Balance Dataslate - June 2025

[phandaal]

16 minutes ago, Magos Takatus said:

When Admech were introduced in 7th as I understood them they were a semi-elite shooting army with accurate, precision gunfire. They have pretty much morphed into a toothless horde army.

 

As a man of culture and enjoyer of all things Dwarven (but I repeat myself), I really feel this one. GW bringing back my Space Dwarves was huge for me, but playing them in 9th was an exercise in frustration because of how their rules were rolled out.

 

Stuck it out and built my army as fast as possible, only to have this edition launch the way it did for Votann. The answer to that was points drops that would have required significantly more time and effort on my part to field a 2k point army again.

 

It was some time while assembling a new unit to make up for these points drops that I thought "why am I spending my time doing this just because some goofball keeps changing the rules?" And it was at that point that I stopped using modern GW rules for my games. Funny thing is I still play just as much, if not more, nowadays.

 

These days I am just in it for the models. Give big Ironkin golem GW plz thx.

[Blindhamster]

2 hours ago, crimsondave said:

I agree with pretty much everything you said other than 10th.

 

I’d still rate 7th as the worst game.  There was no point in even unpacking my guard to play Eldar, Tau, Necrons (decurium anyway) or late edition Space Marines (Skyhammer or something?). I either got wiped out in 2 turns or the other player had to intentionally bring their worst stuff and try not to kill me.  But I still played it.

 

Thing is, I still played 7th.  I just have no desire to play 10th.  I made it about 3 turns and had enough.  The backbone seems the best it’s ever been.  I wish they’d make 2 different games.  Competitive and Casual.  Use the 10th backbone but bring back WS, I, blast templates, points instead of power level, and do away with the video game like ways of bypassing wound rolls and saves and delete stratagems.  I thought 7th edition was simpler even though it was terrible.

If you want a short game, play 750-1000 point games.

 

Now this would suck for competitive.  That’s why I say make 2 different games.  They could also push the edition turn back to every 4 or 5 years and still come out ahead money wise.

- templates: absolutely not, they force the tedium of making sure models are as widely spaced as legally allowed, which just slows the game for no actual benefit over the more abstract approach taken now.

- returning weapon skill to the old approach; yes I’d like that

- returning initiative: yes I’d like that

- returning vehicle facings: solid maybe, not in their old incarnation

- returning vehicle armour rules: nah, they died too easily.

- bring back wargear points: yes absolutely  

- bring back force org: no, it just doesn’t suit a lot of factions now. That ship has sailed. 
- get rid of AP: hell no.

- get rid of weapon damage: hell no

- get rid of unit abilities: no

- get rid of stratagems: I think no at this point, they’re much better balanced in 10th than 9th. But something more like HH reactions maybe, sure.

Edited yesterday at 02:26 PM by Blindhamster

[Dr. Clock]

59 minutes ago, Magos Takatus said:

Admech is a problem here since they were typically efficiently cheap platforms for fairly expensive weapon upgrades, and for that reason wiping out point costs for upgrades has been problematic for them.

AdMech at their most problematic in recent past were not based on the upgrades at all in my experience; it was just easier to drop strats on 20 bricks of their basic guns. I have rather enjoyed getting the 'free' 3 special weapon guys since the change, though it didn't make up for capping Battleline at 10 per unit. I was definitely underwhelmed by the list through the Codex launch, but it's alot more fun to play now that Doctrinas are actually good and laser chickens can hit. I agree that it still feels like on the whole they're like 10-20% less killy than they should be on average, with some units really more like 30-40% under-gunned, and arc kataphrons specifically maybe 10% overcooked.

 

Mostly I just want my flame doggos to be able to use their breath attacks out of reserves lol. So yeah - internal balance is definitely still off, but I also kinda like the high contrast of the list where you end up with 3-4 often character-led 'big hitters' and then everything else is just janky skirmish blaster nonsense to protect those hitters, play the game and pump action economy. One simple but possibly 'big' fix for the list I'd suggest is simply to make Marshals 'unlock' 20-man bricks, though likely cost a few more points themselves in order to buff 100% more dudes when they team up. Basically it's 'reverse combat squads; Marshal's 'Leader' section could have a bespoke rule allowing him to Lead 2 units of the same kind at once so you can lump a few battleline units together into midrange threats rather than doing mostly not that much.

 

I view AdMech as the ultimate trading army, basically. You are always thinking about the next thing you'll sacrifice to win. It's a cold way to play, certainly, but it feels correct for the uncaring toasterhead faction.

 

I think the most annoying part of AdMech is really just the expense of them at this point. Also I've never learned to enjoy their hovercraft, but I know that's more a me thing than a design thing.

 

Anyway - glad my robots are a bit better today than they were last week : )

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.  

[crimsondave]

1 hour ago, Blindhamster said:

- templates: absolutely not, they force the tedium of making sure models are as widely spaced as legally allowed, which just slows the game for no actual benefit over the more abstract approach taken now.  

- returning weapon skill to the old approach; yes I’d like that

- returning initiative: yes I’d like that

- returning vehicle facings: solid maybe, not in their old incarnation

- returning vehicle armour rules: nah, they died too easily.

- bring back wargear points: yes absolutely  

- bring back force org: no, it just doesn’t suit a lot of factions now. That ship has sailed. 
- get rid of AP: hell no.

- get rid of weapon damage: hell no

- get rid of unit abilities: no

- get rid of stratagems: I think no at this point, they’re much better balanced in 10th than 9th. But something more like HH reactions maybe, sure.

 

I didn't want all that.

 

Templates, I'd like but could be optional.  It really wouldn't take much effort at all to use currently blast rule and have an optional template rule for those who'd rather use it.

 

Vehicle facings I really don't care one way or the other.  Would need to be toughness values though because.........

 

Vehicle armor rules NOOOOOOOOOOOO.  I ran guard in 3rd-7th and all tanks did was constantly explode.  AV rules were terrible.

 

Force org I'm not married to one way or the other.

 

The 3rd-7th AP was so stupid.  Current way (like 2nd) is much better.  The cover save from 3rd-7th was stupid too.

 

Getting rid of weapon damage would be awful.  Agreed.

 

Unit abilities if you mean devastating wounds, lethal hits, ect. I'm glad y'all enjoy it.  It's a deal breaker for me.  I'm not playing the game with that in it.

 

Stratagems same as abilities.  I'm over it.  Glad other enjoy it.

 

Another thing I'd like to see is if T is 3x Str the weapon cant hurt the target.  Small arms getting 5+ lethal hits on a T12 tank is silly.

Edited 23 hours ago by crimsondave

[HeadlessCross]

10 hours ago, Scribe said:

"How can we keep them buying?"

 

"Easy, convince them we are 'balancing' the game for them,  nerf what they have, buff what we need to sell."

 

 

TIL those PDFs I downloaded for free were actually purchased. 

[Scribe]

Just now, HeadlessCross said:

TIL those PDFs I downloaded for free were actually purchased. 

 

Yeah its certainly the downloadable PDFs that are being discussed, certainly.

[crimsondave]

3 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

Trust me when I say that it's not just the competitive crowd that is happy about not having to deal with templates and referring to tables to figure out what happened when the dice were rolled.

So much easier to just look at the dice and know what happened.  Immensely more satisfying than cross referencing.  Templates I can at least understand the "fun" behind it, but they were just a vector for arguments.  I wish there was a way to simulate the AOE effect of them still, because current blast is pretty meh, but the arguments over templates was never fun nor ideal.

 

If you want that old game style, just play the old editions.  No need for a two tier game (Three tier if you count Combat Patrol).  That just becomes a rules snarl anyways.

 

I'm playing the wrong person if we're arguing over the game.

 

I don't want to play the old game.  2nd edition was my favorite but there's no way to play the new models which are by far the best models.  I did enjoy early 8th a lot before codex creep took over.  Still wouldn't have rules for the newest models.  OPRs is fair but a little too simplistic for my taste.  I'll just paint like I've been doing since the end of 8th edition.

[DemonGSides]

1 hour ago, crimsondave said:

 

I'm playing the wrong person if we're arguing over the game.

Must've been hard to play a game back in the day for you, then!  Templates only ever introduced a way for someone to argue about losing their toys, for little benefit.

 

1 hour ago, crimsondave said:

I don't want to play the old game.  2nd edition was my favorite but there's no way to play the new models which are by far the best models.  I did enjoy early 8th a lot before codex creep took over.  Still wouldn't have rules for the newest models.  OPRs is fair but a little too simplistic for my taste.  I'll just paint like I've been doing since the end of 8th edition.

 

You can just proxy for the old games, and Index 8th is available at any point due to, y'know, being free rules that were dispersed widely.

 

10th is just 9th without the bloat, and 9th was just 8th with bloat.  I'm honestly not too sure what the big mechanical differences between 8th and 10th even are, but I haven't looked at 8th rules in a decade at this point, outside of Points/PL.  It was... tough to play 8th for a while, and that wasn't GW nor the game's fault LOL

 

[01RTB01]

5 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

Must've been hard to play a game back in the day for you, then!  Templates only ever introduced a way for someone to argue about losing their toys, for little benefit.

 

 

You can just proxy for the old games, and Index 8th is available at any point due to, y'know, being free rules that were dispersed widely.

 

10th is just 9th without the bloat, and 9th was just 8th with bloat.  I'm honestly not too sure what the big mechanical differences between 8th and 10th even are, but I haven't looked at 8th rules in a decade at this point, outside of Points/PL.  It was... tough to play 8th for a while, and that wasn't GW nor the game's fault LOL

 

8th was by and large, the last 'ok' edition. It was a huge change from the abomination that was 7th. 

 

The power creep in 9th was so silly it became pointless to play. I'd play ad mech with orks, I'd get trashed, play same ad mech with eldar, no contest. It was sad times.

 

I would echo a lot of the sentiments of other frater's prior postings. 

 

3rd I personally didn't like as it stripped all the depth we loved of 2nd Ed.

 

4th/5th went somewhat to bring this back and the codexes were a lot better for it. Probably the most enjoyment I had of games since 2nd Ed.

 

6th was fine. 7th... I played heresy exclusively during 7th as detachments we're just silly.

 

8th brought back save mods and damage values. Things felt much better.

 

Then the tournament crowd came in full swing and it's never been the same. 9th's only vague saving grace was crusade. 

 

Nothing's perfect but I'd love to see the end of I go, you go. I do think that a lot of issues would go at that point. However, they keep seeking mechanics to justify its retention when pretty much every other tabletop game has alt activations and are better places for it.

[Evil Eye]

34 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

Templates only ever introduced a way for someone to argue about losing their toys, for little benefit.

Funny, I've never had problems or arguments arise over using templates. Seems to me the problem is less argument-inducing rules and more argumentative players.

[DemonGSides]

38 minutes ago, 01RTB01 said:

8th was by and large, the last 'ok' edition. It was a huge change from the abomination that was 7th. 

 

The power creep in 9th was so silly it became pointless to play. I'd play ad mech with orks, I'd get trashed, play same ad mech with eldar, no contest. It was sad times.

 

I would echo a lot of the sentiments of other frater's prior postings. 

 

3rd I personally didn't like as it stripped all the depth we loved of 2nd Ed.

 

4th/5th went somewhat to bring this back and the codexes were a lot better for it. Probably the most enjoyment I had of games since 2nd Ed.

 

6th was fine. 7th... I played heresy exclusively during 7th as detachments we're just silly.

 

8th brought back save mods and damage values. Things felt much better.

 

Then the tournament crowd came in full swing and it's never been the same. 9th's only vague saving grace was crusade. 

 

Nothing's perfect but I'd love to see the end of I go, you go. I do think that a lot of issues would go at that point. However, they keep seeking mechanics to justify its retention when pretty much every other tabletop game has alt activations and are better places for it.

 

I don't see how Tournament players are keeping it from being alternating activations but if that's how you gotta externalize not liking the game, that's a personal decision and I'm not interested in arguing you out of it.  People can like what they want to like.

 

12 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

Funny, I've never had problems or arguments arise over using templates. Seems to me the problem is less argument-inducing rules and more argumentative players.

 

Maybe warhammer is a solo experience for you, but for me, it requires two people to play.  Your completely anecdotal experience of never having once had a rules argument is hardly important when discussing a game that's played a lot more than either one of us individually play.  There are always going to be rules lawyers, so getting rid of an avenue of corner-casing is always a great addition.  It also speaks to this idea that the rules are so understandable that you've never run into an interpretation difference that resulted in two people disagreeing.  That's a rules argument; you may expect arguments to require screaming and insults, but they are just as often a disagreement about how the rules are understood.  I find it hard to believe that someone with such a long and august history with the game has NEVER run into a rules conflict.  Maybe you never ran into a template specific argument, at which point, congrats, but they don't add enough compared to what they open up for liability/confrontation.

Edited 20 hours ago by DemonGSides

[Evil Eye]

>You didn't get into arguments over templates when playing 40k? You must be lying!

OK then!

[phandaal]

43 minutes ago, 01RTB01 said:

Nothing's perfect but I'd love to see the end of I go, you go. I do think that a lot of issues would go at that point. However, they keep seeking mechanics to justify its retention when pretty much every other tabletop game has alt activations and are better places for it.

 

This would be a great change. And you are right, most other tabletop games have found a way to make some version of alternating activations work.

[Antarius]

I will say that I've had vastly less arguments over templates and enjoyed them more when they were reintroduced (that is, in games such as Old World, Necromunda etc.) than I did the first time around in WFB/40K back in the day. I do suspect that was more of a problem with me/my opponents than with templates as a concept, but I can see why people would rather not bother with them - I think it's absolutely a subjective preference, rather than one model being objectively better, though.

[Antarius]

6 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

This would be a great change. And you are right, most other tabletop games have found a way to make some version of alternating activations work.

I personally wouldn't like AA at all (I think it adds more hassle than it's worth, bogs down the game and makes for just as many or more weird interactions than UGIG does, but that's a matter for another thread), but I do think introducing something like "not removing casualties until the end of both players' turn" or similar mechanic to mitigate alpha strikes would solve a lot of the problems with UGIG.

[01RTB01]

3 minutes ago, Antarius said:

I will say that I've had vastly less arguments over templates and enjoyed them more when they were reintroduced (that is, in games such as Old World, Necromunda etc.) than I did the first time around in WFB/40K back in the day. I do suspect that was more of a problem with me/my opponents than with templates as a concept, but I can see why people would rather not bother with them - I think it's absolutely a subjective preference, rather than one model being objectively better, though.

 

Transparent templates helped a lot as well. The solid templates of yesteryore didn't make like easy.

[phandaal]

32 minutes ago, Antarius said:

I personally wouldn't like AA at all (I think it adds more hassle than it's worth, bogs down the game and makes for just as many or more weird interactions than UGIG does, but that's a matter for another thread)

 

My experience with AA is that it is no more or less complicated than I Go You Go. To me, alternation is more engaging and dynamic, and it prevents some of the feel bad scenarios we get from I Go You Go.

 

I am actually interested to understand what makes you feel the opposite of how I perceive that rule.

[crimsondave]

33 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

My experience with AA is that it is no more or less complicated than I Go You Go. To me, alternation is more engaging and dynamic, and it prevents some of the feel bad scenarios we get from I Go You Go.

 

I am actually interested to understand what makes you feel the opposite of how I perceive that rule.

 

I think Bolt Action has an awesome AA system.  Would love to have a 40k version of that system.

[Magos Takatus]

To chime in on blast templates, as a fan of Orks I have to confess that I think the current system is a problem for Orks. With a binary hit/miss mechanic it means that weapons like the Killkannon with a fairly low number of high strength attacks is almost always disappointing to use unless you roll like a madman. If you miss with blast templates, that shot goes *somewhere*. It could stray onto your target squad, onto another squad, onto a friendly squad, or sometimes miss entirely. In 10th if you fire a massive cannon at an enemy and miss, the shot just vanishes. You can either try to balance that by giving the weapon far more shots than another race's equivalent for no apparent reason, massage the stats with re-rolls somehow, make the weapon lower in points, or just accept that the weapon is too unreliable to really consider a serious option. In previous editions of the game if My Orks were firing into an endless carpet of Tyranids approaching me, they would probably hit *something*. Now, however, there is a good chance the weapon will almost always be underwhelming due to the way the game is stacked against it.

 

I know pushing blast templates around can be a pain, but they did help some armies out by more than just being narrative flavour.

[Antarius]

3 hours ago, phandaal said:

 

My experience with AA is that it is no more or less complicated than I Go You Go. To me, alternation is more engaging and dynamic, and it prevents some of the feel bad scenarios we get from I Go You Go.

 

I am actually interested to understand what makes you feel the opposite of how I perceive that rule.

Maybe it's partly the people I play against (and perhaps myself as well), but I find that it takes forever for people to decide what unit/model to activate, which makes the game take a lot longer (this has been the case with Necromunda, at least, which is part of the reason we've gone back to 1st ed instead).
Also, I think it makes for some strange interactions where if I activate this model, rather than that model I can prevent you from activating your models (by killing them or similar) or make for counterintuitive situations where the nearest enemy isn't a worthwhile target because they've already been activated - this might not be worse than having your units taken out during my turn and I guess it's supposed to be a feature of AA, but in my experience it just tends to create "feels bad" moments in practice rather than "awesome strategic choices" moments - this is obviously highly subjective though.

Edited 16 hours ago by Antarius

[Blindhamster]

to me, the issue with templates is less about arguing and the fact that in all the years i played across multiple cities, it always caused players to space their models out really meticulously, which just slows the game down and was incredibly annoying. 

I'd be totally up for using them as a "does the weapon hit" alongside scatter dice, but i'd prefer to keep the number of hits handled strictly through it hits dX or a flat X based on template size. (which would in theory give best of both worlds)

[HeadlessCross]

5 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

Funny, I've never had problems or arguments arise over using templates. Seems to me the problem is less argument-inducing rules and more argumentative players.

"I never had this happen for me, and therefore it's not a problem anywhere else and things ought to stay the same"

[Magos Takatus]

3 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

to me, the issue with templates is less about arguing and the fact that in all the years i played across multiple cities, it always caused players to space their models out really meticulously, which just slows the game down and was incredibly annoying. 

I'd be totally up for using them as a "does the weapon hit" alongside scatter dice, but i'd prefer to keep the number of hits handled strictly through it hits dX or a flat X based on template size. (which would in theory give best of both worlds)

That's a pretty good compromise. I like that idea. I bought a load of mdf movement trays for my Skitarii and decorated them with basing material meticulously, only to find the spacing totally redundant shortly after finishing them.  Not having to worry too much about model spacing but having the advantage of having a shot scatter off target and still hit something is appealing to me.

[crimsondave]

38 minutes ago, HeadlessCross said:

"I never had this happen for me, and therefore it's not a problem anywhere else and things ought to stay the same"

Oh, the irony.

[HeadlessCross]

1 hour ago, crimsondave said:

Oh, the irony.

I fail to see what's ironic here.