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

[Xenith]

16 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

What statistics have people cherry picked about Eldar

 

I, myself cherrypicked the future results of the bugeater tournament to present the fact that Eldar will not have won that tournament 

 

As I said, we need more data and the meta to settle. Eldar are strong, yes, but it's concentrated into a couple of units and core rules interactions. 

 

10 hours ago, MARK0SIAN said:

They know that non-natural rolls triggering special abilities is bad, yet here we are again.

 

They seem to start the development of the next edition halfway through the life cycle of the current edition, so will likely have had the same things in mind when they were writing codexes for the current edition, and the core rules for a future edition, which could go some length to explain why votann seemed to have a prototype version of the Lethal Hits 4+ rule that has since been codified into 10th. 

[KenaiPhoneix]

Well this will be first fire test of the online codexes/data sheets. How fast and how good can GW made adjustments to the game and send it to all its player base

[Sea Creature]

It looks like eldar and IK are currently the two biggest boogeymen.

[Blurf]

1 hour ago, Sea Creature said:

It looks like eldar and IK are currently the two biggest boogeymen.

Personally, I think IK and Eldar are actually both on the low end of their potential right now.

IK is extremely powerful, but can still get outscored if they don't play the mission correctly and all you have to do to not get tabled is have 1 piece of terrain towering doesn't let you ignore to save 1 model in. I think as players get better at movement and objective play, knights will see even higher winrates as I believe their floor is lower and their ceiling is higher than most other armies.

Eldar actually have something of the opposite problem. They're so far above everyone else that people play them inefficiently and overspend resources they don't need to on flashy 'yolo' moves because they know Fate Dice+Dev wounds will bail them out. Combine that with needing to acquire models and plenty of space for list optimization and I think we're actually a lot closer to the FLOOR of competitive Eldar than the ceiling. As people get better with Eldar, I would guess they also separate themselves from the pack.

 

Now, under normal circumstances, having two armies that are head and shoulders over everyone else would be mitigated by other armies building to specifically counter them. Only problem is countering Knights makes it extremely difficult to deal with lists that don't have vehicles, and Eldar can't be countered. Their list is inherently TAC as feth.

 

When these armies get corrected that will lead us to a very funny 3rd problem: Knights and Eldar are heavily suppressing vehicles and monsters currently. Eldar can wipe any vehicle, no matter how tough, off the face of the earth for free, and any list that can deal with knights has no problem with lighter vehicles.

[Sea Creature]

Check out the tournament results. Eldar has like an 86% win rate. Geedub will definitely bring them back in line > think 9th edition dataslates.

 

I remember eighth edition… in the beginning you bring reserves in turn 1 and they could move. Guilliman had a reroll hits and wounds aura. Things will change.

[TrawlingCleaner]

Except they don't have 84% winrate across the board or the highest of the weekend. 

They have 84% not-mirrored (removes the data of the games where Eldar  played Eldar) at one GT.

 

Over the entire weekend they had a 60% winrate at GTs and 66% winrate at RTTs

 

Does that mean the Polish GT is an outlier? Did they have houserules (lots of others did to reign Towering in)? Which factions were the 16% losses against? What was the tournaments terrain setup? Etc etc

 

Is 84% non-mirrored Winrate a problem? Yes if it's across the entire weekend/entire set of tournaments. The higher that number, the less factions have "play" against them

 

Eldar won 11 out of 33 RTTs 

 

Knights got a 65% winrate at GTs (higher than Eldar) and 65% winrate at RTTs (lower than Eldar) 

Link for the data of the whole weekend

 

Again, my point stands, fix the core rules and see where it leaves factions, including outliers. It may be surprising which factions are being propped up by janky interactions or specific units being good or held back by other factions using those interactions

 

Eldar with a 84% winrate being bandied around is a good example of how misinformation based on Confirmation Biases, in real life, can spread quickly. You can make most data lacking context and make it match your biases. Anecdotally, I've seen it posted in several places as a reason not to play games or how the edition is dead in the water 

Edited June 27, 2023 by TrawlingCleaner

[Captain Idaho]

It's not misinformation at all. Eldar have an 84% win rate for this tournament and I didn't see anyone say it's representative of the entire game. I even pointed out I expect that to drop in time, bearing in mind we went with what data we have available. 

 

It's certainly not confirmation bias to use the actual data to show that your position is correct.

 

Using your own link, I checked out the figures and we have this:

 

 

So Eldar are still highest with their win rate and he did not remove mirror matches, which would push that win rate even higher.

 

And even if Eldar were "only" 65% win rate, that's astonishingly high and oppressive. Remember when you win games in tournaments, you're playing other winners. For a win rate to be high as 65% without removing mirror match ups, that's an even greater impact on other factions especially those with lower win rates.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Captain Idaho

[TrawlingCleaner]

Orks had one RTT where they had 100% winrate overall and 100% non-mirrored games won. You can win 1 game of 6 and have 100% non-mirriored games won

 

That data doesn't show context for the whole weekend's games, whether this RTT had houserules, what their terrain maps are like, is this a fluke, what armies did the player play against, do any other them counter, how high did they score.

Many places houseruled that the bottom floor of all buildings is LOS blocking, some also had buildings that are "infinitely tall" to counter Towering. How does this skew data? How does it effect things like Wraithknights, Imperial Knights etc.

 

Also to note that Eldar did not have the highest win rate of the weekend. Combing both RTTs and GTs they won 173 games out of 270 had a 64% winrate vs Knight's 114 wins out of 175 games had a 65%. Generally speaking, more players means the faction trends downwards, Eldar had more players than other factions over the weekend and retained their high winrate, that's a problem

 

Those percentages are too high, both need looking at (again my vote is through the core rules). Non-mirrored games won as a percentage is important over a good amount of time and not representated as the be all and end all of a factions balance on the first weekend of play.

My point wasn't that you specifically are spreading misinformation, my point was that the orignal post is using real data to misrepresent a small portion of the weekend. If I run an orchard and I get one guy coming in with a bucket of 20 apples and says 17 are rotten, is this a problem orchard wide? This tree specifically? Trees in the area? They water I'm giving the trees? If he then tells other people that he's found 17 out of 20 rotten apples it spreads from there whether or not it's a one off or not

[Captain Idaho]

The tournament data is indeed one facet of the information. It supports the experience from many gamers that has been fed back to the community from all sorts of sources but notably you can watch many videos from "professional gamers" right away that explains in depth the problems of Eldar and Knights. 

 

We add to this our own experience and knowledge of the game.

 

Common sense is the last piece of the puzzle here. Anyone with minimal experience can tell you that a dice game, a game of chance and statistics, which allows 1 player to fix a result, is extremely unbalanced.

 

As for the tournament data itself... it actually masks the problem somewhat. Winning games puts you on the top tables, against opponents even Eldar can lose to at least some of the time. When eldar come up against Death Guard, or Adeptus Mechanicus or the other lower performing factions, the gulf is even larger.

 

Ultimately, I'm not sure how anyone can argue in good faith with the facts presented that Eldar and Knights aren't broken.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Captain Idaho

[TrawlingCleaner]

6 minutes ago, Captain Idaho said:

The tournament data is indeed one facet of the information. It supports the experience from many gamers that has been fed back to the community from all sorts of sources but notably you can watch many videos from "professional gamers" right away that explains in depth the problems of Eldar and Knights. 

 

We add to this our own experience and knowledge of the game.

 

Common sense is the last piece of the puzzle here. Anyone with minimal experience can tell you that a dice game, a game of chance and statistics, which allows 1 player to fix a result, is extremely unbalanced.

 

As for the tournament data itself... it actually masks the problem somewhat. Winning games puts you on the top tables, against opponents even Eldar can lose to at least some of the time. When eldar come up against Death Guard, or Adeptus Mechanicus or the other lower performing factions, the gulf is even larger.

 

Ultimately, I'm nor sure how anyone can argue in good faith with the facts presented that Eldar and Knights aren't broken.

 

In which part did I say Eldar and Knights don't need balancing? It's weird that you got that from all the replies I've made, each of which I specifically mention what I think needs to change in order to bring them more in line and make the game healthier. Just so I'm clear and can't be misconstrued:

1. DevWounds can only happen on natural rolls. This way Anti, Fate Dice etc have no effect
2. Towering needs removing or reworking, neither side really benefits from terrain whereas both sides should benefit
3. Indirect weapons should never have Heavy or Ignore Cover (ideally make it 6+BS and need spotters to get higher but that might be too far)

 

And a link to the comment if you want my reasoning:

 

It's not going to the the last time factions are too powerful because of Core rule abilities/jank unless they change them. I'd prefer they patch the Core rules first, see how that negatively and postiviely effects all factions first, give that some time to settle then re-look at what needs changing. Mashing faction abilites with a nerf hammer is the wrong way to go about balancing. If you go off half cocked and mash things you end up with AdMech in 9th or Votann when the codex dropped where a good few abilites never worked properly after nerfs

[Captain Idaho]

I like your suggestions to be fair.

 

*shrugs* I think your position became somewhat unclear when you were disputing the data we have from tournaments. 

 

Seems a little of a side discussion as we are broadly in agreement anyway.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Captain Idaho

[Rain]

66% winrate including mirrors is absurdly high. First of all, mirrors are junk data that just pulls the number toward 50% no matter what. You could have an army that has the special rule “on your first turn you win the game” and with enough mirrors, that army would show a win rate of, or close to, 50%. Not removing mirrors from the stats biases the result, especially for what is a very popular army, and they still have a 2/3 win rate across multiple tourneys.

In the RTS games I have played, a faction winrate of 55% at high MMR is generally considered overpowered, with anything above that considered broken. 66% at the equivalent of high MMR is ludicrously broken.

 

As @Captain Idaho said, the ability to rig rolls in a dice game is unbalanced by its nature, and in my opinion just should not exist in such a broadly applicable form. It is a form of cheating built into the rules, and it does not take a genius to see that it would be OP, especially when it can be frontloaded, and not generated slowly like Sisters. Making it not proc criticals would be a start, for sure, but it’s just a dumb mechanic from inception. Randomness removal mechanics need to be extremely specific as to what they can be applied to and limited in use. Fate dice are neither.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Rain
Clarification about what Idaho had said before

[Karhedron]

1 hour ago, Rain said:

In the RTS games I have played, a faction winrate of 55% at high MMR is generally considered overpowered, with anything above that considered broken. 66% at the equivalent of high MMR is ludicrously broken.

 

Whilst I agree that a 66% winrate is probably broken, we are currently looking at a very small set of results. It only takes a few lucky games or good players to seriously skew the results. For example, if you look at some of the other results recorded, Knights of both flavours seem to be doing very well.

 

https://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2023/06/25/the-towering-first-10th-events-warhammer-40k-tournament-results/

[Blurf]

5 hours ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

 

In which part did I say Eldar and Knights don't need balancing? It's weird that you got that from all the replies I've made, each of which I specifically mention what I think needs to change in order to bring them more in line and make the game healthier. Just so I'm clear and can't be misconstrued:

1. DevWounds can only happen on natural rolls. This way Anti, Fate Dice etc have no effect
2. Towering needs removing or reworking, neither side really benefits from terrain whereas both sides should benefit
3. Indirect weapons should never have Heavy or Ignore Cover (ideally make it 6+BS and need spotters to get higher but that might be too far)

 

And a link to the comment if you want my reasoning:

 

It's not going to the the last time factions are too powerful because of Core rule abilities/jank unless they change them. I'd prefer they patch the Core rules first, see how that negatively and postiviely effects all factions first, give that some time to settle then re-look at what needs changing. Mashing faction abilites with a nerf hammer is the wrong way to go about balancing. If you go off half cocked and mash things you end up with AdMech in 9th or Votann when the codex dropped where a good few abilites never worked properly after nerfs

 

The interaction between fate dice and Dev wounds is actually fine. Sisters of Battle have 'Fate Dice'. They have 3 units that either DO or CAN have devastating wounds. Do you hear anyone complaining about them? No. You don't. Why? Because the faction is designed around that interaction. 1. Miracle dice are generated randomly over the course of the game. You can't frontload them to murder half your opponent's army first turn. If Eldar started with 1 Fate Dice the way Sisters do, it wouldn't be nearly as big of an issue. 2. The units are melee only. There's an inherent risk to using them at all. 3. Miracle dice are locked to 1 dice per unit per phase unless within 6" of the Triumph (something extremely impractical for a combat unit.) 3. The units are either costed appropriately or hilariously overcosted. 4. They didn't give the rule to a goddam WRAITHKNIGHT.

 

If you want to address Dev Wounds from a core rules standpoint, start by stripping Dev Wounds off of every Eldar unit that has it on a gun. Then every OTHER unit that has it on a gun. You're willing to strip heavy and ignores cover off of indirect, the only reason you'd be reticent to see the same done for Dev Wounds is if your ultimate goal is to keep Eldar as OP as possible. Even then, Fate dice still need to be completely reworked. They're easily the most powerful army mechanic in the game. Oath of Moment WISHES it could.

 

This is all ignoring that the changes to indirect and unmodified rolls absolutely dumpster both DeathGuard and Sisters for the sins of Space Marines and Eldar.

 

 

Edited June 27, 2023 by Blurf

[TrawlingCleaner]

15 minutes ago, Blurf said:

 

The interaction between fate dice and Dev wounds is actually fine. Sisters of Battle have 'Fate Dice'. They have 3 units that either DO or CAN have devastating wounds. Do you hear anyone complaining about them? No. You don't. Why? Because the faction is designed around that interaction. 1. Miracle dice are generated randomly over the course of the game. You can't frontload them to murder half your opponent's army first turn. If Eldar started with 1 Fate Dice the way Sisters do, it wouldn't be nearly as big of an issue. 2. The units are melee only. There's an inherent risk to using them at all. 3. Miracle dice are locked to 1 dice per unit per phase unless within 6" of the Triumph (something extremely impractical for a combat unit.) 3. The units are either costed appropriately or hilariously overcosted. 4. They didn't give the rule to a goddam WRAITHKNIGHT.

 

If you want to address Dev Wounds from a core rules standpoint, start by stripping Dev Wounds off of every Eldar unit that has it on a gun. Then every OTHER unit that has it on a gun. You're willing to strip heavy and ignores cover off of indirect, the only reason you'd be reticent to see the same done for Dev Wounds is if your ultimate goal is to keep Eldar as OP as possible. Even then, Fate dice still need to be completely reworked. They're easily the most powerful army mechanic in the game. Oath of Moment WISHES it could.

 

This is all ignoring that the changes to indirect and unmodified rolls absolutely dumpster both DeathGuard and Sisters for the sins of Space Marines and Eldar.

 

 

 

That's my point though, armies on either end of the scale shouldn't be propped up by broken core rules interactions. Nothing should rely on jank to be decent

 

To be frank, Eldar index rules aren't going to be the last army that can abuse these rules. We almost had a worse army with Deathwatch's Anti 2+. We almost had worse with the rules provided for combi weapons in the starter set (3MW per shot at 12"). It's Eldar now, it'll be something else in the future, which is why I'm adamant on GW fixing the Core rules before looking at anything else.

 

Sisters and Death Guard need help, I'm not sure what needs to be done to fix those. Maybe a 5+ FNP army wide for DG? Should sister's start with Miracle Dice? Should they be able to use as many dice as they have like Eldar?

[MoshJason]

54 minutes ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

core

 

55 minutes ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

 

That's my point though, armies on either end of the scale shouldn't be propped up by broken core rules interactions. Nothing should rely on jank to be decent

 

To be frank, Eldar index rules aren't going to be the last army that can abuse these rules. We almost had a worse army with Deathwatch's Anti 2+. We almost had worse with the rules provided for combi weapons in the starter set (3MW per shot at 12"). It's Eldar now, it'll be something else in the future, which is why I'm adamant on GW fixing the Core rules before looking at anything else.

 

Sisters and Death Guard need help, I'm not sure what needs to be done to fix those. Maybe a 5+ FNP army wide for DG? Should sister's start with Miracle Dice? Should they be able to use as many dice as they have like Eldar?

 

Devastating Wounds + Anti or Devastating Wounds + Miracle Dice/Fate Dice isn't the problem.

 

The problem is just having an army start with a base 12, and being able to reroll them by dropping 1, and then being able to use a whole handful of them in one go with ways to make them better.

 

Sisters of Battle were designed with their Army Trait and Detachment Trait in mind, with the goals of the edition in mind - they can get +1 to hit, and +1 To wound sure, but they have very little Str 10 or higher attacks, so they need it, and their models are more expensive to compensate.

 

Eldar are just better than you. Give them the limit that sisters have - 1 dice per unit per phase, unless around an expensive Aura character, and look at the weapons causing the issue, and the cost of models in the army. Tone down their weapons, increase their cost. It's that simple.  If that doesn't quite do it, reduce the number of fate dice they start with. But don't do a blanket adjustment on all factions because one is stronger than the rest.

 

Removing Anti-X and Devastating Wounds combo is going to effect almost every single army, and is going to seriously increase the gap between the best and the worst armies, because suddenly a lot of expensive units have weapons no longer work as intended.

[spessmarine]

1 hour ago, MoshJason said:

Sisters of Battle were designed with their Army Trait and Detachment Trait in mind, with the goals of the edition in mind - they can get +1 to hit, and +1 To wound sure, but they have very little Str 10 or higher attacks, so they need it, and their models are more expensive to compensate.

 

Eldar are just better than you. Give them the limit that sisters have - 1 dice per unit per phase, unless around an expensive Aura character, and look at the weapons causing the issue, and the cost of models in the army. Tone down their weapons, increase their cost. It's that simple.  If that doesn't quite do it, reduce the number of fate dice they start with. But don't do a blanket adjustment on all factions because one is stronger than the rest.

 

I don't understand how that came to be. SoBs have to accumulate their dice and can't swing things turn one or any turn by mass dice dump.

 

[Blurf]

3 hours ago, MoshJason said:

 

 

Devastating Wounds + Anti or Devastating Wounds + Miracle Dice/Fate Dice isn't the problem.

 

The problem is just having an army start with a base 12, and being able to reroll them by dropping 1, and then being able to use a whole handful of them in one go with ways to make them better.

 

Sisters of Battle were designed with their Army Trait and Detachment Trait in mind, with the goals of the edition in mind - they can get +1 to hit, and +1 To wound sure, but they have very little Str 10 or higher attacks, so they need it, and their models are more expensive to compensate.

 

Eldar are just better than you. Give them the limit that sisters have - 1 dice per unit per phase, unless around an expensive Aura character, and look at the weapons causing the issue, and the cost of models in the army. Tone down their weapons, increase their cost. It's that simple.  If that doesn't quite do it, reduce the number of fate dice they start with. But don't do a blanket adjustment on all factions because one is stronger than the rest.

 

Removing Anti-X and Devastating Wounds combo is going to effect almost every single army, and is going to seriously increase the gap between the best and the worst armies, because suddenly a lot of expensive units have weapons no longer work as intended.

This is the crux of the issue, honestly. People who are trying to screw devastating wounds are either imagining all the OTHER ways GW is going to screw it up over the course of the edition (which is fair) or are Eldar players who want to keep Fate Dice as broken as possible so they spend the rest of the edition just being better than you, but now they can pretend they're not OP because DCannons give you a 6+ invul sometimes.

[Rhavien]

I would also tend to fix the broken outliers instead of messing with the whole system right from the start. As said before anti+dev was 100% intentional and not an oversight. Other armies rely on it and are somewhat balanced around it. Or are there any other contenders behind Eldar for abusing that mechanic? 

[Captain Idaho]

I'm inclined to agree with you. The problem with Eldar is definitely Fate Dice and the Detachment rules (oddly enough representing the same sort of thing. So a good thing twice?). The Detachment rules in particular are so good they could represent a Faction ability and people would say it was powerful. It amounts to 2 free Command Point rerolls per phase per unit... there isn't a Detachment ability as good as this in the game I think. Necrons maybe?

 

The Knights situation might have to be a question of points combined with core rules.

 

Anyway, the quickest, easiest fixes are probably:

 

• Reduce Fate dice total. 6 to start is plenty. This increases the need for Guardians in lists, which is good for internal balance as well.

 

If you took the Fate dice mechanic at 6 starting dice, add some ways to generate more like Eldar do, manipulation of scores like a Farseer... then offered this ability to any other faction they'd bite your hand off.

 

Personally I'd cut deeper, with 1 generated per Eldar Command phase, but there might be push back on that.

 

• Change Towering. At the moment it's just enabling an Alpha strike style of play.

 

• Disallow the triggering of Devastating Wounds on Fate and reroll dice. Easiest way to do this is bar such things from counting as critical successes. Easy.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Captain Idaho

[Dont-Be-Haten]

When I posted on the Aeldari index preview, I said, the more I see of 10th edition, the more Hokey it becomes.

 

I don't think FAQing or errata for fate dice to 6+ is really going to change much. It is way overtuned right now. I've read some feedback that Aeldari games are ending by turn 2. This is all from a competitive perspective.

[MoshJason]

Honestly, if Eldar are that broken - 1.5x their points. 

 

The issue with Glass Cannon armies, from a game design perspective, is that sometimes it's hard to balance the *glass* and the *cannon* part. Apparently, with Eldar they overdid the cannon part without balancing the glass part. So, if we make them more expensive, than they lose some cannon and gain some glass.  

[Dont-Be-Haten]

1 hour ago, MoshJason said:

Honestly, if Eldar are that broken - 1.5x their points. 

 

The issue with Glass Cannon armies, from a game design perspective, is that sometimes it's hard to balance the *glass* and the *cannon* part. Apparently, with Eldar they overdid the cannon part without balancing the glass part. So, if we make them more expensive, than they lose some cannon and gain some glass.  

But they aren't a glass Cannon right now. 2-3 Wraith knights with fire prisms, and their excellent forgeworld units make them not only deadly, but tough as nails too. 

 

Fire prisms can just hide 2 of their 3 and then link fire. 

[Mandragola]

In terms of fixes, I agree a core rules change would make a big difference. Something that stopped manipulated dice from ever triggering special effects like devastating wounds would be a good start. That would bring Eldar down somewhat.

 

It wouldn't have much effect on Knights though I think. They're just really powerful out of the gate, without particularly using special abilities to do so. They need nerfs.

[Rain]

4 hours ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

When I posted on the Aeldari index preview, I said, the more I see of 10th edition, the more Hokey it becomes.

 

I don't think FAQing or errata for fate dice to 6+ is really going to change much. It is way overtuned right now. I've read some feedback that Aeldari games are ending by turn 2. This is all from a competitive perspective.

Right, because 40k already overly favors alpha strike strats because all of the first turn players units get to shoot before any of the second turn player’s units, barring the odd potential overwatch. Combine that with being able to guarantee hits/wounds/DW’s with FD, and the ability to ignore or greatly lessen the effects of cover or LOS blockers, and you have a layering of powerful effects that further encourage and empower alpha strikes.
 

Granted the Eldar player won’t always go first, but even then, you better hope your own alpha strike can kill his big threats your T1. But, unless you are also Eldar, you can’t fudge your dice rolls to ensure it. In my opinion this focus on first turn nuking is really toxic for the game, and was exactly what they promised they were moving away from with their talk of “lowering lethality.” What happened to that?

Edited June 28, 2023 by Rain