there was contention over specific wording, eg re-roll any vs re-roll failed- but not with 9th Ed codices.

I really don't think it can be overstated how much easier the game would be to track without stratagems, changing turn-by-turn faction mechanics, warlord traits, or relics. It's the layers upon layers of mechanics with no organic play aids or WYSIWYG that drive complexity. It might seem like a totally separate complaint from metas and balance, but I don't think it's realistic for GW to effectively be able to balance the game while the game is as complicated as it is.

Unit1126PLL wrote:"playing down" to others requires immense knowledge of the game.

Quoting for emphasis because this is way more of an issue than people take it to be.

I've heard rebuttals along the lines of 'nah man, it's fair, you just played wrong' more than once. Not everyone is on the same page as far as balance.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

Spoiler:

 auticus wrote:

Tiberias wrote:


Isn't that a bit of a black and white fallacy? It can't just be either pure competitive or let's play crusade. I refuse to believe that there are no competitive communities who won't "play down" to others or deviate from 2000p.

We can nitpick it and call it logical fallacy all day long. Thats fine. At the end of the day, if one can't find games that they enjoy it doesn't matter if its a logical fallacy. They can't find games they enjoy and don't want to go through the hassle of fighting to get games that aren't super competitive.

I'm sure that there are competitive communities that will play down - and here's the thing - I NEVER SAID THAT ALL COMPETITIVE COMMUNITIES WERE LIKE THAT - I said that the one I came out of was like that. Because its great if you come from a community that plays down or knows what for-fun is, I applaud you! And everyone that has that. Thats great! If you don't have that though - you have an uphill nasty battle of trying to get people to play in a non competitive casual / for-fun way in a very competitive region - there is a lot of gamer politics and turf wars to get through that to a lot of people isn't really worth it. The juice isn't really worth the squeeze, and having a great community 100 miles away in a different town is wonderful - except no one really expects people to up and move just to have a better gaming group.

Edit: and what's preventing a FLGS from introducing and evening "anti-meta" with purposefully experimental and fun lists in addition to having competitive events?

They would have been boycotted by the competitive player group that was massive, and lost a lot of business, so they didn't involve themselves in gaming drama and just let people play however they wanted on their tables so long as they were spending money. This did happen and did cause the stores that tried that to end up getting rid of their tabletop gaming stock, because the competitive gamers were the lion's share of the business (the only store in that area immune seemed to be the GW store which had a 60 minute table limit so few people actually played there, they just bought stuff)

TLDR - when you have to fight and politic to get fun games in - its not worth the effort to some people. I did it for 20+ years, and that included being screamed at, my facebook hacked, being challenged to fight in the parking lot for "teaching players wrong", and all other kinds of drama i'd never repeat again just to play narrative 40k/warhammer which lit a powder keg to the very deep competitive playing group that took offense to public games being played like that.

The group that was very popular where I left would never play down. Ever. They expected you to play up or go home. They say it all the time on their discord. I sat there and watched two players in that group come to the store, unpack, and the one guy go "i can't beat your list, i didn't bring the right list, do you want to do something else?" and they played xwing instead, because the concept of the other guy toning down was the equivalent of a moderate to severe insult to those people that would cost you opponents and being part of the community.

Jesus fething christ, that sounds horrible. That community sounds like it's mainly made up of douchebags.

The sad part is, the communities like this really are not douchebags, its just most people want to play games, and most people will simply go with the, well i would rather play then not play, so they fall into the meta chasing scene to play games. No one wants to set up just to remove models, so they also chase the metas, and it just becomes the standard.

current 40k, has attracted literally the worst kind of fandom at this point, its the hard core MTG style players that are just aweful to deal with. 40k has been netorious for not the greatest community, but up until now it was mostly filled with socially awekward people, and the occasionally guard sperg. now its filled with hyper competative people who take pushing dollies around a table way to seriously, and a lot of people are swept into that because its either play like taht, or dont play.

Its why im looking greatly forward to HH, as HH has a bigger emphasis on fluff and narrative then it does over sweaty tournament lists.

I have not been in the hobby as long as many here, but i have been in it since 6th, about mid 6th, and i have never ever seen the game this awful, i have never seen the community this bad.

Even though I don't play official 40K for a couple of years now, the sad reality of what this game became in 9th affects even me - just last week my group grew by yet another escapee from the official ruleset. Exactly due to what you, auticus and others describe happened to their communities.

And there is another impact the current meta has on me - there is an increase of game design/40k redesign threads on dakka, same as it was during the late 7th, that I can "harvest" for good ideas

 catbarf wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:"playing down" to others requires immense knowledge of the game.

Quoting for emphasis because this is way more of an issue than people take it to be.

I've heard rebuttals along the lines of 'nah man, it's fair, you just played wrong' more than once. Not everyone is on the same page as far as balance.

Anecdotal, but this was among the things that crashed our gaming groups' attempt to play 9th.

Half our games were lopsided stompfests that we didn't see coming at all. We wanted to play Crusade - we didn't ultimately get anywhere near it, because if we couldn't balance a typical 40K game, what the hell were all those relics and honors and Requisition Points going to do?

There was one other longtime 40K veteran and friend with us; Despite having known various iterations of the game and each other for decades, the two of us had an inordinate amount of difficulty agreeing on what constituted an appropriate amount of tailoring between a specific 9th Ed. codex and an 8th Ed. codex to ensure a fair contest, and unlike with the completely new players, we both thought we knew better. For purposes of this thread it doesn't really matter who was right;(me) the ensuing arguments from that difference in perception drained our enthusiasm and turned off the new players being confronted with increasing walls of jargon in the Discord.

Now, indeed, I'm with Nou - the metagame is mostly affecting me by increasing interest in other games.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
"playing down" to others requires immense knowledge of the game.

Two new players, one picks up Khorne Daemons and the other Custodes.

Even without running any jetbikes, the Custodes army will just crush the Khorne army. "Playing down" requires essentially not playing custodes - which is what I was trying to illustrate earlier with Baneblades.

Asking people to play down is telling them to switch armies because the army is too good, which is exactly as sinful as asking people to play up and telling them to switch armies because the army is too bad.

No, it really isn't.

If you get asked to not use a Baneblade for a game guess what? You're not being told to "switch armies". You're just being asked to not use a Baneblade for a game.

The real solution is for the game developer to balance their game, and allow players to buy what is cool, instead of forcing the players to buy models based on their game performance. Because that's what this is. Either the bad player must buy good models to update their army, or the good player must buy bad models to update theirs.

The real solution is to actually be open to expanding how you play.

Stuff like the Theater of Wars from Pariah go a long way towards making games more enjoyable. For all the whining I saw when AoS first dropped, the refusal to touch things like the Realm rules was ridiculous.

 Kanluwen wrote:

No, it really isn't.

If you get asked to not use a Baneblade for a game guess what? You're not being told to "switch armies". You're just being asked to not use a Baneblade for a game.

Ok.

What if I thought Baneblades were cool and don't have enough for 2k? I hope my opponent likes 1400 points games only.

Or, more pertinently, what would you suggest the Custodes player do to make it fun for the Khorne Daemons player in the example that you both quoted and ignored?

 Kanluwen wrote:
The real solution is to actually be open to expanding how you play.

Stuff like the Theater of Wars from Pariah go a long way towards making games more enjoyable. For all the whining I saw when AoS first dropped, the refusal to touch things like the Realm rules was ridiculous.

One can choose to expand from a balanced foundation as well as from an unbalanced one, so this isn't an argument that imbalance is preferable. If anything, expanding on a balanced foundation is easier because you can trust the game designer to have - oh, I don't know, built a mission that doesn't just outright prevent invulnerable saves from being taken?

Furthermore, one should not be forced to include yet more rules on top of the Matched Play rules to have an even game. In fact, the entire point of matched play as I recall is to have balanced games.

Tiberias wrote:
God you are so full of yourself it's actually unbelievable. Btw how long until you derail the thread by starting to accuse people again of being fascists because they play an imperium faction and enjoy the lore? Seen it so often it's basically a given with you.

I'm calling the police, we know who's been vandalizing all those scarecrows.

In all seriousness, act your age, show me the proper respect, and we can continue to have a conversation.

Tiberias wrote:
How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy? You still have to play against the person an win.

It requires way more effort. At least with Harlequins, I can choose not to run Voidweavers, but if someone has Custodes, and his opponet is playing, say, Imperial Guard, how do you talk before a game to have a fun game? You essentially can't, and that's GW's fault. Moreover, you can run into big problems with players who are just terrible at the game and who insist that any army they lose to is terrible and needs to be toned down.

Tiberias wrote:
I also did not imply that winning is not fun.

When you said that if your goal was playing competitively it can't be having fun.

Tiberias wrote:
The feth did you get that from again?

Your own words. Take some responsibility, kid.

Tiberias wrote:
The point is that playing against harlequin void weavers with guard is a forgone conclusion and not fun for the guard player....you can try to remedy that at least in a friendly game by talking to the person you are playing with and maybe agreeing that the Harlequin player tries out a more experimental list, that maybe even specifically plays badly into guard. Guard player actually gets to play the game, Harlequin player doesn't win by default. How is that concept so difficult to understand?

What if the balance isn't clear? What if players have different ideas about balance? You need a common ground that has a reasonable level of fairness, and GW fails to provide that, which is why GW is bad at game design, and it's why the current metagame negatively affects my play experience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Or, more pertinently, what would you suggest the Custodes player do to make it fun for the Khorne Daemons player in the example that you both quoted and ignored?

Good luck getting Kan to answer that, lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tiberias wrote:

Jesus fething christ, that sounds horrible. That community sounds like it's mainly made up of douchebags.

The fish rots from the head. GW has a gakky attitude about balance, and it spreads out to the community.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

No, it really isn't.

If you get asked to not use a Baneblade for a game guess what? You're not being told to "switch armies". You're just being asked to not use a Baneblade for a game.

Ok.

What if I thought Baneblades were cool and don't have enough for 2k? I hope my opponent likes 1400 points games only.

Why is it so necessary for you to be able to take a massive warmachine for a learning game?

Or, more pertinently, what would you suggest the Custodes player do to make it fun for the Khorne Daemons player in the example that you both quoted and ignored?

More pertinently, explain how someone decides to play only Khorne Daemons without coaxing?

It's not like they have or have had their own unique Codex. They're part of C: Daemons.

 Kanluwen wrote:
The real solution is to actually be open to expanding how you play.

Stuff like the Theater of Wars from Pariah go a long way towards making games more enjoyable. For all the whining I saw when AoS first dropped, the refusal to touch things like the Realm rules was ridiculous.

One can choose to expand from a balanced foundation as well as from an unbalanced one, so this isn't an argument that imbalance is preferable. If anything, expanding on a balanced foundation is easier because you can trust the game designer to have - oh, I don't know, built a mission that doesn't just outright prevent invulnerable saves from being taken?

Tough gak, I guess?

If only there were other armies that would suffer the same issue from Invulnerable Saves being turned off. Or maybe, just maybe, you chose a wildly skewing example of an old, outdated book which has been a skew since day bloody one of being a separate codex to play a "gotcha!" scenario.

Anyways, Banner of the World Dragon says Ta!

Furthermore, one should not be forced to include yet more rules on top of the Matched Play rules to have an even game. In fact, the entire point of matched play as I recall is to have balanced games.

Nah. You don't get to play that crap.

Matched Play had missions that outright called out what rules to use for the mission. People would choose to ignore them, then whine about the missions being unbalanced.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

No, it really isn't.

If you get asked to not use a Baneblade for a game guess what? You're not being told to "switch armies". You're just being asked to not use a Baneblade for a game.

Ok.

What if I thought Baneblades were cool and don't have enough for 2k? I hope my opponent likes 1400 points games only.

Why is it so necessary for you to be able to take a massive warmachine for a learning game?

Who said anything about a learning game?

 Kanluwen wrote:

Or, more pertinently, what would you suggest the Custodes player do to make it fun for the Khorne Daemons player in the example that you both quoted and ignored?

More pertinently, explain how someone decides to play only Khorne Daemons without coaxing?

It's not like they have or have had their own unique Codex. They're part of C: Daemons.

Okay. You missed the point but let's try to lead the horse to water:
Allow them to take any units from Codex: Chaos Daemons. Not even just Khorne. They can play straight undivided.

How do they compete against Custodes?

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
The real solution is to actually be open to expanding how you play.

Stuff like the Theater of Wars from Pariah go a long way towards making games more enjoyable. For all the whining I saw when AoS first dropped, the refusal to touch things like the Realm rules was ridiculous.

One can choose to expand from a balanced foundation as well as from an unbalanced one, so this isn't an argument that imbalance is preferable. If anything, expanding on a balanced foundation is easier because you can trust the game designer to have - oh, I don't know, built a mission that doesn't just outright prevent invulnerable saves from being taken?

Tough gak, I guess?

If only there were other armies that would suffer the same issue from Invulnerable Saves being turned off. Or maybe, just maybe, you chose a wildly skewing example of an old, outdated book which has been a skew since day bloody one of being a separate codex to play a "gotcha!" scenario.

But like, GW designed and published this book. It exists in the game. Right now. It isn't old and outdated, it is literally the current set of rules for an entire faction in the game. If anyone "gotcha'd" anyone else, it was the game designers making Chaos Daemons into a standalone faction that has the tools to compete - that is to say, the game is shoddily designed.

Thanks for proving my point I guess?

 Kanluwen wrote:

Furthermore, one should not be forced to include yet more rules on top of the Matched Play rules to have an even game. In fact, the entire point of matched play as I recall is to have balanced games.

Nah. You don't get to play that crap.

Yes sir, next time I make an argument I will make sure to clear it with the Kanluwen Wins Arbitration Bureau to make sure it meets standards.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Matched Play had missions that outright called out what rules to use for the mission. People would choose to ignore them, then whine about the missions being unbalanced.

I am waiting for the point to be made, but go on. I am curious what you mean with regards to the invulnerable save ignoring mission.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

No, it really isn't.

If you get asked to not use a Baneblade for a game guess what? You're not being told to "switch armies". You're just being asked to not use a Baneblade for a game.

Ok.

What if I thought Baneblades were cool and don't have enough for 2k? I hope my opponent likes 1400 points games only.

Why is it so necessary for you to be able to take a massive warmachine for a learning game?

Or, more pertinently, what would you suggest the Custodes player do to make it fun for the Khorne Daemons player in the example that you both quoted and ignored?

More pertinently, explain how someone decides to play only Khorne Daemons without coaxing?

It's not like they have or have had their own unique Codex. They're part of C: Daemons.

Because they're the only demons I have?
OK, they see a lot more play in AoS. But now & then they make a cameo 40kwise....

 Kanluwen wrote:
Why is it so necessary for you to be able to take a massive warmachine for a learning game?

Nobody said anything about a learning game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Nah. You don't get to play that crap.

I think he does, and every time you try to say he can't it shows that the things you say can't stand up to scrutiny. How about do more listening, less typing, as it's clear your opinions aren't based on reality.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:


Because they're the only demons I have?
OK, they see a lot more play in AoS. But now & then they make a cameo 40kwise....

Kan will do anything to avoid holding GW responsible for the balance in the books they publish.

Hecaton wrote:


It's the only army I have together right now. Working on orks.

But you're implying that I did something wrong, and I didn't. I bought an army I enjoy thematically and am playing it in not the most busted way possible. But because GW couldn't balance a perfect sphere on flat ground, I get grief for it.

Definitely not your fault, but I don't believe that someone who doesn't sound as a meta chaser is now unstoppable and wins everytime. It's certainly possible that you won 4 times in a row and I definitely believe you when you say so, but your opponents aren't doomed. I doubt you can spam 4+ voidweavers if you bought the army thematically AND before the codex release, I doubt you even have more than 1 or 2. Dropping the voidweavers from 6-9 to 1-3 and replacing them with bikes, toys for the troupes and maybe additional HQs tones down the army by a large margin. Armies like necrons and SM can definitely manage the clowns then, assuming they can field reasonably optimized lists.

I don't know what your list is and what your opponents field and their skills, but I've already defeated both custodes and harlequins using my (non army of renown) orks. Simply my opponents didn't spam the OP custodes jetbikes and the two harlie guys had 0 and 1 voidweavers respectively, since the model has always been the worst unit in the codex before the current codex and such players didn't expand their collections just because they got a new codex. Even using my full firstborn Space Wolves I had a close game with the clowns, lost but not by much.

Both harlequins and custodes are elite armies that can be massively OP but also not. Custodes in particular have lots of garbage options in their codex. Even bloody land raiders.

Hecaton wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
God you are so full of yourself it's actually unbelievable. Btw how long until you derail the thread by starting to accuse people again of being fascists because they play an imperium faction and enjoy the lore? Seen it so often it's basically a given with you.

I'm calling the police, we know who's been vandalizing all those scarecrows.

In all seriousness, act your age, show me the proper respect, and we can continue to have a conversation.

Show you the proper respect?! With all the strawmen you've built and baseless accusations you've thrown around on this very forum? You have got to be kidding me. We can talk about politeness, but respect is earned and you have done everything in your power over multiple threads in this forum to not be worthy of any respect. fething delusional...

Tiberias wrote:
How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy? You still have to play against the person an win.

It requires way more effort. At least with Harlequins, I can choose not to run Voidweavers, but if someone has Custodes, and his opponet is playing, say, Imperial Guard, how do you talk before a game to have a fun game? You essentially can't, and that's GW's fault. Moreover, you can run into big problems with players who are just terrible at the game and who insist that any army they lose to is terrible and needs to be toned down.

Then you know little about Custodes. I play them, one of my best firends plays Guard. You can tone down a Custodes list by going mostly infantry and sisters, throwing in an assassin here and there.
Before you start building strawmen again, nobody said GW wasn't at fault here btw. And yes, trying to have a game with friends where both parties have fun requires more effort. So what? Better than wallowing in self pity about the meta and pointing fingers at GW for how bad the game is....we all know that they messed up, that's not the fething point.

Tiberias wrote:
I also did not imply that winning is not fun.

When you said that if your goal was playing competitively it can't be having fun.

And you seriously complain about scarecrows?

Tiberias wrote:
The feth did you get that from again?

Your own words. Take some responsibility, kid.

It's deliciously ironic the way you purposefully misconstrue other peoples words and then have the gall to demand respect. Utterly obnoxious.

Tiberias wrote:
The point is that playing against harlequin void weavers with guard is a forgone conclusion and not fun for the guard player....you can try to remedy that at least in a friendly game by talking to the person you are playing with and maybe agreeing that the Harlequin player tries out a more experimental list, that maybe even specifically plays badly into guard. Guard player actually gets to play the game, Harlequin player doesn't win by default. How is that concept so difficult to understand?

What if the balance isn't clear? What if players have different ideas about balance? You need a common ground that has a reasonable level of fairness, and GW fails to provide that, which is why GW is bad at game design, and it's why the current metagame negatively affects my play experience.

That's why you would have to talk to people beforehand. Shocking, I know.

Players are now arguing over list tailoring to be meta busting or list tailoring in order to play the game.

40K RT - DM led. Discussion before game over what rules to be used or changed.

Arguments abound but games played.

2nd Ed - No DM interaction GW still assumes players discuss and debate before games.

Arguments abound but games played.

3rd to 6th? - Its busted, poor writing exposes rifts between comp and casual - Did I say GW still writes poor rules?

7th onward
GW introduces paid for errata and corrections to their paid for rules.

9th
The comp scene is actively involved in trying to make busted rules playable - yeah, GW still gonna GW.
We pay for the privilege.

The meta doesn't affect me of my small group of core players.
My son is looking forwards to abusing the new nid codex against my wolves and our friends Dark Angels.

Basic rulebooks, codexes and the more important corrections I can scrape off the web for the above are all we need to enjoy the game. We try and ignore the most busted parts of the game for the sake of keeping games moving.