New Balance Dataslate just dropped

[Emperor Ming]

Maybe it would be better for them to only do the updates every 6 months, give people actually time to have games and paint miniatures before they are nerfed

 

It has put off me of returning atm, but im all for balance updates

[crimsondave]

4 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

Yes, they were.

I disagree but only partially.  There needs to be a middle ground.

[Wormwoods]

2 hours ago, Karhedron said:

Better than having things stagnant all the time. I generally paint models I like rather than chasing the meta but it does mean I have a large roster of units to rotate through. Sometimes a rules change makes a previously unviable unit interesting or encourages me to dust off an old favourite. I rarely have more than one of any unit except Battleline as I find spamming units boring. I find it much more fun for both me and my opponent if I bring an ever-changing variety of units. Regular updates helps encourage me to do that rather than just falling into a rut of just using whatever I know works.

I'm in a similar boat, and also not really playing anything like competitive, so when these changes come through it's usually just a little shakeup and maybe a new toy to play with. On the other hand: Nah dude, having a bunch of batteline grunts is GREAT! Gives your opponent something to enjoy blasting while you're blasting theirs. It's not a good game unless a lot of Poor Bloody Infantry gets taken off the table. 

 

For the record, I can live with quarterly updates, but would probably go for 6 monthly, as a preference. A little more time to actually play each tweaked version of the game before it gets shaken up again. Getting new detachments sprinkled in is fun, though. I look forward to modelling some fancy looking versions of Tau battlesuit weapons for when I take those new enhancements. Magnetised guns go brrrr

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Can anyone here explain why FOBs went up?

they were already considered too expensive and rarely taken in lists.

 

4 hours ago, Emperor Ming said:

Maybe it would be better for them to only do the updates every 6 months, give people actually time to have games and paint miniatures before they are nerfed

 

It has put off me of returning atm, but im all for balance updates

That’s why you just buy and paint models you like regardless of rules. ;)

[HeadlessCross]

34 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Can anyone here explain why FOBs went up?

they were already considered too expensive and rarely taken in lists.

 

That’s why you just buy and paint models you like regardless of rules. ;)

What's FoB? Sorry, it's not clicking in my head. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

42 minutes ago, HeadlessCross said:

What's FoB? Sorry, it's not clicking in my head. 

Field ordinance battery

[FormelyKnownAsSmashyPants]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

That’s why you just buy and paint models you like regardless of rules. ;)

 

Sage advice if ever I’ve ever heard it.

[chapter master 454]

I think quarterly is just fine. 6 months would drag far too long for balance changes...I mean...be considerate of the SoB players at least. The regular shake ups keep things moving and lets them address problems...and while not perfect the fact they try (and imo get somewhat close) is nice too see.

 

Again, can't please everyone because some hate that there are updates at all (aka, eldar players because they only get nerfs as they deserve) and some feel the rate of change is too much.

Personally, I find myself in the camp of it feels just right. A lot better than back in yore...you got your errata and FAQ 2 weeks after the codex launched...and that was it. That's all. Nothing. I am not going back to that, I'll leave the memories of that where they belong as fun strolls. It is better we have change regularly, and quarterly as stated feels fine though I suppose for some people 3 months is instant due to maybe how little chance they get to play vs. me who gets to play a game every week.

 

Though as for the contents. Tried the new tau, still trash tier. Imperial Knights are still shoehorned into armiger spam with no bondsman reversion. So here I am, ether I get to work on Imperial guard or I stick to my dreaded 15 (15 deathwing knight lists) that get work done.

Not sure it comes through, but I am mixed on this dataslate in content because there are reasonable, good and terrible parts for me and it colours my opinion.

[Antarius]

On the one hand, we did complain a lot about lack of updates back in the good old days, but on the other hand staying on top of the game was actually manageable, even if you occasionally had to step away from your computer, so it's swings and roundabouts, really.
I honestly don't really think either situation is objectively "better" than the other, but the old way was probably less cumbersome if you had a group that was okay about giving armies that were worse off a bit of a leg up.
The new one seems like it'd be unplayable if I didn't have a group that has grown up to be super chill. Since I do, I'm actually enjoying 10th quite a bit at present.

Seriously though, the situations then and now are so different that they're hardly comparable, even though we're superficially still playing the same game.
Back then there were, what, half as many factions? And in some codexes the number of unit entries have more than tripled since then and every unit has a (more or less) unique special ability.

So yeah, on the one hand, that's obviously not balanceable to begin with - and especially not without updates.

On the other hand, frequent updates on the basis of tournament results (snicker) is hardly an ideal solution either - and yeah, it actually does make the game a lot harder to keep up with, even if it's "only" quarterly updates.

Edited 18 hours ago by Antarius

[HeadlessCross]

3 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Field ordinance battery

Ah. I think it was just a general hit to non-LoS firing but to my knowledge a few top lists were using them. 

[Antarius]

5 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

That’s why you just buy and paint models you like regardless of rules. ;)

If everyone did this, we wouldn’t need the utopian ideal of a perfect game that these updates are chasing, we’d already be there.

[01RTB01]

14 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

Yes, they were.

 

Agreed. There has been a considerable shift towards "tournamentification" of the rules and this has been since 8th onwards. 8th was ok but 9th and 10th feel like they've had the life sucked out of them compared to yesteryear.

 

When we're living in a time of terrain setups being pre determined and how it "should" be set up, shrinking table sizes (recommended was taken as "do it"), etc etc.

 

The constant "balance" changes perhaps are a positive but it comes from a position of tournament win rates. Points values also adjusted based on tournament players spamming certain units. It really doesn't take into account codexes internal balance and unused datasheets. 

 

If people are happy, great. Personally I had a lot more fun playing 40k pre 7th edition. Crusade was fun in 9th but was hampered by the excessive power leap of codexes.

 

 

[Antarius]

18 minutes ago, 01RTB01 said:

The constant "balance" changes perhaps are a positive but it comes from a position of tournament win rates. Points values also adjusted based on tournament players spamming certain units. It really doesn't take into account codexes internal balance and unused datasheets. 

Yup. I get and - to a certain extent - agree with the argument that "a balanced game is good for both competitive and casual players", but one thing that it does seem to miss is that balancing the game based on what is taken in tournament winning lists completely overlooks units that are not taken (compounded by the fact that tournament lists tend to double or triple up on units in a way that casual lists don't do to the same extent).
In actual games (as opposed to just looking at datasheets and running them through Excel to determine whether they are "objectively" good*), units and weapons that are situationally good will, in fact, be good if you're good at making those situations arise. That is something which simply cannot be accounted for, when the metric is "looking at tournament win rates".

Also, it's pretty annoying for the casual player when their army is suddenly over points, because some unit that is completely unproblematic in their local meta has suddenly gone up in points because it's part of some obscure tournament-combo.

Finally, I am actually having a lot of fun with 10th at present (playing roughly a game a week, which I hope to be able to keep up). I actually really like the basic ruleset and I (generally speaking) think they've done a reasonably god job of making a lot of the different wargear options "side-grades", rather than having one option be the obviously superior choice, so I even kinda like the "free wargear/secret power levels" paradigm.
However, if we weren't playing on bigger tables, using whatever terrain we feel like, adjusting missions if we generate something obviously bonkers, etc., I suspect it wouldn't be much fun, even if it might be "more balanced" than earlier editions.

 

 

 

*The worst case scenario and logical endpoint of this type of approach to the game is the "Grey Knight Rifleman Dreads" of late 5th edition, who were statistically superior, but sucked all the life out of both the game and anyone unfortunate enough to play with/against them. So it's not like that kind of thinking is somehow new.

Edited 16 hours ago by Antarius

[Magos Takatus]

6 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

That’s why you just buy and paint models you like regardless of rules. ;)

That's admirable to a point, and I adore my Adeptus Mechanicus army, but the rules were so fussy and required you to jump through so many hoops to get access to special rules that other armies enjoyed having baked into their basic rules that I ended up pivoting to my Orks army just because I could have more fun. My Ork army is primarily a Dread Mob because I like the models and the image of clanking Ork war machines, but even then I've found the Taktikal Brigade more fun to play because it's more dynamic, gives me more chances at contesting objectives in 10th editions's bizarre whack-a-mole scoring system and it is more engaging for my opponent to play against, so I am ashamed to admit that most of my army lists are unpainted grey plastic currently, because it's pulled from my pile of shame that I hadn't got round to building and painting until I finally got a formation that made my Blood Axe units feel fun to play.

 

So yes, I agree that I also frown on chasing the meta by slapping together a flavour-of-the-week army and selling it on when it's had it's time in the sun, I also think just playing with the models you like can lead to a painful experience thanks to GW flailing wildly with the rules somewhat. I preferred my Skitarii to be augmented semi-elite infantry with withering firepower, but for a while they were a toothless blob of a horde army, and I've given up following what they are until they get a new codex and I'm concentrating my energy elsewhere.

[sairence]

7 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Can anyone here explain why FOBs went up?

they were already considered too expensive and rarely taken in lists.

 

That’s why you just buy and paint models you like regardless of rules. ;)

 

One FOBs and 2 HWTs with Mortars supported by some orders had become the staple cheap indirect support package and was showing up in most Bridgehead lists. (Which was, for the last few months, pretty much the only Guard detachment you saw)

 

So those datasheets got adjusted up a bit to account for that.

Edited 16 hours ago by sairence

[Crimson Longinus]

4 hours ago, chapter master 454 said:

I mean...be considerate of the SoB players at least.

 

Do you think SoB are Ok now? because I doubt it. The issue with a lot of GW reactions to tournament results is that they're overreactions. Like if some build does well in tournaments, anything related to it gets nuked from the obit. That's what happened to SoB, and the changes in the new balance patch do not really rectify it.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

7 hours ago, chapter master 454 said:

I think quarterly is just fine. 6 months would drag far too long for balance changes...I mean...be considerate of the SoB players at least. The regular shake ups keep things moving and lets them address problems...and while not perfect the fact they try (and imo get somewhat close) is nice too see.

 

Again, can't please everyone because some hate that there are updates at all (aka, eldar players because they only get nerfs as they deserve) and some feel the rate of change is too much.

Personally, I find myself in the camp of it feels just right. A lot better than back in yore...you got your errata and FAQ 2 weeks after the codex launched...and that was it. That's all. Nothing. I am not going back to that, I'll leave the memories of that where they belong as fun strolls. It is better we have change regularly, and quarterly as stated feels fine though I suppose for some people 3 months is instant due to maybe how little chance they get to play vs. me who gets to play a game every week.

 

Though as for the contents. Tried the new tau, still trash tier. Imperial Knights are still shoehorned into armiger spam with no bondsman reversion. So here I am, ether I get to work on Imperial guard or I stick to my dreaded 15 (15 deathwing knight lists) that get work done.

Not sure it comes through, but I am mixed on this dataslate in content because there are reasonable, good and terrible parts for me and it colours my opinion.

And every 3 months means a lot of casual players never get a chance to truly acclimate to the new rules.

 

not every one plays 4+ games a month. I’d wager your average or typical player probably plays maybe twice a month at most.

 

3 hours ago, sairence said:

 

One FOBs and 2 HWTs with Mortars supported by some orders had become the staple cheap indirect support package and was showing up in most Bridgehead lists. (Which was, for the last few months, pretty much the only Guard detachment you saw)

 

So those datasheets got adjusted up a bit to account for that.

I haven’t heard or seen anyone taking them at all in person, on here, any YT batreps, etc.

[Gorgoff]

I may just throw in that in heresy we had the last FAQ two years ago. 

A little bit love one in a while would be nice... ;)

 

[ThePenitentOne]

6 hours ago, 01RTB01 said:

 

There has been a considerable shift towards "tournamentification" of the rules and this has been since 8th onwards. 8th was ok but 9th and 10th feel like they've had the life sucked out of them compared to yesteryear.

 

When we're living in a time of terrain setups being pre determined and how it "should" be set up, shrinking table sizes (recommended was taken as "do it"), etc etc.

 

The constant "balance" changes perhaps are a positive but it comes from a position of tournament win rates. Points values also adjusted based on tournament players spamming certain units. It really doesn't take into account codexes internal balance and unused datasheets. 

 

If people are happy, great. Personally I had a lot more fun playing 40k pre 7th edition. Crusade was fun in 9th but was hampered by the excessive power leap of codexes.

 

 

As a Crusader, I have to push back against this when I see it- especially where 8th and 9th are concerned. In 10th, the loadout simplifications and the new detachment system feel somewhat tournament oriented to me; the application of balance updates to all modes of play is another factor as well- so I do see where you're coming from.

 

But if you pay attention to the predetermined terrain layouts beyond what is in the mission maps (which usually DON'T specify terrain layout), that's a YOU thing, and if you're being forced to do it by the people you play with or the store you play in, that's a THEM thing. Neither are a GW thing.

 

To a certain extent, the same is true of table sizes- the factor that muddies the water here is that the way mission maps are made, increasing table size typically doesn't increase the size of no mans land- instead it just makes deployment zones bigger. So if you want to play outside of GW's recommendation, you do have to do a bit of math work to get the maps right. That's assuming you use GW missions at all, which narrative players often don't.

 

We've had 3 Crusade only books released this edition, and I think 2 matched play decks?

 

In 9th, Crusade resources DRAMATICALLY outnumbered matched play resources, and the interminable balance updates applied to Matched play only.

Edited 10 hours ago by ThePenitentOne

[HeadlessCross]

6 hours ago, 01RTB01 said:

 

Agreed. There has been a considerable shift towards "tournamentification" of the rules and this has been since 8th onwards. 8th was ok but 9th and 10th feel like they've had the life sucked out of them compared to yesteryear.

 

When we're living in a time of terrain setups being pre determined and how it "should" be set up, shrinking table sizes (recommended was taken as "do it"), etc etc.

 

The constant "balance" changes perhaps are a positive but it comes from a position of tournament win rates. Points values also adjusted based on tournament players spamming certain units. It really doesn't take into account codexes internal balance and unused datasheets. 

 

If people are happy, great. Personally I had a lot more fun playing 40k pre 7th edition. Crusade was fun in 9th but was hampered by the excessive power leap of codexes.

 

 

Predetermined terrain helps catch balance issues. Casual kids playing exclusively 2000 points of Marines in a Fortress vs 6000 points of Tyranids on Planet Bowling Bowl shouldn't matter for a tight ruleset. Nothing stops players from doing lopsided scenarios, but armies should be close in power level to begin with for this to work. 

[HeadlessCross]

6 hours ago, Antarius said:

Yup. I get and - to a certain extent - agree with the argument that "a balanced game is good for both competitive and casual players", but one thing that it does seem to miss is that balancing the game based on what is taken in tournament winning lists completely overlooks units that are not taken (compounded by the fact that tournament lists tend to double or triple up on units in a way that casual lists don't do to the same extent).
In actual games (as opposed to just looking at datasheets and running them through Excel to determine whether they are "objectively" good*), units and weapons that are situationally good will, in fact, be good if you're good at making those situations arise. That is something which simply cannot be accounted for, when the metric is "looking at tournament win rates".

Also, it's pretty annoying for the casual player when their army is suddenly over points, because some unit that is completely unproblematic in their local meta has suddenly gone up in points because it's part of some obscure tournament-combo.

Finally, I am actually having a lot of fun with 10th at present (playing roughly a game a week, which I hope to be able to keep up). I actually really like the basic ruleset and I (generally speaking) think they've done a reasonably god job of making a lot of the different wargear options "side-grades", rather than having one option be the obviously superior choice, so I even kinda like the "free wargear/secret power levels" paradigm.
However, if we weren't playing on bigger tables, using whatever terrain we feel like, adjusting missions if we generate something obviously bonkers, etc., I suspect it wouldn't be much fun, even if it might be "more balanced" than earlier editions.

 

 

 

*The worst case scenario and logical endpoint of this type of approach to the game is the "Grey Knight Rifleman Dreads" of late 5th edition, who were statistically superior, but sucked all the life out of both the game and anyone unfortunate enough to play with/against them. So it's not like that kind of thinking is somehow new.

Objectively incorrect when you talk about ignored units. The main problem is GW not knowing what to actually do with units sometimes. It only took them 3 editions to make Reivers an interesting option, but at least it actually happened vs the old paradigm where the unit was ignored, period, and you "FORGE THE NARRATIVE" which has always been an excuse for poor writing. 

 

Also units DO need to be balanced for the extreme "obscure" scenarios because casual players doing "fluff" might still come across the combo that just happened to exist. Hell, using the word obscure is just incorrect when we live in the age of technology. This notion is why some rose tinted sunglass players try to insist the game was better balanced back in the day. It was not, I promise. 

Edited 10 hours ago by HeadlessCross

[Evil Eye]

3 hours ago, HeadlessCross said:

This notion is why some rose tinted sunglass players try to insist the game was better balanced back in the day.

It may not have been better balanced (at least, not much) but it was undoubtedly better. More fun, more immersive and more customizable. The fixation on "balancing" 40K for the competitive scene (which I'd argue started way back in mid-to-late 5th) has made the game worse. Stuff like Emperor's Children not getting Predators or Dreadnoughts, the skewing of the game (and dumbing down of damage rules) to accomodate Knights and other such units that shouldn't see games outside of Apocalypse, etc, can all be blamed on this.

 

3 hours ago, HeadlessCross said:

Predetermined terrain helps catch balance issues.

It's also boring as sin. If balance gets in the way of fun it can go to hell.

 

You want balance? Play chess.

[Joe]

1 minute ago, Evil Eye said:

Stuff like Emperor's Children not getting Predators

 

To be fair, I imagine Apple and Google might have issues with an application on their stores having the word Emperor's Children Predator in it. But that's a whole other issue.

 

Having a well-balanced game is good for everyone, competitive or otherwise; and I'm happy that the dataslates are a thing for those that want them. At the end of the day players are perfectly capable of setting games up themselves and choosing to ignore / alter rules as needed. If a friend isn't willing to compromise with you and do something different when playing a casual game then they aren't really your friend.

[Ahzek451]

56 minutes ago, Joe said:

 

At the end of the day players are perfectly capable of setting games up themselves and choosing to ignore / alter rules as needed. If a friend isn't willing to compromise with you and do something different when playing a casual game then they aren't really your friend.

Not to pick on it, but I have to point out that in these discussions, eventually someone brings this point up.

And the typical response is:  a lot of players do not have the luxury of playing with dedicated friends, many have little choice but to play in pick up games at a local shop. And assuming that shop does like to play with with strict, by-the-GW-playbook-most-current-rules, well that may not even necessarily be a bad thing as this is just there preference. And maybe that preference exists because it was incentivized by the increase in GW tournament mentality that has been on the rise for many years. Having moved a few times myself, one local scene was just like this. Good enough guys, but they were competitive minded and that's how they liked it. Youtube has helped(they were huge fans of the art of war group). No one was really open to playing outside the bounds of what was considered "not official" at the time. And that's just how they like to roll. So if I wanted a game using datasheets from legends, I was out of luck. But I certainly don't blame them for enjoying the game how they saw fit. 

 

[HeadlessCross]

5 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

It may not have been better balanced (at least, not much) but it was undoubtedly better. More fun, more immersive and more customizable. The fixation on "balancing" 40K for the competitive scene (which I'd argue started way back in mid-to-late 5th) has made the game worse. Stuff like Emperor's Children not getting Predators or Dreadnoughts, the skewing of the game (and dumbing down of damage rules) to accomodate Knights and other such units that shouldn't see games outside of Apocalypse, etc, can all be blamed on this.

 

It's also boring as sin. If balance gets in the way of fun it can go to hell.

 

You want balance? Play chess.

More customizable in what sense? 

 

Take a look at the basic Marine Captain. Artificer Armor was a "customization" option, but it was always mandatory to take it due to the benefit it conferred. From 3rd to 5th all Power Weapons operated the same just like it does now for the Master Crafted Power Weapon, so there isn't an actual difference there. For 6th and 7th, you were basically relegated to taking the Power Axe or the Power Fist because of how the AP system operated with All Or Nothing. Sooooooo basically the Thunder Hammer was lost, which when you think about it only mattered in extreme with the Concussive rule. Special Issue wargear? Wow, you can get Signum? 

Chaos Lord was actually in the same boat, believe it or not, in regards to a lot of upgrades either being one worse than the other strictly (no, you weren't taking the 5++ over the 4++ when it was just 10 points more) or were just downright bad and made no sense. 

 

Relics and Warlord Traits fixed this to an extent, but for some reason it was the people in the same boat as you complaining about it, and for some reason these relics and Warlord Traits didn't help make "your dudes".