Latest posts for the thread "Do you think there is an unfair army?"

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Darth — GMT

Im quite happy with my Necrons, but im wandering if any of you think there is an overpowered army within 40k. From what i have seen they are reasonabaly fair.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

StormHalo — GMT

I'd say it's more appropriate to say that the 5th edition rules made some of the armies underpowered.

I don't think one army alone stands out as being overpowered.

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

Deadshane1 — GMT

Grey Knights>everything!

Do you think there is an unfair army?

MarvinGayeIsMyDaddy — GMT

Grey Knights are horrendously overpowered as their basic troops only cost 2.5 points each!

Oh. Wait.

Nah, I don't think there are any over powered armies.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

ungulateman — GMT

Well, Orks, Oblit spam and Nidzilla are the closest, but even they are alright. Mainly because 40k is about luck.

**puts up flame shield**

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Corpsman_of_Krieg — GMT

Well, I wouldn't say there is such a thing as an end-all beat-all list, but I think 24 Bloodcrushers plus 4 Heralds on Juggernaut comes pretty close.

Triple Monolith combined with Immortals can be pretty ugly too.

CK

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

Sha1emade — GMT

Anything that beats me is unfair. Anything that I beat is weak. Any time I get a tie? Table was the problem.

On a serious note. No no unfair armies. Mostly powergamers give the armies a bad name. Not hard to find something effective and SPAM the hell out of it. It is more the player I am afraid then the army.

Just my 2 cents....

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

TheBloodGod — GMT

Sha1emade wrote:Anything that beats me is unfair. Anything that I beat is weak. Any time I get a tie? Table was the problem.

On a serious note. No no unfair armies. Mostly powergamers give the armies a bad name. Not hard to find something effective and SPAM the hell out of it. It is more the player I am afraid then the army.

Just my 2 cents....

Sounds like the main problem is Games Workshop, not players. If one unit/squad is more effective than others so much that people would be spamming it, then blizz needs to raise its point cost / lower points cost of alternatives. Also, make the alternatives not suck.

Take chaos, for instance. Give me landraiders as good as ultrasmurfs have, and dreadnaughts they aren't completely useless, and maybe I won't have to just grab 9 obliterators.

A lot of "powergamers" WANT variety but their army codex simply lacks a variety of effective choices.

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

rmeju — GMT

As a Tau player, I think I should ask:

Do you mean unfair like it's too good, or unfair like it's not good enough?

Just kiddin'

Rmeju

Do you think there is an unfair army?

wuestenfux — GMT

Unfair means what?
There are several top tier armies like Orks, Nidzilla, some Chaos. Possibly some SM armies. But Necrons are not top tier.

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

PinkSpaceHippy — GMT

TheBloodGod wrote:If one unit/squad is more effective than others so much that people would be spamming it, then blizz needs to raise its point cost / lower points cost of alternatives.

I fully understand that GW and Blizz both suck, but we're talking 40k here not WoW.

24 blood crushers and a fateweaver is cheesy, broken, beardy, and unfair.

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

storm knight — GMT

I always hated playing Eldar Power builds... Ignores cover multiple ap 3 blasts pfff. Weird Grenades, Swooping hawks could be annoying and flying tanks that change armor values with their weapons pffff. Certainly annoying.

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

Sha1emade — GMT

Well I would like to make an ATTEMPT at putting things into perspective.

40k is an organic game. Let me explain that, even if it seems obvious. The game changes allot. New units are added. New fluff is added. Rules change to reflect this. Units rules change from edition to edition. What was once broken and powerful often becomes weak. Nearly every unit and army gets its day in the sun.

We often bitch about imbalance in the game and point fingers at GW for not play testing the stuff they put out. However to be fair they probably do test the stuff pretty well. Problem is that we the players outnumber them my a ton! With a good deal of people looking to exploit some rule or unit in ways not originally intended or expected. So somethings by nature can get a bit out of hand in this game. Given its organic nature expect things like lash, oblit spam, nob biker armies, 24 bloodcrushers with fateweaver and other things to change at some point.

Most of us do not play 40k in anticipation of one game or one tournament. As it is a hobby we are all gonna lose some and win some. Stick around long enough and things will come full circle to where you will be the one people point at and cry cheese. Some players don't have that patience and will always have one of the insane power builds in their back pocket chasing the next best thing. If you dislike the super builds identify those players and avoid them.

Not to mention in RTT the super builds rarely do well as people give them low comp scores, low sportsmanship scores and those type of players trying to keep up with the trends often don't have the time or patience to paint the army well witch means low painting scores. Makes it possible and often not difficult to beat them in the whole of the tournament. They work best in ARD boys were these armies are expected and glorified.

I believe GW realized that they were missing things and people were bitching about them allot. With so many players adopting the power builds and distracting from what a RTT was meant to do, be a platform for the hobby. They created the Ard Boys to hopefully create a rift between those that play as a hobby and those that MUST win games and have THE most powerful army. Kind of smart actually.

Just my 2 cents.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

extrenm(54) — GMT

Every army can do something that is broken. This whole game is a balance of everybody's brokenness. So I do not think there s any army that is particularly over powered.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Lemartes — GMT

If your playing against Crushers or Nob bikers I would say you have a uphill climb ahead of you. As far as one ubber list no because currently thiers a Rock/paper/scissors thing going on.

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

Recklessfable — GMT

Not so very long ago I'd have answered:
'Nidzilla
Iron Warriors
Las-plas Marines with asscannon spam.
Demon Bomb

Of those lists, only Nidzilla is still legal. In smaller games, it lacks the Troops slots necessary in 2/3 of missions.

I haven't been playing enough since 5th edition started, so now I'm just going to throw stuff out here for folks to discuss:

So let's go through the exercise of listing what is left:
Teleporting Sternguard Marines
Crusher Demons
Nurgle Demons
Lash Chaos Marines
Mech Eldar
Mech Tau
Nidzilla
Horde Orks
Nob Biker Orks (The new Demon Bomb?)
Preferred Enemy Templars?

In in the also-rans:
Eldar
Necrons
Drop Guard Vets + Tanks
Other Space Marines
Sisters
Grey Knights?

Special Olympics:
Dark Angels (Suck)
Blood Angels (Cost)
Static Tau (/sigh)
Most Guard Builds

Mytholgical:
Dark Eldar

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

PinkSpaceHippy — GMT

To say that every codex has something broken that all armies get balanced out is completely wrong. What's broken about Tau? Their skimmers suck now in 5th, and their troops sucked even in 4th, so they're not going to claim anything. Tau is a really weak army in 5th. What do Eldar have that's so cheesey now? Skimmers suck compared to how they used to be. Don't even get me started on WH. That codex can't pop out a broken army of any sort in 5th. DH is the same way. Grey Knights weren't very good in 4th and they aren't now. They're just space marines that aren't as good, aren't as flexible, and cost a lot more points. Space Marines don't have any truely broken lists. There are a few decent contenders, but there is no list that's just really hard to beat no matter who you're up against. Necrons have a few handy tricks, and the fact that their rules almost dictate you have to have a decent number of troops helps them some, but they're not a top-table army in tournaments. Chaos isn't very good in either the new codex or the new edition. Dark Eldar are pretty good but you have to know how to run them. Guard CAN be good, especially with 5th being so cover heavy and guard being able to get +1 to all of their cover saves, but they pretty much automatically lose in Annihilation, as they have twice the KP of any other army. Tyranids are still viable depending on your list. Nidzilla ran with as many genestealers as you can take after the fexes and tyrant along with a broodlord is pretty killer, especial with genestealers being able to outflank now, etc. Daemosn are completely broken if you run them with 24 blood crushers, the fateweaver, and so forth. Orks are good, but pretty much only nob bikers.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Corpsman_of_Krieg — GMT

Wuestenfux, I don't know how you can say Nidzilla is top tier. Maybe I've been lucky in my multiple games against several Nidzilla players (in 4th and 5th Edition), but I've never had serious trouble with them, regardless of whether I'm fielding Guard (shooty), Templars (melta, preferred enemy), or Deathwing (shooty).

I'd be interested to know how many people have ever fought dual or triple-Monolith Necron armies where the player is using them as castle walls. It can be quite disgusting.

As for the OP, I guess I should have been more specific in my answer:

Do I think there are unfair armies? No. Some armies may have advantages or be more prone to having powerbuilds made out of them, but I think all the armies are relatively balanced -- even Codex: Dark Angels (Deathwing can be pretty nasty).

CK

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

Thalor — GMT

TheBloodGod wrote:
Take chaos, for instance. Give me landraiders as good as ultrasmurfs have, and dreadnaughts they aren't completely useless, and maybe I won't have to just grab 9 obliterators.

A lot of "powergamers" WANT variety but their army codex simply lacks a variety of effective choices.

True that.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

focusedfire — GMT

(A Little Off-Topic)@ PinkSpaceHippy: As a Tau player who still wins when his Railguns haved rolled 1s for damage an entire game. I have to disagree about our tanks. 5pts for the diruption pods. Still have the RailGun.

Its not that our skimmers suck its just that other tanks got so much better by becoming more difficult to destroy. The only things that really hurt our tanks more than other armies was the reduction in defensive weapon strength. Leaving us now with no defensive weapons for our tanks. This will probably be fixed with a flamer drone upgrade or some such in a couple of years(hopefully) with a new Dex. Until then I can cope.

Where we got really hurt was in our basic troop fire. This was hurt terribly by the coversaves rules that leave our markerlight teams over worked now. Our troops always sucked at trying to hold objectives. Thats why you keep a transport nearby, don't jump the gun and on turn three start heading towards the objectives.

Is it frustrating having your playstyle restricted? Heck yes. But this is how a corporation gets you to look forward to buying your next codex. They play off of our competitiveness to make money.

(Horror of horror at admitting this) But do we wish that ,as long as GW continues on a Wizards of the Coast business model, they would simultaneously release all codexs at the same time as the new rule book? Yes, but then we wouldn't have anything to gripe about.

(Back on topic)Unfair as in your necrons get to STAND BACK UP after I killed it(imagine little kid saying,...hey necron I shot you so your out until the next game).
Or how my TAU PEEKED WITH THEIR MARKERLIGHTS and saw you hiding.Seriously, they're not unfair. Just different, and thats what makes the game interesting.
(I do believe some armies have simpler tactics and are easier to command. But thats just my opinion.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

NidMaster40000 — GMT

In my opinion, typed on an iPod touch... No army is truely overpowered. Sure, it might take more to kill a certain army build but you'll figure it out eventually and then you'll win often. What you really need to do is find out what. The army runs on and strive to kill one unit at a time. Necrons are annoying at best, not overpowered.

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

wuestenfux — GMT

Wuestenfux, I don't know how you can say Nidzilla is top tier. Maybe I've been lucky in my multiple games against several Nidzilla players (in 4th and 5th Edition), but I've never had serious trouble with them, regardless of whether I'm fielding Guard (shooty), Templars (melta, preferred enemy), or Deathwing (shooty).

Well, in the GT final in October there were several Nidzilla builds.

I'd be interested to know how many people have ever fought dual or triple-Monolith Necron armies where the player is using them as castle walls. It can be quite disgusting.

In the GT final there was one player with triple-Monolith. He is a decent player in the scene but his army perfomed horribly. Just forget it.

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

Tierlieb — GMT

Hey Sha1emade,
I like your post. I sums up many interesting points already made in the discussion sub-forum (where this thread belongs, imho):

Sha1emade wrote:40k is an organic game. Let me explain that, even if it seems obvious. The game changes allot. New units are added. New fluff is added. Rules change to reflect this. Units rules change from edition to edition. What was once broken and powerful often becomes weak. Nearly every unit and army gets its day in the sun.

Well, let's say most. I think we should differentiate between "armies" and "builds", there. In one of the several discussions about new 5th edition codices and which army "deserved" one, when it boiled down to Dark Eldar or Imperial Guard, someone said: IG all the way. Because you can build a at least a single proper tournament list for DE (spamming a few good units, dunno whych, don't care, no DE player around here), but none for IG. So let's agree to say "most".

So there is a difference between armies and builds.

Is it unfair? Well, I cannot play what I want if I want to win. As chaos player, Lash of Submission in combination with some templates is close to a must-have (and you only get called beardy -I prefer competitive- if you use two, it seems). Oblit spam is good even without that. But what if I do not want to use Lash of Submission, Vindicators, Obliterators and maybe do not like Plague Marines (though who in their right mind would not?)?
Let's say I want to make a list based on the theme of "they are no more than empty hulls", using Thousand Sons and TS-themed dreadnoughts (now a walking sarcophagus, that's something...)? That's going to be a bitch to play, although I got anti-infantry and anti-tank choices covered in theory - it's just that the choices themselves bad ones.
Is it unfair that it won't work?
You do not even have to go that far. While Nidzilla was considered one of the top 4th edition builds (and may very well live on with the change to BS on the dakkafexes), you'll actually have a hard time playing something different like a close-combat tyranid swarm (a friend of mine, as a fan of both Aliens and Starship Troopers 1 & 3, tries to). I'd go as far as to say "if Apocalypse has new, cool rules for your preferred setup, chances are it sucked before" (like Endless Swarm in Apoc, which said friend loves).

We often bitch about imbalance in the game and point fingers at GW for not play testing the stuff they put out. However to be fair they probably do test the stuff pretty well. Problem is that we the players outnumber them my a ton!

As someone involved with QA and testing, I'd say: If you test and someone finds a bug, then you do not test enough!
That is why, for example, all proper security alogrithms and their implementations are open source: More testers.
I think GW really needs to involve more people in their game-balancing process. This calls for either a propper open beta-test (including well-known power-gamers) or an ongoing-process of product improvement. Though both a really cool buzzwords in business, it plays against GW's main strength, the fact that they control the whole hobby (from intellectual properties to the frickin' paint to use) with an Iron Hand(trademarked, along with ""Chaos", "Codex", "Ork" and probably "your mom", too). Also, this is process more problematic with printed rule sets than with digital ones, but
a) even I, while fully lobotomized, with my hands stappled to my back, hanging upside down from a piece of razor wire could devise a better system than GW for their FAQ and their customer feedback handling (writing "5th ed." to a pdf does not update it, eh?)
b) Privateer Press seems to get it done from what I hear, FoW after some bitching, too.
c) whether printed material has a purpose for changing documents is open to debate (not here, though) - and the FAQs are digital. They just suck.

With a good deal of people looking to exploit some rule or unit in ways not originally intended or expected.

That's the basics of designing a system, I'd say:
If you design it only that people can play it who do not exploit the system, you do not need a system at all. Those people get along quite well. For example, a long time ago, my rpg group abandoned all rulesets. Worked excellent because of common understanding. But you only get a pat on your back for doing so, you won't make much money with a book containing a one-liner saying "your will shall be the only law" (well...).
You need to design a system to deal with a certain class of exploits (strategy and tactics both are "exploits", too).
Notabene: Inquisitor did not, they even acknowledged it (yet added character attribute values anyway), and now everybody uses the fluff but no one uses the rules. =I=munda all the way...

So somethings by nature can get a bit out of hand in this game. Given its organic nature expect things like lash, oblit spam, nob biker armies, 24 bloodcrushers with fateweaver and other things to change at some point.

The organic approach is a good one. As a programmer, I work with genetic algorithms quite often. The good thing about those is: If they do not work, they get discarded. Easily.
An army build, on the other hand can not be so easily discarded, because even "counts as" gets you only so far (CSM as PM, okay, but Vindicator as Oblit?).

You pointed out the solution to that:

Stick around long enough and things will come full circle to where you will be the one people point at and cry cheese.

GW will love this approach. And from my collector's standpoint, it is a good one. Yet this makes 40k a game that is interesting either for less than 6 months (until a new codex comes out) or more than 5 five years (unless a full cycle is done).

Plus, this only works for those into the "pro gaming" aspect of the game. Hobbyists that just want to be able to play with a well-painted and converted army (the main advantage over Warmachine) of their choice will not be happy with having to wait a full cycle until their army is playable. And if those decided to rely mostly on Possessed CSM or Dreadnoughts, a cycle might not be enough. ;-)

So, back to the OP's question:
If you look at it on an army level, I think it is pretty balanced.
If you look at it on a troop level, it sucks.
I'd love for that to change.

Edit: Expanded three sentences to be easier to understand.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Darth — GMT

Well Answered!

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

Sha1emade — GMT

Agreed.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

TheUnforgiven — GMT

Playing a pure-GK army, I can't really complan anymore; I just go with the flow.. every edition and/or codex that comes out something always gets nerfed' one way or another..

Hopefully in the long run no one has to question what army is broken and/or unfair.. or maybe its the same as hoping for the benevolent Emperor to wake up from his 'sleep'..

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

BoxANT — GMT

There is always going to be strong lists (some that push into the realm of cheese/overpowered), with all the armies/units/rules/characters, it is virtually impossible to have a completely balanced game. Right now I would say there are a few very strong lists (nob bikes, shooty orks, lash/oblits, zilla, ect), but things may change.

Just remember, if you change your army into an "uber" army, just be ready to redo your army when they change the rules in the future.

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

Razerous — GMT

Tau disruption pods? Tanks get a 4+ cover save for 5pts. Thats in response to whomever whined about tau.

Once everything becomes 5ed ill be fine. Its just there some redundencies with certain rules in 4ed codexes that dont apply anymore. Makes you feel cheated.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

focusedfire — GMT

Off-topic)There's a difference between whining and a realistic assesment of a need for an up date.

You want to find out whose whining? Ask them how much those diruption pods should be. If they tell you they're priced fine but still want to change, then they're whining. If they tell you they need to cost at least 15-20pts then it's someone who is reasonably looking for an update.

Those disruption pod rules are thouroughly 4th ed., Just as same priced decoy launchers dont do diddley any more. One of the strength of $th(Typo, but oddly appropriate) edition Tau was wargear flexibility. The new rules outdated some of the wargear and limited tactics.

As I said before, I still play my tau. It's just more difficult.

On-topic) You can still win with any Army. Some may be a bit more tournament friendly due to rule optimization. But hey I probably should be over on warseer because I enjoy the game and experimenting with unorthodox builds and tactics.(Fortunatley I have friends that have been playing since rogue trader and they feel the same way,)

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Sadetta131 — GMT

i believe there was no existence of unfair army since the 5th. every army can be fair or not even though i didn't play that much.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Sadetta131 — GMT

i believe there was no existence of unfair army since the 5th. every army can be fair or not even though i didn't play that much.

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

mikeguth — GMT

Gee, maybe after Orks win all the GT events in the USA in 2009, like they did in 2008, someone will finally admit that the Ork codex is broken. Or maybe we can wait until they win all the events from 2009-2011.

The statement that 'you can win with any army' is refuted by recent tournament results. Orks win. Period. And, now they have Ork battlewagons to give them a third killer version (along with loota spam and Nob Bikers).

Just look at the Dakka threads on anti-Nob Biker tactics and you begin to get a feeling for the desperation that is out there. Three Exorcists fire for two turns at a Nob Warboss, he lives, he kills everything. Eldar players couldn't come up with anything that had a math edge on Nob Bikers after 4 pages of discussion.

Now you can put Lootas on top of the Ork battlewagons, poof, no more LOS problems.
Attach Ghaz and Mad Dok to the Snikrot's unit and bring that on from the board edge.
You'll hear a lot of whining about 5+/4+ fearless kommandos. Since your 2 characters are T5 they are very hard to get rid of, and give you the power klaws you need.

Poor playtesting of the Ork codex. Did Ork Nob bikers really need the smoky 3+ cover save rule? Did Lootas really need the 48 inch range? There is no game now except the search for a green skin antidote.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Darth — GMT

Ok, i will shoot the nob bikers until they arrive and then i will teleport/veil out of there. Once at a distance i will shoot them to death.

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

Airmaniac — GMT

Orks certainly have the most broken codex there is at the moment. Nob Bikers are just totally out of control with new wound allocation rules. I'm just hoping the new Guard codex will have a unit which is extremely strong against the Nob Bikers. That will balance (read: rock, paper, scissor) the game a bit more. The Battlewagon Deffrolla needs to be FAQed as well. It shouldn't be able to damage vehicles, otherwise the Battlewagon spam armies will get out of hand once the new Battlewagon kit hits the stores.

The Chaos codex is another strong codex, though there is just one thing which is causing all the problems here. It's called the Lash of Submission. I don't know what to do about this one though. Obviously, the points cost on the power needs to be increased, but that won't solve all the problems. Reducing the range to 18" (like the Pavene of Slaanesh) wouldn't hurt either.

The rest of the armies seem pretty balanced, though there are some who are just screwed untill they get a new codex (Imperial Guard, Necrons, Tau Empire). For some reason though, I'm not seeing the Tau get a new codex anywhere in the near future. Imperial Guard and Necrons are the next two codici to be redone, so they just need to be patient for little longer.

Then there are the Space Marines, who have the same wargear and weaponry as f.ex. the Dark Angels and the Blood Angels, yet theirs seems to be superior. IMHO this is just a load of bs and GW should just have the balls to create a FAQ which states that all the wargear and weapons of the other Space Marine chapters should be like those in the Space Marine codex. The Ultra Marines shouldn't be the only ones with the awesome Stormshields! And no, a FAQ telling people it's fine if their opponent's agree is not what I mean. The tournament players gain absolutely zero by such statements.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

leejerrum — GMT

The Battlewagon Deffrolla needs to be FAQed as well. It shouldn't be able to damage vehicles, otherwise the Battlewagon spam armies will get out of hand once the new Battlewagon kit hits the stores.

GW certainly wouldn't want to sell lots of them...

Nob Bikers aren't all that troublesome from a Lash Chaos perspective. Everytime I face them they last 3 turns max.

Battlewagon Orks struggle versus Nidzilla, 6 Str 10 shots a turn helps stop them.

Every list has its match.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Airmaniac — GMT

leejerrum wrote:Nob Bikers aren't all that troublesome from a Lash Chaos perspective. Everytime I face them they last 3 turns max.

Of course you won't have a problem with a close combat army when you are playing lash of submission. They will never get into charge range. I don't understand how people can think it is even remotely fair for someone to just take control of the other players units. The tactical skill involved just drops as soon as you use this psychic power. Tactics are all about avoiding the units that are dangerous to you while killing your targets. This psychic power just completely removes the difficulty in avoiding the units which are dangerous. At least it doesn't affect vehicles (I play mech), but I still hate to see it used. It's just an I-WIN button against so many army builds that it needs to be tuned down.

The same goes for Nob Bikers. This is a lot easier to solve though, as it doesn't involve completely game changing abilities like the Lash of Submission. The Nob Bikers are simply to strong for their points. Either add more ways to other armies to counter them, tone them down or increase the points cost.

Every list has its match.

While this may be true it is usually in a rock, paper, scissors format between a few competitive army builds. For example:

Competitive army build 1 >>>>>>>>>>>>> Competitive army build 2
^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------- vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
Competitive army build 4 <<<<<<<<<<<<< Competitive army build 3

This means that, while every list has its match, the only armies which are dominating are those competitive army builds, which are few.
This is simply unfair to the other armies, which simply don't stand a chance in a tournament setting.

With this said, I feel that 40k has become a more balanced game since the start of 5th edition. There are just 2 armies which need to be toned down a little bit (chaos and orks) and 3 armies which are in need of a new codex due to not having any viable builds (IG, Necrons, Tau).

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Typeline — GMT

Airmaniac wrote:
Of course you won't have a problem with a close combat army when you are playing lash of submission. They will never get into charge range. I don't understand how people can think it is even remotely fair for someone to just take control of the other players units. The tactical skill involved just drops as soon as you use this psychic power. Tactics are all about avoiding the units that are dangerous to you while killing your targets. This psychic power just completely removes the difficulty in avoiding the units which are dangerous. At least it doesn't affect vehicles (I play mech), but I still hate to see it used. It's just an I-WIN button against so many army builds that it needs to be tuned down.

The same goes for Nob Bikers. This is a lot easier to solve though, as it doesn't involve completely game changing abilities like the Lash of Submission. The Nob Bikers are simply to strong for their points. Either add more ways to other armies to counter them, tone them down or increase the points cost.

Everything can be beaten.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Tierlieb — GMT

leejerrum wrote:Every list has its match.

Yup. But you should not have to look for that match in a different army... in my little, perfect world, every codex should have several viable lists in it. Or, to break it down to unit level, every unit should have value. This does not have to be a value in itself, it may be a synergetic effect or maybe a counter. An example for a counter: To my understanding, while not being involved in playing with Orks at all or powerbuilt Eldar, "Mind war" looks great as a counter power, if you subscribe to the interpretation of "leadership of the model counts" instead of the "leadership of the group counts": It does not do much in a normal game (maybe I am wrong here), but for killing off an attached doc/painboy (whatever, he model that grants FnP to the nob bikers), it is great (*). But I am getting distracted, what I really wanted to do was say something controversial:

Orks aren't broken! Orks have one of the only two proper codices in the game!
Space Marines have the other proper codex.

Why do I have this opinion? Because you can play more than one competitive build. If you see that you're going to go against a Chaos player in a competition, the questions are only
a) how many Lashes will he bring, one or two?
b) will he be using sorcerers or demon princes to carry them?
If you play against an Ork player, there might be hordes, bikers(**), kanz, which all work reasonably well. Same (albeit imho on a slightly lower level) with SM with sternguard-spam or razorback-spam or dreadnough-spam or (on the same level) with Shrike's assault terminators or Vulkans hotties. So again: These codices are not broken! They are what makes this game interesting. I think all other codices need some varieties like this. If you look at it from the standpoint of potential variety, Chaos is as broken as IG.

Of course, there are some drawbacks to this idea: If all codices where like this, you could actually play the one army whose theme you're interested in -- instead of buying flavour-of-the-business-quarter armies. So this would only work if GW settled on trying to sell miniatures instead of armies, which then implies a business concept that thinks farther than one codex release cycle. Not much hope there, eh?

So, back to the topic of fairness: I do not think Orks per se (**) are currently broken and therefore unfair. I think the other armies are broken. The reception of Orks being broken stems from the fact that we, as long-time GW sufferers, get pretty sceptical if you can create even one good army build from a new codex - and more than one... well that must be outright broken, right? Now imagine you could build great armies with all the given space marine named characters instead of just two - we probably would have lynched (***) the codex' author outright ;-)

Bye,
Tierlieb

Footnotes, might have been interesting, but would have distracted from the main point of the post:
(*) As I think about it, specialized counters always ought to be realized as psi-powers, because that saves a lot of modelling and makes it more flexible. Even letting psi-powers be a wildcard that is not written on the army list sheet would add more versatility to tournament lists. There are a lot of problems, though, from different point values to the game-chaning powers of the psi powers. Just an idea.

(**) Notabene: I admit that nob bikers are broken. Their main power does not stem from the combination several interesting abilities, that 3+ coversave is annoying enough, but from an exploit of the wound-allocation rules. This ought to be solved. It could be easily done by re-defining what "different models" means. Us programmers do this quite often, overriding methods like "equals" or "==" to better match a system. So let our new "equals", for example, say "multi-wound models in a group are equal if they have the same weapons" and this stupid use of tiny addons to make them different stops right there. Imho, this is the main problem with nob bikers. Without that, they are still powerful, but also very expensive, which in my book would make them (at least more) balanced.

(***) On the topic of lynching: Maybe there is some rope left for the guy that created Chaos' possessed and dreadnoughts -- now this is a prime example for units that have neither stand-alone potential nor can be used to counter something specific nor even provide a synergy - unless you consider synergy with the opponent's troops?

Do you think there is an unfair army?

focusedfire — GMT

So, in essence, your saying GW isn't fair. Because, they don't release an entire balanced system with codices all at the same time.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Typeline — GMT

focusedfire wrote:So, in essence, your saying GW isn't fair. Because, they don't release an entire balanced system with codices all at the same time.

Yep, they have said it before. They aren't looking to make a balanced game system, they are looking to sell models. The game system is just something that helps push models. Some might say a balanced game system would help sell models but I disagree. Make new models in unbalanced book, everyone flocks to it. Repeat forever and occasionally nerf everything down so power creep doesn't have everything with 10s across the board.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Tierlieb — GMT

focusedfire wrote:So, in essence, your saying GW isn't fair. Because, they don't release an entire balanced system with codices all at the same time.

Close. As close as a one-line summary will get, I figure ;-)
Yes: They did not release an entirely balanced system. Honestly, they did not release a balanced system at all - but since it is a two-player game with lots of options, the players will do the balancing themselves. As far as possible, which includes some builds and excludes a lot of others. A look at the top 10 of a GT will show that there are several builds - the "tier 1 armies". Even those are not balanced among each other, but after a certain number of games against each other and a lot of tier-2-or-less armies, they are able to come out at the top.(*)

No: They would not have to release all codices at the same time. That's why I mentioned a longer-lasting business plan would be called for. Of course you want to release the codices one after another - this way you can cash in on the undecided, the collectors and on you own balancing mistakes (which are bound to happen - just fewer in case you plan ahead). Just be a Cylon, have a plan: GW doesn't seem to be able to do that - that's why we've had the doctrines and traits system, then got a heroes-change-the-FOC-system. And by then end of 5th edition books, we'll have an entirely new approach again, with new bugs that would not be in there had they stuck to an already established system (**).

Typeline wrote:Yep, they have said it before. They aren't looking to make a balanced game system, they are looking to sell models. The game system is just something that helps push models. Some might say a balanced game system would help sell models but I disagree. Make new models in unbalanced book, everyone flocks to it. Repeat forever and occasionally nerf everything down so power creep doesn't have everything with 10s across the board.

Yes, I agree the scheme is intriguing. As I wrote beforehand, I think it should be named "selling armies", or even better "selling lists", instead of "selling models". You sell a lot of specific models (those you build the current working army list with), but this is only a subset of all offered models (which you still have to keep in stock). The others you might sell to collectors - unless they want to use them for gaming, which won't work.

I am not sure if it is the smartest way: From my experience in trying to recruit friends of mine into the hobby, it's the cool models and the fluff that draws them towards the hobby. Once I've convinced them that they might be able to paint the models with a little help and a lot of dipping, they start making a list of things they want. Then I tell them that this won't make an army to win with. Then they decide to invest into another hobby instead. (***)
The system you described works for people already invested in the game. It does not work for people thinking about buying in.

Bye,
Tierlieb
(*) Imho, that's not balancing in a concious way. I would wager the results come pretty close to what Chebishev's Inequality would let you expect.
(**) Sceptics might ask why the market leader is copying a newscomer instead of making its own thing - unless the newcomer invested a lot more though in that issue. Maybe it is a stupid thing to fire all those designers...
(***) Whether a different system would work out better, I am not sure either. It would be shame to see another competitor win with a different approach, though.

Re:Do you think there is an unfair army?

Razerous — GMT

Mine was more of a counter-whine to some ones whine about tau being rubbish. Same issue with autarchs abilities & exarch spyder skills.

You gain some & loose some. As it hasnt been mentioned in the FAQ's then it must be a fairly fair trade-off. My (extra) beef is loosing out on flavour when rules get made redunant.

Although countering that, tasty flavours were added with the scout/infiltrating & flanking rules.

Edit:

The Battlewagon Deffrolla needs to be FAQed as well. It shouldn't be able to damage vehicles, otherwise the Battlewagon spam armies will get out of hand once the new Battlewagon kit hits the stores.

It has been clarifyed quite well. Pay attention and look for these amendmants before you whinge.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Caffran9 — GMT

I'm sorry but the 4+ cover save on Tau vehicles is FAR inferior to flat out not getting shot at when you could put your units behind area terrain and have it block line of sight. 50% chance to get hit is a MASSIVE increase over 0% chance (obviously) and the entire VP denial mechanic of good Tau armies was blown to bits when 5e came out strictly because of that. IMO this puts Tau at the bottom of the power barrel for sure in 5th edition. I'm unhappy about it because Tau are the only army I really actually like in terms of fluff and models. OTher armies have cool models but I don't care for the story or visa versa. My solution to this is to continue to love Tau, but enjoy playing a different army for a while until the new Tau book is developed and released and the nuances of switching editions with an old book are resolved. Does this play into GWs scheme of simply selling mroe product? Of course it does. It would simply be foolish to try and boycott this scheme though, because it won't work and GW won't care if a few players drop the game or w/e.

As for overpowered/broken armies... this game (Warhammer 40,000 5th edition, and previous editions of Warhammer 40k) is very well suited for tailoring to the level of competition each player desires. If you don't wnat to play against the strongest armies in the game then don't bother with tournaments and stick with fun games against other people looking to field fun armies. Its just like Magic in that sense. You can play casual magic and have a blast if you don't like the high power level and extreme competition that the tournament scene offers. Basically, the game is only as cutthroat and powerhungry for you as a player as you let it be.

Personally, I see things that are perceived as "overpowered" and I get excited to find a way to beat them. I'm currently playing lash chaos because it has a decent matchup with Nob Bikes and if I'm careful (and a little lucky, howver luck is a part of this game and that must be accepted), can beat on the battlewagon/loota spam lists as well. If people are asking for balance and defining balance as "every army has an equal chance against every other army" then you're basically asking for every army to be the exact same thing. This is impossible, and guts the character from the game. It should be a blatantly obvious fact that when the game changes to a new edition, there will be clear rules issues between the new rulebook and older codexes. It should also be blatantly obvious that GW cannot update every single book flawlessly into the new edition of the rules with the snap of their fingers, and players need to be patient while they wait for their army's new book. If you don't want to wait then play something else with a book designed for 5th edition, that way you won't have to deal with rules clashes between your codex and the rulebook. You can also avoid some discrepencies in power levels due to old/outdated army books by doing this. I understand that people become attached to a particular race and thats fine, but whining and complaining won'y get you anywhere. Maybe it'll help you get over the frustration, but I know for me, it only makes it worse because you'll never get the answer you're looking for.

Do you think there is an unfair army?

Ghetto_Fight — GMT

I think marines armies are pretty cheap now!!!! Lame ass first turn drop pods, deep striking charging vanguards and various teleportation lockers. Not to mention special abilities to allow everything to fleet and flank.

Yes, marines are definetly unfair.