GW endorsing the loyal 32?

[Marshal Rohr]

I saw this in the new white dwarf. Far cry from the themed reports of yore. They might as well just reprint the article next month if they are going to run net lists like a BOLS youtuber.

[tylerw]

 

You can’t nerf soup without nerfing cool fluff armies, they’re unfortunately bound to the cheese you see sometimes. The only option IMO is giving small boosts to mono keyword armies somehow.

 

The only beef I have with the 32 is how it’s obviously a better choice than anything in any imperial army. It’s boring.

 

You can and it's rather simple. You just have to equalize CP generation between the factions.

 

 

Or give the factions their own batteries, and make batteries generally work only when in flavorful armies (so in theory, 32 would only work with space marines or knights as allies), an eldar battery would work only with their stuff and dark eldar, ork batteries would, I imagine, be ork-only (or maybe you come up with a justification for some Ork/Nid cooperation if you want to provide possible allying options to balance power?) and the like.

 

I guess what I'm saying is either give everyone solid batteries or just give a lot more CP reward for going mono-faction/nearly-mono-faction.

[Brother Mayhem]

I thought it was fun, nice to vary up the battle reports - the great thing about this issue is the articles (and the poster, saving that for the eventual game room I'll own one day...)

[Marshal Rohr]

Meta gamers should be shamed, not catered to like their small minority of toxic interests are good for the game. Running a broken list like that would be like Bethesda running a twitch livestream about something from Fallout 76. That list is trash and what’s wrong with the game. You wouldn’t focus on the broken part of game if you were sane. This is like them saying ‘hey you know that thing that makes it impossible to walk into your store and play a pick up game? Here’s an article of it with models that are actually painted’

[Scribe]

Meta gamers should be shamed, not catered to like their small minority of toxic interests are good for the game. Running a broken list like that would be like Bethesda running a twitch livestream about something from Fallout 76. That list is trash and what’s wrong with the game. You wouldn’t focus on the broken part of game if you were sane. This is like them saying ‘hey you know that thing that makes it impossible to walk into your store and play a pick up game? Here’s an article of it with models that are actually painted’

 

I disagree. If they want to continue to grow, tapping that competitive market is where it will happen. 

 

Players need to understand the type of game they are getting into, as there are levels of competitive, and there various approaches to the game. Would I take a hardcore list over to my buddies place for a casual night? Absolutely not.

 

Does such a list have a time and a place? Sure it does.

[Marshal Rohr]

At grand tournaments, sure. Not giving first time WD players the idea that kind of lost is acceptable for normal games. Look at how Centurion lists have become a de facto self limiter in Heresy games.

[Kinstryfe]

At grand tournaments, sure. Not giving first time WD players the idea that kind of lost is acceptable for normal games. Look at how Centurion lists have become a de facto self limiter in Heresy games.

I've seen plenty of new players who've never read a White Dwarf who still run the cheesiest netlists possible. These kind of lists, optimized for maximum effect, have always and will always exist just like these kinds of players have and always will exist. That's just how some people play the game. I'd rather have GW be aware of it and acknowledge it than it be like years past where they feign shock over these kinds of lists. I hate them as much as anyone, but at least we know that the rules designers are aware of how ridiculous some of this stuff is and they're making an effort to say hey, this isn't the kind of thing you should be playing unless it's in a really competitive game.

[Dracos]

 

 

I suggest we avoid extremely judgmental and non-inclusive points of view. Everyone should be welcome in the community to play the game in the manner they enjoy the most. No one is forced to play a game with anyone. Meta gamers have a place in the game like anyone else. They test the system to it's limits and the new GW has acknowledged them as a resource to test the game beyond its in house circuit

 

.... and most importantly, been quick to react to trends they feel are unbalanced in the game, thus making a better game for everyone.

 

Regardless there should never be a call to shame individuals because they want to play the game in a manner someone else doesn't approve of.

[RobWrath]

I thought it was fun, nice to vary up the battle reports - the great thing about this issue is the articles (and the poster, saving that for the eventual game room I'll own one day...)

 

I found it interesting. The level of detailed consideration that each guy was putting into each part of his strategy was quite an eye-opener (albeit from someone who thinks a tactical decision is which set of guns his guys charge straight towards first).

 

I could never bring myself to use the loyal 32 or one of those Eldar soup lists in a game though, and I'd be extremely narked if my opponent did the same in anything other than a tournament (and I'm not going to any tournaments).

 

I think it's good to show a game of 40k played exactly as per the rules with optimised lists, rather than the usual WD battle featuring the most recent models because they are the most recent models, and playing what seems to be commonly-understood house rules.

[StraightSilver]

The thing that stood out the most for me was that the 2 guys didn't use their own models.

 

Without horribly jumping to conclusions about either player one of the things I have noticed with competitive gamers is that they don't invest as much time into building and painting their armies.

This is probably due to keeping up with the meta but I find people that play fluffy lists tend to be more invested in the painting and modelling side of things.

The point I'm making is it seems odd that White Dwarf would invite two apparently well known, regular, tournament players but didn't in any way showcase their armies in the magazine.

I suppose the battle report was purely to show off how tournament players play but personally that's not "my version" of 40K and I'd rather see less competitive gamers who get to show off their own models featured in the pages of WD.

It also worries me that these types of ultra competitive players are now being used as official play testers, and that the competitive meta seems to be influencing the FAQs.

But as has been said, everybody has different ways to play  and although this isn't my vision of 40K gaming I'm glad it got some page time.

[Leif Bearclaw]

 

 

You can’t nerf soup without nerfing cool fluff armies,

Then why not keep armies based around the fluff/narrative in narrative games? The whole narrative ruleset allows you to play games based on the fluff.

 

In the fluff, the thousand points of blood angels you see on the table is ten times more likely to be fighting with another thousand points of blood angels than it is with 32 guardsmen...

 

OR IS IT? Theres a lot more Loyal 32's than there is BA! /devils advocate

 

It's actually quite nice for them to put it in the magazine and acknowledge it. Pete Foley and others have said on stream in the past that they like mixed Imperium armies, as it is exactly how they tend to fight and how they managed to conquer the galaxy in the first place. I think the CP generation nerf helped just enough to bring it in almost line as opposed to fully broken.

 

My only suggestion is you look at the type of detachments included and maybe limit it on points like in AoS. Your "biggest" detachment (read: most troops) is your primary faction and as such X% of your points must be from them.

 

It is. The issue with 40k and the 'Army of the Imperium' idea is one of scale. Yes the various branches of the Imperium's armed forces do work in concert, but not commonly (note commonly, it will happen, but rarely) at the sub-company level engagements that are the regular 40k game. A 'Marine-Guard combined operation' will be something like the Red Scorpion's forlorn hope deployment at Vraks, where a Hundred-odd Marines are the Vanguard/Shock Troops, get the foothold the Guard have failed to, and are supported/relieved by a couple of Titans and Thousands of Guardsmen. That's a far cry from the '30 Guardsmen and 30 Marines team up for the same firefight' set up we have in current 40k. Old Epic got this right, with the standard 'Army of the Imperium' being mostly Guardsmen, with a few supporting Titans and Marine detachments (with each detachment being roughly analogous to an entire 40k army). Now you might say that, lacking a modern Epic-scale game, that the current system is as good as you can get, and you may well be right. But Foley's claim there seems on the disingenuous side to me. It wasn't mixed Guard and Marines at the squad level that conquered the Galaxy (hell the Marine Legions were less dependent on the Army than the modern Astartes are with the Guard) and that isn't how the Imperium is shown to fight in the the fluff, where the type of fights at the scale of the regular 40k game tend to be one faction affairs.

[Panzer]

Saying WD should ignore meta lists is incredibly stupid. You may not like it but it's part of the hobby and looking away won't change that. You're basically saying that there is a wrong way to enjoy the hobby which is largely agreed on to be something that doesn't exist. The WD is a hobby magazine and that includes tournaments and tournament lists. You don't like the article? Don't read it. There will be plenty articles without such lists for you to read as well.

 

GW has tried to force feed us the narrative approach to playing the game and ignoring half of the rules in batreps and so on for quite a while now and much of the feedback was usually something like "yeah cool but pointless. I don't see lists like that/nobody of my opponents would agree to ignore the rules like that". Now they try a bit more realistic approach with lists you actually encounter. Lets see how that goes for now.

[Marshal Rohr]

The only thing that is 'incredibly stupid' is defending a style of game that actively causes problems for people to find new games or participate in their community. Look no further than the neckbeards who on people who want to build stuff that isn't optimized for points or the incessant 'how to make Primaris competitive' threads. All it takes is one to start running a hyper-competitive list and people can't win at their local store without having to cater their armies to something that can drop a knight in a turn. Matched play should not be hyper-competitive by default and no one should be afraid to walk into their store and find a game that's fun.

 

 

Edit: And defending this as 'people who enjoy the hobby differently than you' fundamentally misses that point that these people are exploiting the game, not playing.

[Lord Marshal]

Meta gamers should be shamed, not catered to like their small minority of toxic interests are good for the game. Running a broken list like that would be like Bethesda running a twitch livestream about something from Fallout 76. That list is trash and what’s wrong with the game. You wouldn’t focus on the broken part of game if you were sane. This is like them saying ‘hey you know that thing that makes it impossible to walk into your store and play a pick up game? Here’s an article of it with models that are actually painted’

 

Sorry, but the Casual At All Costs attitude is just as poor.

 

It encourages Games Workshop to continue their shoddy writing which, ironically, leads to situations where WAAC'ers can more easily exploit the game and turn it into situations where we end up with spam, Loyal 32, so on, so forth. That they always seem so genuinely surprised that things like this arrive really speaks to how out of touch GW still are, even if they're not going actively "LALALALALALA!" quite as much as they used to. 

 

Amusingly it is only Games Workshop games where I've really had to sit and question if this unit is worth even shelling £££ out for, because their internal balance is so hysterically bad. Luckily Guard internal balance is pretty good in 8th, but the same can't be said of other armies and in the past. For more competitive-driven games like Warmahordes I've had to do far less "Hm, yes, but what's the point when it's crap?" soul searching when looking at buying a model than the supposed 'Beer and Pretzel's' GW and I am somebody who enjoys more relaxed, narrative-driven games/campaigns.

 

Just like in sports there are going to be people who's interest is in more competitive types of play. That's normal. 

[Panzer]

The only thing that is 'incredibly stupid' is defending a style of game that actively causes problems for people to find new games or participate in their community. Look no further than the neckbeards who on people who want to build stuff that isn't optimized for points or the incessant 'how to make Primaris competitive' threads. All it takes is one to start running a hyper-competitive list and people can't win at their local store without having to cater their armies to something that can drop a knight in a turn. Matched play should not be hyper-competitive by default and no one should be afraid to walk into their store and find a game that's fun.

 

 

Edit: And defending this as 'people who enjoy the hobby differently than you' fundamentally misses that point that these people are exploiting the game, not playing.

 

Agree to disagree. Your position isn't any better than any 'That Guy' I've seen in the years to be honest and it makes me sad that you seem to think you have to have such a strong opinion about it.

[Marshal Rohr]

This is a war game. It isn't a sport. You don't find people trying to optimize their list at Waterloo or Gettysburg.

 

 

Edit: Yeah, being concerned about people being able to walk into any store and find a fun game makes me the same as someone who walks into any store trying to steam roll their opponent. Some of us have precious few hours for gaming and don't want to waste it having to gamble on if the person I'm playing is an or not.

[Lord Marshal]

This is a war game. It isn't a sport. You don't find people trying to optimize their list at Waterloo or Gettysburg.

 

 

Edit: Yeah, being concerned about people being able to walk into any store and find a fun game makes me the same as someone who walks into any store trying to steam roll their opponent. Some of us have precious few hours for gaming and don't want to waste it having to gamble on if the person I'm playing is an or not.

 

The 40k community is big. That means there's going to be a wide range of desires and dislikes. 

 

Do you think most competitive minded players want to waste it on having to gamble if the person brought a narrative-driven Grey Knights list made up of the worse units? 

 

In my experience there's a difference between competitive-driven players and people who actively want to stomp Little Timmy with his Warlord Titan. You can usually see the latter coming a mile away and tell them to jog on accordingly. Competitive typicallyplayers want to optimise their lists and put them other other competitive-minded lists, because to them the enjoyment comes from armies without wildly different levels of power. A good deal of them use store games as practise and know that stomping Lil Timmy is not good practise. 

 

Most people are NOT unreasonable. It's a social hobby. If you want William to maybe tone down his list, ask. If William the WAAC'er turns out to stomp his feet and scream "No!" then you probably dodged a bullet anyway. If you absolutely cannot stand competitive players, see about forming a circle of narrative-driven guys? That's what 30k ended up being. 

[Marshal Rohr]

I walked into the only store within two hours drive the other weekend and the three 40k games going on were the exact same white dwarf style soup army were on two of the table (one was the same list against the same list). I think that says something about the state of the hobby as a whole, that out here in Podunk Nowheresville, the meta is not conducive to walking in with a Primaris Army and having a game you can win.

 

@Lord Marshal, I see your point and to a large extent I agree, what I am saying is there is a certain trickle-down effect in the wider gaming universe right now that has toxic elements and make it hard to find games. In fifth edition I had two separate army lists for the same army I'd bring to the store, and models  to switch out in the squads if it was going to be a competitive game or a fun game. If the meta was more like that, I wouldn't feel so strongly about it, but I haven't seen that in a long time. As for 30k being narrative drive, a lot of the cool groups on IG and facebook do that, for sure, but before the 8th Edition transition the Heresy communities had serious issues with some optimization of lists (you'd see tons of plas support squads or pie plate spam, for example). That all kind of faded out now, and you see more of the IG and FB style projects and events coming back to the front.

[Beams]

I think, as a community, we should be more careful about listening to eachother expectations before the games.

 

One of my first games, I had a small handful of Bolter sisters and a single exorcist, my opponent brought some crazy fast chaos spacemarine biker list that I had no answer for, and he beat me turn two. That game was clearly no fun for me, and prolly not much fun for him. Instead of hating on different playstyles, we should be more open about how we want to play, so that when we get a game, all players can move more into that direction.

[Servant of Dante]

I doubt White Dwarf of all things has a larger effect on new players than web resources and lists from 3rd parties at this point. New players to this game are, by and large, going to be used to going online for information and the idea that GW has a magazine may not even occur to them (at least, that was the case with me and I’ve been playing for at least a few years now). So I don’t think the style of WD batrep is really going to affect local meats all that much. That’s not to say Marshal Rhor is wrong to be frustrated that their meta isn’t conducive to their enjoyment of the hobby, quite the opposite; however, I don’t believe that’s a reason to decry people who enjoy competitive 40K.

 

Hopefully they keep things fresh and showcase all sorts of playstyles and lists in each issue.

 

As for attitude, I agree wholeheartedly that it is important to accept that every one of us appreciates this hobby in a slightly different way, and this leads to many different approaches. I, for example, don’t enjoy painting all that much. I have no drive to paint just to get things painted, so I only paint when I feel like putting enough time in to get a paint job I’m satisfied with (which is infrequently), but I play very much casual lists and actively hamstring myself with the way I build armies. To wrap around to what this topic is about, I would never include the loyal 32 in my list (I play pure Sisters of Battle, with maybe a Ministorum priest or 2) but I would happily play against an army that includes them at least once because it’s something different (I haven’t played much recently so I haven’t experienced it yet). :D

[Lord Marshal]

I walked into the only store within two hours drive the other weekend and the three 40k games going on were the exact same white dwarf style soup army were on two of the table (one was the same list against the same list). I think that says something about the state of the hobby as a whole, that out here in Podunk Nowheresville, the meta is not conducive to walking in with a Primaris Army and having a game you can win.

 

@Lord Marshal, I see your point and to a large extent I agree, what I am saying is there is a certain trickle-down effect in the wider gaming universe right now that has toxic elements and make it hard to find games. In fifth edition I had two separate army lists for the same army I'd bring to the store, and models  to switch out in the squads if it was going to be a competitive game or a fun game. If the meta was more like that, I wouldn't feel so strongly about it, but I haven't seen that in a long time.

 

The problem is that a lot of people, as these threads usually show, do find those lists to be fluffy. Knights are everywhere because they look cool. I see plenty of Marine/Guard/Knight armies but most of those people are absolutely not competitive. Most of them take Loyal 32 because CP is such a lyncpin of this game, but usually come up with some story they're eager to share about how they're a destroyed company of Guardsmen their Marines saved at the last minute. Allies weren't really a very supported thing in 5th, which is where this kind of thing really comes from. How many people do we see scream "GUARD IS OP!" after a list has won a tournament with... two Guard units.

 

The CP Battery is an issue with GW's rules writing that has left the exploit open and made it 'necessary' in most people's eyes. Hell, I find stuff like Opening Bombardment and Fire on my position! really thematic but still require a good investment of it. 

 

I do feel like the game has become more competitive driven, albeit not to the degree of something like Warmhordes, but I also feel like the gap even being there to exploit comes down from GW itself being unable, or more likely, unwilling to further watertight their game. Hell just look at 30k. The game is more balanced than 40k ever was and yet narrative players are in the overwhelming majority, but largely able to take what they like. 

[Marshal Rohr]

I think GW tried to demarcate the various spectrum of gaming with open play (for newer players with mixed collections), narrative play (for themed armies), and matched play (for pick up games). I think the best solution would be to add in a fourth (competitive play) option that retains the optimization focus, but separates it from normal matched play without the requirement for self regulation. Its the self-regulation problem that can cause so many of the issues between competitive and casual play.

[Lexington]

 

I'm more a modeler than a player and all of my armies are fluff-based rather than WAAC lists. With that said here's an honest question:

 

Why do we have CP at all?

Because that's the ruleset GW came up with for this edition. Plain and simple.

True, but I think this is still a valid question. CPs and Stratagems aren't really integral parts of the game - they're an almost entirely independent system of buffs and special rules that live outside of the core rules, but they're universally recognized as the heart of nearly all of 8th's biggest balance problems. Given that, I think it's easy to see that they're a net negative to a lot of the game's play experience. I do wonder if 40K wouldn't be a better game if people just opted out of CPs/Strats as a house rule. Not like it'd be particularly difficult or alien. It's basically the 40K we all played for ages before 8th, after all.

[MARK0SIAN]

 

 

 

 

 

You can’t nerf soup without nerfing cool fluff armies,

Then why not keep armies based around the fluff/narrative in narrative games? The whole narrative ruleset allows you to play games based on the fluff.

 

In the fluff, the thousand points of blood angels you see on the table is ten times more likely to be fighting with another thousand points of blood angels than it is with 32 guardsmen...

OR IS IT? Theres a lot more Loyal 32's than there is BA! /devils advocate

 

It's actually quite nice for them to put it in the magazine and acknowledge it. Pete Foley and others have said on stream in the past that they like mixed Imperium armies, as it is exactly how they tend to fight and how they managed to conquer the galaxy in the first place. I think the CP generation nerf helped just enough to bring it in almost line as opposed to fully broken.

 

My only suggestion is you look at the type of detachments included and maybe limit it on points like in AoS. Your "biggest" detachment (read: most troops) is your primary faction and as such X% of your points must be from them.

It is. The issue with 40k and the 'Army of the Imperium' idea is one of scale. Yes the various branches of the Imperium's armed forces do work in concert, but not commonly (note commonly, it will happen, but rarely) at the sub-company level engagements that are the regular 40k game. A 'Marine-Guard combined operation' will be something like the Red Scorpion's forlorn hope deployment at Vraks, where a Hundred-odd Marines are the Vanguard/Shock Troops, get the foothold the Guard have failed to, and are supported/relieved by a couple of Titans and Thousands of Guardsmen. That's a far cry from the '30 Guardsmen and 30 Marines team up for the same firefight' set up we have in current 40k.

I agree to a certain extent but singling out the Imperium for this scale problem is not fair. Chaos is equally to blame, as is Eldar to a slightly lesser extent. How many battles with 10 - 20 marines and a load of cultists are realistically going to see several daemon princes turn up? Hardly any but what do you see time and again in chaos lists? How many skirmishes would Guilliman/Magnus/mortarion really be involved in against a handful of troops? Now I know they’re not necessarily allies as they’re often in the same codex but if we are talking scale, I don’t see a difference between 30 guardsmen plus 30 marines fighting together regularly and a horde of cultists who’ve managed to bring along 3 daemon princes with them.

 

The scale and allies/appropriate units issue is not an issue with the Imperium, it’s an issue with the game in general. I agree it would be nice to address it but without adding in a lot more restrictions to army building I don’t see how you can :(

[Marshal Loss]

Lots of interesting points being made. Just my $0.02.

 

To an extent, I thought it was refreshing to have real tournament players gracing the pages of a WD. Players that really know the game. Reading that battle report, I knew that the result wasn't skewed/altered/manipulated to showcase a particular release or whatnot. There have been many battle reports I've read in the past where I just rolled my eyes at the way it was being set up to make (x) look great, or where one army got curbstomped because they took random sub-optimal fluffy units against the current flavour of the month. So I didn't see this article in a wholly negative light, even if it's not what I'd usually look for in a battle report. I can see some merit.

 

On the other hand, I don't want things like the "loyal 32" being promoted as the norm in this game. To take something so emblematic of 8th edition's problems and showcase it as strategic genius is, in my opinion, stupid. It's not fluffy or in the spirit of how I think the system was designed and it's certainly not clever. I'm not saying that these tournament players are malicious or bad people, or that their enjoyment of the game is somehow less important than mine. But the WD battle reports that I remember and cherish were ones that featured wonderful narrative battles or crazy 1v1v1v1's or creative scenarios, etc, with the goofy maps and arrows floating around everywhere, with guest armies or heavily themed studio armies. Leave lists designed solely to win tournaments for GW's Warhammer TV Twitch tournament coverage.

 

I still read and take inspiration from my old favourites regularly. I will never read the January 2019 battle report again. That, in my mind, says it all.