A Commentary on Contemporary Balance in 40K

[daboarder]

DAB - I'm not trying to say 'casual good tourney bad' or anything like that. Nor would I say Games workshop couldn't or shouldn't tighten a few things - nor that in doing so would probably please their customers. Nor am I saying it is entirely reasonable of them to expect us to fix their SNAFUs - we pay for a product, it should work, right?

What I am trying to postulate is that balance is lacking, the game scene is likely to be batsh*t crazy for the forseeable future and, looking back on it - always has been. And intentionally so.

I don't know what 'golden era' of balance people are referring to - possibly early third, not Rhino rush fourth surely?

Also, whilst I know it is ironic for me to try and be the voice of reason, any chance you could tone down the direct attacks on people?

Yeah, I get it Denzark, Thats why I added that edit to my post, so you know I wasn't address ing you (just the charmer)

I can agree with teh statement that the balance in the game is currently borked, and you're right, it is likely to stay that way. And you know what, if that means the only response left is too take a break form 40k, well I hate to say it but I'm at that stage as well.
I haven't had a game of 40k in almost 6 months now, part of that has just been being massively busy with the PHD but another part was the fact that my gaming group shrunk to 4 people (great people I admit) and that jsut led to the games getting kinda stale. I'm running on an inifinity high at the moment but Im keeping my finger on the 40k pulse so to speak, I did completely lose track of things during the cron release, but then from what I saw it didn't actually phase me much (though I've heard it is farily rough in hindsight)

I dunno, part of the problem is that its just so sad to see something that I've put so much effort into fall to the wayside because a company cant get its act together.

edit: as to golden era of balance, nah, you're right, there has never been one, some have been closer than others though, except for a few codexes (my own I freely admit and I hated it) and overly powerful boxes 5th was pretty good. Part of the down turn in 6th and 7th is often attributed to the fact that people wanted a tweaked 5th ed which fixed the flaws in that edition and instead we kinda god the lol-random reboot instead. That being said I like 6th, I actually liked 6th considerably more than I am liking 7th. But the staggered codex/rulebook schedule means that there is always an inherent disconnect between early edition codexes and later edition codexes, with the ones in the middle of the cycle inherently able to use the BRBs strengths to the greatest advantage as they have no learning curve or edition cushioning to deal with.

[Lord Manton]

I think one thing that people forget in these arguments is the reason people play the games they do. I like X wing. It's a great little game that I can pick up and squeeze a quick game in with my pal. The pre-painted miniatures are pretty fricking good (for pre painted). They're so full of detail and really have a Star Wars character to them. To boot, the game is toight like a toiger, it's a great representation of a dog fight and all three factions have a good chance in a scrap with the others. I also like Malifaux, the miniatures are incredible. The new plastics should come with a change of underwear; they really capture victorian horror-cowboy-hillbillies perfectly. Once you get past the novelty of the card system, you see that it's a great system and as skirmish games go, it's sweet as. The reason I don't play Warmachine is because I don't get into steampunk so much. The models don't interest me, nor does the setting. Can't comment on the rules.

40k has arguably the best background in the business. The grimdark is beautifully crafted. The depth and detail of the universe is staggering. This gives a great opportunity to play narrative battles. The game is also supported to some great miniature kits, filled with detail and character.

Let's imagine a game called BattleAxe 3000AD. It's a perfect system. There are heaps of distinct factions with tons of build options and a wealth of unit options. Problem is, the models are junk and the background is "Jon swung his axe and killed a guy... 500pts". You wouldn't bother. Not if you're a wargamer.

A wargamer wants a game that has aesthetic appeal, whether it sets the imagination flying or just looks sick on the table. So why shouldn't the guys and girls who like 40k for what makes it great expect a rule set that's tight? Imperial Knights are an awesome idea for a Sci-Fi army. Giant robots with laser cannon arms. Just think about that for a second. Fighting on a blasted moon somewhere against hordes of aliens with razor claws and acid spit. In reality, those Knights are going to stomp those Nids, because they don't stand much of a chance. Not if you pictured termagants. Now that's not to say the 'gants should be able to bring down a knight, but the Nids shouldn't be set to lose from the outset.

Personally, I don't care so much about the rules. The game is as tight as I need it to be for what I want out of it. But that's not to say that it couldn't be more balanced. We talk about how GW is evil and stupid and losing customers, but imagine if they could make both camps happy. They would be unstoppable. It would be obscene how big GW would be. It would be worse than when they were virtually the only guys in town. We're lucky these days that we can play so many other games that are challenging and great. But they ain't 40k, dudes.

[40kGamer]

Ah Denz... bringing out the old points value calculator and the VDR rules sure takes one down memory lane! Simpler times...

@DAB - Manton has my point and I admit - it seems crass when it is bolied down to 'deal with it and move on'. There is no reason why GW shouldn't be CAPABLE of tightening the ruleset, but what I have tried to show is that nowhere in time has 40K been balanced. So why do we have this expectation now? It would be nice but we've never really been used to it.

There's no doubt that things have never been truly balanced although I think we've hit a high water mark in 7th. One would think the point of releasing rule set after rule set would be to actually "improve" the core product. Also, one would think that a corporation that identifies itself as a "model company" would not place so much focus on selling rules when said company has made it clear that it doesn't give a tinker's damn about them. So why do they even bother releasing new rules when they obviously don't care about improving anything?

The new Eldar codex is a shining example... there are literally zero new units so there is literally no valid, defensible point as to why this book was released by a "model company". It replaces the old unbalanced crap with new unbalanced crap, so why did they bother? It's corporate hypocrisy at it's best.

@Lexington - I have absolutely no idea what the Studio were thinking. The only thing which makes a kind of logic is that they wanted to punt more WK kits and hope the fallout will be more super heavies sold to combat it or more people buying WK and going unbound.

I'm also not sure what they were thinking with this change but it definitely had nothing to do with improving the game.

The only thing from a game design point of view I can think of is that they expect us to come up with a social contract and go bound, CAD or houserule to limit these boyos - and they expect the tournament scene, which already publically nerfs invisibility, will do similar against massed ranged D/WK. This is shoddy/lazy at best, but I literally cannot empathise with any other scenarios.

I think you're right. It's a stupid, lazy way to write rules but this is the way the game works now. In order to make things work you really need to have that up front discussion. Which is why I have stated before "RIP pick up games." When you have to set down and discuss the layout of your army with your opponent ahead of time it's no longer a pick up game but a planned game. I guess bad product is guaranteed when a corporation has a pseudo-monopoly in their niche.

[Charon]

Fighting on a blasted moon somewhere against hordes of aliens with razor claws and acid spit. In reality, those Knights are going to stomp those Nids, because they don't stand much of a chance. Not if you pictured termagants. Now that's not to say the 'gants should be able to bring down a knight, but the Nids shouldn't be set to lose from the outset.

The fallacy in this is, that in the books they publish that scenes DO happen and over time the Termagants DO overpower that knight because "they swarm him like ants and their dead bodys are grinding gears and acid burns into some wiring and some small beasts manage to squeeze themselves into the Knight and eat the pilots face who is helpless on his throne... ect... ect"
It just doesnt happen in the game...

[Denzark]

Rhino Rush was 3rd duder

God I'm old...

I really liked 5th. My primary codex, CSM, wasn't OP - I never ran the Dual Lash/oblits crutch cos I go Khorne/Nurgle. I didn't think it was top tier, but there was no-one repeat no one I feared going up against.

HP making my vehicular support less effective has chipped away at the efficacy, as has the degradation of assault. For a little while I had the crutch of D3 vector strikes and the dirty torrent flamer on the drakes, but that has gone.

I can see how Eldar is nearly autowin and I like Von Dietrich's comment about assault rifles in bar fights.

I guess to carry on that metaphor - if you go down a pub and you have no idea what the locals like to fight with, you may find yourself somewhat under-equipped - applies to playing 40K 'blind'. Whereas if you have a semi-formal 'duel' the rules - be it pistols, rusty knives or poisoned sausages - are at least agreed by both parties before hand.

[Sly]

This codex is totally out of step with every other book published previously. It's broken the context of the game. We've moved from a game about knife fighting to mostly knife fighting and one dude with automatic firearms. Maybe it will take some people playing competent Eldar players (those of us who don't cringe when they see the new rules, anyway) to really make this point sink in. But I have no doubt that it will, because it's amazingly self-evident.

This wins the thread.

Really, people aren't screaming and flipping out because the game just became unbalanced. Are you who argue that we shouldn't expect perfect balance so unaware that you've missed all of the complaints from players about DA or CSM being weak, DE being weak and limited, Eldar and Tau being strong, White Scars being better than Imperial Fists, etc? There has always been a reasonable and justifiable argument to make that the game is not all that close to being nicely balanced, and nobody has ever made a serious argument that the game is perfectly balanced.

The screaming and flipping out now is that the game, which was unbalanced before, just changed from "unbalanced" to "dead broke". Sure, there were codices and builds in the past that were clearly amongst the top lists, but the key word is "amongst". Another key word is "chance", wherein you could beat a Taudar list with Codices that are generally considered inferior. Now, take a player who is good enough to contend at tournaments and have a good chance to win there... and give him Eldar. Who is going to beat him other than with another Eldar, or else with a list specifically tailored to beat Eldar? If such a thing can even be made, outside of the Eldar codex.

The problem is not that all of a sudden the game is unbalanced. It has been unbalanced forever, and that's been good enough. The problem is that unbalance just went from 9 to 99. If, before, the gap between the best and the worst was 2:1, where the best codex would win 2/3 of the games and the worst 1/3... it's now probably 10:1. Not only can I see Eldar smashing Dark Eldar 90% of the time with both players being good, I'm not even sure if DE will manage to win 10% of the time. This is no longer a minor problem that we put up with in order to play in a great universe with great miniatures, but instead it's major enough to risk breaking the game.

And I have never said anything like this even when ranting about Psyfleman Dreads or Firebase Cadre or Screamerstar or any other previous top-line units or builds. We are seeing an order of magnitude increase in imbalance, and it's terrible for the game. And for Eldar players, and for anyone who plays against Eldar.

[40kGamer]

40k has arguably the best background in the business. The grimdark is beautifully crafted. The depth and detail of the universe is staggering. This gives a great opportunity to play narrative battles. The game is also supported to some great miniature kits, filled with detail and character.

No doubt 40k has a rich background (Of course they've had over 3 decades to craft it.) And GW has the best large scale multi-part plastic kit technology. It's telling that we all compare the new up and coming products to GW as well. They are the current standard of measure.

But that's not to say that it couldn't be more balanced. We talk about how GW is evil and stupid and losing customers, but imagine if they could make both camps happy. They would be unstoppable. It would be obscene how big GW would be. It would be worse than when they were virtually the only guys in town. We're lucky these days that we can play so many other games that are challenging and great. But they ain't 40k, dudes.

My biggest worry is that if GW keeps shedding customers they will no longer be special.

The main reasons I've collected their products have been:

1) The Setting
2) Model Quality
3) A Thriving Community

The setting will always be brilliant.
Other companies are giving the model quality a run for the money.
The Community is shrinking. Anecdotal evidence is all I have for this but it's pretty obvious if you contrast their price hikes & rapid fire releases against stagnant to falling sales. The community is still strong and I don't think it will disappear anytime soon but it has definitely taken some hits.

- - - Updated - - -

Games Workshop has thrown out the rules of a fair fight altogether now and is just writing anything in a codex that they think will sell models. This codex is totally out of step with every other book published previously. It's broken the context of the game. We've moved from a game about knife fighting to mostly knife fighting and one dude with automatic firearms. Maybe it will take some people playing competent Eldar players (those of us who don't cringe when they see the new rules, anyway) to really make this point sink in. But I have no doubt that it will, because it's amazingly self-evident.

I used to love the fact in 5th/6th that I was one of the only people crazy enough to bring Eldar to an event. Now I expect events will be overwhelmingly Eldar centric in the future. As someone who has played Eldar since RT I literally hate the new book for what it is and I'm really pissed that they bothered releasing such a steaming pile of pooh and invalidating a book that wasn't even two years old. there is literally no point to the new codex at all.

[Lord Manton]

I used to love the fact in 5th/6th that I was one of the only people crazy enough to bring Eldar to an event. Now I expect events will be overwhelmingly Eldar centric in the future. As someone who has played Eldar since RT I literally hate the new book for what it is and I'm really pissed that they bothered releasing such a steaming pile of pooh and invalidating a book that wasn't even two years old. there is literally no point to the new codex at all.

Where are you 40KG? My wolves will stomp your pointy eared nancies.

I agree that there wasn't much point to the update. At least they should maybe have toned down Wave Serpents, but you'd need something like Chapter Approved for that. There's even less sense in a new book for that. I think most people are pissed because they got so much more stupidly powerful. Then again, we don't have the book in our sweaty little hands yet. So there's hope I guess.

[40kGamer]

Where are you 40KG? My wolves will stomp your pointy eared nancies.

I love me some Space Wolves. It's hard to beat up on one of my other favorite armies but sometimes a pointy eared freak has just gotta do what they gotta do. Do you use 'Puppy power!' as your army battle cry?

[Erik Setzer]

Now, take a player who is good enough to contend at tournaments and have a good chance to win there... and give him Eldar. Who is going to beat him other than with another Eldar, or else with a list specifically tailored to beat Eldar? If such a thing can even be made, outside of the Eldar codex.

There's a local guy, darned good, does well in tournaments, who I hate playing in WFB because he can game his army and just roll over people. He decided to get into 40K with Harlequins (which he can have more fun painting) and then decided to add some regular Eldar to them (including, I believe, a Wraithknight with a few modifications to make it fit in with Harlequins). That guy running a new Eldar force terrifies me, even more than the other guy who actively looks for ways to break any game he touches.