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Not Online!!! wrote:
You severly underestimate the cult of oficialdom in the hobby penitent.

This 100%. I have seen in the 25+ years i've been involved in 40k that almost always "tournament standard" infests an area and becomes THE standard, whether you're doing a tournament, preparing for a tournament, or having a friendly game. The assumption is that you're playing by the "standard" rules which for 40k means "2k Matched Play with the current GT pack" unless stated otherwise.

It has nothing to do with custom rules, it's the idea that to most people "GT Matched Play" is synonymous with "Matched Play".

Not Online!!! wrote:
You severly underestimate the cult of oficialdom in the hobby penitent.

I do not. I'm just saying that the Cult of officialdom in the hobby is not created by GW.

My store ran a 15 PL escalation slow grow without strats. It CAN happen. The rules support it. The company supports it.

Your Cult of officialdom is powerful and pervasive- I am absolutely aware of that. But it is not GW's fault- they put a lot of R&D into Crusade, and to a lesser extent, Open. Heck, they run Grand Narrative events!

I don't know how to unmake the Cult of Officialdom, but it is absolutely not GW's fault if no one chooses to use the alternatives to Matched play that have been provided.

Note: I think that one thing the company COULD have done was hosted a regular Battle Report spin-off that was an ongoing crusade story. I wanted to do this myself, but I am a slow painter... And a sub-par painter too if I'm being totally honest. The absence of GOOD Crusade space-opera videos is utterly depressing given how cool such a thing could be and how beneficial it could have been for the community. Scaredcast had a three our four session series of small battles in an ongoing Crusade, but they didn't dive deep enough into the campaign angle to really make it shine.

Wayniac wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
You severly underestimate the cult of oficialdom in the hobby penitent.

This 100%. I have seen in the 25+ years i've been involved in 40k that almost always "tournament standard" infests an area and becomes THE standard, whether you're doing a tournament, preparing for a tournament, or having a friendly game. The assumption is that you're playing by the "standard" rules which for 40k means "2k Matched Play with the current GT pack" unless stated otherwise.

It has nothing to do with custom rules, it's the idea that to most people "GT Matched Play" is synonymous with "Matched Play".

It's not an idea if it is a norm..infact deviation is something that you have to ask for specifically and implicates the structure in place is preciscly the common standard. Which isn't to say it's bad, merely the current standard is for a wargame mechanically disapointing (symetrical terrain, lack of sideboards, lackluster interaction with enemy units due to rules normally tied to morale beeing badly executed, etc.) and from a narrative perspective rather disturbing, since 40k always did profit significantly from even an implicit narrative structure, even if it was reduced to nametags under hq choices.


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PenitentJake wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
You severly underestimate the cult of oficialdom in the hobby penitent.

I do not. I'm just saying that the Cult of officialdom in the hobby is not created by GW.

My store ran a 15 PL escalation slow grow without strats. It CAN happen. The rules support it. The company supports it.

Your Cult of officialdom is powerful and pervasive- I am absolutely aware of that. But it is not GW's fault- they put a lot of R&D into Crusade, and to a lesser extent, Open. Heck, they run Grand Narrative events!

i disagree, crusade rules, Like all gw rules have serious QA issues and are in many cases very lackluster.
Crusade is for some factions an absolut blast, whilest others just ... Don't jive narrativly and mechanically. Gsc come to mind.

I don't know how to unmake the Cult of Officialdom, but it is absolutely not GW's fault if no one chooses to use the alternatives to Matched play that have been provided.

Note: I think that one thing the company COULD have done was hosted a regular Battle Report spin-off that was an ongoing crusade story. I wanted to do this myself, but I am a slow painter... And a sub-par painter too if I'm being totally honest. The absence of GOOD Crusade space-opera videos is utterly depressing given how cool such a thing could be and how beneficial it could have been for the community. Scaredcast had a three our four session serious of small battles in an ongoing Crusade, but they didn't dive deep enough into the campaign angle to really make it shine.

I disagree here aswell, gw very much follows the marketing approach to it and is therefore responsible for it.

Crusade f.e. in their webpresence is often an afterthought. Crusade itself is further an standardisation to something that should arguably not be standardised.


By virtue alone that matched play is so dominant in the current rather competitive focused form it is implicit "the game ".

Deviation though is using the GT stuff instead of like Eternal War, or using AOO stuff. It's just that people are convinced that's the "most balanced" way, ergo it should be the default. The argument is always something like "Why WOULDN'T you want to use the most balanced set of rules, even for casual games" which, while not wrong, illustrates the problem. There is SUPPOSED to be a difference between "Hey want a friendly 2k game this weekend?" and "Want a competitive game this weekend?" or "I want to practice my tournament list, do you want to play a practice game?"

The fact that Eternal War, which is the default, is considered "bad" and only the GT AOO is balanced so is "good" is part of the issue. Eternal War matched play should be the default, not the GT pack du jour.

ERJAK wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
I think the real danger of competitive is how it’s pushed and how it affects local scenes, especially the new influx of players into them. Try and just walk up to someone and propose a house rule or custom scenario and you’re met with confusion a lot of the time now. Gw is kinda using the competitive angle to turn their way of play into the perceived only way to play.

It's not a confused look, it's one of revulsion. Anything that's not "current meta" is discarded immediately out of hand.

How many times in the last two editions did you try set up a Pick up game with a relative stranger, and of those instances, how many times did you suggest a custom scenario? Either of you? Did you even try?

Every game at my FLGS I'd suggest the open war deck. Only 3 people said yes, and they are the ones that I continue to play and schedule games ahead of time. I don't even bring it up anymore when doing pick up games.

Racerguy180 wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
I think the real danger of competitive is how it’s pushed and how it affects local scenes, especially the new influx of players into them. Try and just walk up to someone and propose a house rule or custom scenario and you’re met with confusion a lot of the time now. Gw is kinda using the competitive angle to turn their way of play into the perceived only way to play.

It's not a confused look, it's one of revulsion. Anything that's not "current meta" is discarded immediately out of hand.

How many times in the last two editions did you try set up a Pick up game with a relative stranger, and of those instances, how many times did you suggest a custom scenario? Either of you? Did you even try?

Every game at my FLGS I'd suggest the open war deck. Only 3 people said yes, and they are the ones that I continue to play and schedule games ahead of time. I don't even bring it up anymore when doing pick up games.

Exactly the issue. Because anything that isnt "current GT pack" is considered optional/unbalanced, when the current GT pack is supposed to be the outlier. The priorities are all wrong, and GW does nothing to combat this. You rarely find anyone wiling to do anything that's not that, matched play or otherwise, because the perceived stigma is "GT = balanced, everything else = unbalanced" when that's not at all true.

Wayniac wrote:
Deviation though is using the GT stuff instead of like Eternal War, or using AOO stuff. It's just that people are convinced that's the "most balanced" way, ergo it should be the default. The argument is always something like "Why WOULDN'T you want to use the most balanced set of rules, even for casual games" which, while not wrong, illustrates the problem. There is SUPPOSED to be a difference between "Hey want a friendly 2k game this weekend?" and "Want a competitive game this weekend?" or "I want to practice my tournament list, do you want to play a practice game?"

Oh absolutly, but the point of balance is a fair one.
Especially since gw's trackrecord is shoddy on that front.

That said however the kind of " balance" there is an illusion and a marketing tool in itself, because it allows gw to state that they so /did something when they Change the GT pack or points.

Overall the tournament data and especially win% are a severly flawed look at a factions health themselves since tournaments will basically only see the top builds with the best available composition. Ergo an army can have a nice 52% winrate overall, be claimed to be well balanced when in fact 80% of said faction is completly useless and the 52% are solely a result of 3 -4 units in said book.
Especially leading to dissonance when the tournament build goes completly contrary to the Lore of the faction or even subfaction.

Wayniac wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
You severly underestimate the cult of oficialdom in the hobby penitent.

This 100%. I have seen in the 25+ years i've been involved in 40k that almost always "tournament standard" infests an area and becomes THE standard, whether you're doing a tournament, preparing for a tournament, or having a friendly game. The assumption is that you're playing by the "standard" rules which for 40k means "2k Matched Play with the current GT pack" unless stated otherwise.

It has nothing to do with custom rules, it's the idea that to most people "GT Matched Play" is synonymous with "Matched Play".

Even before Matched Play, this was an issue.


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Wayniac wrote:

Exactly the issue. Because anything that isnt "current GT pack" is considered optional/unbalanced, when the current GT pack is supposed to be the outlier. The priorities are all wrong, and GW does nothing to combat this.

What exactly is GW supposed to do?

Seriously, this isn't a "GW pushes these things" issue. It's that in-store gaming culture for the US tends to be fairly stagnant. And that's for independents or GW shops.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
You severly underestimate the cult of oficialdom in the hobby penitent.

This 100%. I have seen in the 25+ years i've been involved in 40k that almost always "tournament standard" infests an area and becomes THE standard, whether you're doing a tournament, preparing for a tournament, or having a friendly game. The assumption is that you're playing by the "standard" rules which for 40k means "2k Matched Play with the current GT pack" unless stated otherwise.

It has nothing to do with custom rules, it's the idea that to most people "GT Matched Play" is synonymous with "Matched Play".

Even before Matched Play, this was an issue.


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Wayniac wrote:

Exactly the issue. Because anything that isnt "current GT pack" is considered optional/unbalanced, when the current GT pack is supposed to be the outlier. The priorities are all wrong, and GW does nothing to combat this.

What exactly is GW supposed to do?

Seriously, this isn't a "GW pushes these things" issue. It's that in-store gaming culture for the US tends to be fairly stagnant. And that's for independents or GW shops.

They could do more to make it perfectly clear you should NOT use GT rules unless you're in a tournament, idk. Do something crazy, like ban forgeworld for the GT pack entirely (but we saw how that works with legends. "You can still use it in casual games" is basically a meaningless excuse since most casual games won't let you use them anyway because tournaments don't) That's the issue though isnt it? As long as the idea is "Tournament play = balanced, everything else is not" it's hard to get that mindset going.

But that's not why the idea is there. It isn't GW putting it out there.

It's that all the clicks, discussion, and third-party stuff is centered around that concept. And it usually involves punching down at Narrative or Crusade play.

 Kanluwen wrote:
But that's not why the idea is there. It isn't GW putting it out there.

It's that all the clicks, discussion, and third-party stuff is centered around that concept. And it usually involves punching down at Narrative or Crusade play.

True, but isn't that something that GW should do something, anything, to try and get rid of that mindset? There should be room for all areas of play, not ignore everything except one very small subset and act like it's the majority.

Or at least make a distinction between tournament play and matched play to make it 100% clear that GT play is not intended or designed for "game night at your local store".

 Kanluwen wrote:
But that's not why the idea is there. It isn't GW putting it out there.

It's that all the clicks, discussion, and third-party stuff is centered around that concept. And it usually involves punching down at Narrative or Crusade play.

Again that would be true if it weren't gw pushing gt pack and tournament data for balanceing for marketing themselves far more that f.e. narratives or campaigns.
Hell they use rules even in "narrative " books to push and shift product as seen f.e. with the now infamous psychic awakening.

Maybee i am just too cynical torwards gw though.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
But that's not why the idea is there. It isn't GW putting it out there.

It's that all the clicks, discussion, and third-party stuff is centered around that concept. And it usually involves punching down at Narrative or Crusade play.

Again that would be true if it weren't gw pushing gt pack and tournament data for balanceing for marketing themselves far more that f.e. narratives or campaigns.
Hell they use rules even in "narrative " books to push and shift product as seen f.e. with the now infamous psychic awakening.

Maybee i am just too cynical torwards gw though.

No, you're not. On one hand though, the tournament data IS good for balancing. There's no denying that. The problem is that it's their only data, and it affects everything NOT just tournament play. So you basically have a tiny portion of the game affecting the larger parts, for good or ill (because while some changes are good, some are 100% kneejerk reactions to tournament filth and not indicative at all of the majority of games). THAT'S the problem. The kneejerk reactions to tournaments, that trickle down to effect everything else.

I'm all for GW doing more to help promote other styles of play, but I think introducing the idea of trying to punish people out of Matched play is the wrong attitude entirely.

This is a hobby to enjoy; forcing people out isn't the way to encourage them to play other formats. That might well have them just throw their arms up and leave GW and play other games. Which isn't an all round bad thing, but if your objective was narrative/crusade 40K games and everyone just got sick of GW bossing/forcing them around and left for Kings of War, that's not really gained you what you want.


Also as GW is in the UK and this issue seems to be more prevalent in the US, it might just be GW doens't really see it as an issue because a lot of their home-turf game clubs don't have the same steadfast mindset.


But yeah back before the 3ways to play marketing; most people did play 2K full rules or 1.5K. Heck until GW focused on promoting Killteam it was often overlooked despite being in the core book for years.

And when GW promoted it more it worked; GW didn't have to push people out of Matched play, they encouraged them into Killteam.



Heck perhaps the issue is you're just asking people to play a different game format and they don't see any reason to change. Perhaps you are not advertising and making it sound just as if not more fun or just a different kind of fun that's fresh, exciting and something they want to take part in

I've seen it going for 25 years. I think it's legit just people want to follow "standards" like lemmings, and never deviate. The constant peddling of content creators/3rd party sites/etc. about "GT play is the most balanced" doesn't help any, because it keeps reinforcing that idea and it's a skewed argument. Of COURSE you want the game to be as balanced as possible. It's a loaded question.

A big issue too is the proliferation of the internet now. Back in the old days we didn't have things as prevalent as today, where you were bombarded with tournament reports/tactics/etc. that made it out like tournament play is "real 40k". Even on Dakka back in the day (and I came here when it was on what was it, Proboards? Invisionfree? Something like that, with a flash menu) you never saw this constant "let's all assume tournaments are the de facto standard".

The internet defaults to tournaments/matched play because its creates constants. Same reason that discussions about DnD and such often involve using the official core rules or are niche discussions on social groups for those following 3rd party creator packs.

Open play is just impossible because every system and game group interprets it their own way; even down to specific games. So its hard ot have a base line.

Meanwhile Narrative is often not as focused on in battle reports, whcih is a huge shame; but at the same time for many people narrative is just Matched play with a bit of story or unit selection restrictions.

Again Matched play is just such a common standard everyone can understand it makes it easy.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Fact is that once upon a time you saw far more conversions with no official model, nowadays you basically See nada.

Thats because GW got rid of the unit profiles.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Gsc come to mind.

Wow.

GSC is one of the best, fluffiest and most well developed sets of Crusade rules in the game. From planet development, to institution development, to infiltration, to discovery, to ascension... It's brilliant. The Agendas are very poignant- the Genestealer's Kiss and Silence Detractors are two of my faves. The Cult Grows Requisition is wicked, and connecting it to Institution infiltration gives it the narrative hook.

I would have made the Brood Cycle rules stronger, but I also would have created a system where the Cult grows according to generations. GW didn't do this because they knew most people would consider it too restrictive. There's nothing stopping players from doing it, but GW knew if they insisted, many people wouldn't want to follow.

But seriously, I'm curious what the specific things are that you think are wrong with GSC crusade material. Heck, I think I remember the folks at Goonhammer celebrating the GSC Crusade content as the best in the game... Of course that opinion would be frozen in time, and any Crusade content developed afterward may have been more highly rated... But it's still a cinch for the top three.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Different method - same outcome. Non-symmetrical terrain will provide an advantage to one person over the other.

You can't say that for certain.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
You could have deployment zone terrain be similar and mid-board be random-ish and that could be fine, but it really comes down to what they decided to use for rules this time.

We got on fine without symmetrical boards for years before it suddenly became something that was "required".

ERJAK wrote:


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Not Online!!! wrote:
You severly underestimate the cult of oficialdom in the hobby penitent.

Maybe your custom rules are just doggak? That's always an option. In fact, it's the most PROBABLE option.

Almost all custom rules are garbage. If GW is as bad as they are with people getting paid, I'm not going to trust some narrative nonsense player with their custom rule for their "LOST PHOENIX LORD THAT'S BETTER THAN THE OTHERS" and is either grotesquely overpowered or so bad that the opponent might as well have taken a 200 point handicap.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Different method - same outcome. Non-symmetrical terrain will provide an advantage to one person over the other.

You can't say that for certain.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
You could have deployment zone terrain be similar and mid-board be random-ish and that could be fine, but it really comes down to what they decided to use for rules this time.

We got on fine without symmetrical boards for years before it suddenly became something that was "required".

Indeed.

Learning how to effectively use terrain was, once upon a time, just as vital to victory as knowing what your own models were capable of.

I can’t speak on the current terrain rules, because as ever currently a non-gamer. But asymmetrical terrain has always been part of the fun. If I’ve gone infantry heavy, and my opponent tank heavy? Different terrain would either help or hinder. Not really knowing what it would look like was all part of the risks we take when writing a list.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Fact is that once upon a time you saw far more conversions with no official model, nowadays you basically See nada.

Thats because GW got rid of the unit profiles.

I mean its more because GW changed direction..

Before Chapterhouse lawsuit GW was getting into a pattern of adding models into Codex and not releasing models for them. Tyranids had several new leader models added and they didn't get any official model through at least two generations of codex. They were long stretches with no official model. IT wasn't that converting was an option, it was mandatory to field certain options in armies.

Then Chapterhouse made GW change that to only putting models in the book that they were actually selling.
thing is this is in line with most other companies. Companies only show what they make because what they make is what sells and generates money for them.



So converting is back to where it was and is best, optional

And as for seeing less, I dunno between conversions and 3D printing I'd wager there's far more of it going on now than in the past. Perhaps it feels diluted because its not front and centre as it once was or perhaps its done more but the number of gamers is way larger so its a bit more diluted in the market. But there's masses of awesome stuff out there if you go looking.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Different method - same outcome. Non-symmetrical terrain will provide an advantage to one person over the other.

You can't say that for certain.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
You could have deployment zone terrain be similar and mid-board be random-ish and that could be fine, but it really comes down to what they decided to use for rules this time.

We got on fine without symmetrical boards for years before it suddenly became something that was "required".

Indeed.

Learning how to effectively use terrain was, once upon a time, just as vital to victory as knowing what your own models were capable of.
.

40K and most GW and fantasy/scifi wargames have a massive gap in interaction whcih is teaching how to play and talking about actual play and tactics. Which directly impacts things like terrain placement and choice.

We can do stats, dice theory; list building; painting; converting; but actual playing the game is a black hole. Heck its so bad that people actually defend the Double Turn in Age of Sigmar and hold up normal bog standard tactics (eg screening) as the solutions.

Heck you've got more chance getting a conversation going in depth on sculpting than you have on actual gameplay tactics and far fewer people actually sculpt than game.



We just don't have a culture for it and no one has really pushed hard to grow one. It takes a lot of work and we don't have the foundations established like we do for things like painting

 Overread wrote:
but I think introducing the idea of trying to punish people out of Matched play is the wrong attitude entirely.

I don't think anyone should be 'punished', but we're in this situation precisely because GW is unwilling to draw a line between everything-in-your-codex casual play and more restrictive (but more balanced) competitive play, and instead we have one ruleset to rule them all.

GW could make a better-balanced tournament ruleset if they took after the example of CCGs (or their own tournaments from 3rd-5th), and abandoned the notion that everything you can use in casual play should be allowed in tournaments too. They could remove layered rules (eg subfactions), ban non-codex (eg FW) units, ban specific codex units and options from competitive play, implement stricter limits on how many of each unit you're allowed to take, restrict units to fixed compositions, or even eliminate listbuilding altogether by making pre-built lists that you get to select from. By reducing layers of rules and reducing the significance of listbuilding they could achieve a significantly more balanced game state with fewer edge cases, and make for a competitive experience that hinges on gameplay skill and not listbuilding exploits.

And y'know, then maybe people would say 'actually, I don't think I'm looking for the Most Balanced Competitive Experience, the default rules are fine' and play by a more relaxed default ruleset, rather than following whatever the latest grand tournament pack is.

Instead the three-ways-to-play amounts to 'standard rules', 'standard rules with extra fluffy stuff', and 'ignore whatever rules you want I'm not a cop'. Why wouldn't new players default to Matched Play when it's structured and presented like this?

Slipspace wrote:
I'm curious as to why you think the game would be more balanced if tournament play wasn't a thing. Without the tournament packs what format would a standard pick-up game be? Ultimately GW still needs to balance based around something and the easiest at the moment is the tournament scene, thanks to the standardised missions and wealth of data available.

Your proposal doesn't seem to make much sense. Are you suggesting the game would be better if it was less balanced?

I'm saying the game would be better if people didn't need to relearn the game/buy $110 worth of already outdated rules books every ten minutes. I didn't say it would be more balanced without tournaments. I just clearly don't care all that much about absolute balance. First off, unless you literally have one identical faction, balance is impossible. 2nd, Spike can't bring his tourney army to play casual if there weren't tourney play. 3rd, 40k is a TERRIBLE game for competitive play anyway. 4th, without tourney packs your pickup game format issssss....whatever you want it to be of course. This game is best as a casual game, which is how most players play. 5th and lastly, GW is about as likely to study army lists at your local shop as I am likely to spontaneously grow a 3rd arm out of my forehead.


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 Canadian 5th wrote:

hunterac20@gmail.com wrote:
I think the biggest issue with trying to balance 40k in any meaningful way is tournament/competitive play. I don't think it was really designed for that. Big beautiful armies, epic battles, and fluff are the draws of WH vs. other tabletop battle games. The constant points changes/nerfs/rules changes are unfun for virtually everyone, Timmy, Johnny, and Spikes alike.

No. Even if it was I don't want to hear it from a throwaway account so lazy they couldn't even manage a username.

Very insightful trolling

 catbarf wrote:

 Overread wrote:
but I think introducing the idea of trying to punish people out of Matched play is the wrong attitude entirely.

I don't think anyone should be 'punished', but we're in this situation precisely because GW is unwilling to draw a line between everything-in-your-codex casual play and more restrictive (but more balanced) competitive play, and instead we have one ruleset to rule them all.

GW could make a better-balanced tournament ruleset if they took after the example of CCGs (or their own tournaments from 3rd-5th), and abandoned the notion that everything you can use in casual play should be allowed in tournaments too. They could remove layered rules (eg subfactions), ban non-codex (eg FW) units, ban specific codex units and options from competitive play, implement stricter limits on how many of each unit you're allowed to take, restrict units to fixed compositions, or even eliminate listbuilding altogether by making pre-built lists that you get to select from. By reducing layers of rules and reducing the significance of listbuilding they could achieve a significantly more balanced game state with fewer edge cases, and make for a competitive experience that hinges on gameplay skill and not listbuilding exploits.

And y'know, then maybe people would say 'actually, I don't think I'm looking for the Most Balanced Competitive Experience, the default rules are fine' and play by a more relaxed default ruleset, rather than following whatever the latest grand tournament pack is.

Instead the three-ways-to-play amounts to 'standard rules', 'standard rules with extra fluffy stuff', and 'ignore whatever rules you want I'm not a cop'. Why wouldn't new players default to Matched Play when it's structured and presented like this?

It is always "fun" to see how tournament-oriented players are willing to sacrifice every game aspect that other players like about wargames - immersion (e.g. templates, facings etc), unique terrain and scenarios, asymmetry, suboptimal options ("bloat"), lore, etc in the name of "balance and fair ground", except the very thing that creates the balance problem in the first place - listbuilding. I'm really curious what arguments will be thrown around to dismiss The Most Balanced Competitive Experience in the form of the new Combat Patrol. Game mode, where you'll actually have to know how to play the game instead of how to break the game... I have already seen dismissal on the grounds "it's GW, it won't even be balanced". How on earth can one expect GW to achieve balance in the whole game and at the same time claim they are unable to balance a tiny, tiny subset of it?

hunterac20@gmail.com wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
I'm curious as to why you think the game would be more balanced if tournament play wasn't a thing. Without the tournament packs what format would a standard pick-up game be? Ultimately GW still needs to balance based around something and the easiest at the moment is the tournament scene, thanks to the standardised missions and wealth of data available.

Your proposal doesn't seem to make much sense. Are you suggesting the game would be better if it was less balanced?

I'm saying the game would be better if people didn't need to relearn the game/buy $110 worth of already outdated rules books every ten minutes. I didn't say it would be more balanced without tournaments. I just clearly don't care all that much about absolute balance. First off, unless you literally have one identical faction, balance is impossible. 2nd, Spike can't bring his tourney army to play casual if there weren't tourney play. 3rd, 40k is a TERRIBLE game for competitive play anyway. 4th, without tourney packs your pickup game format issssss....whatever you want it to be of course. This game is best as a casual game, which is how most players play. 5th and lastly, GW is about as likely to study army lists at your local shop as I am likely to spontaneously grow a 3rd arm out of my forehead.


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 Canadian 5th wrote:

hunterac20@gmail.com wrote:
I think the biggest issue with trying to balance 40k in any meaningful way is tournament/competitive play. I don't think it was really designed for that. Big beautiful armies, epic battles, and fluff are the draws of WH vs. other tabletop battle games. The constant points changes/nerfs/rules changes are unfun for virtually everyone, Timmy, Johnny, and Spikes alike.

No. Even if it was I don't want to hear it from a throwaway account so lazy they couldn't even manage a username.

Very insightful trolling

Well, at least with this post you are coming out and saying what you mean rather than asking a rhetorical question. To your points:

Balancing updates from GW can generate some confusion and uncertainty, but you are employing hyperbole to say that its a $110 book every ten minutes. I don't love the cycle of books that rolled out the missions, but I think we absolutely need balance updates for both casual and tournament play.

Its clear that you think that people who play at tournaments are having fun wrong, and you are making some broad statements about how the game is supposed to be played. There can be times when a player bring a very competitive list to a pick-up game, but that could happen with or without tournaments. Top tournament players are not going to the FLGS to look for new players to stomp since that does not contribute to their goal. At least with GW trying to balance for tournaments the power of those lists is mitigated. Otherwise you are relying on the players to do it themselves.

You have some strange logic that getting rid of tournament packs would mean that pick-up games could be whatever format you want. Pick-up games, in theory, can still have any format that both players agree to. Harder to achieve in practice without a common external framework. Pick-up games work because the players arrive with a lingua franca of mission/game design provided by the main rules and mission pack. They don't need to hammer one out themselves at the table - its a pickup game! Two close friends that want to re-enact a certain battle from the Badaab Wars are free to do with their own creativity regarding missions and unit restrictions, but don't expect two strangers to arrive at a pick-up game with such compatible interests. A local group is still free to have their own rules and missions - power to them. But the rest of the world will enjoy having a framework for those pick-up games.

 catbarf wrote:
GW struggles with balance- also water is wet and the Pope is Catholic. I'm afraid I don't see your point.

A few of the upgrades were pointless, but most were just not worth the points if you're trying to min-max effectiveness rather than picking the wargear you've already modeled or choosing the ones relevant to your personal fluff for the character.

Is the argument that because a few of those options were redundant, having options was pointless altogether? That's a heck of a stretch.

The argument is that "only tournament players care about the functionality of rules options" is a meme argument. I have been playing since 5th edition, I have never played in any real tournaments to speak of, and yet I have never encountered a player who was okay with putting absolute dogshit on the table just for the sake of "muh narrative". At the end of the day, 40K is a PvP experience which means that it is inherently competitive. There is no such thing as a non-competitive game of warhammer. I too remember the days of every captain having the special 2+sv armor... because why wouldn't you? Out of all the available options it was the only one that was even slightly functional, and that's important because a unit being functional is what allows you to have that fluffy narrative that you're looking for. I remember playing Daemons into Space Marines in 6th edition, and my opponent was running some kind of Deathwing list. It was his big moment: the Deathwing terminators were in position to charge my lines, we both expected total carnage as the Emperor's Finest rampaged through Slaanesh's forces with holy fervor. Instead, his 350 points of Deathwing charged my 120 points of seekers, and the seekers killed 80% of them before they could even swing (initiative 5, baby). His turn was a wet fart, he ended up conceding a turn or two later.

In your mind, because this was a fluffy beerhammer game and not some sweaty tournament, he didn't care, right? No, he was irritated and the next time he played against my Slaanesh he took a stormbolter spam list (the meta at the time for Dark Angels) instead of a Terminator list and we had a much more enraging match. That is 40k. There are many players who don't care about winning, but there is no such thing as a player who enjoys getting BTFO and their units not performing the way that they are at least described as performing in the fluff. So your prior comment about "your problem is looking at rules through a competitive lens" is a meme because everyone looks at the game through a competitive lens, just to varying degrees, and so even casual players are not likely to take units/wargear that are blatantly trash.

It isn't necessarily "pointless" to give players extra options if those extra options are worthless, but it is absolutely fair to point out every single time people sing the praises of crap like CSM 3.5, that 90% of players were not taking the "this sword gives you +1" to movement" option over the "this helmet gives you a 3+ invuln" one, even if the sword was fluffier, and so this narrative that older editions were just so much more flavorful than the modern ones is largely crap. Older editions, at best, had the illusion of flavor. In reality, you know damn well you took the artificer armor every time and so did all your friends.

nou wrote:
It is always "fun" to see how tournament-oriented players are willing to sacrifice every game aspect that other players like about wargames - immersion (e.g. templates, facings etc), unique terrain and scenarios, asymmetry, suboptimal options ("bloat"), lore, etc in the name of "balance and fair ground"

Tournament players were the ones who had the least amount of issues with these mechanics, as they were good enough to use them against you and their lists were strong enough to ignore them if they weren't (eg, 6th edition Tau, 7th edition Daemons etc).

except the very thing that creates the balance problem in the first place - listbuilding.

Tournament players have been some of the loudest proponents of list building reform. Going from the FoC to detachments to where we are now is largely due to the feedback from tournament players.

Anyway, the fact that 40K is more profitable and popular post 8th edition than ever before is proof that tournament players are not the only ones who wanted a leaner, better balanced game.

nou wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 Overread wrote:
but I think introducing the idea of trying to punish people out of Matched play is the wrong attitude entirely.

I don't think anyone should be 'punished', but we're in this situation precisely because GW is unwilling to draw a line between everything-in-your-codex casual play and more restrictive (but more balanced) competitive play, and instead we have one ruleset to rule them all.

GW could make a better-balanced tournament ruleset if they took after the example of CCGs (or their own tournaments from 3rd-5th), and abandoned the notion that everything you can use in casual play should be allowed in tournaments too. They could remove layered rules (eg subfactions), ban non-codex (eg FW) units, ban specific codex units and options from competitive play, implement stricter limits on how many of each unit you're allowed to take, restrict units to fixed compositions, or even eliminate listbuilding altogether by making pre-built lists that you get to select from. By reducing layers of rules and reducing the significance of listbuilding they could achieve a significantly more balanced game state with fewer edge cases, and make for a competitive experience that hinges on gameplay skill and not listbuilding exploits.

And y'know, then maybe people would say 'actually, I don't think I'm looking for the Most Balanced Competitive Experience, the default rules are fine' and play by a more relaxed default ruleset, rather than following whatever the latest grand tournament pack is.

Instead the three-ways-to-play amounts to 'standard rules', 'standard rules with extra fluffy stuff', and 'ignore whatever rules you want I'm not a cop'. Why wouldn't new players default to Matched Play when it's structured and presented like this?

It is always "fun" to see how tournament-oriented players are willing to sacrifice every game aspect that other players like about wargames - immersion (e.g. templates, facings etc), unique terrain and scenarios, asymmetry, suboptimal options ("bloat"), lore, etc in the name of "balance and fair ground", except the very thing that creates the balance problem in the first place - listbuilding. I'm really curious what arguments will be thrown around to dismiss The Most Balanced Competitive Experience in the form of the new Combat Patrol. Game mode, where you'll actually have to know how to play the game instead of how to break the game... I have already seen dismissal on the grounds "it's GW, it won't even be balanced". How on earth can one expect GW to achieve balance in the whole game and at the same time claim they are unable to balance a tiny, tiny subset of it?

You've got some really strange assertions in there. Templates are one of the least immersive things to ever grace the game; game play _stopped_ when the templates came out and 'checking the angle' and outright bickering started. (my attempts to speed it up was always to simple cave and cede the high number- 'Fine, you hit four. Whatever')

As a NON-tournament player I have no interest in 'unique' terrain (I really want general, simple terrain rules that work with any terrain I (or a shop) happen to have on hand, the five paragraphs per terrain type of twisted, backwards garbage they produced for 9th edition is right out) or bloat. I want a functional game, with explicit and well defined rules. Vague attempts at blending 'natural' and technical writing doesn't interest me.

As for combat patrols, is the 'most balanced competive experience' a joke, or is that from some piece of GW marketing material? I honestly don't care how balanced they are. The idea of fielding (or facing) exactly 20 termagants, 3 rippers, 3 warriors and 1 hive tyrant for multiple games is dull as dishwater. Same for 20 zombies, 7 plague marines, whichever random DG lieutenant model and fething Typhus of all things. I can't imagine playing those forces as entire games over and over and over again and finding it fun.

 catbarf wrote:
... ban non-codex (eg FW) units...

I know you're just using FW as an example, but I have always found it frustrating that people would want to ban "FW units", as if they is any tangible difference between them and Codex units (especially now given the main 40k studio writes all the rules). There's no inherent advantage to FW units over Codex units, and oftentimes FW units completely suck compared to Codex units (I mean look the Macharius... without laughing, that is!).

I think defining these things as "FW units" is a bad idea.

(Plus, as always, I am 100% against anything that removes player choice/options)

BlaxicanX wrote:The argument is that "only tournament players care about the functionality of rules options" is a meme argument. I have been playing since 5th edition, I have never played in any real tournaments to speak of, and yet I have never encountered a player who was okay with putting absolute dogshit on the table just for the sake of "muh narrative".

Good thing literally nobody's saying that then, I guess?

The post I was responding to was essentially saying that if some upgrades are crap, there's no reason to have options at all. From a design standpoint, how about buffing those options that are so worthless you wouldn't ever consider them? And if one is by far the best, how about de-tuning that upgrade so it isn't? From a player standpoint, how about trying out options that might not be stellar Goonhammer-Approved competitive must-haves, but aren't garbage either, and still offer some utility to maybe be worth the points?

Not wanting to take absolute trash is part of playing an inherently competitive game, but only taking the absolute most number-crunching meta-effective min-max option is absolutely a tournament mindset, and the argument that 'some options were terrible so the other 80% of them shouldn't exist' is nonsensical on the face of it.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
So your prior comment about "your problem is looking at rules through a competitive lens" is a meme because everyone looks at the game through a competitive lens, just to varying degrees, and so even casual players are not likely to take units/wargear that are blatantly trash.

Yeah, I've said pretty much the same thing earlier in this thread, so I don't understand this strawman.