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Thanks for bringing up Chain of Command, Catbarf. It is the quintessential game I hold up for a modern war(game), in contrast to a modern (war)game.

Deadnight wrote:

Insectum7 wrote:
If you want a wide variation in unit capabilities, plus a large amount of freedom in how armies are composed, you will always encounter the potential for skew and mismatch between armies on the table. On top of that, if you want the wargame to be worth a damn, terrain needs to be an essential aspect of gameplay and maneuver, which translates to units gaining or loosing value depending on the table setup. This is why it can't be "perfectly balanced".

But all of these things, unit diversity, freedom of force creation, and impact of terrain, are positive features of the game that I would be very careful about messing with. Points works great as a "rough estimate of value" within the framework of understading that "value" is very far from absolute. "It is a bit of an art", as Andy Chambers said.

And yes, we've seen the game achieve healthy balance from time to time. The levers exist to make it happen, but GW also has a vested interest in churn.

The only thing I disagree with is saying the game has achieved a healthy balance from time to time. I've played since third. That was never the case. There have always been broken.codices, underpowered codices, go-to builds etc. Everything else is stuff I'd agree with, no question. If I was a cheeky git and you said that to ne in the gdmimg club, I'd buy you a beer and say no <expletive> sherlock and we'd both laugh and enjoy our beers.

And you didn't answer my question. :p

so please, how much of the game is allowed to be unplayable to be 'good enough'. How much of the potential lists are allowed to be 'mismatched'? How much of the game can be accepted to be 'above' the power curve and dominate the rest of the game at the expense of the rest. How 'big' a game are we talking in terms of # of factions and # of unique units/roster choices. Etc. Not a gotcha. Just trying to nail down a very nebulous idea.

Define "unplayable".

I'm of the opinion that if a unit or bit of wargear has a niche use-case for some amount of local metas and scenarios, but doesn't show up in competetive tournaments for some reason, it's still "playable", because 40K "in the wild" can be quite different than the tourney case. Also, I'm of the opinion that "more options is good", even if they aren't all competetive, because to many, 40K is just a structured way to play out scenarios of the 40K universe. I haven't used Servitors since 3rd or 4th edition maybe, but I like that they are there.

As for lists being "mismatched"? There are so many combinations of units to throw onto the table that I wouldn't be surprised if 90% of potential builds could wind up being mismatched in some way. I think that's the wrong question, essentially. The better question is "Can every faction produce several, significantly different, reasonably competitive build for a majority of potential metas, as well as the tournament circuit." Which would, to me, be "ideal balance", even if there were loads of units and options that didn't see widespread adoption, because again, options for the narrative folks. I'd also caveat "factions", because there are some factions which don't need to be competitive at the same level. "Specialist" factions like Deathwatch, Custodes and Grey Knights come to mind as factions that, for the sake of universe-building, shouldn't have the same array of deployment abilities as "total war" factions like Space Marines, Eldar and Tyranids.

You may not see 40k as having balance, but I think that throughout it's history it's been quite good on numerous occasions. Like, 90+% of the game would be in an acceptable place, and the outlying factions/units (either "broken" or "trash") could have been addressed very easily with relatively minor adjustments . . . and points serve as a tool for those adjustments. Not the only one, but a very useful one nonetheless.


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 catbarf wrote:

I should also point out that the observation that points cannot accurately assess 'absolute value' in all situations is not a points-specific issue, it's a problem for any balancing mechanism that involves resource (point, slot, command point, whatever) limitations set in a vacuum. The increasingly common way to work around it is to allow those decisions to be made with some information known about context. It's subtly changing the use of points, because it's an explicit invitation to optimize your force to get the most value for a given resource limit.

Wholly agree.

Deadnight wrote:


Seemingly no designer wants their games to actually work based on what you say. This is a 'no true scotsman' scenario and a colossal disservice to games designers everywhere. Points are a.roufh accounting system with serious limitations and very limited load-bearing abilities and that's about it.

Some game designers put together inherently imbalanced designs which means points won't work.

GW loves doing that. Complexity of design does not mean more realism or anything other than complexity.

So if you choose a system that is very situational, lacks universal applicability in its tactics, it's going to hard to balance no matter what you use.

Put another way: if you intend to create a points-based-system, design the game with that in mind.

Deadnight wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:


@Deadnight Not believing in points is like not believing in math.
.

I believe in math just fine. I just do not believe that a single value in terms in 'game currency' can accurately account for its 'real worth', especially since 'context' has such a massive impact on this. And using this as a building block just means your are building in a massive amount of imbalance into the very foundations of your game.

I think you've got things the wrong way around. Having both Wraithlords and Wraithknights available as single-entity units that are optional to include in a list makes the game imbalanced, points minimize this imbalance. The other ways to balance games is to make preconstructed lists that GW have verified are worth about as much as each other, this has merit but it's not enough to satisfy all my 40k needs or alternatively to try to come up with points on the spot taking everything about the upcoming game into account, which is potentially very fair but in a game between amateurs or overly competitive people likely to end in miserable experiences in ways that balanced points minimize and having balanced points makes this easier anyway as you can adjust the balance of the game more easily as you can evaluate how many extra points you need to make up for having a tank list against an anti tank list instead of trying to count wounds or some other arcane method of balancing such a game. Having only played 0-1 games against a lot of the newer factions I am not equipped to balance games this way, I had a couple of games in the newest competitive mission format with an old list, after stomping the absolute gak out of my opponents I tried to tell them that my list was perhaps a little too competitive because of points reductions the list had gotten. My opponents did not think my list was overbearing, the list was 1920 pts in 2k games because I forgot to take advantage of the points reductions the list got, this is just to show that I have no clue about balance at the moment and why I try to stick with more philosophical arguments unless pushed to say "how much is a plasma pistol worth on an Infantry Squad Sergeant". I have experienced people claim my casual lists were competitive in every edition so they clearly didn't have a clue either, several times the guys saying it were running netlists themselves.

 vict0988 wrote:


List A and list B having respective values of 1400 and 1600 despite both being 1500 points is not an inherent limitation of points, it's just a temporary flaw in the numbers.
.

Althat 'temporary flaw' is multiplied axross every combination of units and list variation in the game ergo its a a systemic limitation.

I think I might agree, but to the degree I do agree then it's not a problem. Units having synergies is not a problem if the points are tight enough that every option is viable. I just want people to be able to bring a more or less cohesive list and be able to have fun with that at casual game days without being required to be a Zen monk that has no care for winning or losing and points is the only way to do this. Preconstructed lists do not offer enough freedom. People aren't good enough at being people or good enough at 40k to balance games without pts as a crutch.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Idea vs execution.

The fact that GW did a bad job with those factions is hardly surprising, but separating them out and (attempting to) expand their rosters was not a bad idea.

Breton wrote:
Bring on the consolidated Chaos codex!

You know that doesn't mean what you think it means, right?

They wouldn't bring everything into one book. They'd remove tons of stuff from the game to make it fit in one book. Do you want Cult representation to just go back to 4 units?

Thus the Be Careful What You Wish For theme. So many were all onboard with consildating the Marines and now Chaos is up next.


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ccs wrote:


Really? You really think if right now you handed a BS3 marine squad (A) 4 Lacannons @150pts & a Bs5 Ork squad (B) 4 Lascannons @100 pts that the Ork version would be better? And all we're doing is discussing the LCs, not # of models in squad, their saves, LD etc.

I've never seen someone point out they're cherry picking like its a good thing before.

 vict0988 wrote:
I think I might agree, but to the degree I do agree then it's not a problem. Units having synergies is not a problem if the points are tight enough that every option is viable. I just want people to be able to bring a more or less cohesive list and be able to have fun with that at casual game days without being required to be a Zen monk that has no care for winning or losing and points is the only way to do this. Preconstructed lists do not offer enough freedom. People aren't good enough at being people or good enough at 40k to balance games without pts as a crutch.

I think (but could be wrong) Deadnight is talking about needing every single conceivable game of 40k being balanced. And as you say, I just don't think that just is a concern. That imbalance is the trade-off for people being free to choose their army.

As you say - if someone brings just anti-tank units then them having an advantage over someone who runs just tanks is a feature, not a bug. In the same way being disadvantaged against someone running all horde infantry would be a feature, not a bug. The idea that a lascannon should be 20 points in this game - but only 10 points in that - is not correct. You could hard-ban taking all anti-tank or all-tanks, to force that TAC-style list. Yes you could come up with a completely different system of army building with sideboards and post-realisation optimisations. But I don't think its necessary.

What is probably sensible is that because you know people have the freedom to choose units, you have soft-counters rather than hard ones. If someone goes pure scissors, they should have an advantage over an army of pure paper. But potentially not that much of one - so you disincentivise list building in this way.

For the most part, 40k isn't determined by "unit type/roll skew". We do see spam when stuff is undercosted (see: 18 sentinel lists right now) but this can be fixed with points increases. And just because sentinels are good, it doesn't translate that all light vehicles are good.

Lets say I pick codex A and take a character or three, some troops for actions/objective anchoring/chaff and say 500 points dedicated assault, 500 points close-in shooting and say 500 points longer range fire support - and you do the same from codex B. Imbalance is when the list drawn from Codex A is just better because every one of its units is "more efficient for the points" than codex B. And this can usually be identified easily and quickly with very simple mathematics.
If its close enough that you are getting into 2nd order probabilities to identify a marginal advantage, its almost certainly drowned out by how the dice fall in any given game.

Its been over 7 years so I'm a bit distant from it, so apologies if I get this wrong - but if we were looking at 2nd edition WMH, the meta was dominated by armour skews, defence skews or horde skews (I think that fell out of fashion towards the end but don't quote me). Armies designed so you can't hit them - so your forces almost don't matter. Or so you can hit them, but then can't damage them, so again they don't matter. Solving such a situation with points alone would be difficult and I'm not sure they even tried.
But 40k as said doesn't really work like that. Hence the lamentations that grots can kill knights (not convinced they ever do though.)

If the units in codex A are about as powerful for the points as the units in codex B then two players running TAC lists are not going to look across the table and think "this game was decided at the list building stage." For a balanced game you want as many units as possible, across as many factions as possible, to be at about the same level on the power curve. This will mean that especially at a casual level, everything can be played against everything else. What you don't want is something like say 7th, where you had less of a power curve and more like a power cliff. With an almost impenetrable tier system of factions/units as a result.

I agree on the notion that a player taking random units vs a player taking a thought out list should face a one-sided game. On the other hand, if both players take a TAC list from different codices, they should have an equal chance at winning before considering player skill.

I personally consider points as a way to balance out units with similar purpose, and army slots as well as mission design the balance out different unit roles. Most designers will use the same in game currency (e.g. points) for players to calculate the power of all different roles and choices in one go, as it allows a bit more flexibility for different factions, instead of for example forcing 500 points of scoring infantry (each choice valued between 50 and 100 points), 10 points of anti tank (each choice valued between 3 and 7 points) and 4 points of characters (each character valued at 1 or 2 points) and the points of each army role totally independent from each other (so 1 character point cost does not equal 1 anti tank point cost).

The issue with GW approach is, that the missions don't really force different unit roles, and on top of that units with similar purpose aren't matched in value. This leads to units that came deliver their points worth in a game, as more efficient units exists and the only real values that matter are movement speed coupled with either damage output or defensive profile.

I believe another issue is that themed lists tend to always appear like a skew list.
Example:
Player A has build up an IG tank company, several Leman Russ MBTs, a tank commander, a Baneblade, maybe a hellhound, and some sentinels.
Player B plays a Raven Guard phobos marine list.
So the defensive profile of both lists is a skew, but their offensive profiles aren't, necessarily.
But all tank weapons can be used to kill infantry, while the Marines carry a lot of weapons that are useless against tanks. So player B might feel quite frustrated as he can't really handle the tanks, while player A might be upset that even though he is killing all the opponents units, he gets outscored (depending on the missions design). GW has to thread a thin line, so that the thematic lists are able to score mission objectives, feel satisfying to play and are roughly equal in killing each other.

So only points won't be enough to balance this out. It's one of the tools available and I believe a good tool as well, but for a game to be sufficiently balanced to be fun for both players, more mechanisms are needed. This night be mission design, mission diversity and a more restricted army roster.
And above all, some restraint on GWs part not to release the next space marine unit with a role that's already covered by 5 other marine units.

Brickfix wrote:
The issue with GW approach is, that the missions don't really force different unit roles, and on top of that units with similar purpose aren't matched in value. This leads to units that came deliver their points worth in a game, as more efficient units exists and the only real values that matter are movement speed coupled with either damage output or defensive profile.

The issue is that GW isn't particularly interested in game balance, period. GW sells models and is very open about that being the entire focus of their business. Lots of their former employees will confirm that management was given sound, balanced designs and rejected them.

That's why arguing points don't work is missing the point. No balancing mechanic will work if you ignore it during game design. If you want to include game balance, it has to be incorporated into the core rules, not just stapled on after the fact. I haven't played Battletech in 20 years, but I recall that initially tonnage was used as a gauge of balance but it was very imprecise, particularly when tech levels were different. So an alternative measure was introduced that worked much better.

Battletech of course was designed from the ground up with a profound sense of balance in mind. There were tactical exploits for some situations, but overall, there's a reason why it not only still has followers, but has not required a major overhaul. Most of the updates seem to be about timelines not junking core mechanics and starting over.

We've seen people post stuff that demonstrates non-linear relationships between units as proof that points don't work. Again, that's a design decision, and all of those have tradeoffs. I was once challenged very aggressively as to why a simulation I'd put together used point-to-point movement rather than a hex overlay. My response was that while hexes do give more freedom of action, one of the core objectives of the simulation was to teach participants the lines of communication in the operational area. This was easier to do by simply constraining them to it rather than having them count out movement points.

No one in GW cares about this sort of stuff, and it shows.

Tyel wrote:
As you say - if someone brings just anti-tank units then them having an advantage over someone who runs just tanks is a feature, not a bug. In the same way being disadvantaged against someone running all horde infantry would be a feature, not a bug. The idea that a lascannon should be 20 points in this game - but only 10 points in that - is not correct. You could hard-ban taking all anti-tank or all-tanks, to force that TAC-style list. Yes you could come up with a completely different system of army building with sideboards and post-realisation optimisations. But I don't think its necessary.

Having played a number of games that do provide those sort of post-seeing-the-opponent's-list optimizations, I'm not so sure that the wildly varying 'bang for your buck' that comes from building a list in a vacuum is good design.

We've seen throughout 40K's history that GW really struggles to balance options in relation to the meta. Just look at how pricing on plasma guns, the ideal anti-MEQ killer in a MEQ-dominated game, has varied over the years. You can set a points cost on a flamer so that it's efficient as it should be against Orks, but if you're five times more likely to meet Space Marines, you won't use it. So what's the fix? Make the flamer cheaper, so that it isn't useless against MEQs? But then it overperforms against Orks in those cases that it is relevant. And if you set the cost on a plasma gun assuming it'll fight Marines, then it underperforms against those non-MEQ armies. Set everything to a middle ground, maybe averaging performance against the likely target profiles, and then everyone takes plasma guns.

Beyond individual options, GW struggles to balance entire armies, because the fact that this is a MEQ-heavy game means that a 'take-all-comers' list really means an anti-MEQ list, and that puts MEQ players at an immediate disadvantage. There's no easy solution there, either, because overtuning Marines out of the assumption that everyone is already countering Marines in turn can mean everyone has to counter Marines even harder and it becomes an unsustainable Red Queen's race.

So maybe you just balance everything around the assumption that you don't know what you'll be facing and have to take a balanced mix of capabilities... and then an army of all Knights or Armored Company or Green Tide shows up and breaks the game wide open, because the concept of 'skew' only exists because of how 40K handles listbuilding. And I haven't even gotten started on the weirdness that comes into play when you know what your opponent plays and how that knowledge affects your listbuilding.

Are those all features? YMMV, but I'm inclined to call them bugs, and these are exactly the sort of problems people refer to when they say that points alone cannot balance the game. It's why GW has to implement hacky fixes like a hard cap on how many flyers you can take, or make it so that lasguns and heavy bolters can credibly damage tanks, because otherwise it's too easy for the in-a-vacuum listbuilding system to produce lopsided matchups.

I wouldn't say an alternative system is necessary, but I definitely see the limitations of the current system more after playing with alternatives.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Battletech of course was designed from the ground up with a profound sense of balance in mind.

Not to snark but I'm not sure I'd hold up Battletech as an example of designing for balance from the ground up- 3025 is fairly balanced just because everyone has access to the same capabilities (and even then, the weapon set isn't strictly balanced- MLAS is great, AC/2 and AC/5 less so), but ask the old-timers whether Zellbrigen was an effective balancing lever for Clans on release. It's taken them a while to reach a BV2.0 system that works fairly well, and part of that comes from having a fairly static ruleset that has allowed incremental tweaking, rather than having to continuously restart from scratch every few years.

Breton wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Idea vs execution.

The fact that GW did a bad job with those factions is hardly surprising, but separating them out and (attempting to) expand their rosters was not a bad idea.

Breton wrote:
Bring on the consolidated Chaos codex!

You know that doesn't mean what you think it means, right?

They wouldn't bring everything into one book. They'd remove tons of stuff from the game to make it fit in one book. Do you want Cult representation to just go back to 4 units?

Thus the Be Careful What You Wish For theme. So many were all onboard with consildating the Marines and now Chaos is up next.

What do you mean, up next?
Marines WEREN'T consolidated. They still have more Bolter varieties than some codecs have units.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Breton wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Idea vs execution.

The fact that GW did a bad job with those factions is hardly surprising, but separating them out and (attempting to) expand their rosters was not a bad idea.

Breton wrote:
Bring on the consolidated Chaos codex!

You know that doesn't mean what you think it means, right?

They wouldn't bring everything into one book. They'd remove tons of stuff from the game to make it fit in one book. Do you want Cult representation to just go back to 4 units?

Thus the Be Careful What You Wish For theme. So many were all onboard with consildating the Marines and now Chaos is up next.

What do you mean, up next?
Marines WEREN'T consolidated. They still have more Bolter varieties than some codecs have units.

Yeah, 3 Bolter varieties should've been the MAX, not a minimum.

 catbarf wrote:

Having played a number of games that do provide those sort of post-seeing-the-opponent's-list optimizations, I'm not so sure that the wildly varying 'bang for your buck' that comes from building a list in a vacuum is good design.

. . .

And I haven't even gotten started on the weirdness that comes into play when you know what your opponent plays and how that knowledge affects your listbuilding.

I see a bit of tension here

I haven't played any of these "post-seeing-the-opponents-list optimizations" games. Can you elaborate on the cons of such a system? I'm imagining that it promotes skew, but when you say "weirdness" that sounds like it's more complicated than that.

"the concept of 'skew' only exists because of how 40K handles listbuilding." < Also this is a really intriguing statement. Why do you say this?

Also I'm short on time and I feel like my brain's not working very well this morning, so I apologize in advance for not being able to fully engage atm. I promise I'll try to absorb it though.


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EviscerationPlague wrote:

Yeah, 3 Bolter varieties should've been the MAX, not a minimum.

I count 4

Bolt Pistol
Bolter
Storm Bolter
Heavy Bolter

Maybe Hurricane?
Or maybe turn Bolter into "Bolter X" and then Storm and Hurricane get consolidated into Bolter 2 and Bolter 6. Oh hey, there you go. 3 types!

 catbarf wrote:
Are those all features? YMMV, but I'm inclined to call them bugs, and these are exactly the sort of problems people refer to when they say that points alone cannot balance the game. It's why GW has to implement hacky fixes like a hard cap on how many flyers you can take, or make it so that lasguns and heavy bolters can credibly damage tanks, because otherwise it's too easy for the in-a-vacuum listbuilding system to produce lopsided matchups.

I wouldn't say an alternative system is necessary, but I definitely see the limitations of the current system more after playing with alternatives.

I think its certainly true that sometimes in 40k it is better for GW to change rules rather than to change points. I think points can still get you a reasonably equal sort of footing - but it may produce outcomes which are less fun than alternatives.

To touch on the examples - if say Plasma is too good, nerf Plasma.
GW could have just made plasma (and similar tier weapons) AP-2 near 6 years ago and it would have probably done a world of good.

I mean part of the issue with basic flamers (D6 S4 AP-) is that they aren't that hot into anything. Versus today's Boyz 3.5*1/3*5/6*8=7.777 points. But shooting a Marine is only 3.5*1/2*1/3*9=5.25. Its not miles worse. Whereas say an overcharged plasma gun into a marine is 2*1/2*5/6*5/6*18=12.5. Whereas into Boyz you can fire it undercharged and expect to get 5.33 points. There's some factoring in for the fact the guy may just die on the overcharge - but you won't get to shoot that often anyway, and rerolls are everywhere. It gets more skewed if you were to shoot say Termagants or Guardians with a flamer - but you could mow down GEQ with bolters, lasguns or your fists. You aren't gaining much strategically from buffing that sort of firepower.

I think we just disagree on some of the other points. I don't think Marines for instance suffer from this "skew to be anti-MEQ". They experience the same cycle everyone else gets - i.e. top tier with a new codex - fall off as codex creep works its way through. They get the unique advantage (SM that is) of usually being looked after with a second look-in around 2 years down the edition while other factions are often ignored.

I think everything being able to wound everything is a good change - and I'm in favour of limiting flyers too. I think you could resolve these things with points (my preference would just be making all flyers relatively inefficient - but that's a bias) but there you go.

Plasma has been a problem ever since they decided in 8th Edition that there was a safe mode and a more effective Overcharge that both hit an offensive benchmark and could be mitigated with rerolls. Plasmaguns wouldn't be so popular if the stat block was:

Plasmagun: Rapid Fire 1, R 24", S 7, AP -3, D 1, any Unmodified Hit Dice Roll of 1 (before or after rerolls) destroys the firing model after all attacks of the unit are resolved.

This happens to be the 3rd-7th Edition Stats for a Plasmagun because re-rolls were super hard to get on Plasmaguns back then.

 alextroy wrote:
Plasma has been a problem ever since they decided in 8th Edition that there was a safe mode and a more effective Overcharge that both hit an offensive benchmark and could be mitigated with rerolls. Plasmaguns wouldn't be so popular if the stat block was:

Plasmagun: Rapid Fire 1, R 24", S 7, AP -3, D 1, any Unmodified Hit Dice Roll of 1 (before or after rerolls) destroys the firing model after all attacks of the unit are resolved.

This happens to be the 3rd-7th Edition Stats for a Plasmagun because re-rolls were super hard to get on Plasmaguns back then.

Note: Gets Hot! used to allow for armor saves.
So a Marine would only die if the gun Got Hot and they rolled a 1 or a 2 on their save.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I haven't played any of these "post-seeing-the-opponents-list optimizations" games. Can you elaborate on the cons of such a system? I'm imagining that it promotes skew, but when you say "weirdness" that sounds like it's more complicated than that.

Even just knowing the opponent's faction and their collection can lead to list tailoring. This happens a lot in small groups that only really play against one another. It can lead to an arms race where each player buys to try to get a leg up on the rest of the group.

"the concept of 'skew' only exists because of how 40K handles listbuilding." < Also this is a really intriguing statement. Why do you say this?

The idea of two players building lists with as wide and varied a unit pool as 40k has will tend to lead to situations where one side or the other can't effectively harm the other player's force. Sometimes the game can still be a good match due to objective play but many players don't like feeling as if they can't meaningfully hurt an opponent's army.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Plasma has been a problem ever since they decided in 8th Edition that there was a safe mode and a more effective Overcharge that both hit an offensive benchmark and could be mitigated with rerolls. Plasmaguns wouldn't be so popular if the stat block was:

Plasmagun: Rapid Fire 1, R 24", S 7, AP -3, D 1, any Unmodified Hit Dice Roll of 1 (before or after rerolls) destroys the firing model after all attacks of the unit are resolved.

This happens to be the 3rd-7th Edition Stats for a Plasmagun because re-rolls were super hard to get on Plasmaguns back then.

Note: Gets Hot! used to allow for armor saves.
So a Marine would only die if the gun Got Hot and they rolled a 1 or a 2 on their save.

I forgot that. So use to 8th Edition, roll a 1 and die rule that I forgot the save... that my Sister Superiors failed 75% of the time after rolling a 1 to hit

 JNAProductions wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Plasma has been a problem ever since they decided in 8th Edition that there was a safe mode and a more effective Overcharge that both hit an offensive benchmark and could be mitigated with rerolls. Plasmaguns wouldn't be so popular if the stat block was:

Plasmagun: Rapid Fire 1, R 24", S 7, AP -3, D 1, any Unmodified Hit Dice Roll of 1 (before or after rerolls) destroys the firing model after all attacks of the unit are resolved.

This happens to be the 3rd-7th Edition Stats for a Plasmagun because re-rolls were super hard to get on Plasmaguns back then.

Note: Gets Hot! used to allow for armor saves.
So a Marine would only die if the gun Got Hot and they rolled a 1 or a 2 on their save.

Also note Plasma had a good chance to one shot a vehicle too with how AV used to work, still Instant Death T3 models with W2+, and was still wounding Marines and such on a 2+ (and still killed them in one shot).

This overcharged profile is quite frankly just a boogeyman for the real problem, which is what happens when you make spam super easy. Scions should still have access to all Plasma Guns in a squad, but MAYBE GW should write it so you only get one gun in a squad of 5 and then 2-3 extra in a full squad to discourage MSU.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I haven't played any of these "post-seeing-the-opponents-list optimizations" games. Can you elaborate on the cons of such a system? I'm imagining that it promotes skew, but when you say "weirdness" that sounds like it's more complicated than that.

Even just knowing the opponent's faction and their collection can lead to list tailoring. This happens a lot in small groups that only really play against one another. It can lead to an arms race where each player buys to try to get a leg up on the rest of the group.

That happens in 40k already though, as people adjust to their meta.

"the concept of 'skew' only exists because of how 40K handles listbuilding." < Also this is a really intriguing statement. Why do you say this?

The idea of two players building lists with as wide and varied a unit pool as 40k has will tend to lead to situations where one side or the other can't effectively harm the other player's force. Sometimes the game can still be a good match due to objective play but many players don't like feeling as if they can't meaningfully hurt an opponent's army.

But that's not a symptom of points, but rather a combination of variety and freedom of listbuilding. I'd also say it can be heavily mitigated through the rest of your system design. If there are more ways to meaningfully engage units (such as being able to assault Vehicles with grenades, or suppress units with fire), you can reduce the amount of hard-skew potential. 2nd edition was actually quite good in this regard, as there were lots of interesting "alternative tactics" available, such as blinding troops, or mass-lobbing grenades.

 Insectum7 wrote:
That happens in 40k already though, as people adjust to their meta.

It does but smaller metas are solved more quickly and such arms races can cause hard feelings among those smaller groups.

But that's not a symptom of points, but rather a combination of variety and freedom of listbuilding. I'd also say it can be heavily mitigated through the rest of your system design. If there are more ways to meaningfully engage units (such as being able to assault Vehicles with grenades, or suppress units with fire), you can reduce the amount of hard-skew potential. 2nd edition was actually quite good in this regard, as there were lots of interesting "alternative tactics" available, such as blinding troops, or mass-lobbing grenades.

You can already counter most skew in 40k by playing to the mission, the issue is that people don't like being told that if they match up into a list that runs a few hard-to-kill units they need to play for objects and shouldn't expect to see the opponent removing many models this game. People want to have a chance against anything even when the reality is that some games just don't work that way.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
That happens in 40k already though, as people adjust to their meta.

It does but smaller metas are solved more quickly and such arms races can cause hard feelings among those smaller groups.

But to what appeared to be the greater point, I don't see how points or lack thereof mitigates this issue.

But that's not a symptom of points, but rather a combination of variety and freedom of listbuilding. I'd also say it can be heavily mitigated through the rest of your system design. If there are more ways to meaningfully engage units (such as being able to assault Vehicles with grenades, or suppress units with fire), you can reduce the amount of hard-skew potential. 2nd edition was actually quite good in this regard, as there were lots of interesting "alternative tactics" available, such as blinding troops, or mass-lobbing grenades.

You can already counter most skew in 40k by playing to the mission, the issue is that people don't like being told that if they match up into a list that runs a few hard-to-kill units they need to play for objects and shouldn't expect to see the opponent removing many models this game. People want to have a chance against anything even when the reality is that some games just don't work that way.

My point is that you can broaden the engagement options so that you actually can fight those potentially skewed forces better. Skew potential can be mitigated in numerous ways, and mission design is probably the least palattable for many people.

 Insectum7 wrote:
But to what appeared to be the greater point, I don't see how points or lack thereof mitigates this issue.

Points allow for ease of list building and unrestricted (or near enough to unrestricted) list building leads to list tailoring and skew. Points are the cause but the way GW uses points enables poor gameplay experiences.

My point is that you can broaden the engagement options so that you actually can fight those potentially skewed forces better. Skew potential can be mitigated in numerous ways, and mission design is probably the least palattable for many people.

If you index too hard into the anything can beat anything mindset you risk making lists that can't help but skew terrible as now lists have too many tacked-on options that are a soft counter to their play style. If there is no list-building cost to being better against skew then you've just made that brand of skew worse. Given that skew is often already a poor choice you've now made those lists almost unplayable.

TLDR; Ideally neither player should be punished for playing a their list but as skew lists are already generally poor and non-skew lists can win via objective play I don't think skew should be further punished.

The objective isn't to "punish skew". The objective is to mitigate the issue of poor list-matchup by putting a greater emphasis on in-game decision making as opposed to list construction, with a focus on engagement rather than simple mission-completion. Upon that, ideally do so in a way that increases "unit agency", so that players have more empowering options at their disposal.

How does a Tactical Squad engage a Knight? Right now they sorta plink away at it, rather futilely on their own, and hopethe Knight doesn't get around to focussing it's attention on them. Buuuut, in a better system (imo) that same Tactical Squad could target Knight subsystens in an effort to meaningfully change the dynamic. A hit to the hit to decrease accuracy, or a hit to the legs to decrease movement, as the player sees fit for the tactical situation. Allow the same squad to use it's Krak grenades in close combat, so that it has a more meaningful way to hurt it if they manage to achieve that situation.

Reduce skew by offering the player more potential actions to take. You could mitigate skew by reducing list-build freedom . . . Or you can mitigate the negative effects of skew by providing more on-table options. One of those seems like a no-brainer win.

I remember a time when a single squad of Chosen CSM could threaten a Warhaound Titan. Both in rules and fluff.

 Insectum7 wrote:
The objective isn't to "punish skew". The objective is to mitigate the issue of poor list-matchup by putting a greater emphasis on in-game decision making as opposed to list construction, with a focus on engagement rather than simple mission-completion. Upon that, ideally do so in a way that increases "unit agency", so that players have more empowering options at their disposal.

Playing for objectives is a potent form of decision-making and one that results in wins.

How does a Tactical Squad engage a Knight? Right now they sorta plink away at it, rather futilely on their own, and hopethe Knight doesn't get around to focussing it's attention on them.

They used to have zero ability to harm a Knight, or any vehicle with 11 or more AV outside of a single melee attack each round unless you invested into special weapons, heavy weapons, melta bombs, or a power fist all of which you can still take. How much more vulnerable do vehicles and monstrous creatures need to be when every army already comes with the tools to deal with them?

Buuuut, in a better system (imo) that same Tactical Squad could target Knight subsystens in an effort to meaningfully change the dynamic. A hit to the hit to decrease accuracy, or a hit to the legs to decrease movement, as the player sees fit for the tactical situation. Allow the same squad to use it's Krak grenades in close combat, so that it has a more meaningful way to hurt it if they manage to achieve that situation.

What are you giving back to the larger unit in trade? Right now this is completely one-sided and only impactful against high-toughness low model count skew. Do we also give more options against hordes? MEQ/TEQ spam? Bikes? Where does the mentality of every unit needs to have an option to deal with every other unit end?

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
I remember a time when a single squad of Chosen CSM could threaten a Warhaound Titan. Both in rules and fluff.

So....this afternoon??
I mean, you have to equip/arm the Chosen correctly, get them into range without being shot to bits, inflict 6 unsaved wounds (to drop the void shields so other shooting can get through), and then maybe get a charge off.....
Thier odds aren't great, but then they weren't great in previous editions either.
And unless the Warhounds already sustained alot of damage they won't be killing it in 1 round.
Still, they could put a sizable dent in it.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Breton wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Idea vs execution.

The fact that GW did a bad job with those factions is hardly surprising, but separating them out and (attempting to) expand their rosters was not a bad idea.

Breton wrote:
Bring on the consolidated Chaos codex!

You know that doesn't mean what you think it means, right?

They wouldn't bring everything into one book. They'd remove tons of stuff from the game to make it fit in one book. Do you want Cult representation to just go back to 4 units?

Thus the Be Careful What You Wish For theme. So many were all onboard with consildating the Marines and now Chaos is up next.

What do you mean, up next?
Marines WEREN'T consolidated. They still have more Bolter varieties than some codecs have units.

Let me know when you buy your next Codex: Dark Angels, or Codex SpaceWolves instead of a supplement.

 alextroy wrote:
Plasma has been a problem ever since they decided in 8th Edition that there was a safe mode and a more effective Overcharge that both hit an offensive benchmark and could be mitigated with rerolls.

Plasma guns were transformed from interesting to essential by the AP system, which was inherently unbalanced.

Indeed, that's the primary reason GW struggles to make the points work. As I said earlier, it goes back to poor game design decisions. Because GW has such a sprawling product, it's hard to accurately price items that are deadly against X and useless against Y, particularly in an environment where X is 10 times more prevalent than Y.

That being said, GW could do better than they are doing and 6th ed. WHFB showed a way for them to do that using both points and limited choices.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
The objective isn't to "punish skew". The objective is to mitigate the issue of poor list-matchup by putting a greater emphasis on in-game decision making as opposed to list construction, with a focus on engagement rather than simple mission-completion. Upon that, ideally do so in a way that increases "unit agency", so that players have more empowering options at their disposal.

Playing for objectives is a potent form of decision-making and one that results in wins.

It's not an either/or thing. You can keep objectives while expanding the menu of on-table actions and player agency.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

How does a Tactical Squad engage a Knight? Right now they sorta plink away at it, rather futilely on their own, and hopethe Knight doesn't get around to focussing it's attention on them.

They used to have zero ability to harm a Knight, or any vehicle with 11 or more AV outside of a single melee attack each round unless you invested into special weapons, heavy weapons, melta bombs, or a power fist all of which you can still take. How much more vulnerable do vehicles and monstrous creatures need to be when every army already comes with the tools to deal with them?

Krak grenades used to be able to be used by the entire squad in CC against vehicles. "Zero ability" seems like a disingenuous take when a squad could auto-hit rear armor with 5+ S6+D6 attacks. Not sure what point you're driving at here. Do you think removing "mass-Krak" attacks was a good thing?

If the fear is that vehicles will suddenly become lackluster options, there are numerous ways to increase their attractiveness. You may recall that moving and firing with Heavy weapons was once a major advantage for Vehicles. There are pretty easy ways to ensure Vehicles still have a place.

But to the greater "skew" point. If the critique of points and the freedom of listbuilding is the potential for skew, why would you be adverse to in-game mechanics that reduce the harmful potential of skew in compensation?

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Buuuut, in a better system (imo) that same Tactical Squad could target Knight subsystens in an effort to meaningfully change the dynamic. A hit to the hit to decrease accuracy, or a hit to the legs to decrease movement, as the player sees fit for the tactical situation. Allow the same squad to use it's Krak grenades in close combat, so that it has a more meaningful way to hurt it if they manage to achieve that situation.

What are you giving back to the larger unit in trade? Right now this is completely one-sided and only impactful against high-toughness low model count skew. Do we also give more options against hordes? MEQ/TEQ spam? Bikes? Where does the mentality of every unit needs to have an option to deal with every other unit end?

Reduce skew by offering the player more potential actions to take. You could mitigate skew by reducing list-build freedom . . . Or you can mitigate the negative effects of skew by providing more on-table options. One of those seems like a no-brainer win.

You already can mitigate against skew. Build a TAC list that actually has proper tools built into it or play around your weakness in game by maximizing what your army can do against the skew it's facing.

It's true that you can already mitigate against skew. But we've established that there are many players that find merely playing to objectives in the face of skew to be less rewarding than being able to engage more meaningfully with it. So why not provide more tactical options?


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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Plasma has been a problem ever since they decided in 8th Edition that there was a safe mode and a more effective Overcharge that both hit an offensive benchmark and could be mitigated with rerolls.

Plasma guns were transformed from interesting to essential by the AP system, which was inherently unbalanced.

Depends on your meta. I ran high numbers of Flamers in 3rd/4th because regularly faced Nids, Orks and Dark Eldar, and also because they were cheap. Plus Melta and Flamers were also Assault weapons, so you could charge after firing them, which could be critical, and kept them valuable even against the MEQ targets that Plasma was tailored for. Plus Melta Instant Deathed T4 units, such as Characters or Crisis Suits.

Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Having played a number of games that do provide those sort of post-seeing-the-opponent's-list optimizations, I'm not so sure that the wildly varying 'bang for your buck' that comes from building a list in a vacuum is good design.

. . .

And I haven't even gotten started on the weirdness that comes into play when you know what your opponent plays and how that knowledge affects your listbuilding.

I see a bit of tension here

I haven't played any of these "post-seeing-the-opponents-list optimizations" games. Can you elaborate on the cons of such a system? I'm imagining that it promotes skew, but when you say "weirdness" that sounds like it's more complicated than that.

"the concept of 'skew' only exists because of how 40K handles listbuilding." < Also this is a really intriguing statement. Why do you say this?

Also I'm short on time and I feel like my brain's not working very well this morning, so I apologize in advance for not being able to fully engage atm. I promise I'll try to absorb it though.

Sorry, I was a bit unclear and I think you misunderstood my statement: The 'weirdness' I was referring to is what happens in 40K when you have some idea of what your opponent is going to field and can tailor accordingly.

Let's consider 3rd-7th Ed flamers, with the template that atomized hordes but wasn't great against Marines. If I know that my buddy has a Green Tide army, I might be tempted to load up on flamers. If the cost of those flamers is set based on some average between effectiveness vs Marines and effectiveness vs Orks, then they'd overperform in our matchup. Knowing what's in the opponent's army screws up balance, because it makes specialized weapons like flamers (ostensibly balanced by being bad against everything besides hordes) more effective since you can cherry-pick the ones that you know will be useful.

If I really have no idea what I'm going to be facing, though, I'm not going to load up on flamers. I might take a few, but going all-in on anti-horde would obviously be a mistake in a game that's majority MEQ. So I put down my army with a mix of flamers, plasma guns, meltaguns, and so on... and then when my opponent plunks down two hundred Boyz, I have a problem, because my meltaguns and lascannons are nearly useless. Or they put down all tanks, and now my flamers are worthless and I don't have enough anti-tank to deal with them. My TAC list hits a skew list and I have a bad time.

Skew is, fundamentally, when you lean strongly into one defensive profile archetype, oversaturating the ideal counter to that archetype while being resilient to weapons not intended to counter that archetype. Skew only works because those weapons are chosen without knowing what your army looks like, so you can reasonably expect that only a portion of your opponent's army will be able to counter you.

Chain of Command doesn't have these issues, because you pick your support assets after the enemy force and mission are known. I don't need to worry about running into massed Volksgrenadiers that make my anti-tank weapons useless, or running into multiple T-34s and not having enough anti-tank: if I'm facing tanks I bring anti-tank weapons, and if I'm facing infantry I don't. What 40K calls 'skew' is what CoC calls 'crippling overspecialization', and you're encouraged to take complementary capabilities rather than min-maxing into one thing that the enemy can just hard-counter. And even if I know that my buddy has a Tiger that he's itching to field, that information doesn't benefit me or enable me to better counter his army.

More importantly, it's much easier to balance options just because of this simple change. For instance, flamethrowers are priced according to the assumption that you will have ideal terrain, objectives, and targets for flamethrower use, because if you don't have these things, you won't take flamethrowers. Anti-tank guns can be balanced around the assumption that there will be tanks on the field. Machine guns around the assumption that you will have clear lines of fire. The developers don't have to assign a points cost based on some nebulous idea of average value in all circumstances, and you don't need to stick to homogenous terrain setups and bland scenarios to ensure everything is useful.

Historically, 40K has addressed this balancing problem with the use of force organization restrictions, in an attempt to ensure that any army you went up against was reasonably well-rounded. Clearly, this did not always work. In 8th, with much relaxed force organization requirements, GW instead started to address it by...

Tyel wrote:I mean part of the issue with basic flamers (D6 S4 AP-) is that they aren't that hot into anything. Versus today's Boyz 3.5*1/3*5/6*8=7.777 points. But shooting a Marine is only 3.5*1/2*1/3*9=5.25. Its not miles worse. Whereas say an overcharged plasma gun into a marine is 2*1/2*5/6*5/6*18=12.5. Whereas into Boyz you can fire it undercharged and expect to get 5.33 points. There's some factoring in for the fact the guy may just die on the overcharge - but you won't get to shoot that often anyway, and rerolls are everywhere. It gets more skewed if you were to shoot say Termagants or Guardians with a flamer - but you could mow down GEQ with bolters, lasguns or your fists. You aren't gaining much strategically from buffing that sort of firepower.

...flattening out profiles so that the value of an option does not depend as much on context. Flamers are now reasonably comparable against GEQs and MEQs. Tanks can be hurt with rifle fire. Aircraft are just flying tanks and AA weapons don't exist anymore.

It lessens the impact of in-a-vacuum listbuilding, but skew is still a problem and, honestly, I think it makes for a blander experience. Weapons have more overlap in roles than they used to, and often there are clear winners and losers when two weapons do the same thing but one's better at it. In 8th and 9th this converged towards moderate-strength, some-AP, high-volume weapons being reasonably effective against most things, and overly-specialized weapon profiles don't see much play.

It's a solution. I don't think it's an ideal one.