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 CKO wrote:
When do we start holding players accountable for taking the broken stuff?

we already do

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


When do we start holding GW accountable for publishing broken stuff?

we already do

 CKO wrote:


Is it GW's fault when a player takes 3 Crisis suit units against a new player? I feel the Tau player made the decision to take the enjoyment out of the game.

I don't entirely disagree with you on this, but I would argue GW is also partially responsible for reducing the enjoyment as it would be nice if taking 3 crisis suit units against a new player wasn't a problem (presumably, taking 3 units of crisis suits would prevent you from having answers for other units or objectives that the other player might be able to exploit as a potential path to victory, which you might try to counter via tactical decisions)

Looking at the other side of the coin though: I really like the aesthetics of the leman russ vanquisher. I would love to take a leman russ vanquisher. I don't take a leman russ vanquisher because the leman russ demolisher (or apparently the battlecannon) are one of the few options if you want to do decent damage with guard (there's others, but not many). Taking a vanquisher will reduce my fun because it will hamper my ability to impact the game (I'm not bothered by losing tbh, so long as I had an impact), but on the other hand, I'm sad because I want to take this cool unit. I would say GW is taking the enjoyment out in this situation, not either player. I can't think of a single instance where the vanquisher is the answer (although I will gladly be wrong on this).

Of course, if GW somehow makes the vanquisher the most OP unit, I'd leave it out if that's what it took to have fun games, but I'd still be sad because I'd love to take it. And again, that loss of fun would be on GW's shoulders.

I guess in the end, it's GW taking the fun out of certain match ups first, and then (in your example) the 3 crisis suit unit player not moderating their list that's allowing that loss of fun for their opponent to continue (not saying it's right or wrong). (And of course not bringing crisis suits might make it less fun for the tau player, which I would put on GW's shoulders, just like with my example).

(Also, while lurking around dakka, the phrase "fight, fight, fight, kiss, kiss, kiss" keeps springing to mind and I felt the need to share)

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I doubt this considering the leaks.

The leaks show that I can't take Berzerkers anymore. Yet Space Wolves, Black Templars and Blood Angels might be able to better rep my Khorne-based Chaos army.

World eaters are getting their own army, and the marks all actually do meaningful gak now to buff your chaos marines.

Hecaton wrote:
Tiberias, your comment isn't worth replying to line by line. You, again, are contradicting yourself and refusing to cop to what you're saying. You want to castigate everyone who doesn't perform an ad hoc rebalancing of 40k before every game, but you don't want any of the smoke when called out on how cumbersome that is. That's childish.

I don't want to have to rebalance the game every Friday night for a few hours before I spend a few hours playing the game. GW's supposed to do that for me. And you say it's wrong to criticize them, get off it. The meta is not fine, and it's fine to point that out.

It actually mostly looks like he has an axe to grind because you called out fascists on this forum before.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Remember, World Eaters are getting their own book at some point.

Which is all well and good for those wanting to play World Eaters. But for those of us who just want to keep using Cult Troops in our Chaos armies, we're just gak outta luck. Well, except for Noise Marines, but Noise Marines are also gak out of luck as well, given they're a resin conversion kit for a model that GW doesn't even produce anymore.

First they took away our Daemons. Now our Cult Troops. Why do they hate us?

The rumor is that you can actually keep cult troops, the datasheets just aren't in the book.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm allowed to not know exactly what either of you are arguing about?

Tiberias has a political based butthurt and is using this topic as an excuse to yell loudly at hecaton is what I get from the exchange.

 CKO wrote:
Is it GW's fault when a player takes 3 Crisis suit units against a new player? I feel the Tau player made the decision to take the enjoyment out of the game.

My wife doesn't like Tau infantry so has a Tau army almost entirely composed of suits and drones. Crisis Suits are the mainstay, and previously that wasn't oppressive at all. She's not choosing to 'take the enjoyment out of the game', she's choosing to play with an army that was never built for competitive effectiveness to begin with.

Okay, I guess she's just not supposed to play Tau against a new player, so she'll instead take her Drukhari, and- Oh. Nope. That's going to be a bad game too.

So, is it GW's fault when a player who owns two armies and has never pursued particularly competitive builds finds that they can't have a fun, fair, and casual game anymore? You tell me.

stratigo wrote:
World eaters are getting their own army...

And this helps my Chaos Marine army how, exactly?

 CKO wrote:


Is it GW's fault when a player takes 3 Crisis suit units against a new player? I feel the Tau player made the decision to take the enjoyment out of the game.

Whose fault is it that someone running 3 crisis suits takes the fun out of the game? What if that person just started playing and happens to like crisis suits? This whole "blame the player because I'm a GW fanboi" logic falls apart pretty quickly when you realize there's more than 1 possible motivation for someone to take crisis suits, voidweavers, or custodes jetbikes.

stratigo wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Remember, World Eaters are getting their own book at some point.

Which is all well and good for those wanting to play World Eaters. But for those of us who just want to keep using Cult Troops in our Chaos armies, we're just gak outta luck. Well, except for Noise Marines, but Noise Marines are also gak out of luck as well, given they're a resin conversion kit for a model that GW doesn't even produce anymore.

First they took away our Daemons. Now our Cult Troops. Why do they hate us?

The rumor is that you can actually keep cult troops, the datasheets just aren't in the book.

Right. "You want to run some Berzerkers in your Black Legion warband? That'll be another $55 for another codex for one datasheet. Want some Rubrics too? That'll be another $55 for one datasheet, again. Oh, and you want some Plague Marines too? Big spender, aren't you?"

And none of them get Legion traits either. Definitely not an optimal solution.

stratigo wrote:


The rumor is that you can actually keep cult troops, the datasheets just aren't in the book.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm allowed to not know exactly what either of you are arguing about?

Tiberias has a political based butthurt and is using this topic as an excuse to yell loudly at hecaton is what I get from the exchange.

Then you really haven't been paying attention.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

stratigo wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Remember, World Eaters are getting their own book at some point.

Which is all well and good for those wanting to play World Eaters. But for those of us who just want to keep using Cult Troops in our Chaos armies, we're just gak outta luck. Well, except for Noise Marines, but Noise Marines are also gak out of luck as well, given they're a resin conversion kit for a model that GW doesn't even produce anymore.

First they took away our Daemons. Now our Cult Troops. Why do they hate us?

The rumor is that you can actually keep cult troops, the datasheets just aren't in the book.

Right. "You want to run some Berzerkers in your Black Legion warband? That'll be another $55 for another codex for one datasheet. Want some Rubrics too? That'll be another $55 for one datasheet, again. Oh, and you want some Plague Marines too? Big spender, aren't you?"

And none of them get Legion traits either. Definitely not an optimal solution.

Why are they just dismantling Chaos armies, feth.

Remember the days when Legions, Daemons, Cults and Renegades were all in one $25 paperback? Gosh that was back when individual CSMs could be buffed to be better than loyalists too, when the trade of loyalty/discipline for individual power was totally a thing and a great theme.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Why are they just dismantling Chaos armies, feth.

Remember the days when Legions, Daemons, Cults and Renegades were all in one $25 paperback? Gosh that was back when individual CSMs could be buffed to be better than loyalists too, when the trade of loyalty/discipline for individual power was totally a thing and a great theme.

They've been telegraphing this for years at this point. It's part of the reason I've been selling off most of my CSM stuff, it's obvious that a) most of my mixed stuff is not going to work together in any manner like it has in the past and b) CSM is finally expanding into at least half a dozen different, distinct codex army lists that will not play nicely together.

In other words, to my fellow traitors who have advocated for more (myself included), careful what you wish for, you might get it.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

stratigo wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Remember, World Eaters are getting their own book at some point.

Which is all well and good for those wanting to play World Eaters. But for those of us who just want to keep using Cult Troops in our Chaos armies, we're just gak outta luck. Well, except for Noise Marines, but Noise Marines are also gak out of luck as well, given they're a resin conversion kit for a model that GW doesn't even produce anymore.

First they took away our Daemons. Now our Cult Troops. Why do they hate us?

The rumor is that you can actually keep cult troops, the datasheets just aren't in the book.

Right. "You want to run some Berzerkers in your Black Legion warband? That'll be another $55 for another codex for one datasheet. Want some Rubrics too? That'll be another $55 for one datasheet, again. Oh, and you want some Plague Marines too? Big spender, aren't you?"

And none of them get Legion traits either. Definitely not an optimal solution.

Why are they just dismantling Chaos armies, feth.

Remember the days when Legions, Daemons, Cults and Renegades were all in one $25 paperback? Gosh that was back when individual CSMs could be buffed to be better than loyalists too, when the trade of loyalty/discipline for individual power was totally a thing and a great theme.

That last sentence of yours is what happened. That happened once, and gw has made Chaos pay for it ever since. You might think it was a great theme, but they don't.

There's a certain amount of responsibility on both sides.

1 - GW should present a fairly balanced game, which they have not. They're not even close
2 - Players should understand the environment they are playing in, and set their expectations accordingly

Without #1, #2 is pretty much impossible. Taken to extremes (like it is today with Harlies), it's just not fun in any environment to show up and get wiped off the table turn 1/2, regardless of the army you're playing. If all the armies can wipe the other player turn 1 with indirect fire, then there's no point in even buying models, just show up, each player rolls a die and whoever gets highest wins, then everybody goes home. The game is almost this bad right now. Once you're in a fairly equitable state, then player skill gets involved, whether it be at the meta level, or an individual match level.

#2 - if you're a new player, when agreeing to a game with your opponent, you should say "I'm new at this, can we make it a learning game". If you're opponent says no "I'm going to crush your hopes and spirit", find another game. If you go to LVO as a new player, you should expect to have your handed to you. That doesn't mean you can't have that conversation with your opponent saying "hey, I'm new to the tournament scene, yadda yadda" and turn it into a fun game, but you should still expect to lose.

But again, having that conversation is almost pointless unless #1 happens. You can't have a fun game if every 100 point of my army is equivalent to 500 of your, or even 200/150/50. You're still a Storm Giant in a land of pygmies.

You'll notice I said almost, because if the points are way out of whack like they are today, then it really takes a meaningful conversation about points, use of strats, terrain, army lists, etc., where are off these are considered and agreed upon by both players at the same time to make an equitable match. But it's a nigh thing to go to any FLGS for a pick-up game and have that conversation. If you want to go to any tournament or any pick-up game and stand a fair chance, #1 is 90% of that equation. The proof is in SoCal, where an unknown Orks player just about tabled the #1 DE player in the world in 1 turn (which GW then waaaaayyyy over-reacted to).

Yeah - both sides need held accountable at all times.

GW needs to continue have their nose rubbed in the burning garbage they produce and held accountable (they have not ever been held accountable, people still shovel money their way so why change?)

And players who go to casual night / campaign day / playing someone that says they dont want to play with adepticon lists that show up with adepticon lists to those type of games need to be outed as well.

The whole "gw says i can do it so thats how they intend" or "git gud" doesn't fly.

Tournaments, tournament tuning games, leagues, etc... those are the place for your git gud list. Outside of that, if you intentionally go to games where the event states its not for those lists and you jackhammer those lists in anyway - that type of player needs to be policed by their respective community.

I would argue that the only reason there's a vast difference between a fluffy casual list and a cutthroat competitive 'git gud' tournament list to begin with is because GW isn't writing good rules.

In a good system you'd take a fluffy army because that's what works well on the tabletop because fluff and crunch are aligned.

 CKO wrote:
When do we start holding players accountable for taking the broken stuff?

Pretty much never, and I'm being serious. That's on GW.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
What Tiberias is trying hard to relay to you is that if you are in a place when the game breaks under it’s own weight you can either sit and complain, waiting for GW to fix the game, or you can try to work out some rough patches so you can play and enjoy your time while you wait for GW to fix the game.

Getting mad that people talk about the situation in a *thread dedicated to this* is just pointlessly insulting. Get off your gak. Make a separate thread about "how do you tweak the game for balance.' I'm guessing you won't actually have much to talk about, because you don't actually do it, just use it as a handwavey explanation whenever someone complains about balance, but the offer is there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CKO wrote:
Is it GW's fault when a player takes 3 Crisis suit units against a new player? I feel the Tau player made the decision to take the enjoyment out of the game.

Get off your gak. Who's to say the Tau player knows crisis suits are off the chain? They might be new as well. GW presented the game with a points/PL system which implies balance, it's not players' fault for taking them at face value when they don't know better. Stop getting salty at the dude across the table from you and start demanding better of GW.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

That last sentence of yours is what happened. That happened once, and gw has made Chaos pay for it ever since. You might think it was a great theme, but they don't.

Well they don't want anything that takes away the protagonization of their precious loyalist marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tiberias wrote:


Then you really haven't been paying attention.

About what lol. Me pointing out that the Imperium is a senselessly cruel, baby-murdering society?

So, another rant about how stupid GW balance is:

The following is from Goonhammer and represents the only currently successful Sisters build. It's outpaced every other previous option by miles in the current meta:

4th – Justin Moore – Adepta Sororitas: The struggling Sisters put up a 4-1 performance, with Justin running Vahl + 30 Valorous Heart Sacresants, two squads of storm bolter Dominions, and some melta Rets plus Celestine.

Notice something about this setup? EVERY SINGLE UNIT except Celestine received at least 1 significant nerf in the CA2022 and the balance patch. Retributors received FOUR.

Yet, here we are. The only reasonably competitive build sisters have, very nearly maxes out on the most nerfed units. Because they have to. Nothing else in the book works anymore because the entire army was built around combining Convictions and using Morvenn and Sacresancts as a central pivot.

Increasing the price of Sacresancts just meant that you're forced to max out on sacresancts in order to get enough staying power to make the objective game possible. Increasing the points on Dominions doesn't make you not take dominions, it just means you've got less options outside of that. Increasing the price on Morvenn just makes the army smaller.

So you end up with changes that create a mono-build faction where half the units in the book might as well not exist.

Paragon Warsuits went down THIRTY points and they actually see even LESS play than they did previously. Meanwhile Sacresancts went UP 10 points per 5 and people immediately maxed out 3 units of them. A FIFTY point swing in Paragon's favor vs 1 unit of 10 Sacresancts saw them go from a rare tech choice to absolutely zero representation.

All of the point changes were clearly intended to help smooth out the internal balance of the book (assuming there WAS a logical intention, this is the only one that makes any sense) and all they ended up doing was making EXTERNAL balance worse to the point where the army no longer had room for more flexible options.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

stratigo wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Remember, World Eaters are getting their own book at some point.

Which is all well and good for those wanting to play World Eaters. But for those of us who just want to keep using Cult Troops in our Chaos armies, we're just gak outta luck. Well, except for Noise Marines, but Noise Marines are also gak out of luck as well, given they're a resin conversion kit for a model that GW doesn't even produce anymore.

First they took away our Daemons. Now our Cult Troops. Why do they hate us?

The rumor is that you can actually keep cult troops, the datasheets just aren't in the book.

Right. "You want to run some Berzerkers in your Black Legion warband? That'll be another $55 for another codex for one datasheet. Want some Rubrics too? That'll be another $55 for one datasheet, again. Oh, and you want some Plague Marines too? Big spender, aren't you?"

And none of them get Legion traits either. Definitely not an optimal solution.

Why are they just dismantling Chaos armies, feth.

Remember the days when Legions, Daemons, Cults and Renegades were all in one $25 paperback? Gosh that was back when individual CSMs could be buffed to be better than loyalists too, when the trade of loyalty/discipline for individual power was totally a thing and a great theme.

That last sentence of yours is what happened. That happened once, and gw has made Chaos pay for it ever since. You might think it was a great theme, but they don't.

It wasn't even just once iirc. It was a good constant from 2nd ed through to the end of 4th-ish. I can't speak to Rogue Trader but I'd guess it's similar.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Why are they just dismantling Chaos armies, feth.

Remember the days when Legions, Daemons, Cults and Renegades were all in one $25 paperback? Gosh that was back when individual CSMs could be buffed to be better than loyalists too, when the trade of loyalty/discipline for individual power was totally a thing and a great theme.

They've been telegraphing this for years at this point. It's part of the reason I've been selling off most of my CSM stuff, it's obvious that a) most of my mixed stuff is not going to work together in any manner like it has in the past and b) CSM is finally expanding into at least half a dozen different, distinct codex army lists that will not play nicely together.

In other words, to my fellow traitors who have advocated for more (myself included), careful what you wish for, you might get it.

Aww, don't sell, man. It means if GW does get it right again you'll have to rebuy everything to enjoy it. It also means you won't have the army for playing older editions or alternative rulesets.

Hecaton wrote:

 CKO wrote:
When do we start holding players accountable for taking the broken stuff?

Pretty much never, and I'm being serious. That's on GW.

Oh it's pretty easy outside your tourney scene. At the extreme you just decline to play the guy with the {insert thing/army/rule(s) your currently howling about}. But before it reaches that point is where the conversations occur about what types of games/missions/scenarios/any house rules/handicaps etc you want to use. Maybe you can work something out. Maybe you can't & it defaults to "No Thanks".
Guy with the {crap} get's "No Thanks" often enough odds are he'll get the message.

ccs wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 CKO wrote:
When do we start holding players accountable for taking the broken stuff?

Pretty much never, and I'm being serious. That's on GW.

Oh it's pretty easy outside your tourney scene. At the extreme you just decline to play the guy with the {insert thing/army/rule(s) your currently howling about}. But before it reaches that point is where the conversations occur about what types of games/missions/scenarios/any house rules/handicaps etc you want to use. Maybe you can work something out. Maybe you can't & it defaults to "No Thanks".
Guy with the {crap} get's "No Thanks" often enough odds are he'll get the message.

How dare someone like the look of Tau!
How dare someone think that space murder clowns are cool!

How dare they like something that's also good!

Seriously-it shouldn't be "You picked Faction X, you're not gonna get games because they're OP" or "You picked Faction Y, you need a 25% handicap just to have a good game."

 JNAProductions wrote:

ccs wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 CKO wrote:
When do we start holding players accountable for taking the broken stuff?

Pretty much never, and I'm being serious. That's on GW.

Oh it's pretty easy outside your tourney scene. At the extreme you just decline to play the guy with the {insert thing/army/rule(s) your currently howling about}. But before it reaches that point is where the conversations occur about what types of games/missions/scenarios/any house rules/handicaps etc you want to use. Maybe you can work something out. Maybe you can't & it defaults to "No Thanks".
Guy with the {crap} get's "No Thanks" often enough odds are he'll get the message.

How dare someone like the look of Tau!
How dare someone think that space murder clowns are cool!

How dare they like something that's also good!

Seriously-it shouldn't be "You picked Faction X, you're not gonna get games because they're OP" or "You picked Faction Y, you need a 25% handicap just to have a good game."

Well it IS.
GW game or otherwise, outside the tourney scene it's always been this way. And it always will be.

RE: Chaos mixing and matching

My hope had always been that Chaos (being, you know.... Chaotic) would have greater soup capacity than any other army of the game, and that GW would lean into it and actually make this versatility a design feature.

The Eldar dex has some soup flexibilities built into it. It serves as an example of the types of solutions they could bring to chaos, though I'd say chaos should have even more of these adjustments- they are the OG warband army.

What I can say- and it isn't a perfect solution, because book bloat is a thing- there will likely berules in WD or campaign supplements that allow chaos forces to combine in different ways. The Disciples of Be'Lakor, for example, is one such list that already exists.

There aren't any other specific Chaos lists that do this yet... But Vigilous alone gave us Armies of Faith, which allows you to combine Marines, Sisters and Guard. And there's a new Vigilus book coming, so I'd expect it to have the dark mirror arrangement for Chaos.

At least, that's an expectation I would have... But GW has taught me to be careful about having high... Or even reasonable expectations. Any time I try to hard to think about about what something in the pipeline might look like, I usually find myself at least somewhat let down by the result.

I like Admech. I love their look. I hate their vehicles. If I ran an Admech army, I'd likely run a mostly infantry army with like 6 kastellan robots, tons of skitarii rangers, and some tech priests with an armiger or two. I don't know if any of this is overpowered, or will be, or was. If I picked these units, painted them, and then played them, and I dominated every battle, or was dominated every battle, I wouldn't have fun at all, and that's not on me. But, if I look up a meta list and purposefully dominate every single fight I go into, that is on me.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Aww, don't sell, man. It means if GW does get it right again you'll have to rebuy everything to enjoy it. It also means you won't have the army for playing older editions or alternative rulesets.

1 - In many ways, this is exactly what we asked for over many years.
2 - This is business 101, GW was eventually going to hire some competent MBAs.

Sides, I'm keeping my TS stuff (it's my best painted stuff) and my daemons since I can play them in AoS also. I'm still going to be able to play, I'm just selling my CSM stuff when it's most valuable, before the new codex, while speculation is high, before the inevitable nerfbat apocalypse.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Aww, don't sell, man. It means if GW does get it right again you'll have to rebuy everything to enjoy it. It also means you won't have the army for playing older editions or alternative rulesets.

1 - In many ways, this is exactly what we asked for over many years.

Sure seems like a "monkeys paw" type of situation.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Aww, don't sell, man. It means if GW does get it right again you'll have to rebuy everything to enjoy it. It also means you won't have the army for playing older editions or alternative rulesets.

1 - In many ways, this is exactly what we asked for over many years.

Sure seems like a "monkeys paw" type of situation.

How delightfully apropos for Chaos.

New player:

"I like the look of the army. I'll.. huh, well, all this stuff is super expensive. I guess I'll get a start collecting or combat patrol for the army. Heck, I'll toss in a unit I REALLY like, too."

Next month:

"I had a ton of fun, but I want to expand my army. Let me try..."

They normally expand out horizontally across the codex, trying new units and models.

Very rarely do you see someone going:

"I'm playing Harlequins and I'll just impulse buy 9 Voidweavers and call it a day."

People who do that have put time into reading up on what they're getting into, and they may even have looked in far enough to know that if you want to beat face with your hefty investment... you need to get these pieces, in triplicate. I don't believe THOSE players are playing in the spirit of the game. I think THOSE players are kinda THAT GUY in training.

But I go back to:

Most of this is because so many people just can't switch off. They're stuck in some Top 4 Competition death spiral in their heads and take that out on everyone they come across. I can say with much certainty that as a new player I was SUPER worried about going so deep into 1 model that I would be stuck with a bunch of stuff that just didn't work... no matter how cool they looked.

Typically, you know when you're crossing a line. Especially when you're playing 1 Voidweaver, then 3, and then 7, and finally 9. You know when you're crossing a line, and if you were at 3... you know it was really strong and bordering on a bit too punishing. Yet so many people here reject the agency of saying: maybe I shouldn't put in those next 6. And we've cultured a community that is so petrified of speaking our feelings out to the other. I've gotten into so many of those games where on turn 1 I just shook hands and pulled my army off of the table. I was a hour into the game, getting rolled stupidly hard because my casual list was ill prepared for whatever level of crap a competition player wanted to "test". Obviously we had no common understanding of what we wanted out of that game, and I'm not going to let it ruin my day. If people don't want to play against me because I refuse to get clubbed in a PUG, so be it... at least I won't find my time torturous. But we all know that's not how the scenario will really play out. I think in the face of such shoddy writing, it is graceful to excuse someone for lucking into a powerful list... so long as they're willing to say "Yeah, that was a little ugly, let's not do that again." and at least pay lip service into acknowledging that there was a problem and maybe concessions are in order. But if it becomes a pattern where someone just lucked into a super powerful army one month after lucking into the previously meta army... 6 months after lucking into...

Sometimes you gotta ask - is this guy just always lucky and has an army prepped for every situation? Or is "luck" just being bludgeoned as a scapegoat.

Also... with all the commenting on poop internal balancing and so many garbage units in codices. I find it really hard to believe that top tier players with overtuned armies couldn't find a way to have a softer touch with their local gaming group. Handicap doesn't strictly have to be against points... it could literally be bringing less optimized units just to have a more engaging and fair game with the person getting demolished. Tell 'em, "Hey, I noticed this unit keeps doing WAY too much. I wanted to try something else, give you a break from the same old stuff." A graceful way of saying "This unit is overtuned, and your army sucks, so I won't play it."

You know how many times I tabled my Stormbolter Dominions for Flamer Dominions against my friend's EC list? Yeah, we both knew that Blessed Bolts literally erasing squads in mortals alone was way too much for his codex to handle. I didn't make him beg me to not bring them, we both laughed and said "not yet, these are just... not yet." I'll play them against just about everything else, but I have the decency to NOT vs. Chaos Space Marines. And he thanked me. He feels a little bad I have to play down and cannot dole out the harshness, but we BOTH have a better game when I do. We talked about it, talked through it, and neither of us felt slighted in the end that GW has difficulty writing rules.

Edit:

I've been a top tourney player in card games. I've also been a fencer as well as an instructor.

When I go to local game nights as a card player... sure, I'll bring my regional deck, but I keep it in the box. If someone wants to test something competitively, I have it to get that engagement. But at the game, I'll simply play some combination of "fun looking jank" that makes me chuckle. Literally the "for the luls" decks. I'll even take a round Loss to switch to a different deck if someone wanted a more serious engagement. The W and L means nothing, especially at the local level. The purpose of the Locals scene is to grow the game, to be welcoming and inviting, and show the bright side of the game for the newer people curious about getting in. Going wide open isn't really showing a good face to new players, cromping the hope out of people is not how you get new players.

It was the same in fencing, only I was more in control of my level of play and could shift it whenever I needed to. I barely went 50% against a novice. It isn't fair, it isn't fun, and even dunking on them doesn't teach them anything meaningful... just makes them feel bad. You save that for when someone gets a little uppity and needs to be reminded that there's far superior skill out there, and to respect that skill and approach the art with a bit more grace and less self-importance.

In both arenas... you feel out the competition level... and then you set your bar there. As your group gets better, you get better. You try to bring them up with you, but make sure to stop when someone peaks... and never forget where you came from and just how daunting it is to get there.

I hate the mentality of "if you're going to play in this league, you better expect to lose and lose hard for awhile."

That stupid gatekeeping kills communities and hobbies by shutting out new people. Have some courtesy and humility. Those two traits will get you so much further with newer players and sustaining your passion than that extra W at your local gaming store.

 waefre_1 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Aww, don't sell, man. It means if GW does get it right again you'll have to rebuy everything to enjoy it. It also means you won't have the army for playing older editions or alternative rulesets.

1 - In many ways, this is exactly what we asked for over many years.

Sure seems like a "monkeys paw" type of situation.

How delightfully apropos for Chaos.

*Snort* We get the Chaos Spawn result of codexes, sure.

It’s apparent they have no clue how the player base feels now. Feels just like 7th edition again.

Yeah, they are busy blowing their own constantly expanding hype bubble, getting high on their own exhaust.

Some attention is afforded waacs who want to hyperventilate in unison, pumping the churn machine, cha ching cha ching…

It is a sort of cult, frankly.

It turning into a professional sport has made it what it is today though.

You're right - some people just can't turn it off. Especially when they are chasing that dragon of whatever it is in their head they will get if they can top place an LVO or Adepticon.