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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I mean, don't forget that in 4th edition, Imperial Guard literally fielded platoons as a single troops choice.

Hehe, good point.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The reason it worked so well for both RPG AND wargame play in my opinion is that it abstracted things reasonably - i.e. the lore tether.

Yeah, this was a really big deal. The abstractions were pretty efficient, effective, and reasonably tethered to the background. The only quibbles I really had that come to mind were:

1."Bolters/basic weapons in a squad can't fire at opposing infantry while the heavy weapon guy shoots at a vehicle". I think that really bugged a lot of people, and made the "introductory unit" the Tactical squad, a bit too punishing.

2. High Armor units (Marines) gaining no benefit against basic weapons when in cover. It's a rule that ultimately functioned pretty well, and I'll defend the design-thought behind it because it forced hard choices. But it was a tough pill to swallow for many, not very intuitive, and unnecessary.

3. AT weapons being limited to only 1 damage against MCs. This wasn't so much an issue in 4th because MCs hadn't gotten out of control yet, but it sure as hell became a huge issue later on. I would make some adjustments around that.

4: Auto-pinning coming out of a destroyed vehicle was too harsh. Something less binary would have been a better solution.

Agreed - and some of those things HH2.0 has fixed, and some not.

I think my solutions would be:
1) allow the squad to split fire only on a LD check per additional target, and if any one check is failed, the whole unit can't shoot because of confusion. (Should be easy for a Marine squad to hit a tank and one unit of dudes, should be much harder for them to each fire at a single separate target for 10 in total). Or I would change it to be like COC, at least for infantry, and require only an LD test to direct a unit's fire once. (Obviously I would remove Target Priority tests)

2) I think if you split this between cover and concealment you would do wonders. Light infantry SHOULD benefit from concealment more than heavy infantry, but Heavy Infantry should still see some benefit to being behind a concrete battlement. Probably abstract this with a modifier to the hit roll for concealment and a modifier to the wound roll for bulletproof cover. That way, a unit's armor still meaningfully adds to its toughness but it can benefit from bulletproof cover.

3) "Brutal" in HH does an okay job of addressing this - a unit can take multiple "wounds" from a single impact. This means that a Vanquisher cannon, for example, can do 4 wounds to a (usually) 6 wound dreadnought-equivalent in one shooting phase. Generally I can think of a few other abstractions as well.

4) Auto-pinning was harsh, but forcing a pinning test is fine. The only issue in 40k (absent from 30k) is the sheer number of fearless models/models that DGAF about Leadership. I would probably make a Strength or Initiative test against entanglement (avoiding getting stuck in the wreckage) and a pinning test to reorganize. Sounds harsh for regular humans, but I don't think it is unrealistic and can give Strength and Initiative good reasons to exist outside CC

8th edition drained the soul from 40k. 10th edition just took out a lot of redundant and unnecessary gak that honestly added very little to the game.

The only issue I have with 10th edition is the utter trash that they call "aircraft". You're better off putting them in hover and staying right at 48inches rather than, you know, FLYING AROUND THE BATTLEFIELD.

 Eilif wrote:

Insectum7 wrote:
Yeah that's sorta what I had read. "RPG" relating to character and options available to units, vs. "streamlined" reduction of options for the sake of balance and ease of maintenance.

And IMO 40k better serves its audience when it's a bit messier in terms of options and character. GW can't really balance it when it's a "cleaner" system anyways.

How 40k serves it's audience is an interesting discussion itself. GW do fans seem to clamor for options and character, but that comes at the expense of balance and gameplay.

No, it doesn't. It would if GW could launch a 40k edition with great balance and gameplay under any circumstances, but even if the game had 20 units and 3 relics it'd still be unbalanced at launch. We've never gotten anything from removed options. The only options that shouldn't be represented is the difference between Sergeants with and without helmets and whether a power weapon is an axe, maul or sword where it adds nothing to the game and represents nothing fluffy. Melta and flamers or Scouts and Space Marines being different is really important.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Also, it seems like balance is currently measured primarily by faction winrate, which is an extremely shallow metric.

It's a great primary metric, what would you suggest should be the primary metric? Player enjoyment? If Eldar players are having a good time then them being the focal point of game balance is fine? A lot of good things come naturally from a 50% win rate. The game lead has also been saying clever things for the past year on game balance, if that's your main concern with 10th then worrying does not make sense. Poor launch but 6th, 8th and 9th had quite bad balance as well.

 Sledgehammer wrote:
8th edition drained the soul from 40k. 10th edition just took out a lot of redundant and unnecessary gak that honestly added very little to the game.

Souls are overrated if that's the case.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Also, it seems like balance is currently measured primarily by faction winrate, which is an extremely shallow metric.

It's a great primary metric, what would you suggest should be the primary metric?

I wouldn't so quickly suggest that there be a "primary" metric. But other things I would look for is diversity of build and usage of units for each faction. We should all understand by now that just because a few units in a codex can make a singular tournament winning list, we shouldn't say a codex is "fine" even when the other 90% of units in it never get used competitively.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I miss platoons. They were such a cool thing. Removing them was a mistake.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Also, it seems like balance is currently measured primarily by faction winrate, which is an extremely shallow metric.

It's all about them win rates, yo!

Your army getting a 50% win rate? Then it's perfectly balanced and we don't need to look at how or why it's achieving this rate, what units are being used or not used, or anything more detailed than that!

The eldar seem to always be at both ends of this problem.

Their army somehow gets a combo of particularly effective or broken units, and then has a large chunk that is utterly useless. But because all people see are the busted combos, all eldar get tarred with the same brush...


In 10th, you can see quite clearly what the issue is - the game has stripped other means of protection leaving only pro marine stats - T,W,Sv. So the eldar units with the most marine-like profiles are now the most effective - wraiths, jetbikes, tanks, knights.

The design philosophy of glass hammer units has been progressively written out of the game while the miniatures remain the same, so you have units that represent a game style paradigm that just doesn't currently exist.

The only way the T3 W1 elite super infantry the eldar have get a look in is if they possess high speed to get them physically out of sight/range of the enemy... you could push aspects to Sv3+/5+ and Sv2+/5+ for the heavy ones and it still wouldn't do much.


And so you end up with a chunk of the most fragile units in the game with no mechanic to keep them in play and the army devolves into its classic broken spam...

That's what happens when you remove speed as a defence.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 tauist wrote:
IIRC GW has said in retrospect that people who played long enough ended up with "too big armies for the game" so the scope of the rules had to be increased. I dont even know if that was a problem in and of itself, if 3rd - 5th edition period is looked back as being in the goldilocks zone for the game.. so were consolidating vehicles into having toughness values and the introduction of stratagems steps too far? Or the reduction of wargear options?

I don't think those things helped. 3rd-5th was IMHO the sweet spot as far as size. Roughly company level: A few squads, a vehicle or two, maybe a walker, things like that. Basically the same size Bolt Action is now.

Don't forget that "normal" was designed to be 1500 then as well, so there's a 500 point inflation in game size even if points were 1:1. But I agree that size felt better.

Minor point, but I recall tournament games at 1750 in 3rd, and 1850 in 4th . . . ? I think?

The rulebook now promotes 2k and the players conform to that, in 3rd and 4th the rulebook recommended an average game was 1500 points, but primarily in the US, the tournament scene wanted more stuff on the table/less hard counters, so increased the game size. Or such was my understanding.

Edit: after a quick reread of a pdf, 3rd ed states the game is designed at any point value, recommends 1000, 1500 or 2000. Then states 1000 for a quick game, 1500 for an afternoon long game and larger over a weekend. GW events ran at 1500 as well.

^Yeah I dunno where the 1750 originated from, I'm just pretty sure the local tournament standard was more than 1500.

I still have a pic of my best performing SM army from 4th edition, and I'm 90% sure it was an 1850 pointer. I might have a pic of my Necron army from around then too. I'll have to see if I can dig one up.

For yuks, maybe in the coming days I can take a picture of the 2K list I plan on using against a buddy of mine for 10th.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Also, it seems like balance is currently measured primarily by faction winrate, which is an extremely shallow metric.

It's a great primary metric, what would you suggest should be the primary metric?

I wouldn't so quickly suggest that there be a "primary" metric. But other things I would look for is diversity of build and usage of units for each faction. We should all understand by now that just because a few units in a codex can make a singular tournament winning list, we shouldn't say a codex is "fine" even when the other 90% of units in it never get used competitively.

So if Eldar are clapping everybody using a diverse roster it's fine? You diversify based on win rates. Win rate too high? Nerf overused units, increase balance and diversity. Win rate too low? Buff underused units, increase balance and diversity. If GW looked mainly at diversity they would ruin the game.

 Hellebore wrote:
In 10th, you can see quite clearly what the issue is - the game has stripped other means of protection leaving only pro marine stats - T,W,Sv. So the eldar units with the most marine-like profiles are now the most effective - wraiths, jetbikes, tanks, knights.

That's random, Wraithknights were awful in 8th and 9th if I recall correctly. Wave Serpents, Bikes, Knights were all awful in 6th and 7th when we had initiative and WS? Utter nonsense. How about 5th? Were Striking Scorpions and Guardian Squads the meta? How about in 8th when deep striking Guardian swarms and T3 Dark Reapers and Warp Spiders were meta? Or 9th when Swooping Hawks were unkillable?

 Insectum7 wrote:
^Yeah I dunno where the 1750 originated from, I'm just pretty sure the local tournament standard was more than 1500.

I still have a pic of my best performing SM army from 4th edition, and I'm 90% sure it was an 1850 pointer. I might have a pic of my Necron army from around then too. I'll have to see if I can dig one up.

Spoiler:

For yuks, maybe in the coming days I can take a picture of the 2K list I plan on using against a buddy of mine for 10th.

I know that in the UK 1,500 was the norm here in the US it was 1,750 in 3rd, bumped up to 1,850 in 4th and 2k became the norm in 5th.

As for lists from back in the day 2010/2011..i have quite a few pics as i went to a couple of GTs in my area before i decided they were toxic cesspools of the worst kinds of players 99% of the time.

Here are a few of the nice looking and/or stand out armies..some of which do not even exist anymore like the praetorian guard.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Also, it seems like balance is currently measured primarily by faction winrate, which is an extremely shallow metric.

It's a great primary metric, what would you suggest should be the primary metric?

I wouldn't so quickly suggest that there be a "primary" metric. But other things I would look for is diversity of build and usage of units for each faction. We should all understand by now that just because a few units in a codex can make a singular tournament winning list, we shouldn't say a codex is "fine" even when the other 90% of units in it never get used competitively.

So if Eldar are clapping everybody using a diverse roster it's fine? You diversify based on win rates. Win rate too high? Nerf overused units, increase balance and diversity. Win rate too low? Buff underused units, increase balance and diversity. If GW looked mainly at diversity they would ruin the game.

 Hellebore wrote:
In 10th, you can see quite clearly what the issue is - the game has stripped other means of protection leaving only pro marine stats - T,W,Sv. So the eldar units with the most marine-like profiles are now the most effective - wraiths, jetbikes, tanks, knights.

That's random, Wraithknights were awful in 8th and 9th if I recall correctly. Wave Serpents, Bikes, Knights were all awful in 6th and 7th when we had initiative and WS? Utter nonsense. How about 5th? Were Striking Scorpions and Guardian Squads the meta? How about in 8th when deep striking Guardian swarms and T3 Dark Reapers and Warp Spiders were meta? Or 9th when Swooping Hawks were unkillable?

You're putting words in my mouth.

I was talking about T,W,Sv and how effective having those are in the current design.

Being the most effective now says nothing about what they were like before. You're using a fallacy of reciprocity, that just because I am saying they are great now, they must necessarily have been bad previously.

The game has always been slanted towards marine type stats, it's just been slowly stripped more and more until those are literally the only rules used to determine survivability.

Dark reapers and swooping hawks fall under this statement I made you didn't quote:

The only way the T3 W1 elite super infantry the eldar have get a look in is if they possess high speed to get them physically out of sight/range of the enemy... you could push aspects to Sv3+/5+ and Sv2+/5+ for the heavy ones and it still wouldn't do much.

Out of sight/range from guns or movement is the only thing the game has to keep these kinds of units alive.

I think 10th Ed. is a symptom, not a cause. There seems to be a bit of a general malaise in GW over the last while. As an example, over the past week I've been to three Warhammer stores across different countries (Dublin, Warsaw and Brighton). In the first there's no gaming permitted beyond intro games; the second only had a selection of customer-painted models in their single cabinet, most of which were examples of 'models of the month'; and the Brighton store doesn't have a miniatures display cabinet at all! I had no interactions with the staff beyond cursory hello (didn't even get that much in Brighton).
The most telling thing for me as a player, however, is that I picked up the new Marine codex in each shop, then put it back on the shelf without buying. I've bought every SM codex ever released thus far, but I don't see the value in doing it now. Maybe this is just me, but I do feel that, despite the amazing models GW are producing, the 40K game seems to be losing some of its direction and even relevance.

RE: Points

Wasn't 1750 and then 1850 some ITC crap they came up with? I do recall some tournaments being at 1999 + 1 so basically 2000 but limiting to one force organization chart, Because at 2K you got a second one. Then for some reason GW decided to focus on 2000 as the standard and make a lot of things not really work at 1000.

I wish the standard was still 1500. Hell I wish that a tournament out there would do it at 1500 just to show the difference. But chances are the people would complain about it even if it worked well.

Hellebore wrote:In 10th, you can see quite clearly what the issue is - the game has stripped other means of protection leaving only pro marine stats - T,W,Sv. So the eldar units with the most marine-like profiles are now the most effective - wraiths, jetbikes, tanks, knights.

By using the word So (bolded by me) you are linking the change in the game to what the most effective units are. I'm not putting anything in your mouth. It's a very clear logical argument, the conclusion just doesn't follow the premises. Wraiths, jetbikes, tanks and knights being good has nothing to do with stripping WS and Initiative from the game as proven by them being good before and bad after.

Could you please explain your definition of effectiveness you used for the post I quoted? Your definition of the fallacy of reciprocity seems wrong, you're probably thinking of something else I think I know what you're speaking of but it is unclear to me.

Wayniac wrote:
RE: Points

Wasn't 1750 and then 1850 some ITC crap they came up with? I do recall some tournaments being at 1999 + 1 so basically 2000 but limiting to one force organization chart, Because at 2K you got a second one. Then for some reason GW decided to focus on 2000 as the standard and make a lot of things not really work at 1000.

I wish the standard was still 1500. Hell I wish that a tournament out there would do it at 1500 just to show the difference. But chances are the people would complain about it even if it worked well.

Agreed. I suspect the 2000 from GW is likely just pandering to the ITC player base as they needed them on board to unify the playerbase with a single rules platform again. "It's what the people want!" sort of thing.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I feel it's more that GW vacillates between the two extremes, seemingly at random, and with no real indication that they understand what they're doing or why they're doing it.

10th saw a reduction in bloat, but, typically, went too far

That's GW's basic modus operandi. I call it the rubber band effect.

and saw them remove too many things that didn't need such massive reductions (removal of combi-weapons and certain specialised melee weapons, the complete lack of variety and choice with psychic powers).

We're veering very close to the "simulation vs abstraction" argument, and that's an ugly place.

If only some of us were warning about calling everything in the armies we don't play "bloat".

But combining both of those points into one, I'd advise sitting back and waiting for the eventual course corrections. Another typical blind spot for GW is 40K Melee. They changed to 8th and got rid of all the bonus attacks (Charging, two CCWs, etc) and slowly re-added similar stuff. Yet again in 10th they have treated CCW as an afterthought - Lascannon jumped to S12, Power Fists and Thunderhammers are still S8. I'm assuming/hoping somewhere - probably just before 11th - they'll figure that out and the traditional "x2" weapons go to "x3" or even better, borrow from the Ballistus claws etc with a two profile "mode" choice. more attacks at x2 D3/D4ish for Terminators/Gravis equivalents, fewer S12 D4/5/6ish for vs Vehicles

 vict0988 wrote:
So if Eldar are clapping everybody using a diverse roster it's fine? You diversify based on win rates. Win rate too high? Nerf overused units, increase balance and diversity. Win rate too low? Buff underused units, increase balance and diversity. If GW looked mainly at diversity they would ruin the game.

Then circa 8th Ed GW looks at, say, Tyranid win rates, sees it's around 50%, ignores that it's based on a couple of overperforming units to shore up an otherwise weak codex, and calls it a day.

And the result is a game that is dull as dishwater because you've got a few mandatory units to make a credible list and a bunch of crap that is never taken, while GW says job's done because the win rate is what it should be.

Balancing by win rates alone is a sure way to produce a boring, repetitive game and yes, list diversity ought to be a priority if your goal is a fun game with longevity and not a puzzle exercise for tournament players to solve. Win rates are a good way to assess external balance and a lousy way to assess internal balance.

My entire problem with their approach, beyond the fact it seems to be just kneejerk buffing/nerfing based on what did well/poorly at the last few GTs, is that win rate means feth all if every list at a tournament is using the same 20% of the codex, while 80% of it is garbage.

If a faction has a 55% win rate (that's good, right? Let's pretend it is anyway), is it in a good spot/balanced if the lists played are the same 20% or so of the codex, and completely ignore most of the book?

 vict0988 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Also, it seems like balance is currently measured primarily by faction winrate, which is an extremely shallow metric.

It's a great primary metric, what would you suggest should be the primary metric? Player enjoyment? If Eldar players are having a good time then them being the focal point of game balance is fine? A lot of good things come naturally from a 50% win rate. The game lead has also been saying clever things for the past year on game balance, if that's your main concern with 10th then worrying does not make sense. Poor launch but 6th, 8th and 9th had quite bad balance as well.

 Sledgehammer wrote:
8th edition drained the soul from 40k. 10th edition just took out a lot of redundant and unnecessary gak that honestly added very little to the game.

Souls are overrated if that's the case.

Win rate only cares about the ability for the faction to field a list that can win against other armies. If Orks had absolutely garbage units but grots were something like 1ppm and could just flood the board with so much fodder that it would be impossible to kill them all while the sheer volume of dice being rolled just drowned the opponent in 6s. Tournament games never come to a proper conclusion due to how long it takes to play so the win rate is close to 50% due to running out of time but the end result is inevitably in favor of the grot spam. Then that isn't a good army to play nor play against.

Simply put a faction where 80% of the unit options are not good but one or two units are so overturned that you build your army around. You can have a good win rate despite the faction being generally quite terrible outside of a particular list. That isn't a good place for a faction or the game to be unless you only care about winning.

Also you can have fairly skewed results with selection bias as the lists that result in those win % are almost always optimized lists and viable factions. A faction that gets roughly a 50% win rate vs a healthy mix of factions is going to look different than a faction that that has a 50% win rate when 90% of their games are against the top 4 factions while it's win rate against the rest of the factions is probably in the 80% range. Tau in general during 7th were decent but not top tier in tournaments and yet they towered over a lot of the weaker factions. Their good yet not great win % didn't really explain anything about why Tau dominated weaker factions while generally struggling against the stronger tournament lists.

Even more importantly ARE things like player enjoyment. Frankly a lot of tournament lists are horribly unfun to play with/against and yet tournament players will often play them because they win games. Using 7th edition examples, the bark bark star was a list that was powerful yet wasn't fun to play as or against. Or something like the entirely un-thematic Stormsurge spam where they would do as much if not more damage in melee than range due to abusing volume of stomp attacks.

Balance passes and general design work based on tournament results for a game that is woefully ill suited for tournament play results in a lot of bad design choices that suck the life out of the game. Again using 7th but if you played a game against an opponent who was fielding an army that was relatively similar in power to yours then the game was a ton of fun. Granted it took some work to figure out a relatively balanced matchup but if both parties wanted to play a fun game of 40k then it could be done. Playing 8th by contrast for me was just DREADFULLY dull. I never had so little fun playing 40k as I did in 8th regardless of winning, losing, or having a close fight because the core gameplay of the revamped game was low sodium saltine cracker levels of bland. Tournament balance was much better in 8th but the depth and quality of play for people who like complexity in gameplay took a massive nose dive.

Wayniac wrote:
RE: Points

Wasn't 1750 and then 1850 some ITC crap they came up with? I do recall some tournaments being at 1999 + 1 so basically 2000 but limiting to one force organization chart, Because at 2K you got a second one. Then for some reason GW decided to focus on 2000 as the standard and make a lot of things not really work at 1000.

I wish the standard was still 1500. Hell I wish that a tournament out there would do it at 1500 just to show the difference. But chances are the people would complain about it even if it worked well.

Our local shops generic standard back in the 3e-6e era was 2k pts, 1 detachment.
We'd adjust the pts (downwards) if we were playing multi-player games.
I don't recall what the pts limits were for the tourneys I attended back then. I just read the entry, built to whatever limit & gave it no more thought. I vaguely remember some being different values, some having various restrictions, etc.

Currently the shop default is nominally 2k. But in practice it's more a Discord post of "anyone want to play x pts, time/day?".

On wanting a different standard....
Outside of tourney play, just set your own limit.
If you only want to play 1500 pt games? Then let that be known to those you play with & only accept games at that lv.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Also, it seems like balance is currently measured primarily by faction winrate, which is an extremely shallow metric.

It's a great primary metric, what would you suggest should be the primary metric?

I wouldn't so quickly suggest that there be a "primary" metric. But other things I would look for is diversity of build and usage of units for each faction. We should all understand by now that just because a few units in a codex can make a singular tournament winning list, we shouldn't say a codex is "fine" even when the other 90% of units in it never get used competitively.

So if Eldar are clapping everybody using a diverse roster it's fine? You diversify based on win rates. Win rate too high? Nerf overused units, increase balance and diversity. Win rate too low? Buff underused units, increase balance and diversity. If GW looked mainly at diversity they would ruin the game.

That's why I wrote that there shouldn't necessarily be a "primary" metric. You look at multiple areas of data. Faction winrate, diversity of builds within a faction, faction popularity, which types of builds win which missions, etc.

Winrate cannot be the only metric, but it is the primary metric for external balance, and external balance is important.

5th would have been a much better edition if GW actually fixed the power lists and buffed the underperforming factions instead of the "it is a beer and pretzels" nonsense.

 Vankraken wrote:
Win rate only cares about the ability for the faction to field a list that can win against other armies. If Orks had absolutely garbage units but grots were something like 1ppm and could just flood the board with so much fodder that it would be impossible to kill them all while the sheer volume of dice being rolled just drowned the opponent in 6s. Tournament games never come to a proper conclusion due to how long it takes to play so the win rate is close to 50% due to running out of time but the end result is inevitably in favor of the grot spam. Then that isn't a good army to play nor play against.

Yes, if that happened it would be bad. But we can look through the lists and see that this hasn't really been the case.

Ultimately if most factions are +/- 50%, then you should have a varied meta. This should in turn mean the bulk of your codex (assumingly its pointed vaguely accurately) can be viable in at least some games.
The difference is when you have some factions running at say 70% win rate (and they can, as we saw with Eldar, splash into almost anything barring the core of OP units were there).
The reason is that the whole meta is warped to cope with them. Many factions will have barely one list that stands a chance into such lists, and so everyone runs that and abandons the rest of the codex.

I feel the performance of Tau in 7th was explained by being dramatically advantaged if they went first as opposed to second. In a tournament, the odds of you going first game after game obviously recede.
(This wasn't unique to Tau, from memory most factions wanted to go first, but some coped with being second better than others).

GW have sometimes taken this into account. Its unclear whether everyone's complaining about it in 10th though.

For me it has. I can't even set up my gaming table photo realistically anymore like SS82 or MWG style as these comp simps in my area follow the BS terrain layouts GW made. Also my 3 armies are garbage tier, which ruins it further. Can't play with my beautifully painted models on beautiful tables. Just infinite fighting over the exact same destroyed buildings, snooze fest.

 Gibblets wrote:
For me it has. I can't even set up my gaming table photo realistically anymore like SS82 or MWG style as these comp simps in my area follow the BS terrain layouts GW made. Also my 3 armies are garbage tier, which ruins it further. Can't play with my beautifully painted models on beautiful tables. Just infinite fighting over the exact same destroyed buildings, snooze fest.

The terrain is probably the worst of the worst. Anything visually interesting or unique is gone, replaced with boring L-shaped ruins because "it's balanced", and the game itself makes anything less than that busted because of shooting so if you're not using it people are always like "you need more terrain". Gone is the desire for an interesting themed board.

I wonder how many people here have played 10th extensively. Speaking from a purely competitive standpoint, the internal balance for many factions is the best I've ever seen. I can't believe how much emphasis there is on movement and utility compared to raw damage. I've never played an edition where so much of my collection was playable. List building has been a lot of fun. Stratagems are largely excellent and impactful. Morale matters, and in some cases a lot -- it frequently results in big points swings if you know what you're doing.

Yes, we lost a lot of flavor and customization. I'm more of a narrative player/hobbyist myself to be honest. But in terms of pure abstract gameplay, as someone who prefers narrative but can also find enjoyment in solving a well-designed puzzle, things have been pretty great.

 Vankraken wrote:

Even more importantly ARE things like player enjoyment. Frankly a lot of tournament lists are horribly unfun to play with/against and yet tournament players will often play them because they win games. Using 7th edition examples, the bark bark star was a list that was powerful yet wasn't fun to play as or against. Or something like the entirely un-thematic Stormsurge spam where they would do as much if not more damage in melee than range due to abusing volume of stomp attacks.

Just want to second this point.

A lot of tournament lists are incredibly boring to play against and look no more fun to play.

 Gibblets wrote:
For me it has. I can't even set up my gaming table photo realistically anymore like SS82 or MWG style as these comp simps in my area follow the BS terrain layouts GW made. ... Can't play with my beautifully painted models on beautiful tables. Just infinite fighting over the exact same destroyed buildings, snooze fest.

And this is why symmetrical tables have always been and always will be utter cancer.

I don't know what moron came up with the notion that tables at tournament games must be set and perfectly uniform, but I really want to punch them.

 vipoid wrote:
A lot of tournament lists are incredibly boring to play against and look no more fun to play.

I mean let's have a look at GW's most recent Dunning Kruger Comedy Fest Metawatch article:

Does that look like fun? To make Sisters work you've got to bring not one, not two, but three special characters? Makes me wonder when does it stop being "Your guys" and become "Their guys" if your list contains multiple special characters. I imagine that if Marines didn't have the Chapter distinction, we'd be seeing lists with multi-chapter Special Characters as well. Also, near as I can tell, the Death Cult Assassins are there just to fulfil the Dedicated Transport requirement.

The World Eater one ain't much better?

Now in WE's defence, they only have half a Codex, but again, we've got a list using 2 of their 3 special character (and given how many WE lists I've seen with Kharn, I'm genuinely surprised he's not there as well). Also cool WE list with its single unit of Berzerkers and loads of... spawn...

But I guess it's all fine as long as the mighty win rates are on track.

artific3r wrote:
I wonder how many people here have played 10th extensively. Speaking from a purely competitive standpoint, the internal balance for many factions is the best I've ever seen. I can't believe how much emphasis there is on movement and utility compared to raw damage. I've never played an edition where so much of my collection was playable. List building has been a lot of fun. Stratagems are largely excellent and impactful. Morale matters, and in some cases a lot -- it frequently results in big points swings if you know what you're doing.

Yes, we lost a lot of flavor and customization. I'm more of a narrative player/hobbyist myself to be honest. But in terms of pure abstract gameplay, as someone who prefers narrative but can also find enjoyment in solving a well-designed puzzle, things have been pretty great.

I have not played 10th, and I won't discount your experience, but for me 10th opened up by sending a hefty number of my units to Legends.