How is 40k 7th edition "less competitive" than 40k 5th edition

[Andrew Thomas]

From my point of view as a relatively new player, the main reasons people seem to think the current edition is the worst ever is price, and nostalgia.

Things are more expensive, which makes the cost of getting new units to keep up with an evolving metagame simply impossible, especially given the speed it's updating in lately. As far as nostalgia, many of the old timers who went over to Warmachine say that 4th Edition - the one they started playing in - was simply much more 'fun and 'balanced,' even though objectively it wasn't. However, that was also when their armies could wipe the opponent from the table, so of course they'd think that was the best era of the game.

Most of the competitively-minded players have moved to WarmaHordes here, thankfully. If they'd just stop harassing other players to get them to join it, I think we'd have a pretty peaceful setup.

I have had similar experiences, and I agree.

Personally, I feel that the extra variety does make the game more competitive by making monobuilds less reliable. While building a balanced list is more reliable, as expected, it is no longer a guaranteed win, which is where these gripes are coming from.

Clearly, not everyone has the same definition of competitive, but, to use M:tG parlance, anything that weeds the Spikes out of the game is going to be better for the game as a whole.

[confoo22]

I find part of the problem with balance is 40K's scale as well. Size it down to HoR Kill team scale, and you find that the absence of large blasts, high Toughness and hardy vehicles makes it a much more fair game. At a 1500-2000pts level though, there's just too many scary things that can be brought, and too much variety to be able to make a true TAC list anymore...

A friend of mine and I love playing 1250 games. We feel like at that level you have to really think about what you're putting in your list instead of "kitchen sink" style lists you can usually find for most armies at 1850.

[Defenestratus]

'You're just glorified children, make pew-pew noises instead of having thoughts about things' is not a compelling way to shut down this conversation.

I'm not trying to shut down the conversation.

I'm trying to say that talking about dice games with plastic toys and measuring whippy sticks in a context of being a competition is silly on its face. But whatever.

but I think what he meant was all the rules scattered insanely all over the place. And some of it's in the worst places, like when they did the Cities of Death rules in two White Dwarfs with the cards in those magazines...

Ahh yes. I actually think GW should go to a digital rule subscription service that is basically a website (ecosystem agnostic) that allows anyone with an annual subscription fee to "subscribe" to any new rules that GW rolls out. They could print the rules also in WD or in codexes as well for those who prefer to have hardcopies - but a library of centrally located rules that could be regularly updated would be awesome and something I would definitely pay for.

[Charon]

So let's fast forward to today. You have a slue of games all over the place now that all were created either specifically with balance and tournaments in mind because they had the luxury of seeing what GW had done wrong in terms of balance and able to make the correction to their own systems. GW is trying to implement some balance (and has been thanked for it by being called "bland"), but it's a difficult and drawn out process when you have to balance the game across numerous factions, and is something that will probably never happen to the satisfaction of every gamer out there. I'd also add that there's really not a 100% balanced game with no underpowered unit whatsoever and completely devoid of powerlists, but that most of them are more balanced when compared to GW's games, which allows people to perpetuate the myth of perfect balance in other games (WMH anyone?)

They do not even have to balance on a tournament level. But even internal balance fails in the "bland" codices.
Necron Wraith?
Dark Eldar Bloodbrides, Hellions, Voidraven?
Codices were not called bland for having no specific power spikes (they still have) but for ripping out fun and unique rules. This even gets weirder other armies got to keep their unique special rules instead of receiving the same treatment of "if it's not in the core rules, you won't get it".

[confoo22]

They do not even have to balance on a tournament level. But even internal balance fails in the "bland" codices.
Necron Wraith?
Dark Eldar Bloodbrides, Hellions, Voidraven?
Codices were not called bland for having no specific power spikes (they still have) but for ripping out fun and unique rules. This even gets weirder other armies got to keep their unique special rules instead of receiving the same treatment of "if it's not in the core rules, you won't get it".

Except that no game hits that perfect "internal balance" that so many people are seeking. The idea of internal balance is that you could take any unit, point it at any other unit with the same cost, and there would be 50/50 chance of that unit being. Looking at 40k which has hundreds, if not over a thousand, individual units spread out across 15 separate army books then what you're asking for is an extremely tall order and some units are simply going to fall short. Not to mention that there is no system out there, at least none that I've read about, that is perfectly balanced internally across the entire game. Every system has red headed step children, but it's less obvious because most other systems don't have the sheer amount of different units that GW does and therefore won't have the same amount of unbalanced units. As for the rules being removed or changed, the one codex rule this edition that most falls into the "fun and unique" category is the mob rule for Orks, which is universally despised. Mainly, I think, because it's a mechanic meant to prevent orks from flooding the table with 250+ models and winning because the other player simply can't kill that many, but people understandably don't like it when their own army forces them to remove models.

I'd also point out that it's slightly dissonant for players to complain that there are too many rules clogging up and bloating the game while simultaneously complaining that streamlining and scaling back the rules in the codexes is making the game too bland.

[Charon]

Again. No need for "perfect" balance. But a little bit of thought invested is not too much to ask.
Im totally fine with somewhat internally balanced but even that seems too much to ask. Having two units in the same slot with the same points and the same task while one having a big stat advantage over the other is not a good design. This should never happen.
There is no problem if these two units have just different stats or different niches so the current meta, opponent,.. will decide which one is more valuable. But if one of these is ALWAYS better no matter what circumstances, than there is a design flaw right here.
Also, if people hate a rule, it doesn't qualify for "fun"

[confoo22]

Again. No need for "perfect" balance. But a little bit of thought invested is not too much to ask.
Im totally fine with somewhat internally balanced but even that seems too much to ask. Having two units in the same slot with the same points and the same task while one having a big stat advantage over the other is not a good design. This should never happen.
There is no problem if these two units have just different stats or different niches so the current meta, opponent,.. will decide which one is more valuable. But if one of these is ALWAYS better no matter what circumstances, than there is a design flaw right here.
Also, if people hate a rule, it doesn't qualify for "fun"

Except that these units do tend to fit those niches, but people don't like those niches so they automatically discount them. Anything that has a close combat role is automatically discounted unless it can kill or tarpit a deathstar. Look at Wyches, they're absolute murder machines in close combat, especially once you get to turn 4 or later, but everyone acts like they're the worst unit that's ever seen the light of day. This is because the assault phase is fairly weak in general so a unit needs to not only be good in assault, but be extremely good in assault and survivable versus shooting and extremely quick so they can get into assault right away, which is not something you're going to get out of a unit that only costs 60 points. But if you look in the vacuum of internal balance then wyches, the CC unit, will shred warriors, the ranged unit, in assault and vice versa. But put them against Hellions and you'll have a much better match up, probably better because hellions have the increased movement to be able to ensure that they will be more likely to charge. Thanks to this advantage they cost a little more than the wyches.

Want a different example? Sisters of Battle Exorcist versus Penitent Engines. Penitent Engines in CC are ridiculously awesome and will straight up murder most units they charge, even deathstars, but the Exorcist is one of the best shooty tanks in the game. Thanks to movement rules for walkers and disadvantages inherent to open topped vehicles the Penitent Engine is considered a complete garbage unit while the Exorcist is the all star. But I would say that they are actually internally balanced because an Exorcist shooting at a Penitent Engine has about the same chance at destroying it as the PE has at destroying the Exorcist in CC. One might say that on paper the Engine is actually better because it's cheaper for a single one and you can take them in squadrons. But once you leave the vacuum of the codex, the PE is just not worth it.

Now, does this mean that new codexes are internally balanced? Absolutely not. As I noted, perfection is elusive when you have the number of units that GW does, but I think that a lot of units get discounted unfairly because of perceived weaknesses based on the overarching rule set.

Oh, and I agree with you on the fun part, really what I meant is that in this edition that is the rule most like previous edition's zany rules.

[Leviticus Stroud]

If comparing editions of the rules, the first thing you must do is compare the rules- not the codex books!

This is GWs own great mistake.
A complaint is made that Unit A is too good at the X part of the game in edition 3. The response should be to fix A, but instead it is to change X when edition 4 comes out.
Now units B, C and D are too good at X, so maybe X changes under 5, or perhaps the codex with B in is up next so instead B gets changed. Then so does C. Then X changes again in 6 and now A, B and C are all mis-balanced again. Roll on 7 and X is still wrong, but it is followed up by changes to B and C so only A currently appears to be bad.

Now rinse and repeat for parts Y and Z of the rules.


The reason 5th is regularly considered the 'pinnacle' edition in terms of game play and balance is because of the rule book itself, not the codices. Some of them were, quite frankly, awful.
Instead think about the process of almost any part of the game which players have issues with.
What is the logical thing the game should be doing in that area?
What would be happening if this was real, or even a Hollywood action movie on the screen?
What does the game actually do?

Once you start doing this you start to get a picture of a game's flaws, and a large number will argue that 5th had the fewest of these.


EG: Over watch.

The logical thing is that if a unit is able to see an enemy charging them then they should be able to get a burst of shots off at them. How prepared they are and how much time they get to respond should determine how likely they are to hit by comparison to their usual firing.

The action movie equivalent is something similar, with heroic individuals leaping off of vantage point to ensure the enemy gets no chance to respond, or coolly dispatching multiple enemies before having to discard an empty gun in favour of going hand to hand.

The game however has; Vindicaire Assassins hitting at the same skill as an Ork; flamers putting D3 hits on the enemy whether they are a tight crowd of dozens in a tight alleyway or just a single model, and able to do so even if the flamer is out of range and has to fire through his buddies; shots that can be made simply as bonus shooting even if the enemy can't actually move because they rolled too low; no shots are ever taken by the anti personnel assault weapons fitted to tanks; etc.


Repeat this exercise for:
Outflank -Assault specialists have just arrived on the table with the specific aim of ambushing you, but first we are going to stand here for a short while and get shot at.
Charge range- Units can tell you exactly how far away you are, but can no longer estimate whether they can run ten paces or sixty in the period of time we call a turn.
Disembarking- After getting out of a vehicle with doors units don't just have a disadvantage at charging over those coming out of a building with doors, they physically are unable to.
Hull Points- A shot which glances the armour on that tank with damage too negligible to even shake the crew will destroy it if done a specific number of times.


It is very easy to say "Edition X was better/worse because the balance of the codex books was...", but that's not the right comparison.

Personally I play 6/7 codex books under 5th rules, with a handful of current special rules and 2nd edition excerpts to get things like Hammer of Wrath and Over Watch to function. It makes for a far more fun game than 6th or 7th, and a lot more 'forging the narrative' is possible as a result.


I mean seriously, what exactly is the 'narrative' of a large blast going off in the middle of a unit but only the 2+ multi wound character at the front makes any saves? Are they all Kevin Bacon in X-Men First Class, or is this happening: [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYClSGINHyU[/url]

[Psyfer]

I think this actually touches on a couple of things that I was thinking while pondering this.

You do raise some very relevant points here, and I do admit that the younger companies do have the benefit of learning from GW's mistakes.

Having said that, it would be nice if GW would also learn from its's own mistakes, not to mention the mistakes of others. Game balance isn't easy, true, especially given GW's rolling release schedule. But like a lot of the issues with WH and WH40k, a big part of it is due to GW sticking to a rules mechanic that is woefully outdated and cumbersome compared to more recent games. Add to that GW's incessant need to wheel out new models each codex, and you start to see where they run into problems.

As far as I can see, what needs to happen is GW really needs to sit down and overhaul the very basic mechanics of 40k and WH in the light of the 30-odd years that have progressed since they started using them. Even if they stick to the humble D6, adding aspects like alternate unit activation would really shake things up, and mitigate some of the known issues with 40k (eg. first turn annihilation by tau/Imp Guard fire support lists).

As for balance GW needs to sit down and work out what power level they want the game to be at, and stick to it. Many of the issues I've seen have come down to writers having differing impressions of how high-powered the game should be, and to be honest the 'rule of cool' doesn't help much, because it's an abstract concept and everyone has a differing idea about what is cool. For the game to be balanced, there needs to be standards.

The sad part is, GW has always marketed itself minis first, games second, so it's unlikely that any severe overhaul of the game is likely to happen.

[Charon]

Except that these units do tend to fit those niches, but people don't like those niches so they automatically discount them.

Wrong. And I guess you know that because you are comparing different units witch different niches.
The question is not "do wyches fill a different niche than Warriors" the question is "why on earth should I ever upgrade them to bloodbrides"?
Also Wyches (troops) and Hellions (Fast attack) do not interfere.
Hellions and Reavers do. And thats an easy win for the Reavers in every single category. More movement, more T, more attacks, better save, more options, more special rules.