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

[Captain Idaho]

Oh he's not even playing 10th edition, he's just talking theory.

[Kallas]

1 hour ago, Captain Idaho said:

Regarding balance, I think the "casual player" (a clumsy term, inaccurately one half of a binary) cares more about it than tournament players.

[...]

Eldar being my go to example, our eldar playing friend doesn't agree they're broke and in fact has been moaning about how under powered they are, would you believe it. He doesn't agree with any of our criticism of the rules. How can we balance that with house rules then?

And to offer a kind of flip-side version of this: I'm getting more into Eldar, but me and my friends are playing casually (ie, we're not exactly slamming each other with hardcore lists). I want to build up, but I'm also looking at units to deal with certain things (eg, Grey Knight Terminator blobs) and...I can only really see the really obnoxiously OP stuff actually being capable of doing the job. So now I have to weigh up how many Wraithguard are acceptable to get to be able to actually play against GK Terminators but not stomp on Guard infantry and tanks, because the other units in the roster just do not cut the mustard. Do I have to ignore the Spiritseer/Fate's Messenger (which obviously buff them up loads) to be 'fair'? Is a 10-strong squad too much to be reasonable?

 

Then what about other stuff? Are Fire Prisms going to be obnoxious against my friend's Leman Russes when combined with Battle Host and Fate Dice, since one can basically wreck a Russ in one round of shooting, and cost less. War Walkers are pretty solid, but again, they're crazy resilient for their cost and can pack in enough AT firepower to bring down a tank that costs twice as much as them in one round; is that fair to bring? Do I have to specifically use the weaker weapons to balance it out? Do I have to look at getting Vypers instead, which are overcosted and do way less, but might not be horrible to play against?

 

Bad balance is just plain bad for the game, competitive or otherwise. So even though I'm wanting to try and still play, my enthusiasm for playing, even casually, is heavily impacted by bad balance.

 

Just some anecdotal stuff from my POV.

[Xenith]

12 minutes ago, Rogue said:

How good is your Eldar friend? Is he winning all his games with the Eldar, or losing lots even with a strong Index?

 

 

Yea, if that player didnt have prisms, D Cannons or wraithknights in their collection, then their playing experience will have absolutely zero semblance to the tourney winning armies, and you could understand them thinking the army was underpowered. 

 

This is again why general tournament meta often has no bearing on your local game. If there were no Eldar players in your group, your local big bad would have been custodes or GSC. 

[sonsoftaurus]

I’d also be curious about cross tabs for the tourney game results, how armies do vs specific other armies. Like, if Eldar are at 75% non-mirror, where are the 25% losses coming from, etc. 

[Captain Idaho]

Tournament results definitely give a skewed amount of data. For example, if Eldar players get wins they go up against better players and factions, meaning their wins are worth even more. What would be more useful would be an index of wins per faction against each other faction, though this still wouldn't account for player skill it would at least account for faction disparity.

 

45 minutes ago, Xenith said:

 

Yea, if that player didnt have prisms, D Cannons or wraithknights in their collection, then their playing experience will have absolutely zero semblance to the tourney winning armies, and you could understand them thinking the army was underpowered. 

 

This is again why general tournament meta often has no bearing on your local game. If there were no Eldar players in your group, your local big bad would have been custodes or GSC. 

Well I'd say there are plenty of broken parts to Eldar rather than just Fireprisms, Avatars etc.

 

And let's compare like for like - if a casual player is playing a casual version of Eldar against his casual friends and their casual Death Guard, the gulf between the armies is the same.

 

And what even is a casual Eldar list?

[Rain]

4 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

And what even is a casual Eldar list?

A fluffy list built to reflect how a given Craftworld fights in lore more than stomp games, so it depends on the Craftworld. Ulthwé would take lots of Guardians, as well as psykers. Alaitoc would take lots of Rangers. Biel Tann would take one unit of each aspect warrior, etc.

[MoshJason]

Tournaments are also generally "Best units of faction A vs Best units of faction B"

 

Which is fine - and is valid for a look at balance, but it means that most casual players are playing a very differently balanced game when they take "Units they like the fantasy/look of in Faction A vs Units that their opponent is taking in Faction B" - meaning that casual player balance is generally more fluid based on what units they have - not on what units the faction has

 

I know my sisters are more or less the same from 6th edition - with the exception of Zephyrim, I haven't really updated my army all that much (though now I have to redo a lot due to the way BS Squads changed),  so like, if Paragons+Morven Vahl and Castigators are great, fine - that doesn't really help me. I haven't gotten around to getting, building or painting any of those units. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

I think the idea is a "fluffy" Eldar list is still going to steam roll a "fluffy" Death Guard list, regardless of how fluffy it is. You can't apply casualness and fluff to one list and assume the other list is meta chasing and only took the best units. If I'm playing my DG at a tourney and playing against Eldar, we both will have "strong" (relative to our factions) tournament lists, I'm going to most likely lose, and by alot. And if it's a beer and pretzel game in my or my brother's/buddies basements (where I pretty much exclusively play now), and I made a casual DG list and my friend a casual Eldar list, I'm still getting steam rolled.

 

The faction disparity is deeper than a few units... It's alot of units, point costs and faction abilities that puts an almost 50% win difference between those two factions. Meta Eldar > Meta Death Guard (made me laugh typing those words together haha) and Casual Eldar > Casual Death Guard.

[Rogue]

 I suppose that in a casual setting, where players are friends rather than arranging something on the fly in a hobby shop, you could encourage the Death Guard player to go as meta as they could, and the Eldar player to soft-pedal a list. Or the Eldar player could spend less of the available points.

 

But either way, if would feel like asking the Eldar player to have less fun, and probably quite patronising for the Death Guard player too. 

 

So better to just balance the game a bit more, I think :)

[tychobi]

2 hours ago, Rogue said:

 I suppose that in a casual setting, where players are friends rather than arranging something on the fly in a hobby shop, you could encourage the Death Guard player to go as meta as they could, and the Eldar player to soft-pedal a list. Or the Eldar player could spend less of the available points.

 

But either way, if would feel like asking the Eldar player to have less fun, and probably quite patronising for the Death Guard player too. 

 

So better to just balance the game a bit more, I think :)

In the interest of science what pray tell is "meta" death Guard? It is rough to ask folks to soft pedal or go meta. Opinions are various and often wrong especially for casual players. You are most correct it's GWs responsibility to balance the game. For better or for worse!

[Captain Idaho]

Also the casual DG player might not want to tournament his list to play a casual Eldar list.

 

So yeah, just balance them better GW 

[Rain]

18 minutes ago, tychobi said:

In the interest of science what pray tell is "meta" death Guard? It is rough to ask folks to soft pedal or go meta. Opinions are various and often wrong especially for casual players. You are most correct it's GWs responsibility to balance the game. For better or for worse!

 

Death Guard models using "counts as" Custodes rules.

[Sergeant Bastone]

Every Eldar unit gets to reroll a hit roll and a wound roll every turn.  It's like 2 free command rerolls per unit.  And it doesn't seem like this has been costed into their units.  Even in casual games with casual lists this is going to feel very strong.  And then they have Fate Dice too.

[Helycon]

"The amount of re-rolls has been reduced" was one of the first things they said. They immediately showed off oath of moment. Eldar gets theirs as a detachment rule, but boy howdy is it still strong. They had best come up with some great alternatives to counteract this detachment rule, to get people to play different ones when the codex drops.

 

Re-rolls get more important with less shots. The bigger the hit, the more it sucks when you don't get the hit, which is where the re-rolls shine. Getting them on every unit is just busted as can be. And if you REALLY need that wound, a fate dice will work, always. The combination of the two is where it gets over the top, really and where you can really cripple an army FAST. Glad to see they reined in on the fate dice though, so it's less easy to just cripple the anti-whatever it is you brought which will mainly be anti-vehicle so they can't kill your D-canon platforms. 

 

The things that seem most egregious so far are this and the units that keep coming back. It feels like cheating points costs and without the cost for weapon options, this gets a little more over the top as well. 

 

I do hope they will tweak rules in codices, but as I stated before, the points cost and separate model cost will not be re-implemented before the next edition I'm afraid, and that's a pair of tuning options they miss now. 

[Rogue]

3 hours ago, tychobi said:

In the interest of science what pray tell is "meta" death Guard?

 

I wouldn't have a clue :)

 

And as others have pointed out, even if that was a clear option, which it probably isn't, you shouldn't have to build for maximum efficiency just to have a half-chance of a fair game.

[ThePenitentOne]

8 hours ago, Rogue said:

 I suppose that in a casual setting, where players are friends rather than arranging something on the fly in a hobby shop, you could encourage the Death Guard player to go as meta as they could, and the Eldar player to soft-pedal a list. Or the Eldar player could spend less of the available points.

 

But either way, if would feel like asking the Eldar player to have less fun, and probably quite patronising for the Death Guard player too. 

 

So better to just balance the game a bit more, I think :)

 

5 hours ago, tychobi said:

In the interest of science what pray tell is "meta" death Guard? It is rough to ask folks to soft pedal or go meta. Opinions are various and often wrong especially for casual players. You are most correct it's GWs responsibility to balance the game. For better or for worse!

 

Obviously GW has work to do to fix this, and nothing I'm about to say changes that. This also isn't going to be a solution that will work for most people... So I mention it for perspective only.

 

When we started playing Crusade games, one of the mechanisms that folks voluntarily used as a balancing mechanism was army growth and progression. A player who doesn't feel challenged can stockpile RP rather than spend it; they can make choices that favour narrative goals while the players of weaker factions may use their RP choices more aggressively in order to level the playing field.

 

If you have a GM, setting thresholds for when players roll randomly for advances and when they're allowed to choose.

 

GW has actually provided more tools for this sort of thing in 10th ed Crusade as a core mechanic- capping non-character units at Blooded until you unlock advanced levels with RP, requiring greater RP costs for Battle Scar mitigation, and allowing players to maintain a larger RP pool were all real improvements to Crusade core mechanics, that should allow top players to slow their roll without holding back once the actual battle begins.

 

Where 10th Crusade falls down is that much of the content is tied to the Tyrannic War- so rules governing the cost of Crusade Relics exist in the core rules... But there are no relics to choose from- for that, you need to fight in some Tyranic war games. Skill trees where you have to pick a path rather than having all options available every time you level are a nice addition to Crusade- but they may feel too connected to the campaign, which could conflict with the history you want to create for "your dudes".

 

Not only can this lack of generic options cripple a narrative, it can also interfere with one's ability to use progression as a balancing mechanism.

Edited July 25, 2023 by ThePenitentOne

[spessmarine]

6 hours ago, tychobi said:

In the interest of science what pray tell is "meta" death Guard? It is rough to ask folks to soft pedal or go meta. Opinions are various and often wrong especially for casual players. You are most correct it's GWs responsibility to balance the game. For better or for worse!

 

Take the Norovirus enhancement for list building, shake hands excessively.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

16 hours ago, tychobi said:

In the interest of science what pray tell is "meta" death Guard? It is rough to ask folks to soft pedal or go meta. Opinions are various and often wrong especially for casual players. You are most correct it's GWs responsibility to balance the game. For better or for worse!

2-3 flying DPs, Morty, 3 drones, 2-3 MBHs, 3 poxwalker bricks and 1~2 PBC

[MoshJason]

My point was that the balance between armies in Casual settings is *worse*, because they aren't necessarily optimizing?

 

Like, my army has a lot of units that are "bad", and I'm not necessarily running out to buy the "best" stuff, like tournament players will. So what happens when I play against someone with an optimized list with their faction? My <40% winrate faction ends up getting steamrolled worse, because Battle Sister Squads are very poor, and our go to unit is Morven Vahl + Paragons, which I don't have.  My meltas can't hurt Tyranid Big Bugs, or Tanks, or Knights, and I find myself going, oh. Why should I bother playing, if it's just going to be my picking up models and my opponent laughing off my shooting phase? 

 

It's why it's so important to ensure *all* units are worth their point cost, otherwise it's easy to lose the beer and pretzel gamers who aren't as meta-chasing, for whatever reason. This goes regardless of the faction - even an overperforming faction should have their "bad" units looked at, to ensure they are worth their cost.

[Interrogator Stobz]

100%^

My boy and his group have had a couple of games and his mates walked away because the units they think are cool are weak.

Balance is often more important to CaaC players.

GeeDub are not retaining customers anywhere near the level of what a bit of effort could achieve. 

Edited July 26, 2023 by Interrogator Stobz
Sp.

[sairence]

On 7/24/2023 at 10:26 AM, Captain Idaho said:

Oh he's not even playing 10th edition, he's just talking theory.

This is actually something that tends to annoy me quite a bit and turns me off topics like this more often than not. Not exactly replying to you there mate, but it's related to me.

 

I feel that there's a lot of people that like to weigh in on current balance, core rules, etc, not just in this edition, and then later down the thread it turns out they haven't actually played a single game and are talking based on theory or even just out of their backsides.

 

Like...no disrespect to those people, everyone is entitled to sharing an opinion. But if it has the caveat of "I haven't actually tried the rules I'm talking about" or I've not had a game with or against the army I'm discussing", your opinion on it will inherently be worth a lot less to me.

 

Yes, you can read the rules and see flaws without playing them. No argument about it. But your understanding of them based on theorycrafting will just never be as good as it will be after playing a bunch of matches.

[MegaVolt87]

27 minutes ago, sairence said:

This is actually something that tends to annoy me quite a bit and turns me off topics like this more often than not. Not exactly replying to you there mate, but it's related to me.

 

I feel that there's a lot of people that like to weigh in on current balance, core rules, etc, not just in this edition, and then later down the thread it turns out they haven't actually played a single game and are talking based on theory or even just out of their backsides.

 

Like...no disrespect to those people, everyone is entitled to sharing an opinion. But if it has the caveat of "I haven't actually tried the rules I'm talking about" or I've not had a game with or against the army I'm discussing", your opinion on it will inherently be worth a lot less to me.

 

Yes, you can read the rules and see flaws without playing them. No argument about it. But your understanding of them based on theorycrafting will just never be as good as it will be after playing a bunch of matches.

 

I get what you are saying, but we have data coming back that correlates with the theory crafting from people that want to challenge the theory crafting/ don't believe it etc. Its worth repeating- warhammer is unique in that experts are more often than not actual experts and know what they are talking about by dint of being here a long time, especially from the beginning- 2nd, 3rd ed on for 40k as an example. I have seen posts here on other topics that were reviled against, several weeks/ months later were vindicated when more games played showed it. Its happening now and it will keep happening. We also have actual GW playtesters pop in every so often which pretty much say "GW were told and did nothing, these are not new problems etc." 

[Captain Idaho]

@sairence well he was defending Eldar as under powered, so his position is already flawed. 

[TrawlingCleaner]

The Warhammer app has just updated, mostly QoL changes to the app and fixing keywords for Black Templars (Helbrect for example).

Notably also includes Appraising Glare lasts until your command phase (buff) and also GSC units coming in from blips have to be set up wholly within 3" (used to be only one model had to be touching said blip, sizeable nerf for those that strung units out). Lay low the Tyrant is also definitely 1 hit roll and 1 wound roll now. Wraithguard 's guns now don't get Pistol when shooting back, Cryptoghoulsthralls still fight on death but don't confer to the entire unit

 

I imagine we're getting that FAQ/Errata they spoke about today (end of July as the mentioned) so I wonder what other potential balance changes there are

 

Edited July 26, 2023 by TrawlingCleaner

[Ahzek451]

18 minutes ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

The Warhammer app has just updated, mostly QoL changes to the app and fixing keywords for Black Templars (Helbrect for example).

Notably also includes Appraising Glare lasts until your command phase (buff) and also GSC units coming in from blips have to be set up wholly within 3" (used to be only one model had to be touching said blip, sizeable nerf for those that strung units out). Lay low the Tyrant is also definitely 1 hit roll and 1 wound roll now. Wraithguard 's guns now don't get Pistol when shooting back, Cryptoghoulsthralls still fight on death but don't confer to the entire unit

 

I imagine we're getting that FAQ/Errata they spoke about today (end of July as the mentioned) so I wonder what other potential balance changes there are

 

I know you laid out the changes, but is GW doing a comprehensive list of changes somewhere I am not seeing or is this just what people are finding manually as they look through?