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Slipspace wrote:

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Balance, not important. Fun, important.

Definitely on team Gadzilla.

Never got the obssession with "balance" in games. If you're the type of player who "has to win", then just get whatever is the most powerful army and have fun.

The rest of us can have fun winning or losing playing a side that we find the most fun/interesting/creative. I used to play Halflings in bloodbowl (old school bloodbowl, no idea what the new one is like) just because it was fun trying to achieve anything. Scoring a touchdown was a victory, even if I lost the match 7-1. They were hopeless. And that's what made them fun.

P.S. I do get it for serious tournament play. But I also think that designing complicated games like 40K with serious tournament play foremost in mind is a mistake. It's just not suited to it.

I've seen far too many players who have no interest in tournament or any form of full-on competitive play leave the hobby due to bad balance to agree with this. If balance is bad it affects everyone. I'd argue it has a greater effect on more casual players. If you're a cut-throat tournament player, part of that means acquiring and playing the best stuff and using it against other players doing the same. In most cases that's achievable and often there are multiple armies that are good enough to do that with. You don't care if 90% of the units in the game are terrible because you're never going to use them.

More casual players often get into the game by picking armies they like the look of, or styles of play they're interested in. If the GW balance pendulum is against you, you're out of luck. Sure, you can claim you don't mind if you win or lose, but at some point losing every single game with no chance of winning at all gets annoying. With armies taking a lot of time and effort to build and paint and games easily taking 3 hours to play, that's a problem. I witnessed it with a couple of Tau players in 9th, prior to their Codex. They bought all the typical Tau stuff - Firewarriors, Crisis Suits, some Devlifish and Hammerheads, etc, and lost every single game because the army was terrible. They weren't doing anything wrong, the balance was just so bad there wasn't much they could do. I've seen the same pattern with other armies and other game systems over the years.

I've seen it from the other side too. Space Marines were bad in 8th edition. Then they got their second Codex and they went form bad to broken overnight. As a SM player it was absolutely no fun playing the army at that time because it was so vastly overpowered compared to everything else your victories felt unearned. Worse, it was so powerful it was really difficult to tone it down to try to provide a more even match-up. I stopped playing SM pretty quickly after that. Luckily I had other armies to play.

I really have to emphasis this. Bad balance can be extremely frustrating, especially to players who are a bit new to wargames but smart enough to see that the point values for similar units don't align. Reading about units that are supposedly the backbone of the army just to find out that they terribly lack in game is just not a great experience.
The same goes for warlord traits. I remember in 8th edition that just by reading the traits it was immediately obvious that some where just duds. Same is true for psychic powers. Choices are nice but in most cases there wasn't an actual choice because 4 out of 6 where just ... Useless. I prefer a well designed unit that works over choices that aren't real choices in the end.

I agree that balance is important as it fosters fun.

We've all had or seen a game where a player does everything right, but the dice betray them and they lose horribly. Image doing everything right, having average dice, and finding that bad balance means you lose horribly. That would be even worst since you can't even blame bad luck.

And before you start saying you can't blame dice, I still remember the game I played way back in 6th where the result of every Penetrating Hit, both mine and my opponent's, was an explosion. It was so unlikely as to be comical.

Brickfix wrote:

The same goes for warlord traits. I remember in 8th edition that just by reading the traits it was immediately obvious that some where just duds. Same is true for psychic powers. Choices are nice but in most cases there wasn't an actual choice because 4 out of 6 where just ... Useless. I prefer a well designed unit that works over choices that aren't real choices in the end.

I think it's important to remember that something might look like a dud because it doesn't work for the variation of the game you play. For example, if you play 2k Matched exclusively, you may not recognize the value of something the game includes that really works for the dude who plays 25PL Crusade exclusively, and that player in turn may not understand that something THEY see is a dud is awesome for the 1k Tempest of War player.

I'm not saying this is true in all cases- I absolutely believe that there are dud units/ strats/ WL Traits and Relics. But there are many others I've seen 2k players complain about that were awesome for my tiny army/ alliance based Crusade campaigns.

And don't get me wrong, I believe balance is important too, even for the Crusade campaigner- the problem is when balance comes at the cost of options that narrative players want or need for the sake of telling stories.

PenitentJake wrote:

Brickfix wrote:

The same goes for warlord traits. I remember in 8th edition that just by reading the traits it was immediately obvious that some where just duds. Same is true for psychic powers. Choices are nice but in most cases there wasn't an actual choice because 4 out of 6 where just ... Useless. I prefer a well designed unit that works over choices that aren't real choices in the end.

I think it's important to remember that something might look like a dud because it doesn't work for the variation of the game you play. For example, if you play 2k Matched exclusively, you may not recognize the value of something the game includes that really works for the dude who plays 25PL Crusade exclusively, and that player in turn may not understand that something THEY see is a dud is awesome for the 1k Tempest of War player.

I'm not saying this is true in all cases- I absolutely believe that there are dud units/ strats/ WL Traits and Relics. But there are many others I've seen 2k players complain about that were awesome for my tiny army/ alliance based Crusade campaigns.

And don't get me wrong, I believe balance is important too, even for the Crusade campaigner- the problem is when balance comes at the cost of options that narrative players want or need for the sake of telling stories.

If you're already playing a narrative game why not just add in the relics and rules you feel have been lost? It's a lot easier for you to do that than for GW to attempt to balance even more options than the game already has.

PenitentJake wrote:

Brickfix wrote:

The same goes for warlord traits. I remember in 8th edition that just by reading the traits it was immediately obvious that some where just duds. Same is true for psychic powers. Choices are nice but in most cases there wasn't an actual choice because 4 out of 6 where just ... Useless. I prefer a well designed unit that works over choices that aren't real choices in the end.

I think it's important to remember that something might look like a dud because it doesn't work for the variation of the game you play. For example, if you play 2k Matched exclusively, you may not recognize the value of something the game includes that really works for the dude who plays 25PL Crusade exclusively, and that player in turn may not understand that something THEY see is a dud is awesome for the 1k Tempest of War player.

I'm not saying this is true in all cases- I absolutely believe that there are dud units/ strats/ WL Traits and Relics. But there are many others I've seen 2k players complain about that were awesome for my tiny army/ alliance based Crusade campaigns.

And don't get me wrong, I believe balance is important too, even for the Crusade campaigner- the problem is when balance comes at the cost of options that narrative players want or need for the sake of telling stories.

I think a large part of that is GW loves to recycle. They take a round peg from one army and try and hammer it into the square hole of another army.

 catbarf wrote:
Perfect isn't necessary, it's just that a poorly balanced game is harder to have fun with, even if you never take it to tournaments.

I'm pretty new and don't know much about 40K, but I do know about general game design, so feel qualified to comment based on that.

I agree with you that if tournaments are unbalanced, there is a problem.

The logic behind that is in theory, tournament play should basically require a flexible, jack-of-all-trades army. So a specialist anti-heavy army might do well against one opponent, but would rarely do well against multiple different combinations because they're too specailised. Which means everyone who wants to win should be fielding an army that can attack/defend "a bit of this and a bit of that" (of course, within the limitations of the faction) instead of all-eggs-one-basked that may create a lop-sided game against one other individual army.

But even then, it's not quite that simple. I have no problem with some armies just being weaker than other armies and requiring greater skill as a "general" than others. That then becomes part of their appeal. If you want to make it easy for yourself, field a different army. If you want bragging rights, this one is a challenge. That's not a bad thing in game design.

Regarding the other parts of your post, I wonder if folks buying a 2000pt army and therefore feeling "I have to play 2000pt game to use my entire army" is part of the problem there. Wouldn't the intention be more to buy some arbituary-points-value army and then use subsets of that army depening on your opponent? You don't need to know the exact make-up of their force. Just "okay, these guys are generally quick" or "these guys are generally very bashy". Whatever. It's actually could be part of the game:

Every battle is won or lost before it is ever fought - Sun Tzu - The Art of War



...

In the end the problem with balance is the gap between the best and the worse. there should be no 60% win rate armies and there should not be any sub 40% win rate armies. Especialy when both have a real chance to be played vs each other. There is just sales, design time and how fast a company can react to changes or even see the changes at all.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:
But even then, it's not quite that simple. I have no problem with some armies just being weaker than other armies and requiring greater skill as a "general" than others. That then becomes part of their appeal. If you want to make it easy for yourself, field a different army. If you want bragging rights, this one is a challenge. That's not a bad thing in game design.

Er, excusing bad balance by calling it a 'challenge' is... not generally regarded as good design. That's not a thing I've seen in any successful game, and across 40K's history you'll be hard-pressed to find players who enjoyed playing with notoriously underpowered codices. I think you'll find a lot more players- even the most casual of casual- who get frustrated when their army just sucks on the tabletop, and they have to pull out all the stops and bring their A-game just to have a fighting chance.

Some armies having a higher skill floor than others to be effective is a different matter.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:
Regarding the other parts of your post, I wonder if folks buying a 2000pt army and therefore feeling "I have to play 2000pt game to use my entire army" is part of the problem there. Wouldn't the intention be more to buy some arbituary-points-value army and then use subsets of that army depening on your opponent? You don't need to know the exact make-up of their force. Just "okay, these guys are generally quick" or "these guys are generally very bashy". Whatever. It's actually could be part of the game:

Yeah, that's a sideboard mechanic. I've suggested in the past that you could have a system where you bring 2000pts and then, after seeing your opponent's 2000pt army, select 1500pts of it to actually deploy. It'd make for quicker games on less cluttered tables and help combat skew, without increasing the model requirement.

But there is definitely a desire to see 2000pt armies on the table, partly for the spectacle and partly because that's the points value where you can really bring everything and the kitchen sink, and have fewer hard choices about what to include.

Balance gripe looking at Death Guard terminators compared to loyalists.

Based on the revealed information for Power Fist Loyalist Terminators using Oaths and Blightlord Terminators using Gifts, the Blightlords should be cheaper. If you load the Blightlords up with 6 combi-weapons, 2 reapers and 2 flails they still should be cheaper. The PF Loyalists are much better in combat than the Blightlords.

Even taking off Oaths the Loyalist Terminators are now 80% damage of the Blightlords rather than 160%.

And this is all ignoring the M4" stat that drops to M2 if someone hits you with a Barbgaunt or Malignant Plaguecaster debuff. And that M2 becomes effectively M0 when charging. You start 11.5" away from the Plaguecaster, you move 2" closer so are now 9.5" away, but your charge is 2d6-2" so you need an 11 to land the charge, which you would have needed if you had stood still without the debuff.

It seems like the solution if Terminators and Blightlords are equivalently costed is you will need a DG character attached to your unit to be "better/cheaper" than an SM character attached to their unit.

I feel this is where GW tie themselves up in knots, they make "free" rules of different strengths then struggle to mentally price the units in different factions because they "look" so similar before the free rules. Obviously a bit early to cry doom, but this seems to be the mistake they consistently made in 9th and I won't be surprised to see DG termies getting points cuts to cheaper than loyalist versions at some point early in 10th.

EightFoldPath wrote:
Balance gripe looking at Death Guard terminators compared to loyalists.

Based on the revealed information for Power Fist Loyalist Terminators using Oaths and Blightlord Terminators using Gifts, the Blightlords should be cheaper. If you load the Blightlords up with 6 combi-weapons, 2 reapers and 2 flails they still should be cheaper. The PF Loyalists are much better in combat than the Blightlords.

Even taking off Oaths the Loyalist Terminators are now 80% damage of the Blightlords rather than 160%.

And this is all ignoring the M4" stat that drops to M2 if someone hits you with a Barbgaunt or Malignant Plaguecaster debuff. And that M2 becomes effectively M0 when charging. You start 11.5" away from the Plaguecaster, you move 2" closer so are now 9.5" away, but your charge is 2d6-2" so you need an 11 to land the charge, which you would have needed if you had stood still without the debuff.

It seems like the solution if Terminators and Blightlords are equivalently costed is you will need a DG character attached to your unit to be "better/cheaper" than an SM character attached to their unit.

I feel this is where GW tie themselves up in knots, they make "free" rules of different strengths then struggle to mentally price the units in different factions because they "look" so similar before the free rules. Obviously a bit early to cry doom, but this seems to be the mistake they consistently made in 9th and I won't be surprised to see DG termies getting points cuts to cheaper than loyalist versions at some point early in 10th.

Oh man I just realized that sheet confirms the worst for combis...

I'll do the math in a bit.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Seems like they really screwed the pooch with combis. At least on the libby it was a comparable choice, but it looks like with the rerolls and other rules the BL bolter is better than the combi except when specifically shooting terminators. Being on contagion range doesn't significantly change these figures ( assuming no weird bugs ). Best just to count-as all combi-bolters. :(

GEQ:


MEQ


TEQ


Rhino:


Knight:



Settings:

 catbarf wrote:

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:
But even then, it's not quite that simple. I have no problem with some armies just being weaker than other armies and requiring greater skill as a "general" than others. That then becomes part of their appeal. If you want to make it easy for yourself, field a different army. If you want bragging rights, this one is a challenge. That's not a bad thing in game design.

Er, excusing bad balance by calling it a 'challenge' is... not generally regarded as good design.

My point was that having some forces that are more challenging is a good thing. Forces/teams/armies/RPG characters/whatever that are difficult gives not only bragging rights but a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment to the player.

Games like 40K are poor choices if you're ultra-competitive or want to play serious tournaments. Chess is a good choice. Every player has the exact same "army" and the exact same rules and there is not element of chance (i.e. dice). 40K is a good choice if you're imaginative and can have fun even if you lose.

 catbarf wrote:
That's not a thing I've seen in any successful game

There are many of them. Many, many.

In fact, this thing where "everything has to be balanced", every character has to be equally as good as the next, every choice or option equally as beneficial or detrimental as any other ... that's a new thing. It's come about (imo) from somewhat entitled video-gamers.

NOW ... having said all that ... and apologies for rambling ... I do get the point that if you've spent a lot of money collecting an army and countless hours painting it, only for GW to change the rules and make them be so different they're not fun ... well that's different. I can understand being frustrated at THAT. But not simply at "every army, option and choice has to be entirely equal to any other". That's not a good thing. It means your choices are meaningless. But it's the only way to force any random army being perfectly balanced with any other random army.


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 catbarf wrote:

Yeah, that's a sideboard mechanic. I've suggested in the past that you could have a system where you bring 2000pts and then, after seeing your opponent's 2000pt army, select 1500pts of it to actually deploy. It'd make for quicker games on less cluttered tables and help combat skew, without increasing the model requirement.

But there is definitely a desire to see 2000pt armies on the table, partly for the spectacle and partly because that's the points value where you can really bring everything and the kitchen sink, and have fewer hard choices about what to include.

It would demolish elite armies, armies that don't come in 250-500-1000pts brackets or formations, would be bad for armies with low number of unit options and especialy no chaff. Also big hit in the nads for the new player with his 1500-1600pts. Because he will show what he has to his opponent with a box of 3000pts of dudes and 3-4 printed out lists, and then by some miracle of seer like power produce the exact hard counter of 500pts sideboard and then demolish the noob. But where it REALLY gets back is for people that play with a thematic force. 1500pts of Deathwing, 1500pts of demi assault company, CCS playing his grot tank army. There is no side board for those armies, the level of handicap a player would have to face for playing what they want would be astronomical, and it would be on top of army choice, detachment choice etc.

There's nothing wrong with having "bad factions" if GW purposely designed the whole game to make them work.

Lets look at say Bloodbowl. Firstly there's a relatively little money and time buy-in. You can easily play some sort of top-tier elf team and also play halflings on the side. Since a 40k army may be 20~ times as expensive (and entail building/painting 10-20 times the models), this isn't so much of an option.

Secondly, the game is written so there's a massive luck element in it. Sure you can stack the odds in your favour - but every block or dodge has a chance of seeing your guy in the dirt. Its also (imo) best played as a rolling narrative. So players can "forge the narrative" independent of the result. "Remember that time when my halfling killed your star player" can mean more than the fact you got stuffed 5-0. Whereas in typical 40k, the game is all there is. Maybe you will remember that time your Grots killed Guilliman or something - but most likely that's not going to sustain you if you were swiftly tabled.

Thirdly, teams (factions) are also written consistently so players know what they are going to get. Bloodbowl would be a very different game if for 3-6 months say Wood Elves were the best faction in the game - but then they were trash-tier and halflings were the best. But then both became average but Skaven were utterly broken. Then it was the turn of Orcs or whatever. This is how balance goes in 40k and has done for 3 decades.

The problem with "its a challenge" is that it usually isn't. Its just saying "the odds are against me, I'll need the dice to really skew in my favour to win". Which is the problem with "bad" 40k factions. Being the team that hits on 3s and wounds on 3s gives you a statistical advantage over one with the same number of attacks (due to mis-pointing) that say hits on 4s and wounds on 5s. Its not a surprise when you go "oh, looks like faction 1 has a 60-70% win rate into faction 2".

People typically don't want to play with a big disadvantage just because you are in a bad point of the rules cycle. Which is basically why balance is a concern. If GW could point a spade as a spade - whether its in in the "new Space Marine Codex" - or the "3 year old CSM codex" - there would be less issue. But they don't. (Although I think it has got better, because they do at least react to obvious issues and professional circuit complaining, rather than just ignoring it for years as they slowly submerge the currently broken stuff under new even more broken stuff.)

Well said.

Although, I must point out that despite all the advantages you listed, I ragequit blood blow twice over some elf perma-killing my high level minotaur with nothing but an impossible string of lucky rolls in a league. And have not picked it up again since.

After reading the core rules, one thing got me thinking is the wound allocation and precision strike rule interaction planned or not. Because the way it is worded right now, it can become very easy to single out characters from units, just by hiting and wounding it prior unloading shots from the rest of the army, because of the model has tank all incoming shots, if it was allocated a hit or was wounded before that.

A cheap unit of snipers could, I think, be used to force the character to then eat all the heavy weapons on the table.

Karol wrote:
After reading the core rules, one thing got me thinking is the wound allocation and precision strike rule interaction planned or not. Because the way it is worded right now, it can become very easy to single out characters from units, just by hiting and wounding it prior unloading shots from the rest of the army, because of the model has tank all incoming shots, if it was allocated a hit or was wounded before that.

A cheap unit of snipers could, I think, be used to force the character to then eat all the heavy weapons on the table.

No, the only time you can allocate to a character is with precision.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Karol wrote:
After reading the core rules, one thing got me thinking is the wound allocation and precision strike rule interaction planned or not. Because the way it is worded right now, it can become very easy to single out characters from units, just by hiting and wounding it prior unloading shots from the rest of the army, because of the model has tank all incoming shots, if it was allocated a hit or was wounded before that.

A cheap unit of snipers could, I think, be used to force the character to then eat all the heavy weapons on the table.

No, the only time you can allocate to a character is with precision.

The bigger issue with the rule is: If your character has significantly higher toughness than the bodyguard unit, precision still uses the bodyguard unit's toughness for the to wound roll.

ERJAK wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Karol wrote:
After reading the core rules, one thing got me thinking is the wound allocation and precision strike rule interaction planned or not. Because the way it is worded right now, it can become very easy to single out characters from units, just by hiting and wounding it prior unloading shots from the rest of the army, because of the model has tank all incoming shots, if it was allocated a hit or was wounded before that.

A cheap unit of snipers could, I think, be used to force the character to then eat all the heavy weapons on the table.

No, the only time you can allocate to a character is with precision.

The bigger issue with the rule is: If your character has significantly higher toughness than the bodyguard unit, precision still uses the bodyguard unit's toughness for the to wound roll.

*points to Abaddon's toughness*

I'm fairly sure that problem is know and has been taken care of by not allowing 7th edition style insanity of everyone joining everything for leaders.

Hive Tyrants and Tyrant Guards are probably a better example of that issue.

Unless Tyrant Guard are T10 now.

This is a good post and you make good points. I agree with most of it.

I have to take your word for it that the armies are "just bad" as-in "impossible to play effectively" as opposed to "difficult". "Impossible" here is not an exaggeration. If it is at all possible to play them well, even if it requires 4D-chess-like thinking, then they're not "bad" they're just "difficult". Which isn't "bad". If you get my drift.

I stand by my point that you can't make every army (not least every combination of options in every army) perfectly balanced with every other combination. If you require that, play chess. Making every combination in 40K perfectly balanced is not only not possible but not desireable, because it would remove the creative aspect and render choices meaningless. A battle between an army tailor-made to destroy heavy armour, and an army that is tailor made to be heavily armoured should not be "balanced". But I agree with your base point that if you've invested a lot of time and money into your hobby and GW change the rules to make them "bad" as in "impossible to play effectively against anyone - they just suck now" then that's not a good thing.

I feel I'm slightly changing the subject here, but it's a reason I've generally stayed away from 40K for so long. GW seem to be sacrificing actually making a good game on the alter of the mighty dollar. 10 Editions of a game over a "short" (relatively) period of time is just a cash grab. From what you are telling me, it's just not allowing enough time for the game to be properly "community tested" and then patched/polished. Instead it's a constant flow of new rules and new models that are not well thought-out.

Mind you, that is mostly the community's fault for putting up with it. We can all complain until we're blue in the face on a nerd forum, but if everyone rushes out and buys (or even pre-orders) the new models and new edition then nothing will ever change.

I've heard on the grapevine that 5th Edition is generally considered "the best". That was 5 editions ago!



...

ERJAK wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Karol wrote:
After reading the core rules, one thing got me thinking is the wound allocation and precision strike rule interaction planned or not. Because the way it is worded right now, it can become very easy to single out characters from units, just by hiting and wounding it prior unloading shots from the rest of the army, because of the model has tank all incoming shots, if it was allocated a hit or was wounded before that.

A cheap unit of snipers could, I think, be used to force the character to then eat all the heavy weapons on the table.

No, the only time you can allocate to a character is with precision.

The bigger issue with the rule is: If your character has significantly higher toughness than the bodyguard unit, precision still uses the bodyguard unit's toughness for the to wound roll.

We've already seen that 10th will restrict which characters can join which units, so this can easily be taken into account at that stage. I suspect there'll be very few - if any - instances where there's more than a single point of difference between unit and character Toughness. In almost all cases I'd expect the Toughness values to be the same.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Karol wrote:
After reading the core rules, one thing got me thinking is the wound allocation and precision strike rule interaction planned or not. Because the way it is worded right now, it can become very easy to single out characters from units, just by hiting and wounding it prior unloading shots from the rest of the army, because of the model has tank all incoming shots, if it was allocated a hit or was wounded before that.

A cheap unit of snipers could, I think, be used to force the character to then eat all the heavy weapons on the table.

No, the only time you can allocate to a character is with precision.

Yes, but the rules say that if a model from a unit was allocated wounding hits, it has to be the model that gets them allocated for the the rest of the shoting/melee phase. What am worried about is some cheap anti-infantry ranger/scout snipers wounding a librarians or brother captin, and them him being forced to tank lascanons and the like to the face, because he already did that one per turn. If it is not the case, and characters that joined a unit are still separate entities through some esotheric ways of GW rules writing, then I am a very happy person.

double. Meant to edit not reply.

Karol wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Karol wrote:
After reading the core rules, one thing got me thinking is the wound allocation and precision strike rule interaction planned or not. Because the way it is worded right now, it can become very easy to single out characters from units, just by hiting and wounding it prior unloading shots from the rest of the army, because of the model has tank all incoming shots, if it was allocated a hit or was wounded before that.

A cheap unit of snipers could, I think, be used to force the character to then eat all the heavy weapons on the table.

No, the only time you can allocate to a character is with precision.

Yes, but the rules say that if a model from a unit was allocated wounding hits, it has to be the model that gets them allocated for the the rest of the shoting/melee phase. What am worried about is some cheap anti-infantry ranger/scout snipers wounding a librarians or brother captin, and them him being forced to tank lascanons and the like to the face, because he already did that one per turn. If it is not the case, and characters that joined a unit are still separate entities through some esotheric ways of GW rules writing, then I am a very happy person.

The rule specifically mention wounded characters don't take wounds in a unit unless you have Precision. So you can't plink one wound off a character with Precision and then basically get the benefit of Precision for all subsequent attacks.

Cool, good thing it isn't as oppresive as I thought. I wonder how the bodyguard units are going to function in 10th. Stuff like the ultramarines guard, hive mini tyrants or paladins.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:


But even then, it's not quite that simple. I have no problem with some armies just being weaker than other armies and requiring greater skill as a "general" than others. That then becomes part of their appeal. If you want to make it easy for yourself, field a different army. If you want bragging rights, this one is a challenge. That's not a bad thing in game design.

...

I feel like you are kind of conflating two different games: Computer games and War games.

The problem is that challenges in a computer game are wildly different from a challenge in a wargame. In a computer game you can easily switch whatever needs to be switched and you can play it over and over in a relatively short amount of game to master. You are at your home chugging at Tekken or Elden Ring in your own comfort having fun.

However, in 40k you buy into an expensive army that you have to collect and paint over a long period of time, and if you got the army for the rule of cool and not the "challenge" you are going to be bummed out. F.ex. I can't imagine there are a lot of happy Kruleboyz players in AoS right now as they've been bottom rung since the dawn of 3.0. That's before having to find a venue and a partner to play your game. They exist, but they probably did not buy into the army because it was bad(the models are however damn cool).

In my experience is that when people struggle with their army and play casually they eventually leave the hobby disheartened by their little engine that could not. The tournament scene is slightly better and some feed off the challenges thrown at them but that is after the fact but not before. Nobody goes into buying an army because it is the underdog, mainly because people tend to go for the aesthetic first and foremost and it is also expensive to buy a new army.

Karol wrote:
Cool, good thing it isn't as oppresive as I thought. I wonder how the bodyguard units are going to function in 10th. Stuff like the ultramarines guard, hive mini tyrants or paladins.

I would guess they trump Precision (probably something like Precision can't be used on characters within X" of this unit) - Bodyguard trumps Precision trumps Leader/Joining/etc

 Eldarsif wrote:

The problem is that challenges in a computer game are wildly different from a challenge in a wargame. In a computer game you can easily switch whatever needs to be switched and you can play it over and over in a relatively short amount of game to master. You are at your home chugging at Tekken or Elden Ring in your own comfort having fun.

However, in 40k you buy into an expensive army that you have to collect and paint over a long period of time, and if you got the army for the rule of cool and not the "challenge" you are going to be bummed out. F.ex. I can't imagine there are a lot of happy Kruleboyz players in AoS right now as they've been bottom rung since the dawn of 3.0. That's before having to find a venue and a partner to play your game. They exist, but they probably did not buy into the army because it was bad(the models are however damn cool).

TBH, I don't feel buckets full of sympathy for anyone that drops huge cash buying an entire army because they "look cool" and then discovers they aren't as "powerful" as they'd like. It seems to me that if they didn't bother to look into how that army actually plays before a huge investment then it's probably not that important to them.

 Eldarsif wrote:

In my experience is that when people struggle with their army and play casually they eventually leave the hobby disheartened by their little engine that could not. The tournament scene is slightly better and some feed off the challenges thrown at them but that is after the fact but not before.

I suppose that could happen. However, even if you are totally unconvinced by my arguments above, there's nothing to be done about it anyway.

It's just not possible nor desireable to create a game that involves a) tailoring your force with creative choices; b) dice and randmoness; AND c) every combination being perfectly balanced against every other combination. It's not desireable because it would mean there's nothing different in the armies bar aesthetics and names. Your choices in wargear/units/strategies would be ultimately meaningless.

To be clear, if a rules change totally alters how an army players and makes them just suck at everything where as they didn't before (when the army was purchased), I'm not saying that's a good thing. That's bad. I think we can all agree on that. But is that what is happening?


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EightFoldPath wrote:
Balance gripe looking at Death Guard terminators compared to loyalists.

Based on the revealed information for Power Fist Loyalist Terminators using Oaths and Blightlord Terminators using Gifts, the Blightlords should be cheaper. If you load the Blightlords up with 6 combi-weapons, 2 reapers and 2 flails they still should be cheaper. The PF Loyalists are much better in combat than the Blightlords.

Even taking off Oaths the Loyalist Terminators are now 80% damage of the Blightlords rather than 160%.

And this is all ignoring the M4" stat that drops to M2 if someone hits you with a Barbgaunt or Malignant Plaguecaster debuff. And that M2 becomes effectively M0 when charging. You start 11.5" away from the Plaguecaster, you move 2" closer so are now 9.5" away, but your charge is 2d6-2" so you need an 11 to land the charge, which you would have needed if you had stood still without the debuff.

It seems like the solution if Terminators and Blightlords are equivalently costed is you will need a DG character attached to your unit to be "better/cheaper" than an SM character attached to their unit.

I feel this is where GW tie themselves up in knots, they make "free" rules of different strengths then struggle to mentally price the units in different factions because they "look" so similar before the free rules. Obviously a bit early to cry doom, but this seems to be the mistake they consistently made in 9th and I won't be surprised to see DG termies getting points cuts to cheaper than loyalist versions at some point early in 10th.

Exactly this and it's obvious looking at the two data sheets.

Now we don't know the rest of the rules but judging from the past death guard will coast more than regular space marines just like skitarii vanguard will cost more than guard.

I wouldn't even want them to cost less but their stats should be improved to reflect where they exist in the lineup. death guard should be noticeably tougher than space marines and vanguard should be noticeably tougher then guard.

We have seen the data sheets neither is tougher against wepons that are likely to be shot at them.

We don't know everything yet. But I would be willing to say that death guard and mechanicus will be twords the bottom teir when index drop and space matines and eldar will be near the top.

Now we haven't seen all the rules previews yet but from what we have seen to me this looks obvious. Depending on where the rest fall will give us an idea of how these factions will fall.

This is all just speculation and I think it's a little but fun to look into the teasers we have been given and guess who will come out near the top and who will come out near the bottom. Then once we have played a few games we can look back and see who looks the most like Sherlock Holmes.

Yes, and as a counterpoint I'm not at all worried by the Votann "nerfs" because Votann haven't yet been pigeonholed as being the same cost as a Marine. So GW can make them weaker per model but then point cost them appropriately.