In 8th, Are marines the wrong baseline?

[Morticon]

Hey all, I'm reticent to turn this into another "why marines are getting boned in 8th" thread, despite a very strong (and I believe supported) view that the various marine dexs are poorly balanced - at least externally....however, 

It feels as though GW's point costing has always revolved around marines as a core starting point.  I remember this particularly in reading about the 2nd to 3rd ed switch over. 

Additionally, the SM dex is (always? To my knowledge?) the first dex to be released with a new edition.
I believe this is done to create a workable baseline. 

Accepting this as a workable premise, this raises some questions. 

The questions that then follow are:

* Are they the wrong baseline to use? 

* Should there even be a "baseline" statline/army from which to start?

* What would the alternative be? 

To me, it appears that arbitrary points values are given/assigned off of an equally arbitrary starting point of the old "4" statline -  WS/BS4, T4, S4, I4 etc. - possibly due to the understandable ubiquity of marines (of all types).

Yet, so much of how those stats interact has changed. 

It seems that certain units (across all dexs) are undercosted or overcosted when compared to what they actually bring to the table and are rather costed according to their statline.   This was very noticeable in the initial costing of Primaris models -especially the basic Intercessors. It's equally noticeable in certain non-marine units - take reapers base cost for example (now points raised, albeit to a still paltry level).

 

It just seems as though the game has been redesigned with the biggest shift since 2nd to 3rd, yet the way designers determine points is locked in a method that no longer applies. 

Am I wrong? 

What are your thoughts? 


 

[Radiation]

The game needs an official forum for people to complain in mass about the rules and for the designers to balance based on community input. Like video games. 

[Morticon]

The game needs an official forum for people to complain in mass about the rules and for the designers to balance based on community input. Like video games. 

I dont disagree entirely, but if forums are anything to go by, the amount of poorly constructed, poorly thought out, poorly supported claims about balance far outweighs the valuable stuff. There's just too much nonsense to trawl through. 

 

It becomes a vent place for gamer ego, rather than a constructive or productive space. 

 

Also, it's a little bit different from the topic/questions at hand! 

[Redtoof]

Interesting thoughts. We've definitely seen points costs for many units in the game based on, it seems, effectiveness in 7th or perhaps more fairly on how the designers want the unit to perform rather than how it actually does.

 

I think tactical marines should be the baseline for cost and balance. At the moment this may be true in GW's minds, but it feels like the rest of the game is balanced around marines being about 10-12 points each. I suspect there are common baseline units GW uses at various levels, e.g. Tac marines, Rhino, Terminators etc. Funny thing is all these units seem slightly overcosted. Lets hope they are subject to the same points adjustments as other units.

[Corswain]

I’ve always felt Guard should be the baseline as they’re the most ralatable starting point. Everything should be “OK, an ork is stronger than a human but a poorer shot, Marines are faster and stronger than humans, Eldar are faster but not stronger” etc. etc.

 

I think it’s more grounding to use humanity as the baseline. If you use fictional mega-humans, your basline is skewed from the begining.

 

It’s even trickier now that we have two different classes of Marines.

[Skaorn]

The game needs an official forum for people to complain in mass about the rules and for the designers to balance based on community input. Like video games.

 

They did have one. Then GW gave a nerf to Nid Warriors that wasn't needed in a FAQ that saw massive backlash from the entire community. GW reversed the rule and the forums were shut down almost immediately.

 

When pressed GW will also fall back on being a model company, not a game company. What they need is actual game mechanic designers. Not people who write, sculpt, and paint all well as try to make the game work. People who are dedicated to making the game work mechanically.

[Deathwalker]

Hey all, I'm reticent to turn this into another "why marines are getting boned in 8th" thread, despite a very strong (and I believe supported) view that the various marine dexs are poorly balanced - at least externally....however, 

 

It feels as though GW's point costing has always revolved around marines as a core starting point.  I remember this particularly in reading about the 2nd to 3rd ed switch over. 

 

Additionally, the SM dex is (always? To my knowledge?) the first dex to be released with a new edition.

I believe this is done to create a workable baseline. 

Accepting this as a workable premise, this raises some questions. 

 

The questions that then follow are:

 

* Are they the wrong baseline to use? 

 

* Should there even be a "baseline" statline/army from which to start?

 

* What would the alternative be? 

 

To me, it appears that arbitrary points values are given/assigned off of an equally arbitrary starting point of the old "4" statline -  WS/BS4, T4, S4, I4 etc. - possibly due to the understandable ubiquity of marines (of all types).

 

Yet, so much of how those stats interact has changed. 

 

It seems that certain units (across all dexs) are undercosted or overcosted when compared to what they actually bring to the table and are rather costed according to their statline.   This was very noticeable in the initial costing of Primaris models -especially the basic Intercessors. It's equally noticeable in certain non-marine units - take reapers base cost for example (now points raised, albeit to a still paltry level).

 

It just seems as though the game has been redesigned with the biggest shift since 2nd to 3rd, yet the way designers determine points is locked in a method that no longer applies. 

 

Am I wrong? 

 

What are your thoughts? 

 

 

 

1: Yes, they are using the wrong baseline. The baseline should be guard. What is the point of having supersoldiers as a baseline?

 

2: Yes, and it should cost a base amount of points to put that stat line into play. when you -add- or subtract from that baseline, then you modify the points. Warhammer has always had an issue with seemingly nonsensical points values which invariably leads to either adjustments or new editions.

To put a guardsman on the field costs 4 points He hits on 4+ in shooting and melee, wounds other average troops on a 4+, survives average shooting on a 4+, has a single wound, 24" effective range and a 5+ save.

To put a marine on the field who is 16% more efficient across the board except armour and range costs 13 points, so for a 16% efficiency increase, you are paying more than 3 times the price for a single wound and attack (which is what really counts) model.

That is ridiculous.

Combine that, and the whack way weapons are priced vs effectiveness.........................

 

3: The alternative is looking "under the hood" at the engine, but as I have already said, under the hood there is  schrodinger's cat.

 

The ubiquity of marines should simply not be a games design issue, and it creates a self sustaining design flaw to think of them that way.

As for Reapers and such, that's not a stat issue, it's a weapons issue, (and a psychic power/Stratagem issue) and one feeds of the other. You muck up the base stats, the effectiveness of altering the base stats of a weapon also goes sideways. Put them togeather and you get some broken stuff, not by -design-, but by base failure of looking at the issues and not having a stable points system.

[Pearson73]

I'd certainly agree with the above comments regarding using Guard as the baseline making much more sense, since they're much more relatable to our understanding.

[Lucerne]

If they used Guard as baseline, it'd be too easy to play a cheap, viable army with any flavor of Marines, and we couldn't have that, could we?

[Brother Tyler]

I am in the camp that believes that the Astra Militarum should serve as the baseline.

 

If they used Guard as baseline, it'd be too easy to play a cheap, viable army with any flavor of Marines, and we couldn't have that, could we?

 

Please explain this statement further. I think that there might be line of constructive and relevant dialog buried deep within a nonsensical non sequiter.

[The Unseen]

I am in the camp that believes that the Astra Militarum should serve as the baseline.

 

If they used Guard as baseline, it'd be too easy to play a cheap, viable army with any flavor of Marines, and we couldn't have that, could we?

 

Please explain this statement further. I think that there might be line of constructive and relevant dialog buried deep within a nonsensical non sequiter.

 

He's "Probably" talking about how if you make Guard the baseline, marines would, or at least should, be significantly improved statewise, nothing like movie marines, but something that feels like an elite infantry model, so multiple wounds and attacks, with a gun that retains an impact even when not fielded en masse, which would of course necessitate marines being several times more expensive than a Guardsmen, thus leading to smaller marine armies, and fewer sales.

 

But with how cheap everything is in 8th (save for vehicles), I don't really see it. Primaris style marines as a baseline does not drastically reduce the number of models you need to field an army over-all, as no one is running hordes of 13 pt models in the first place.

 

Back to OP, Guard, or something similar, should be the baseline, and it shouldn't be hard at all for someone to make a rough points guide for stats.

There is no way a tactical marine is worth 13 pts if guard cost 4. Objectively/Mathmatically maybe their worth 10 pts when you include the slightly better gun along with the stat increases and armor save. MAYBE 10. But GW :cussed up when they dropped the cost of all infantry too much, and now there's not enough room to fit all the marginally different infantry models in the game by any sane metric, as you've got nearly the entire gamut of "elite" infantry smashed into a 7 pt range, which is why you have guard at 4, but vet guard at 6 (+1 Ballistic Skill for 2 pts), scions at 8 (+ Leadership, Deep Strike, Special Weapon access, and Hot-Shot Lasguns for 2 pts), battle sisters and admech troops at 9 (+1 or +2 to saves for 1 pt) and Tacticals at 13 (with +1 Str and +1 Toughness being apparently worth a whopping 4 pts)

 

Not sure if its intentionally or not, but GW seems to highly over-value *model* durability rather than points efficiency durability or damage output. Tough but low-impact models are expensive (terminators, transport vehicles), fragile but high-impact units are cheap (Inceptors, anything toting a plasmagun, scions), Tough and High-Impact models are exorbitantly expensive (Knights) and mobility is under-priced pretty much across the board (Battle Focus, extra movement abilities such as Move Move Move!) This all sets up the game to push very heavily towards alpha strikes, as except for a few very small number of exceptions, nobody can just take punches to the chin and keep going, as the system heavily incentivizes DPS over staying power currently. Even Necrons, supposedly the penultimate "attrition" army, can barely do it, because of the ability to focus fire individual units down to deny reanimation.

 

GW's inability to give things decent point values is best shown by a lot of the random shot or random damage weapons. They seem to all be costed as if your constantly rolling well above average. LIke Flamers, which are somhow 9 pts, when a plasmagun is 13.

 

Basically, someone needs to teach the GW rules writing team basic statistical analysis, and redo the points for a lot of things.

[Panzer]

Yeah I've been saying for a while now that Marines shouldn't be the baseline.

However I'm not sure if it isn't too late to change things up on such a level now.

[chapter master 454]

So lets throw the big thing into the ring.

 

Yes, Guardsman should be the baseline. No arguments, no discussions, they should be the baseline.

 

However when it comes to pointing units there are some really wonky design things you have to be aware of. The big one is how stats interact with each other and other stats that then come in against these stats.

For example: 3 Wounds vs. 4 Wounds is a massive difference in power. It is, why? There is a bunch of weapons out there that deal ether 1, 2, 3 or D3 wounds and of those at the high end, it takes two hits AT BEST from those weapons to down the target because of the fact that you can't get 4 wounds with just 3. So naturally, this puts a larger importance on 4 wound models over 3 wound models despite the fact that the difference between a 2 wound model and a 3 wound model is the same yet the power spike is much bigger for going to 4 wounds from 3. Break points are extremely important in a units life, because since GW has without intention made the most common Damage types 1, 2, 3, D3 and D6, since D6 also averages 3.5 wounds per go, it also has a 50/50 of killing the 4 wound model where as against the 3 wound it was 100%.

 

Another aspect of design I have noticed in games is that the biggest differences exist at 0, 1 and 2. I mean in that when you have something with 0, it is ether extremely powerful or extremely weak, and the swing of power when you go from 0 to 1 is that it loses BOTH ends of this scale in both directions (ether is massively loses power or massively gains it) and again it happens again at 2. The best example of this is in magic, when a card costs 0, it can be among the most powerful cards in the game but inversely 0 power is pretty bad. However once you go from 0 to 1 power you see a drastic difference. Similarly, toughness in magic is drastically changed when you go from 1 to 2. This is what needs to be considered when balancing units.

 

So when we are talking balance of this massive game, points are what we like to barter in. So, what is the value of a Dark Reaper to everyone right now? I mean, technically it wasn't really the reaper at fault but his gun. We take away the gun what are they? (Edgy, overemotional, try-hard space elves). So we see here a symbiotic relation between a units statline and their weapon. Quite literally, a Dark Reaper statline almost doesn't matter due to their special rule. This reveals a fundamental issue with balancing points for a statline universally instead of unit by unit. High Strength is useful however if it is on a ranged unit like devastators it is wasted stats that mean nothing to them so should they be taxed for a stat they aren't really using? Similarly should they be taxed for having better synergy with the weapon they use? Should the weapons they use have a tax on them for just having this one off synergy?

 

Now I am putting those questions out there because I want people to think about those questions and try to answer them with some thread of logic behind it and reason it out and what happens, find what it would do truly. Lets actually look at Dark Reapers as the example with their recent nerf.

 

GW looked at Dark Reapers, we as players looked at Dark Reapers and one side said it was unit based while another said it was gun based. Who was right here, funnily enough it was GW here. They nerfed Dark Reapers by hiking the UNIT cost, not the gun. Why were Dark Reapers at the core of the problem? Because do eldar armies run mass autarchs with Reaper Launchers? No, they aren't. By itself, the gun isn't the problem.

However when we look at Dark Reapers we see where problems start to arise and it isn't even to do with their special rule. They were easily massed Reaper Launcher Carriers that could also benefit from the most powerful (without question) ability in the game of Soul Burst. In this instance we didn't see Reaper Launcher Dominance, we saw dark reaper dominance. So the unit had it's points upped because they innately had a strong synergy and thus need to pay for it. Now I will ask, do we think Dark Reapers are unplayable now? I don't think so, they are a dominating unit with a powerful ability many complain about and at the same time underestimate. We may not see Reaper Lists at top 8 as much now but I would think they could still make it if the general populace didn't take every nerf to a unit as "OMG they KILLED my army". When the nerf came I wager lots rejoiced over it yet when they went to the table still got rocked by Dark Reapers, not fully understanding what the change meant.

 

In this regard, units have a interconnecting web of synergy and power that only comes through when combined. Yes, we can argue if a guardsman should cost 4 or 5 points but if for some reason there was a massive combo with a gaurdsman found, then innately the points for the unit may need to rise depending on how the combo is done. This is where we start to have to evaluate what the issue really is. We need to dig around and figure out where a lot of it stems from. In my personal opinion, Ynnari need to be changed heavily, removing their Soul Burst rule from the game as it warps the very fundamentals of the game to a breaking point on a scale that cannot be balanced without being too much or too little. Double moves are powerful, doubly so if you can do them on your opponents turn.

 

For the wider scale of the game, points need to be seen to and dropped and raised on various units. Marine certainly are not worth 13 points as another, quirk...for lack of better term, happens with stats when you climb into the higher numbers. In magic this is easily evident is big creatures in relation to their mana cost. Many would say 1 mana for every 1/1 of stats (that is 1 mana for 1 power and 1 toughness) however it is reasonable at low costs but when you get to about 4+ mana costs, stats need to start warping. 6 Mana 6/6 isn't good, 8 mana 8/8 is laughable. These massive amount of stats don't have the same impact as their lower end variants. The same is true for 40k.

Yes, Toughness 4 is a rather important number but at the same time it is equally weak. The big jump is from 4 to 5. If I were to rate the effect of 3 to 4 and 4 to 5, I would rate them out of 5 I would put a value of 2/5 for 3 to 4 and 4/5 for 4 to 5. Why? Because now you encountered a break point AGAIN. What are the most common infantry rifles we see in the game? Strength 3 and 4 (with 4 being common to the point of being equal to 3). At Toughness 4 you are still very easily wounded at a 50% rate yet, at toughness 5 Strength 5 weapons are now a little harder to get, they are the big guns according to GW and thus you become a massive amount more durable to small arms fire. Similar things occur with Wounds, with the difference between 1 and 2 wounds being so massive due to the abundance of 1 damage weapons in the game.

 

There is so many factors when balancing the game we must consider. It isn't just about linear points growth or "this stat isn't so good on this unit so it shouldn't cost as much" but an interconnecting web of interactions where your changes could inadvertently of created new break points that wildly throw your balance out of wack.

[Kite Senet]

Yes, Guardsman should be the baseline. No arguments, no discussions, they should be the baseline.

I don't see why this would be true. This is akin to saying we should prefer geocentric models of the universe rather than heliocentric models of the universe because geocentric models are in reference to something more intuitively familiar. In reality, both *can* work in theory to any precision---so why do we prefer the heliocentric model? The difference is that a model based on a less central object in a system intrinsically is more complex, since more layers of relations need to be considered; in 40k, this manifests as sensitivity to imbalance in the gameplay: you balance everything against this common army type, and if this is central enough, then it will more or less ensure *some* degree of balance between the different dependent armies.

 

The reality, however, is that Space Marines have the greatest mass in all of the WH40k franchise, with a tremendous proportion of the armies in the game decked in power armor. They're the "baseline", because picking one small subfaction does not provide an effective position from which to judge the behaviors of the entire rest of the 40k universe; only the space marines provide such a location, considering half of the Imperium faction and most of the Chaos faction, likely nearly half of the entire game of 40k, are space marines. Imperial Guard are actually an exceptionally poor choice, in my opinion, considering they are an extreme case of the quantity over quality army type, making them highly non-central.

 

For example: 3 Wounds vs. 4 Wounds is a massive difference in power. It is, why? There is a bunch of weapons out there that deal ether 1, 2, 3 or D3 wounds and of those at the high end, it takes two hits AT BEST from those weapons to down the target because of the fact that you can't get 4 wounds with just 3. So naturally, this puts a larger importance on 4 wound models over 3 wound models despite the fact that the difference between a 2 wound model and a 3 wound model is the same yet the power spike is much bigger for going to 4 wounds from 3. Break points are extremely important in a units life, because since GW has without intention made the most common Damage types 1, 2, 3, D3 and D6, since D6 also averages 3.5 wounds per go, it also has a 50/50 of killing the 4 wound model where as against the 3 wound it was 100%.

D6 damage would have a 2/3 chance of killing a 3 wound model and a 1/2 chance of killing a 4-wound model, not a 100% chance of killing a 3 wound model.

[chapter master 454]

 

Yes, Guardsman should be the baseline. No arguments, no discussions, they should be the baseline.

I don't see why this would be true. This is akin to saying we should prefer geocentric models of the universe rather than heliocentric models of the universe because geocentric models are in reference to something more intuitively familiar. In reality, both *can* work in theory to any precision---so why do we prefer the heliocentric model? The difference is that a model based on a less central object in a system intrinsically is more complex, since more layers of relations need to be considered; in 40k, this manifests as sensitivity to imbalance in the gameplay: you balance everything against this common army type, and if this is central enough, then it will more or less ensure *some* degree of balance between the different dependent armies.

 

The reality, however, is that Space Marines have the greatest mass in all of the WH40k franchise, with a tremendous proportion of the armies in the game decked in power armor. They're the "baseline", because picking one small subfaction does not provide an effective position from which to judge the behaviors of the entire rest of the 40k universe; only the space marines provide such a location, considering half of the Imperium faction and most of the Chaos faction, likely nearly half of the entire game of 40k, are space marines. Imperial Guard are actually an exceptionally poor choice, in my opinion, considering they are an extreme case of the quantity over quality army type, making them highly non-central.

 

For example: 3 Wounds vs. 4 Wounds is a massive difference in power. It is, why? There is a bunch of weapons out there that deal ether 1, 2, 3 or D3 wounds and of those at the high end, it takes two hits AT BEST from those weapons to down the target because of the fact that you can't get 4 wounds with just 3. So naturally, this puts a larger importance on 4 wound models over 3 wound models despite the fact that the difference between a 2 wound model and a 3 wound model is the same yet the power spike is much bigger for going to 4 wounds from 3. Break points are extremely important in a units life, because since GW has without intention made the most common Damage types 1, 2, 3, D3 and D6, since D6 also averages 3.5 wounds per go, it also has a 50/50 of killing the 4 wound model where as against the 3 wound it was 100%.

D6 damage would have a 2/3 chance of killing a 3 wound model and a 1/2 chance of killing a 4-wound model, not a 100% chance of killing a 3 wound model.

 

 

First: in reference to the second point I am talking averages not singular stats. If you were to roll the dice infinite times you would find that 100% of the time a 3 wound model would die where as the 4 would model would die only 50% of the time. yes, there is statistics to back you but in the grander scheme of the game I think you could pull data from 3 wound models vs. 4 wound models dying from D6 damage weapons, you would find my theory holds as 3 wounds tend to die a much higher ratio, tending towards above 2/3 due to how averages will pan out.

 

Second in reference to the first: You are cycling on yourself onto me and this comes down to some serious questions. First off, does it make sense for the ELITE forces to be the base line? No, it doesn't. In fact, using guardsman as the baseline would make it much easier to create enemies in relation to the imperium due to measuring them against guardsman and not marines (which in turn doubles how weak guardsman are). In fact, I would argue that in reference to your geocentric and heliocentric models we are currently using Geocentric models instead of heliocentric: we are attempting to make things orbit the earth (Space Marines) instead of the sun (guardsman) because without guardsman there is no imperium, they are supposed to be humanity in its purest form. Yet we make all our statlines and assumptions off of marines for some reason. Why do we use MEQ more than GEQ? It makes it so the game skews towards higher expectations of units and thus pushes the power creep of the game upwards more drastically and thus is the central argument of why marines "shouldn't be touched" because it changes everything.

 

Marines should NOT be the baseline because of what they are. They can be the most popular army in the game but that isn't reason enough to make them the baseline. Guardsman being the baseline works due to several factors:

 

Guardsman profile can be far easier to justify and rationalise. Because from there we create the enemies more effectively because now we see the Enemies of mankind in relation to you know, mankind! How fast is an Eldar compared to a space marine? Faster? So how fast is that compared to a human then? It inflates statlines of other armies far beyond as instead of being better than mankind in aspects, they just outright out do mankind to ridiculous levels. Eldar are space elves, not space super elves which when made in relation to space marines is what happens. This game is supposed to be about the struggle of mankind vs. the universe, not super soldiers vs. the universe.

 

In the end, it does come down to being able to recognise when this is happening when you design a game and learn to keep it in mind. However it comes down to what is easier to work with and it can't be argued that going from guardsman stats instead of marine stats makes it easier to create enemies that actually work and have "Super" mean something.

[Kite Senet]

The heart of your second paragraph's argument is premised on fluff. But what unit ought to be the balancing "baseline" of the game is intrinsically a "crunch" issue.

 

Now I agree that the difference between a guardsman and a space marine is incredibly underwhelming; and I also agree that it would be best to have the guardsman's statline designed first, and THEN the Space Marine's so that the Marines really have their full force-of-presence. But in terms of balance, the Space Marines need to have that baseline position, where *they* are the central point of balance for 40k the game, not the Guardsman, because the Guardsman is nowhere near central enough in the crunch to make a good point of balance; so (if we develop this way) from that point onward, the REST of the factions at least need to be built relative to the Space Marine statline, not the Guardsman's.

 

Your comparison of the speed of an eldar, a guardsmen, and a space marine is actually a perfect example of what I mean when I refer to gameplay balance sensitivity. One could describe Guardsmen as normal speed; Space Marines as fast; but then one must classify Eldar as "very fast" or something of that type. The fact that you have to work through two layers of relations, the Guardsman relative to Space Marines which are then related to Eldar, just to figure out how fast an Eldar *should* be is much like geocentrism: the Eldar statline relative to Guard, much like the path of Jupiter relative to the earth, is made more complex because you've picked a point of reference which simply isn't central to the system. How much faster an Eldar is than a human means little until we pull the superhumans into the picture and see that even THEY are slow in comparison.

 

The Space Marines are far more central, both in the popularity (which does matter in practice, since we *are* trying to build a good game, not just a fluffy one) as well as in the statline distribution (which matters in both theory and practice).

 

With Guard as the baseline:

• Guard are normal speed.
• Space Marines are faster.
• Eldar are faster.
• Tyranids are faster.
• Non-Nurgle daemons are faster.
• Nurgle daemons are normal speed.
• Tau are normal speed.
• Orks are normal speed.

This isn't especially descriptive, since practically anything is faster than a Guardsman. So now you have the complex matter of trying to figure out *how* much faster each should be, and since you've picked a baseline which is an extreme value (the very slowest), you have to balance everything by throwing the word "very" several times onto each of these "fast"s. This is trickier than it is with a Space Marine baseline:

• Imperial Guard are slow.
• Nurgle Daemons are slow.
• Orks are slow.
• Tau are slow.
• Space Marines are normal speed.
• Eldar are fast.
• Tyranids are fast.
• Slaanesh Daemons are fast.

Here the primary "delta" that matters -- the difference between a space marine and another faction -- is much more clear.

 

As for your fourth paragraph, it seems to me that your concern is that most of the universe is on par with Space Marines, rather than the fact that the Guardsmen itself isn't that far behind. While the latter comparison is certainly a problem and a discrepancy between fluff and crunch, the former depicts 40k's universe -- understanding just how inferior humanity is to every single other species in the galaxy, such that we can only even attempt to compete one-on-one by excruciating bio-modification into a superhuman abomination, is central to realizing just how screwed humanity is in the 41st millennium.

[chapter master 454]

Popularity does NOT dictate game balance and I will defend that to death. Just because it is popular does not excuse it to be the centre of design and balance.

 

Speed is an oddity in 40k as it is now really only shown through 1 stat now and always has been really. There really needs to be more factors in that aspect, possibly relating to how well the unit can advance but I digress.

 

What I do not see is why there is an issue with making guardsman the baseline as the only thing that changed on your scale is how we name it.

 

How is it less clear? People can make their own comparisons and thus come up with their own visuals for it but in all regards we must build units from the ground up, not ceiling down. We need to establish a foundation to work from that makes sense and allows us to accurately create units as appropriate. When we balance from the perspective of the elite armies, we lose some important details. To me, imperial guard is NOT a horde army and is in fact the intermediate despite their fluff. They don't operate with typical horde tactics and often have a combination of ok troops with some powerful support. If they were horde they would have larger units to pull from regularly but don't, relying on massed fire from blocks of ten rather than masses of 20+.

 

They are the "middle" road of all armies. They may not have the greatest melee, in fact it is pretty poor but it isn't non-existent at least (unlike tau) and can make some decent ground on all fronts. They are a great baseline to draw from where as marines are somewhat of the worst first choice for a player and actually require some degree of understanding various rules and combinations to even get the barest out of them. If Marines were a good base to begin with and were worked from properly we wouldn't be here here we are. Marines are outshot by guardsman, outmelee-ed by anyone with a decent amount of Weapon Skill and are considered the lowest on the totem pole. That isn't a baseline, that's a punching bag! A baseline is a unit that can actually compete with others and not be downright bad which marines are. I will voice this again from experience, I decided to build an eldar army and within only a few lists it has felt night and day. Went back to some imperium stuff with my marines and BOOM, right back to feeling like I am ice skating up hill. That isn't a baseline when they are so far BELOW the baseline of the game. That is my point, marines are actually BELOW the baseline here. So how can they BE the baseline if they don't live up to it?

 

To be a baseline means you have merit as it, you have reason to be the measuring stick. As it stands, Marines are meant to be the meters of the game but we would be better using the centimeter of guardsman! Same system, better scaling.

[Panzer]

 

With Guard as the baseline:

• Guard are normal speed.
• Space Marines are faster.
• Eldar are faster.
• Tyranids are faster.
• Non-Nurgle daemons are faster.
• Nurgle daemons are normal speed.
• Tau are normal speed.
• Orks are normal speed.

This isn't especially descriptive, since practically anything is faster than a Guardsman. So now you have the complex matter of trying to figure out *how* much faster each should be, and since you've picked a baseline which is an extreme value (the very slowest), you have to balance everything by throwing the word "very" several times onto each of these "fast"s. This is trickier than it is with a Space Marine baseline:

 

 

Also:

• Skitarii are normal speed
• Sisters are normal speed
• Cultists of any kind (chaos and genestealer) are normal speed
• Kroot are normal speed

 

So actually a lot more things would be at normal speed than there are faster things with the Guardsmen as baseline and with the Space Marines as baseline there are a ton of things slower.

[Deathwalker]

It needs to be remembered too that when these stat lines were created, it was in the 90s, and there were very few differences in weaponry and species that we have now. A dreadnought was considered on par with what we now look at as a knight, gorkanaut, or stormsurge; the statlines and the stats themselves never really grew or evolved with the arms race of powerful releases GW was unleashing.

 

I think at this point, it would cost too much money and man hours to go and do a bottom up recalibration of every model, rule, and weapon stat/point cost. What they have is working, much as it has for decades, and they’re selling models at an acceptable clip, even if the base game system is flawed at a points and balance level.

80's man, not the 90's :P

[Captain Idaho]

I'm just going to throw this into the mix buy I feel like there shouldnt be a baseline.

 

GW said at the birth of the edition that stats weren't limited to 10, so really there's no excuse why the revamp didn't see Marines at Strength and Toughness 6, Orks at Strength and Toughness 5, Guardsmen at Strength and Toughness 3, lasguns at Strength 4, Dreadnoughts at toughness 10 etc.

 

Holding onto "baselines" has created a system that resists change. A broader stat based system would have meant (even if we don't change the wounding system at all) that Marines could be made elites without making their stats higher than most weapons in the game.

[chapter master 454]

I'm just going to throw this into the mix buy I feel like there shouldnt be a baseline.

 

GW said at the birth of the edition that stats weren't limited to 10, so really there's no excuse why the revamp didn't see Marines at Strength and Toughness 6, Orks at Strength and Toughness 5, Guardsmen at Strength and Toughness 3, lasguns at Strength 4, Dreadnoughts at toughness 10 etc.

 

Holding onto "baselines" has created a system that resists change. A broader stat based system would have meant (even if we don't change the wounding system at all) that Marines could be made elites without making their stats higher than most weapons in the game.

 

You spoke more sense in less than a paragraph worth of text than I could XD

 

Yes, I would actually think this a good way of sorting some things out, add some actual differences between units other than just 1 or 2 toughness. It would allow for units to still be "similar in toughness" to each other yet a difference remains.

[Deathwalker]

I'm just going to throw this into the mix buy I feel like there shouldnt be a baseline.

 

GW said at the birth of the edition that stats weren't limited to 10, so really there's no excuse why the revamp didn't see Marines at Strength and Toughness 6, Orks at Strength and Toughness 5, Guardsmen at Strength and Toughness 3, lasguns at Strength 4, Dreadnoughts at toughness 10 etc.

 

Holding onto "baselines" has created a system that resists change. A broader stat based system would have meant (even if we don't change the wounding system at all) that Marines could be made elites without making their stats higher than most weapons in the game.

All of this is true, but baselines are needed to determine balanced points cost. You can argue what variations to that baseline should cost, for sure, but you still need a baseline for -any- model.

[Mileposter]

The heart of your second paragraph's argument is premised on fluff. But what unit ought to be the balancing "baseline" of the game is intrinsically a "crunch" issue.

 

Now I agree that the difference between a guardsman and a space marine is incredibly underwhelming; and I also agree that it would be best to have the guardsman's statline designed first, and THEN the Space Marine's so that the Marines really have their full force-of-presence. But in terms of balance, the Space Marines need to have that baseline position, where *they* are the central point of balance for 40k the game, not the Guardsman, because the Guardsman is nowhere near central enough in the crunch to make a good point of balance; so (if we develop this way) from that point onward, the REST of the factions at least need to be built relative to the Space Marine statline, not the Guardsman's.

 

Your comparison of the speed of an eldar, a guardsmen, and a space marine is actually a perfect example of what I mean when I refer to gameplay balance sensitivity. One could describe Guardsmen as normal speed; Space Marines as fast; but then one must classify Eldar as "very fast" or something of that type. The fact that you have to work through two layers of relations, the Guardsman relative to Space Marines which are then related to Eldar, just to figure out how fast an Eldar *should* be is much like geocentrism: the Eldar statline relative to Guard, much like the path of Jupiter relative to the earth, is made more complex because you've picked a point of reference which simply isn't central to the system. How much faster an Eldar is than a human means little until we pull the superhumans into the picture and see that even THEY are slow in comparison.

 

The Space Marines are far more central, both in the popularity (which does matter in practice, since we *are* trying to build a good game, not just a fluffy one) as well as in the statline distribution (which matters in both theory and practice).

 

[...]

 

Here the primary "delta" that matters -- the difference between a space marine and another faction -- is much more clear.

 

As for your fourth paragraph, it seems to me that your concern is that most of the universe is on par with Space Marines, rather than the fact that the Guardsmen itself isn't that far behind. While the latter comparison is certainly a problem and a discrepancy between fluff and crunch, the former depicts 40k's universe -- understanding just how inferior humanity is to every single other species in the galaxy, such that we can only even attempt to compete one-on-one by excruciating bio-modification into a superhuman abomination, is central to realizing just how screwed humanity is in the 41st millennium.

Finally, someone who actually understands game design.

 

 

Popularity does NOT dictate game balance and I will defend that to death. Just because it is popular does not excuse it to be the centre of design and balance.

Popularity does not, but frequency does. If 75% of the players were playing Genestealers, the game would need to be balanced around Genestealers. Otherwise, you're other option is to try to encourage an even spread of all playable options... but as a consumer-driven game trying to coincide as a hobby (or vice versa), GW doesn't have the power to do that anymore.

 

If the assumption for a baseline being used is to be made, then to change the baseline you must make it the most common occurrence.

 

 

I'm just going to throw this into the mix buy I feel like there shouldnt be a baseline.

 

[...]

 

Holding onto "baselines" has created a system that resists change.

I agree with these statements wholeheartedly, and I feel they apply as much to the players as to the designers.

 

That said, resistance to change from the designers is not exactly unwarranted given the traditional fan base reaction to change.

 

 

All of this is true, but baselines are needed to determine balanced points cost.

Incorrect. Building from a baseline is merely one method of balancing - it isn't the only one.

[Skaorn]

How are IG not a base line already? They have 3s across the board. SM have 4s instead, making them better in every way. Many armies only had one or two stats that matched up with SM levels, like Orks toughness or Eldar movement (since initiative is gone). There are also units that have worse stats than IG like Tau or Gretchen. Yes there are elite units that could be better at certain things than SM, like genestealers in CC, but for basic army troops there are few as good as SM and CSM and only Custodes that are better.

 

Boosting the stats will only make things worse. You want to boost SM stats to 6s for S & T? What else gets boosted to match? Do lascannons stay at only wounding them on a 3+? How about Tau Pulse Weapons, should they be boosted to S7 to continue wounding at the same rate? I'm assuming that T for vehicles and MCs will go way up, as it's kinda silly that an SM would be nearly as tough as a tank.

 

The problem is the system isn't very good. It's had a ton of problems that haven't really been addressed since I started playing in 3rd. I've seen this kind of thread multiple times and it goes nowhere because it's not the real problem. People complain that SM are too fragile now because of armor modifiers when before it was that there were too many AP 3 or better weapons. I'm not going to list all the problems with the system here, you can find them in other threads or create your own, but the only thing that is going to fix 40K is to have an actual team of game designers create the next edition. Having live play tests for the rules and codexes would be good too. Sadly this will never happen because too many people would flip out because the system changed too much.

[SpecialIssue]

For much of 40k, firepower has trumped durability due to the prevalence and access to high AP weaponry. Any of the AP systems and possible stat-lines could have fostered a more lore-friendly 'elite' Marine, where their durability is a significant differentiation factor to their play, but that will only happen if high-powered weapons are made much more cost/list-prohibitive to bring.

 

Bring the number of them down in a game so that on average a player is only actually able to fit a few in a list, with the majority of affordable weapons being small-arms and/or short range, and watch the battles become more about maneuver, cover and protection of those few high-powered weapons, rather than stand and shoot to the death actions where basic troops are useless, and the virtue of durability is an afterthought.

 

Take the high powered toys away, and 40k becomes a much better wargame. Some restraint is needed in the number of 'special' on the battlefield.

 

But as GW likes to say, they are a model company first, and such a design-ethos would go completely against selling more models and large LoW kits, not to mention might upset those who like the more fantastical larger-than-life model aspect of the game, or the idea of powerful weapons everywhere.