10th edition tournament results - it doesn't look good

[Rain]

1 hour ago, Squark said:

Gauss has been a thing since 3rd

Yes, but the hull points system wasn’t added until 6th, so glancing a vehicle to death was much harder. You needed a 6 to glance followed by a 6 on the table to kill a vehicle with gauss pre-6th edition.

 

Edit: Now that I think about it, I think in 5th gauss straight up couldn’t kill vehicles that weren’t open topped, because a roll without any modifiers for a glancing hit couldn’t roll destroyed. I think. It’s been a while and 4th and 5th kind of blend together for me.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Rain

[Scribe]

1 hour ago, Squark said:

Gauss has been a thing since 3rd

 

Yes, but how vehicles behaved was different, and it was 'crazy powerful alien tech' not a 9mm taking a wound off of a Titan.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

5 hours ago, Emperor Ming said:

Interesting, so Admech index isn't as bad as its being made out to be?

 

It appears that way, but the table doesn't tell us how many games played per fraction, if fractions had allies, and if the tournament had house rules. I tend to trust its results more for the popular armies, because I think a low sample size can be skewed by player skill. I do think marines are probably better than where the chart has them desolation marines aren't available as a single kit yet, and I think people are going to have to retool their armies a bit. 

 

I still think its useful for identifying trends I just hope GW is focused on raising the worst choices. Too many of the fractions that appear to bad aren't getting an update till next summer at the earliest.

 

3 hours ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

Gauss weapons were a thing in 6th... so was immotek and his lightning shenanigans. They also introduced Grav weaponry in 6th, and Haywire has been a thing since Dark Eldar at least 5th. 

 

5th edition was the last time vehichles were good.

 

I think its hard to view these solely through what hurt vehicles. Vehicles in 5th could immobilize themselves, had a damage table, could be killed in one hit, and had firing arcs. 

 

I do agree that fifth was the last edition that vehicles were front & center, so I don't mind it being the case for tenth. I like the toughness change, and I really like that they simplified the degrading profiles.

 

I'm just a bit frustrated with how they changed MM. I felt that giving it two shots was a mistake in 10th, I would have preferred them losing an attack and becoming stronger at half range (which I'm fine with the 18" range). Instead, I feel like they compete with plasma more now, which isn't a good thing.

 

[BrainFireBob]

On 6/30/2023 at 2:24 PM, Karhedron said:

 

It will never happen as long as factions like Knights exist and armies can run tank companies etc. GW removed the Psychic phase because it was unfun to have a phase where one side could just remove the other side's models with no interaction. Imagine how much worse it would be to have an entire game where all of your basic infantry could not damage the enemy unless they had special weapons. Their only job was to try and die as slowly as possible.

 

Now you could argue that entire armies of Knights should not exist in 40K but that is a moot point. The genie is well and truly out of that particular bottle and the game mechanics need to deal with the units that exist.

3.5 Armored Company.

 

If your opponent was fielding this list, you auto-glanced on 6s to wound. You were glancing tanks to death- once they were immobile and lost all weapons, anything other than stunned/shaken killed them.

[BrainFireBob]

Here's a thought: Wondering if armies were balanced in part via allies.

 

Maybe I'm crazy, but eyeballing Death Guard with their -1 T and Lethal Hits- are they *designed* as better War Dogs?

[Marshal Rohr]

At some point we need to acknowledge Eldar being insanely good on the table after multiple editions is a feature not a bug. 

[Scribe]

38 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

At some point we need to acknowledge Eldar being insanely good on the table after multiple editions is a feature not a bug. 

 

Or, they have an internal dev 'champion' who has enough clout to imbalance the game over multiple editions.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

1 hour ago, BrainFireBob said:

Here's a thought: Wondering if armies were balanced in part via allies.

 

Maybe I'm crazy, but eyeballing Death Guard with their -1 T and Lethal Hits- are they *designed* as better War Dogs?

 

I don't think that's the case, mainly because designing fractions to be allies would be a gut punch for those players. I just think that some designers took simplifying, reducing lethality, and limiting re-rolls seriously and others did not. I mean if you look at the Sisters index there are devasting wounds options they just aren't so good that its a no brainer. If whoever wrote that index had done craftworld Eldar we'd be having a different discussion at this point. 

 

1 hour ago, Marshal Rohr said:

At some point we need to acknowledge Eldar being insanely good on the table after multiple editions is a feature not a bug. 

 

I mean they got banned from a tournament before points were released, that has to be acknowledgement, right?

 

For what its worth though, I do think part of the reason that people will argue against that is the internal balance for Eldar has always been horrible. For every broken unit, you get some contenders for worst unit in the game. It's always been that way since I started playing in 3rd, to the point where I wonder if Eldar is a fraction where the sales tank if they suck, but they get rewarded for changing up what's good immensely. For me personally I started them in 3rd and can remember people not wanting to play pickup games with me until they realized I didn't have falcons (I lost alot lol). I can also remember going on a huge winning streak in 6th because serpents were broken (that was when I lost interest in the army).  

[Rain]

59 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

Or, they have an internal dev 'champion' who has enough clout to imbalance the game over multiple editions.

People that like Eldar tend to really like Eldar. It’s like a fetish. Not everyone is into it, and it doesn’t make for good polite conversation, but the people that are into it can go a little overboard in the proper circumstances 

[The Unseen]

I mean, it isn't a big secret, that internal dev champion is just straight up Phil Kelly isn't it? He's written just about every Eldar codex since 4th that had an author attribution, and he's probably still writing them now that GW doesn't reveal that info publicly. Probably because authors were getting harassed and/or using their name recognition to go elsewhere.

 

And yeah, the Eldar internal balance is always completely out of whack, but nobody cares because their external balance is often even *worse*, and other people notice that a lot more. Funnily enough in 9th after their initial release and nerf, the 9th dex was fairly well *internally* balanced for once. HoD was the best, but I saw multiple people run melee heavy eldar successfully, something which hasn't been a thing in... I'm not sure how long, along with some Ulthwé builds. The only archetype that wasn't well represented was the wraith stuff.

[Marshal Rohr]

The lore writers don’t write the rules anymore. 

[Evil Eye]

I feel like it's less that Phil was necessarily advocating for making Eldar woefully overpowered and more that in the days when every Codex had its author published, Phil's 'dexes were usually pretty superlative. Now there will be some "favourite faction bias" present of course, but IIRC his other books were pretty great too; the 4E Tyranid book (co-authored by Andy Chambers!) was stellar, and I recall the Ork book was pretty decent too, even if it got a bit overshadowed in 5th (as most 4E books did). Obviously we don't know who writes what these days, and I have a feeling Phil exclusively does AoS stuff now, so it's hard to say, but I do think it's less that Phil or whoever else was intentionally making Eldar OP and more that for the longest time, Eldar kept getting done by Phil and Phil writes really strong rules.

 

Not to defend Eldar being absolutely busted of course, just to say that I don't think it's the result of a conspiracy to make Eldar the most powerful faction. Probably. Either that or GW is under the sway of the knife-ears!

[LostTemplar]

Weren't Craftworld Eldar the Queen's favoured army?

[Sea Creature]

Superlative, is that Latin for broken? Phil released some real stinkers such as the dinobots CSM and second Daemon codices. He didn’t do DE any favors either.

[Rain]

1 hour ago, Sea Creature said:

Superlative, is that Latin for broken? Phil released some real stinkers such as the dinobots CSM and second Daemon codices. He didn’t do DE any favors either.

The 6e edition CSM book was bland, but it was still an improvement over the 4e book, which was even worse. It was the buttered toast to the prior book’s plain toast. Making the Heldrake arguably the best unit was dumb, because it’s a silly model, but that might have been a push to sell a big, high margin new model.

 

The 5e Dark Eldar book is one of the best codexes ever written, alongside 3.5e CSM, 4e Tyranids, and 4e Space Marines.

 

 

[Sea Creature]

Dark eldar had a brief period of high win rates then psyflemen dreads put a stop to that streak. Vect was a lot of fun for sure.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Sea Creature

[Rain]

16 minutes ago, Sea Creature said:

Dark eldar had a brief period of high win rates then psyflemen dreads put a stop to that streak. Vect was a lot of fun for sure.

I’m not talking about the power of the codex per se, though it was probably in the top 5 or so at time of release, but moreso that it was fun to build and play, with a lot of viable list and theme variety, and tons of flavor. Then came 6ed vehicle rules, and DE became trash, but that wasn’t the fault of the codex.

[Scribe]

1 hour ago, Rain said:

The 5e Dark Eldar book is one of the best codexes ever written, alongside 3.5e CSM, 4e Tyranids, and 4e Space Marines.

 

I still think that 5th DE codex/range refresh is probably one of GW's high points in the last 20+ years.

[Rain]

8 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

I still think that 5th DE codex/range refresh is probably one of GW's high points in the last 20+ years.

 

3rd through 5th was the high point of 40k, visual design wise. Especially for Chaos. I hate the overuse of jagged trim that exists on most Chaos models, everything about the Heldrake, and the fat rolls on top of metal design used in the Helbrute, demon engines, and oblits. The only way to save the Mauler/Forgefiend model is to always use the eyeless plasma cannon head, even when building the Maulerfiend. It makes it look eerie in the same way that the xenomorph is eerie as it lacks eyes. Otherwise, seriously, what the Eye of Terror were they thinking when they designed:

 

 

It looks so goofy with the oversized teeth, flared nostrils, and the stupid metal tendril tongue. Just awful. Luckily the newer Chaos designed have trended back toward good. The Master of Executions looks good with a simple head swap, the new Terminators are good, the new Chosen look great (if fairly monopose/stale in repetition) and the Juggerlord is fine. Anyway, rant over. Back to work 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kastor Krieg]

On 6/28/2023 at 6:16 PM, Rain said:

MW's in general are just a bad mechanic to have. "Your guy dies because my attacks have super mega shield piercing no taksies backsies" is a really difficult thing to balance because it has knock on effects for the balance of other units.

*remembers Muh Supeh Speshul Wehpun Instant Death and Muh Supah Speshiel Heero Eternal Warrior*

[MegaVolt87]

14 hours ago, Kastor Krieg said:

*remembers Muh Supeh Speshul Wehpun Instant Death and Muh Supah Speshiel Heero Eternal Warrior*

 

We are going to go full circle with this damage vs defensive arms race. We had armour of contempt, Custodes tankyness, IH dreads etc. We will end up right where we started in 10th at this rate. 

[spessmarine]

On 7/3/2023 at 11:05 AM, Kastor Krieg said:

*remembers Muh Supeh Speshul Wehpun Instant Death and Muh Supah Speshiel Heero Eternal Warrior*

To be fair, Str >= 2T = Insta-dead is reasonable. The rest yeah, ehh

[Sea Creature]

I’m glad they got rid of instant death.

[The Unseen]

I mean, they basically replaced it with damage, which is fine because the old system didn't scale super well, and big creatures never ran into the Str/T component of it, but then would either be totally immune to the actual rule on a weapon or be horrifically vulnerable to it. Now most Str8+ weapons do enough damage that if a character fails their invuln they are likely to die, unless they're a monstrous creature. Marine heroes have 5-6 wounds, so a meltagun in melta range (previously the 2nd most common weapon capable of one-tapping them) has a 50% chance of killing them outright. And while stuff like powerfists no long one-taps characters, it now doesn't swing at I1, and has more attacks that hit more often; used to be a captain had 3 attacks, with 4 on the charge, and maybe 5 if you splurged and bought them a 2nd specialist weapon like a lightning claw, but then you gave up a 3++ from the shield or a combi-weapon to use his BS5 on. And while captains would frequently hit on 3s, they never hit on 2s, and mutual kills were pretty common since if your opponent *also* had a powerfist-or equivalent, you both killed each other at I1 fairly often.

Mortal Wounds are a mistake, its taking the existing system of doing damage and just deciding to skip it all for *convenience* and rendering T and armor save increasingly less valuable, and seems to be a mechanic designed to solve a problem that no longer exists; that of the ultra tanky invuln units that previous editions had a problem with. But if you actually balance the Invulnerable save (like getting rid of 3++ in most places, not handing out rerolls for those invulns, etc) it isn't a big deal. But now to defend against MW's you need extra wounds AND preferably some kind of damage mitigation roll, which used to be really rare and powerful and now feels almost mandatory for a unit to be even halfway durable, because even a unit with a 2++, if it doesn't have a MW defense or a whole lot of wounds is trivially killed by quite a few things, and they are becoming MORE common, not less.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Yep, MW are a horrible and lazy damage mechanic. They create so many problems and solve none.