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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Lobokai wrote:
I can’t imagine as it is that the competitive players like it much. But all we need is a tournament pack with an FOC and a list of units that get a discount when underarmed (just to shut up the sponson moan, seriously has no one ever rebuilt a unit after an edition change?)

Tournament players don't care about the sponson issue, they just take all the best options and beat you with them. PL's problems hurt casual and narrative players, the people who pick options for reasons other than sheer point efficiency and win percentages.

Narrative lists aren't playing pick-up-games vs tournament lists so this scenario likely won't occur often. Many narrative players will take inferior choices to fit a theme. (my DKoK use flamers/grenade pretty much exclusively since it fits for a trench clearing theme, but i wont use plasma, even though it is definetly the strongest option given the new DKoK rule)

It baffles me that you seemingly don't want to understand or admit that you would have a better game yourself, even in a narrative environment.

Somebody bringing "fluffy" Tallarn, Mordian, Armageddon, Tanith or Terrax will all bring superior weapons but pay the same cost as you.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Narrative lists aren't playing pick-up-games vs tournament lists so this scenario likely won't occur often

why?
the point of a pick up game is that you pick up a random game, why should the chance to meet a tournament list in a store/club be significant lower than for a narrative list?

as my experience is that most people in stores/clubs go there with tournament lists to train against random people and random lists to get different impressions than always playing the same
while the narrative people are those avoiding the pick up games and playing in fixed groups

so I would say it is the other way around, having anything but a tournament list in a pick up game won't occur often, hence why balance is so important as easy to find pick up games is the main advantage of 40k

 kodos wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Narrative lists aren't playing pick-up-games vs tournament lists so this scenario likely won't occur often

so I would say it is the other way around, having anything but a tournament list in a pick up game won't occur often, hence why balance is so important as easy to find pick up games is the main advantage of 40k

That is the point I was trying to make, you won't see tournament lists vs narrative lists in pick-up-games often because the vast majority of people doing pick up games in random clubs fit the description you provide.

Any chance we can keep the points/PL discussion in that other thread? I come to this one to hear how people are actually experiencing 10th Edition, not a debate on granular points.

 alextroy wrote:
Any chance we can keep the points/PL discussion in that other thread? I come to this one to hear how people are actually experiencing 10th Edition, not a debate on granular points.

Whilst I agree, I think the fact that conversation has more air time and is seeping into other places suggests it's also indicative of peoples actual experience of 10th.

a_typical_hero wrote:
It baffles me that you seemingly don't want to understand or admit that you would have a better game yourself, even in a narrative environment.

Somebody bringing "fluffy" Tallarn, Mordian, Armageddon, Tanith or Terrax will all bring superior weapons but pay the same cost as you.

GW has yet to provide a balanced ruleset. My play group does not believe that GW games are ever designed around perfect balance (hence why there is always cries about imbalance every time a new set of rules, codex or otherwise drops). We distilled what we enjoy about games workshop games (the models/lore/setting) so we put value in those factors. Yes we have to do some self-control balancing which we found is much easier since we go hard on thematic lists rather than (take all hunter killer missiles because they free). I know this isn't for everyone and I'm not trying to advocate that everyone should adopt our method of list building/enjoyment of the game. I am meerly offering a perspective that is different than the WAAC tournament grindset player (which we all use to be for 40k/AoS, and are now doing so for other more balanced games).

Tl;dr We think GW games have never been balanced, so we don't value them as true competitive tests of skill.

"just use houserules" is not a valid solution for anyone who does not have a fixed group that wants them
you could also say, just play a different game and use your GW models and lore for that, this way you have more fun and none of the problems

just that those are solutions that only work for a minority of people
therefore giving up on demanding better rules from GW so that the majority benefits as well is not a good idea

 kodos wrote:
"just use houserules" is not a valid solution for anyone who does not have a fixed group that wants them
you could also say, just play a different game and use your GW models and lore for that, this way you have more fun and none of the problems

just that those are solutions that only work for a minority of people
therefore giving up on demanding better rules from GW so that the majority benefits as well is not a good idea

Being quite Frank though, do you mean rules or points?

Dudeface wrote:
Whilst I agree, I think the fact that conversation has more air time and is seeping into other places suggests it's also indicative of peoples actual experience of 10th.

Sure but there's a 74-page thread about it already. The last thing this thread needs to turn into is another one of those.

 kodos wrote:
"just use houserules" is not a valid solution for anyone who does not have a fixed group that wants them
you could also say, just play a different game and use your GW models and lore for that, this way you have more fun and none of the problems

just that those are solutions that only work for a minority of people
therefore giving up on demanding better rules from GW so that the majority benefits as well is not a good idea

I've never mentioned house-rules, I said self-control, as in, not taking every best possible option because it's the best, but building lists that are thematic, regardless of the perceived efficiency of the point use. Also, if you read my entire post, I clearly stated, that my intention is not to convince the masses that our self-control method is the solution for them, I am just offering a method that works for us, and people reading can adopt it or not.

As for the topic question: Our 10th games have been fun and decently close, there are a few design decisions that have us head scratching, such as C'tan shards going from T7 to T11 as a way to balance out the loss of 3wound/phase rule. Yet Ghazkull lost toughness and can join a unit as his consolation for the loss of a 4wound/phase rule.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:


As for the topic question: Our 10th games have been fun and decently close, there are a few design decisions that have us head scratching, such as C'tan shards going from T7 to T11 as a way to balance out the loss of 3wound/phase rule. Yet Ghazkull lost toughness and can join a unit as his consolation for the loss of a 4wound/phase rule.

Yes, the game evolved and so toughness paradigms have to change. Not sure what your issue is with those changes - it's not like it makes any sense for a C'tan to be leading a unit of Crons, while Ghaz leading a bunch of Orks is perfectly sensible. Maybe his toughness didn't have to decrease, but it doesn't seem like a huge deal either way. 10th blew the door wide open, for better or worse. Those stat changes feel much less unnatural than other things, e.g. the shift to PL or the new, awkward charge/assault phase.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

Yes, the game evolved and so toughness paradigms have to change. Not sure what your issue is with those changes - it's not like it makes any sense for a C'tan to be leading a unit of Crons, while Ghaz leading a bunch of Orks is perfectly sensible. Maybe his toughness didn't have to decrease, but it doesn't seem like a huge deal either way. 10th blew the door wide open, for better or worse. Those stat changes feel much less unnatural than other things, e.g. the shift to PL or the new, awkward charge/assault phase.

What did you find awkward about the charge/assault phase? We personally find pile-in a little bit more restrictive that is hard to pinpoint as a good or bad change yet.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

Yes, the game evolved and so toughness paradigms have to change. Not sure what your issue is with those changes - it's not like it makes any sense for a C'tan to be leading a unit of Crons, while Ghaz leading a bunch of Orks is perfectly sensible. Maybe his toughness didn't have to decrease, but it doesn't seem like a huge deal either way. 10th blew the door wide open, for better or worse. Those stat changes feel much less unnatural than other things, e.g. the shift to PL or the new, awkward charge/assault phase.

What did you find awkward about the charge/assault phase? We personally find pile-in a little bit more restrictive that is hard to pinpoint as a good or bad change yet.

Between changes to pile-in, engagement range, toughness increases, and the almost universal de-toothing of AP and damage, most of my gak just doesn't hit very hard. Most of my melee mainstays don't have much of a place anymore.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

I've never mentioned house-rules, I said self-control, as in, not taking every best possible option because it's the best, but building lists that are thematic, regardless of the perceived efficiency of the point use. Also, if you read my entire post, I clearly stated, that my intention is not to convince the masses that our self-control method is the solution for them, I am just offering a method that works for us, and people reading can adopt it or not.

As for the topic question: Our 10th games have been fun and decently close

so you use house rules to adjust FOC and vastly improved your experience with the game

So you play an altered version of 40k that works for your group

Which also implies that an unaltered version without house rules that restrict which units are taken does not work and is not fun (otherwise you would not need those restrictions)

So the game as released does not work for your group and you needed further restrictions to have fun

Yeah this is what we all are talking about, just that we want that changes from GW as house rules are only possible in a fixed group and most of us don't have one

 kodos wrote:
so you use house rules to adjust FOC and vastly improved your experience with the game

So you play an altered version of 40k that works for your group

Which also implies that an unaltered version without house rules that restrict which units are taken does not work and is not fun (otherwise you would not need those restrictions)

So the game as released does not work for your group and you needed further restrictions to have fun

Yeah this is what we all are talking about, just that we want that changes from GW as house rules are only possible in a fixed group and most of us don't have one

We do not alter any of the rules of 40k. We play exactly as written. The group just knows the game can be easily unbalanced when taking everything to the teeth, so we choose to pick wargear options that are flavorful to the armies we bring. Again, it's not a house rule, there are no restrictions, any one of the folks in my group is free to bring whatever they want, but we all have a similar mind-set and play for the enjoyment of thematic battles, so no one is bringing the most optimal lists for the sake of winning, they are bringing what fits the narrative we are trying to tell in our campaigns/games.

I feel for people who's only form of gameplay is purely random pick-up-games. I think those people should strive to build a local community of regulars and then that community will develop a sense for what everyone's trying to get from the game, and you can tailor your lists to match the opponent in terms of efficiency vs flavor.

call it a mindset, gentleman's agreement or whatever you want

"our group does not take the models and upgrades available as written by the rules but have restrictions on what to take because otherwise the game won't be fun"

but this is not playing as written by GW, because GW has put in restriction on what is thematic and what not, that is why we have Keywords and rules which Characters can join which unit

that there are other units/upgrades that arer not "thematic" is your personal opinion and an additional restriction within your group

and people outside your group will disagree with you what is thematic and what not
the local Eldar player will say that his army is purely thematic and just by accident stronger than others not too strong as he will still lose against a good GSC player
hew won't agree to break his theme by removing certain unit others don't like

this is very much a house rule of your group be it an unspoken agreement or not, and alters the game as the official rules don't have that restriction

and this is fine, there is no problem or disadvantage to alter the game so that it works for your group
but it is just for your group, it is not 40k as written, it is not the 40k others encounter and all your experience does not relate to the unrestricted version of the game

PS: this is also a reason why my favorite is still 5th Edition not because there were no problems, but there were house rules for scenarios/missions and additional unit restrictions the wider gaming area agreed to. playing in a different country was plying a different game, also never encountered the problem the most people on Dakka had with 5th because of that
but it was an altered version of the game and that was the reason we had the most fun with that version

Tittliewinks22 wrote:


Narrative lists aren't playing pick-up-games vs tournament lists so this scenario likely won't occur often. Many narrative players will take inferior choices to fit a theme. (my DKoK use flamers/grenade pretty much exclusively since it fits for a trench clearing theme, but i wont use plasma, even though it is definetly the strongest option given the new DKoK rule)

Successful tournament lists often times become net lists with players copy pasting them for their army (even if they don't understand how to properly use them). It's not uncommon for someone to have a theme list for a pickup game (Ork playing going for a dread mob for example) while their opponent is using whatever the latest meta list is from the internet. Hell, that is what many people claim 7th edition was like at most tables. Unfortunately tournament metas bleed into FLGS metas and those imbalances / edge cases that tournament list making thrives on results in imbalance issues showing up in more casual settings.

Is a list that consists of 20 custodes guardians, 2 cpts, 1 unit of wardens, 2x4 SoS with flamers ans 2x2 allarus terminators considered not fluffy, because it can win events? Eldar wright heavy army ? 4 knights or 3 knights and a few small ones? Also is someone playing a bad army, whose army for 10th is a clone of a tournament list, still considered a bad WAAC player, even if his armies tournament lists win rates are in the 30% or below? How about armies that consists of 4-5 unit options, excluding characters? If something can be taken from a codex, then it is a lore accurate and fluffy. If it is not lore accurate vide marines mounted in venoms, then it is not an option in the codex. The whole "fluffy" and "lore accurate" seems to be a smoke screen from hidding bad and good armies, being used. A good army with a good set of rules, especialy if undercosted, can often carry a huge amount of "fluffy" units. A bad army can not do that. And often if it doesn't play that one tournament list , assuming it has one, then there is no playing the actual for them, there is just losing.

 kodos wrote:
call it a mindset, gentleman's agreement or whatever you want

"our group does not take the models and upgrades available as written by the rules but have restrictions on what to take because otherwise the game won't be fun"

but this is not playing as written by GW, because GW has put in restriction on what is thematic and what not, that is why we have Keywords and rules which Characters can join which unit

that there are other units/upgrades that arer not "thematic" is your personal opinion and an additional restriction within your group

and people outside your group will disagree with you what is thematic and what not
the local Eldar player will say that his army is purely thematic and just by accident stronger than others not too strong as he will still lose against a good GSC player
hew won't agree to break his theme by removing certain unit others don't like

this is very much a house rule of your group be it an unspoken agreement or not, and alters the game as the official rules don't have that restriction

and this is fine, there is no problem or disadvantage to alter the game so that it works for your group
but it is just for your group, it is not 40k as written, it is not the 40k others encounter and all your experience does not relate to the unrestricted version of the game

PS: this is also a reason why my favorite is still 5th Edition not because there were no problems, but there were house rules for scenarios/missions and additional unit restrictions the wider gaming area agreed to. playing in a different country was plying a different game, also never encountered the problem the most people on Dakka had with 5th because of that
but it was an altered version of the game and that was the reason we had the most fun with that version

This makes it sound like your saying if I don't take the optimal lists and my friend also doesn't bring an optimal list, we're not playing how GW intended. I'm fairly certain that's not what you're trying to say, but that's kind of how it reads.

(I too miss 5th... I won't go into detail because it'll start an off topic discussion)

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Narrative lists aren't playing pick-up-games vs tournament lists so this scenario likely won't occur often. Many narrative players will take inferior choices to fit a theme. (my DKoK use flamers/grenade pretty much exclusively since it fits for a trench clearing theme, but i wont use plasma, even though it is definetly the strongest option given the new DKoK rule)

Of course it will happen. And aside from the fact that people who build narrative lists show up at the same pickup game nights as the list optimizers there's also the fact that "narrative" does not mean "weak". Your lore is for flamers, other people have equally valid lore for mass plasma. Having a better point system helps everyone by making more choices of roughly equal value instead of having your list be clearly worse than the list where the lore favors mass plasma.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DeadliestIdiot wrote:
This makes it sound like your saying if I don't take the optimal lists and my friend also doesn't bring an optimal list, we're not playing how GW intended. I'm fairly certain that's not what you're trying to say, but that's kind of how it reads.

There's an immense difference between "I happen to not have an optimal list" and "we have an implicit agreement to deliberately tone down our lists and avoid using too many of the overpowered things". The first is playing the game as normal, the second is a de facto house rule even if it is enforced by social pressure instead of written rules.

DeadliestIdiot wrote:
This makes it sound like your saying if I don't take the optimal lists and my friend also doesn't bring an optimal list, we're not playing how GW intended. I'm fairly certain that's not what you're trying to say, but that's kind of how it reads.

(I too miss 5th... I won't go into detail because it'll start an off topic discussion)

can see that, though hard to phrase it differently (for me) and in addition, how should a new or returning player know about those things as they will just write a list with what is officially available

but "I don't take certain options available because it kills the fun" is a subjective restriction not written in rules and which options are not thematic or killing the fun will change depending on the people you ask
another big problem with that is, that a themed/fluffy and weak list might be the strong/crushing WAAC list with the next update, so only those with a big collection can compensate while others have an army they cannot use any more because of the "house policy"
(as an example, the by far cheapest possible 2k army in the last editions, was also among the strongest until it was nerfed, so having a trap for new players here as they might want to start cheap because everyone is playing 40k and end up as TFG for no other reason than not having as much money to spend as others)

This might be a bit too doomer than I'd like, but I think the balance in the game is probably in its worst state since 7th edition.

Balance in 8th and 9th was rarely perfect. It was often warped by broken codexes with 70%~ win rates. Some factions became terrible and were left to rot for far too long. But I felt the majority of the "average factions" could play into each other. This is generally why people said "this is the most balanced edition of 40k" - even if other posters cried foul.

By contrast, 10th seems to have produced the 7th edition tier system. That is where the "haves" have an (overwhelming) advantage into everyone else, the next tier are disadvantaged into the Haves - but odds on to beat everyone below them - and so on down to the very bottom factions.

So in tenth we have Eldar, Imperial Knights, GSC and then say Custodes and Thousand Sons. But if you took these factions out (lets say they were all nerfed into the ground with 50% point hikes etc), you'd have Chaos Knights, Necrons and Tyranids pushing a 60% win rate in the rest of the factions in the game (probably recording more in tournaments once the top players shifted over).

Then there's some stuff in the middle (Orks probably next best, then CSM, SM, DE, SoB etc)

But even without factoring games into the "best factions", Squats and DG are struggling for a 30% win rate - because they are rubbish into everyone.

Now you can - as with 7th - try to get around this for friendly games of garagehammer. But GW could and should have done better. I think as weeks turn into months, there's going to be more and more outcry unless they fix it.

 kodos wrote:

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Narrative lists aren't playing pick-up-games vs tournament lists so this scenario likely won't occur often

why?
the point of a pick up game is that you pick up a random game, why should the chance to meet a tournament list in a store/club be significant lower than for a narrative list?

as my experience is that most people in stores/clubs go there with tournament lists to train against random people and random lists to get different impressions than always playing the same
while the narrative people are those avoiding the pick up games and playing in fixed groups

so I would say it is the other way around, having anything but a tournament list in a pick up game won't occur often, hence why balance is so important as easy to find pick up games is the main advantage of 40k

Training with suboptimal lists as an opponent will gain the tournament player zero insights. That´s why you generally play against other stronger lists to train. There is one exception though:

The Noob Basher.

He will gladly go to a store and challenge Little Timmy with his netlist.

GW will fix it, don't worry too much Tyel. As long as the codexes don't reset the suck GW will probably get it right with enough pts revisions.

I think if you are unhappy with your rules or pts you should see if your community is open to homebrewing, just make sure to let other players take the reigns when it comes to balance to make sure you don't get overenthusiastic.

 vict0988 wrote:
GW will fix it, don't worry too much Tyel. As long as the codexes don't reset the suck GW will probably get it right with enough pts revisions.

I think if you are unhappy with your rules or pts you should see if your community is open to homebrewing, just make sure to let other players take the reigns when it comes to balance to make sure you don't get overenthusiastic.

I think the problem with homebrewing is that once you break this seal, where does it end? Almost every faction will have issue with some units.

I think the answer for friendly games is just to "play worse". Less optimised armies, less optimised decision making. I feel if you play with "mostly ignore the objectives, just have a fight, person with most stuff left wins" then DG aren't too bad against the mid-tier factions. The problem is that if you focus on objectives then there isn't much they can do since they are glacially slow. (This is especially the case if you assume a more casual collection of Plague Marines and Terminators with various characters and the odd daemon engine rather than some deliberate attempt to "solve" their problems.) I'd say its similar issue with the Squats, but no one in our group seems to be actively playing them.

I guess to a degree you could say "just let them play with 10-20% more points and see what happens" - but eh... still feels a bit awkward.

Tyel definitely hit the nail on the head.

Even throughout 9th with some of its wild codexes a lot of the time you really could tone down lists and have normal friendly games. 9th was the most successful edition from a casual experience locally precisely because the general balance of the game was very good for the most part. Occasionally a codex would just generally be too strong throughout, but I'd argue that was the exception rather than the rule.

Because 10th has applied the "reduced lethality" thing so inconsistently there are a large amount of factions that are just fundamentally bad and no amount of points tweaks will fix them. Even when 9th Necrons were down in the dumps and pre-Core-on-everything you could still take some of their awkward overcosted units and do work with them because they might have decent attack stats, good AP and high damage. Skorpekh destroyers being the best example here. But so many indexes fundamentally cannot play the game because they've been "reduced lethalitied" into irrelevance in a game about power armour. Someone can plonk down some Terminators with AOC and some Indexes may as well not even bother rolling dice to try and kill them, because they just do not have the tools to do so. You cannot "tone down" a Custodes list without making something that looks bizarre on the table, so most normal Custodes armies will just steamroll over people in a casual environment. I know Custodes players who, outside of Aeldari/GSC/etc nonsense, have yet to lose a single game of 10th and they haven't been close or interesting games either, going by what they've told me. They've just walked forward and won.

There's also a potentially bigger issue in that so many units and indexes have too many feelsbad reactive mechanics or bad old stuff reintroduced from older editions that was smartly removed over 8th and 9th. Warp Spiders do less damage than 9th now, but they're incredibly swingy so they either go from doing nothing to spiking hard and vomiting mortals on people and not giving them any defense against their attacks. And on top of this they have their old Flickerjump back, which is just a silly ability and probably shouldn't exist in the game. So currently they might be balance, or needing a points increase, but they'll never feel good to play or play against. You might be able to tone down the power of your lists, but because everything needs its own special rules now there are far too many annoying mechanics spread across armies that you have to deal with.

problem with "just play worse" is that you need to know how to do that in the first place and know which units are too good before you buy
same as house rules, this is something for veterans with a collection only

a beginner buying into the game being told that he need to buy more because the stuff he thought is cool is not allowed in that club because it is too strong, or someone having a 2k list from 9th not being allowed to play that because he must buy new stuff first to be seen as "casual" is a form of gatekeeping and makes the game less beginner friendly

and that is GWs fault because if they don't get balance right, the game is not beginner friendly and the veterans saying it does not matter because it always has been that way and GW should just keep doing what they do means they want it to be less beginner friendly

 Strg Alt wrote:

Training with suboptimal lists as an opponent will gain the tournament player zero insights. That´s why you generally play against other stronger lists to train.

this really depends on the level you are, like little Timmy wants to go to his first tournament so goes to the store to play a pick up game because by now he only played against Tommy at home so any other list than the Leviathan Tyranids is welcome
or the top 10 ranking player who prepares to win masters series

and the point was not meeting top tier tournament players in pick up games, but meeting tournament lists in pick up games, and not only the top tier players are playing with tournament lists and everyone else plays narrative ones
but there will be a lot of beginners as well with non-narrative list, specially because they don't know how a narrative list looks like and some of those still want to get better at playing the game

Meanwile Jimmy, their friend managed to get his hands on a christmas box of custodes, and rolls up to their games with an army consisting of 50% of a tournament list.

"reduced lethality"

had a combat patrol game yesterday, Marine Aggressors are not "reduced lethality"