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

[Karhedron]

I think that the record probably has to go to the Eldar Jetbikes. Advanced prototypes were displayed in 2007 but the actual models didn't hit the shelves until the launch of 7th edition, 7 years later.

 

Interestingly, when Magnus the Red was first released, one of the more reliable rumour-mongers of the day (Hastings) reported that Guilliman, Mortarion, Angron and Russ were also being worked up at the same time. Now here we are, 7 years on from that and 4 of the 5 have appeared. Curiously we have gotten the Lion instead of the Wolf. Was the original rumour only 80% right or did Johnson jump the queue and Russ is still waiting for the Wolftime?

[Lexington]

23 hours ago, MARK0SIAN said:

I feel like they take those initial findings and use them to develop the next edition over about 18 months in time to ship it off to the printers ready for the release of the new edition.

I feel like this is the usual way of things, but some different ended up happening during development this time around. GW’s rules releases have never been too polished, but 10th has really been something else in terms of “this barely functions,” and, in fact, required an 18 page document to add in all the rules that didn’t make it into the actual book.

 

Add in huge, weird disparities between Index armies, the kind that go way, way, way beyond “oh, playtesting didn’t catch that,” reports that the only playtesting that happened was during staff lunch hours, etc., and you start to get the feeling that 10th, as we have received it, was written in a mad rush. Maybe there was a delay somewhere, or a last-minute decision was made to scrap whatever initial designs might’ve existed and go with the direct “AoS but with more guns” port that 10th is in all useful respects, but something out of the ordinary seems likely to have occurred somewhere in the process.

[Rain]

18 minutes ago, Lexington said:

I feel like this is the usual way of things, but some different ended up happening during development this time around. GW’s rules releases have never been too polished, but 10th has really been something else in terms of “this barely functions,” and, in fact, required an 18 page document to add in all the rules that didn’t make it into the actual book.

 

Add in huge, weird disparities between Index armies, the kind that go way, way, way beyond “oh, playtesting didn’t catch that,” reports that the only playtesting that happened was during staff lunch hours, etc., and you start to get the feeling that 10th, as we have received it, was written in a mad rush. Maybe there was a delay somewhere, or a last-minute decision was made to scrap whatever initial designs might’ve existed and go with the direct “AoS but with more guns” port that 10th is in all useful respects, but something out of the ordinary seems likely to have occurred somewhere in the process.

 

Yeah, treating their marquee property in such a slapdash and flippant manner does seem odd. Then again, cutting out playtesting entirely to replace it with some standup meetings, HR presentations, and one-on-ones in which nothing of substance is ever discussed for fear of retaliation on part of the employee, and litigation on part of the company, sounds like standard corporate upper management priorities to me. It's also funny that AOS was created to make WFB more like 40k, as it moved to circular bases with no rank/file system, added Space Marines, simplified morale/psychology, etc. Now 40k is aping the game that was aping it. The snake eating its own tail. 

[DemonGSides]

23 minutes ago, Lexington said:

I feel like this is the usual way of things, but some different ended up happening during development this time around. GW’s rules releases have never been too polished, but 10th has really been something else in terms of “this barely functions,” and, in fact, required an 18 page document to add in all the rules that didn’t make it into the actual book.

 

Played a couple of games of 10th, and haven't seen anything that comes close to "This barely functions".  Units are weak, the balance isn't perfect, but the actual game system is pretty great; love the changes to Psychic, love the changes to morale, I think defense activates first is actually a pretty good tactical consideration to fold into the game, and objectives and missions have never been better.
 

Balance issues are not indicative of a bad game, they're indicative of bad balance.  The underlying game is fine, if not great.  They just need to balance things within that sandbox, and it's obvious that not everyone was on the same page in regards to that.  The sandbox itself doesn't need any fixing.

[Captain Idaho]

On 7/10/2023 at 5:13 PM, Scribe said:

Titanicus and Imperialis is where I'm going to put my remaining hobby days.

 

Yeah that's how I'm going. 40K has proved itself to be broken less than a month in and with the way legends and points have been handled I'm just not as invested in the game anymore. 

 

Seeing that Eldar are still rampant in tournaments despite the changes... yep my money is being kept for Legions Imperialis only.

[Scribe]

1 minute ago, Captain Idaho said:

 

Yeah that's how I'm going. 40K has proved itself to be broken less than a month in and with the way legends and points have been handled I'm just not as invested in the game anymore. 

 

Seeing that Eldar are still rampant in tournaments despite the changes... yep my money is being kept for Legions Imperialis only.

 

I'm going to be traveling through parts of the US in the next week, and better believe I'll be stopping in to see if any shops along the way have any AT stuff kicking about. :D

[Lexington]

29 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

Played a couple of games of 10th, and haven't seen anything that comes close to "This barely functions".

 

It definitely works (to the extent that it does) now, but again, 10th required a supplement that was nearly a third the length of the basic rules to clarify, diagram and sometimes outright create new rules, just to make the system function. That says to me that the game was tossed out under a much, much tighter deadline than eighteen months. There's other possible explanations, I guess, but the absolute disaster of the Indexes suggests that the designers barely had time to think the basic game through on a theoretical level, much less work out what would break the game in practice, especially the tangle that the new "oops, all power levels" balance system left them with.

 

GW's never been at the front of the pack when it comes to game design, but the clarity and thoughtfulness of the 9th Ed core rules showed they at least had the in-house talent to create a system that measured up to modern standards that other games take for granted. 10th is a huge step backwards in that regard, and I don't think it's because everyone competent just fled the Studio en masse. Other pressures created the mess of 10th's release. I imagine we'll know more about them over the coming years as people cycle out and tell the story via podcasts and the like. I'm very curious to hear about it!

[Marshal Reinhard]

On 7/10/2023 at 5:58 PM, Kastor Krieg said:

Yeah, I'd be amazed if they weren't testing and designing 12th edition now, to be released somewhere like 2030ish.

 

(quote edited for emphasis)

 

I would given that 10th didn't even seem proofread 

Edited July 11, 2023 by Marshal Reinhard

[The Unseen]

14 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

 

Played a couple of games of 10th, and haven't seen anything that comes close to "This barely functions".  Units are weak, the balance isn't perfect, but the actual game system is pretty great; love the changes to Psychic, love the changes to morale, I think defense activates first is actually a pretty good tactical consideration to fold into the game, and objectives and missions have never been better.
 

Balance issues are not indicative of a bad game, they're indicative of bad balance.  The underlying game is fine, if not great.  They just need to balance things within that sandbox, and it's obvious that not everyone was on the same page in regards to that.  The sandbox itself doesn't need any fixing.

 

Melee, if you aren't Custodes, basically doesn't function; between the new restrictions on combat movement and the resulting jank, nerf to fly, more available overwatch, complete lack of anti-tank or monster killing weapons for 99% of melee units, tagging shooting focused big targets basically does nothing, but melee versions of those same units don't get to hide in melee anymore, and how back breaking fights first is if you're the aggressor. These are all things that points adjustments won't fix, though the fact that many melee units saw their damage output and utility cut dramatically while ALSO getting massive points hikes doesn't exactly bode well.

The army disparity is, while not the worst its every been in 40k, its still pretty freaking terrible. Even if you ignore Eldar, there are some armies that are just vastly under-powered compared to the rest of the mid-tier books, to the point that its probably going to take a complete rewrite of their rules for them to function, as the mild points changes GW is willing to do aren't even going to come close to fixing them.

Having an index release be horrifically imbalanced is ABSOLUTELY indicative of a bad game; GW couldn't even get the game to a halfway decent state in the simplest form its ever going to be for the edition cycle. It only gets more complicated from here as codex's and the near-inevitable creep begins, because GW has to sell the new stuff.

[TrawlingCleaner]

=][= Let's stay on topic with 10th ed 40k Tournament results, not potential Primarchs =][=

[Interrogator Stobz]

So, are tournaments letting Legend units in as per the actual LotHH Field Manual??

Or are they taking the "not recommended for tournaments" in a WarCom article as the rule??

 

I'm gonna assume they aren't, but not sure how they could influence Tournament results more than anything official in the Eldar or Knight factions.

[phandaal]

18 hours ago, The Unseen said:

Having an index release be horrifically imbalanced is ABSOLUTELY indicative of a bad game; GW couldn't even get the game to a halfway decent state in the simplest form its ever going to be for the edition cycle. It only gets more complicated from here as codex's and the near-inevitable creep begins, because GW has to sell the new stuff.

 

Some Indexes are not even finished. The shortest Index (heh), Leagues of Votann, is very obviously not done and has a really embarrassing non-functional rule for the only named character in the faction.

 

We all expected a bit of the Wild West with launch, but not many people expected things to be quite so busted.

[Ulfast]

It seems from the latest torunament that eldar is still going strong, even with the nerf. Top armies seems to be aeldari, genestealer cult, thousand sons, imperial knights, custodes and necrons. Intersting to see few chaos daemons and space marines armies in the top. I thought they would do better. Rest of the armies are non existent it seems. Sad, out of 25(ish) armies only around 7-8 are top. 

[Bouargh]

23 hours ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

So, are tournaments letting Legend units in as per the actual LotHH Field Manual??

Or are they taking the "not recommended for tournaments" in a WarCom article as the rule??

 

I'm gonna assume they aren't, but not sure how they could influence Tournament results more than anything official in the Eldar or Knight factions.

 

I have been comented, but it is a second or third  hand comment (meaning I did not assist myself), that, for the moment, local tournies organized at clubs´nivel (some/most) here in Spain and in my home country (France) do not let Legends in.

But not because of WarCom article: rather because the Legneds datasheet and point values have not been released in spanish or in french (at least the date where I have been comented these info). I did not check if it has been actualized in the download section recently anyway.

Principle is that, as speaking english language cannot be considered as a mandatroy requirement for enlisting yourself in the trounament, it is not guaranteed that rules published in english only can be understood by everybody (and judges cannot afford spending too much time on these cases) - so models are banned because of lack of comprehensive rule in the language of the country.

But these are local decisions - I also heard about a club in south of France that is working on a package they plan to provide through their own traduction work.

 

 

Edited July 13, 2023 by Bouargh
tipos & thick thumbs

[Mandragola]

Looking at the stats for the last weekend, since the supposed fixes came in, very little has changed. Eldar's win rate is unaffected (actually up a point) but IKs have dropped back. Marines and others have fallen back further and admech are on a shocking 22% win rate.

 

My take on this is basically just to feel a bit sad about it all really. There's lots I like about 40k but I really don't want to play it right now. I've got no real hope that they'll improve things in future without a radical change to the way they go about designing games, which is not coming.

[spessmarine]

On 7/11/2023 at 11:59 AM, Lexington said:

 

It definitely works (to the extent that it does) now, but again, 10th required a supplement that was nearly a third the length of the basic rules to clarify, diagram and sometimes outright create new rules, just to make the system function. That says to me that the game was tossed out under a much, much tighter deadline than eighteen months. There's other possible explanations, I guess, but the absolute disaster of the Indexes suggests that the designers barely had time to think the basic game through on a theoretical level, much less work out what would break the game in practice, especially the tangle that the new "oops, all power levels" balance system left them with.

 

GW's never been at the front of the pack when it comes to game design, but the clarity and thoughtfulness of the 9th Ed core rules showed they at least had the in-house talent to create a system that measured up to modern standards that other games take for granted. 10th is a huge step backwards in that regard, and I don't think it's because everyone competent just fled the Studio en masse. Other pressures created the mess of 10th's release. I imagine we'll know more about them over the coming years as people cycle out and tell the story via podcasts and the like. I'm very curious to hear about it!

 

Yep, feels like the second half of the cycle got compressed into a week. Maybe we'll hear someday.

[phandaal]

Votann sitting at a nice respectable 29% win rate as of this weekend. Turns out, the rules are not very good when the main focus is "did we nerf it enough" and not "is this fun" or even "do these work?"

 

Eldar, meanwhile, lost about 1% of their win rate after their recent "nerf." Really hope that Stu has learned his lesson about doing extra quality assurance on whoever writes Eldar nowadays.

[Xenith]

Funny to see how they trotted the 40k designers, Stu Black and Robin Cruddace, out and named them specifically to give them credit for the game, while removing the credit for the artists. With an overall negative experience of 10th, in this topic anyway, they might roll back that idea. 

 

My experience of 10th is limited, not encountered any Eldar, but in a casual setting things seem ok. Board control seems to be the key to winning games, so my nids did ok, despite taking a damage output hit. Time will tell. 

[NatBrannigan]

It’s all very depressing… I love 40K but I’m not enjoying any aspect of 10th at all really. Even if the balance gets fixed eventually the core rules are a convoluted mess, there’s more than ever to try and remember and the “points” (power level, just call it power level and take the kicks GW) suck the fun out of List building. For the first time ever I’m washing my hands of the game for a while and playing fun games instead.

[Special Officer Doofy]

2 hours ago, phandaal said:

Votann sitting at a nice respectable 29% win rate as of this weekend.

 

Just find your local Death Guard player and play them exclusively to pad that win rate! 

[Sea Creature]

Just seems like GW can’t win. There was an uproar to reset ninth edition. Personally I’m enjoying the new edition. Sure it’s not perfect but they are working on addressing these, many of which have been.

[phandaal]

4 minutes ago, Sea Creature said:

Just seems like GW can’t win. There was an uproar to reset ninth edition. Personally I’m enjoying the new edition. Sure it’s not perfect but they are working on addressing these, many of which have been.

 

Well, Steve, the win from my perspective would have been to actually finish the Votann Index. For Death Guard, I assume they would have taken a functional ruleset as well. AdMech may also have a few things to say.

 

Framing this as a no-win scenario is very disingenuous. People were more than prepared to overlook the rough edges, but that is hard to do when some things legitimately were not finished. People have every right to voice their displeasure as customers.

[Rain]

10 minutes ago, Sea Creature said:

Just seems like GW can’t win. There was an uproar to reset ninth edition. Personally I’m enjoying the new edition. Sure it’s not perfect but they are working on addressing these, many of which have been.

 

Just because people did not like the past state of affairs does not mean that literally any radical change to that set of affairs must be accepted as satisfactory, or even an improvement. Clearly what people wanted was a competent reset that reduced needless complexity and improved balance. Not perfect balance mind you, but not 65% win rates for some factions and 30% for others.

 

If my house is on fire, dropping 50 tons of dirt on it is likely to put out the fire, but that means neither that (a.) in retrospect, I should learn to enjoy house fires; or (b.) that I should accept the 50 tons of dirt as a viable solution and be happy and grateful when it occurs. Just because GW screwed the pooch with 9th, does not give them a pass to half 10th.

[Redcomet]

4 hours ago, phandaal said:

Votann sitting at a nice respectable 29% win rate as of this weekend. Turns out, the rules are not very good when the main focus is "did we nerf it enough" and not "is this fun" or even "do these work?"

 

Eldar, meanwhile, lost about 1% of their win rate after their recent "nerf." Really hope that Stu has learned his lesson about doing extra quality assurance on whoever writes Eldar nowadays.

It might seem harsh, but give all the issues the game has had during his leadership, I am not sure Stu is up to the task of managing this game

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

They consider themselves a luxury product and charge as such. 

I should then as a customer (admech) hold them to those standards and I will damn well voice my lack of enthusiasm when they dont deliver. 

 

I loooove how my faction had 3 months of 50%'ish W/R after an edition of nerfs and 35% W/R before they tossed out the baby with the bath water for a new edition and my factions back down to the 30's. Especially when it's obvious the factions rules were either a) written by some poor overworked intern b) worked on by someone who hates the faction or c) they let a blind servitor have free run of the editing area.