It is impossible to balance 40K

[Alaric]

I think you do not really understand the problem here.
This is not about 5 random things that irk him, this is about DE beeing not remotely valid at the moment.
When everyone got buffed, DE got nerfed hard. They lost a ton of characters and special rules. The codex was not strong before. The stronger codices got rewritten later... and they got buffed.

I would really like to see you share your wisdom with all us incompetent players instead of only throwing catchphrases like "step up your game" in the room.



Yes, really. As Lances are one shot, not twin linked and not cheap it is pretty hard to get enough together (especially as the same units that carry lances also carry the anti-meq weapons)



Do you care to elaborate which Deathstar DE got or how to "step yer game up"? Because either you are the best player in the word, or you are just talking hot air.



So vets are not good? Fair point. And now imagine that they are still an extremely valuable, valid and cost efficent unit in comparison what DE got.



"ignore cover". And even in cover... how many 4+ do you roll? There is no difference between a raider in cover and a leman russ in cover. Oh wait there is. The leman russ gets the better cover save as the camo netting is better than DE tech. Another pointless cathphrase from somebody who has no idea what to actually say.
And you really dont get the point. Raiders have been tough. I do not know where your expert analysis comes from that they never have been, but there were different rules in place that made it pretty tough.
Just to name a few: rapid fire range, Nightshield, glancing, there is no escape, S3 explosions. So please... if you really have no idea what people are talking about feel free to ask instead of posting so such an obviously wrong statement. It only shows that you know nothing about the topic you try to discuss.



Please go and troll your AoS friend. You have made no point (get it?) but we can do this. You can throw down DE and I throw down CWE. Im totally sure you will have the most fun in your life when you surrender in turn 2.




As a hint. If you there is a point where you need double the points of your army to remove a single enemy model (which is at the cost of 1/6 of your army) you can imagine that there is something very wrong.
People would not agree on finer nuances. But they pretty much agree on overall balance. However I can see that you have actually no idea what you are talking about.

awww a DE player needs a hug.

[Charon]

awww a DE player needs a hug.

Always.
But better start with a fair representation on the tabletop. I know fairness is not your cup of tea but try for once.

But interestingly... this is exactly the attitude Morgrimm was talking about. You do not get games because it is a boring waste of time to kick somebody that is already n the ground and you still find people online who consider themselves "likeable guys" and "fun gamers" who make a big show of stomping on your motivation. Well played.

[The_Gonk]

Perfect balance is unattainable and probably even undesirable. What, IMHO, is desirable and attainable is a game where factions are close enough to give each other a run for their money.

[shiwan8]

Reasonable balance is reachable. Perfect is too, just not a realistic expectation.

What we have here is GW making fluffy rules and forgetting that there is no point in playing if the result is known beforehand. Oh, and they try to sell models so generally new things are way better than average. Not always though. Some times it's for CSM and if for some reason it's at least ok by accident they will FAQ it to dirt. That's another topic though so lets not go there any further.

[Alaric]

Always.
But better start with a fair representation on the tabletop. I know fairness is not your cup of tea but try for once.

But interestingly... this is exactly the attitude Morgrimm was talking about. You do not get games because it is a boring waste of time to kick somebody that is already n the ground and you still find people online who consider themselves "likeable guys" and "fun gamers" who make a big show of stomping on your motivation. Well played.

I play regularly against DE guys who kick my butt because they try different things. Thats why that whole list made me laugh. By all means continue on with your preconceived notions, as I would hate to ruin a bad perception of myself.

[Mr Mystery]

Always.
But better start with a fair representation on the tabletop. I know fairness is not your cup of tea but try for once.

But interestingly... this is exactly the attitude Morgrimm was talking about. You do not get games because it is a boring waste of time to kick somebody that is already n the ground and you still find people online who consider themselves "likeable guys" and "fun gamers" who make a big show of stomping on your motivation. Well played.

Apologies if it's been posted elsewhere, but understandably I don't much fancy picking through the bickering in search of it.....

But what do you feel DE need to give them their lift? (Might necessitate a new thread of course)

[Morgrim]

At the moment, it's really hard for the vehicle hunting elements of the army to hurt heavily armoured vehicles due to hull point mechanics; the assault elements of the army struggle to make it into assault; and there is not a single anti-air element in the army.

Being a synergy-based glass cannon is fine. Having armour made of tissue paper and vehicles that are antimatter engines strapped to kites is fine. DE just need some way of returning to being a fast, manoeuvrable, hard hitting army. Give us a way to deepstrike a webway portal that our assault units can charge out of, or give wyches some ability to blunt overwatch so they can get into combat. Let our very expensive dark lances one shot light tanks again, and let massed dark lance or other anti-vehicle weaponry take down or properly cripple a landraider if we're willing to toss a few units at it. (Because at the moment my best option for killing vehicles is throw a talos at it in close combat, instead of actually using my anti-vehicle weaponry, and there is something wrong with that.) Stop making GC immune to poison, because massed poison is our only way of getting past the high toughness and high armour units. Give us something with skyfire or a flyer that can actually hit a hellturkey. Stop making craftworld eldar faster and more manoeuvrable than us, that's our hat!

And if you could convince more players that terrain is not an optional bonus and the game writers that everyone else doesn't need anti-cover on all their big weapons that would be nice too.

[Mr Mystery]

Ignores Cover is one I'm fully in tune with.

It's not a massive problem for the armies I play (Necrons, Knights and Mechanicum) as such, but it does impact the wider game. Such things should be more specialist, and something to be primarily considered when doing a city fight, rather than just a general rule on weapons which are already fairly effective without it.

So for the Dark Lance quandary, what's the fix? Better AP to make the penetrating shots hurt more, or a point higher S to help turn those glances into hits (which, if I'm getting me sums right, would be a 50% chance at S9 against Max AV 12)? Both? Or a better weapon? (edited because it appeared I was saying you can only have one of the first two options)

And as for terrain - yep. Again in total agreement. I'm soon to be assembling my gaming board, and I'm intent on having lots and lots of terrain at my disposal, and I hope to include various walkways connecting the buildings - because 3D warfare is much more fun than Planet Bowling Green.

Though of course, Planet Bowling Green can be fun for a massed tank battle, so nothing is getting glued to the board.

Further thought on Terrain or lack thereof....that's an important balancing factor in 40k, Warhammer and AoS. If the board is barren, close combat armies are at the mercy of those with competent ranged capabilities.

For a second, let us consider my burgeoning Tau force. Oh god I've got a lot of dakka. Lots and lots and lots of dakka. If there's no terrain, I have a (very boring) field day as I simply pick my targets, light them up like a Christmas Tree, and then eradicate them from existence. It denies me, as the Tau player, interesting tactical quandaries and opportunities.

I don't need to worry about expending two Markers to ignore your cover save. I'd be less inclined to field Breachers over Strike Teams - my plan with Breachers is to spot and control choke points, hopefully forcing my opponent to risk my stupidly potent short ranged firepower in order to break through.

I don't need to get clever with my Battlesuits either. I just hop into range, blast away, then fall back out of range again, rinse and repeat.

Then you have deployment itself to consider. If there's sparse cover, I can quite easily predict your deployment and subsequent strategy - if I've got MEQ or better, that's an unfair advantage, as they don't traditionally need cover so much, and often lack the firepower to quickly whittle down enemy units in cover.

This is why I enjoy city fights so much. They're harder to orchestrate from the get go, and require me to remain on my toes at all times

[Path Walker]

Its the tournament idea that maybe one big Line of Sight blocking piece of terrain and a few ruins is fine that causes these imbalances as far as I can see, a lot of the powerful units are hampered because they're big so dense terrain that they can't navigate easily or even stand it really changes their usefulness, suddenly the light zippy things look a lot better and when your wraith knights can't move anywhere because the base is too big, they've easier to deal with.

Basically, Zone Mortallis rocks.

If you can draw a Line of Sight to most of the table from any point, there isn't enough terrain, if terrain is just something gunlines are using to gain a cover save, you need more terrain with more than blocks Line of Sight. There should be one or two fire corridors where you might get a clear shot at something half the board away but any less than that and the tougher or shootier armies have the advantage.

People say orks are terrible because they can shoot a unit of 30 off the board in a turn with massed fire are missing the point here, it shouldn't be possible for your who army to all shoot that one target in any one turn because they shouldn't all be able to eaily draw a line of sight.

[grimmas]

Scenery and cover are a good example of why 40K is very very difficult (possibly impossible) to balance. Their use provides a total open system in that every game can and often will have totally different scenery and the use of which is determined by the players and ultimately can't be legislated for without changing the game into something totally different.

It also has a massive effect on the effectiveness on both units and army builds. My friends and I will often bemused by many of the "meta" issues mentioned on the Internet. We as loooong time players have developed a large amount of scenery and as such play a very different game to "tournament" players in the US for example, because they use such a small amount of scenery in ways we wouldn't.

This is just one example of this. The whole game in an open system with many variables controlled not by the rules but by the players themselves, points level, missions, scenery(both amount and construction) game type (planet strike , cities on death and so on) and that's before we mention the many situationally based unit options and unit types themselves. The game is designed to encompass all these things not just 1850 pts on planet little scenery.

That's not it say you shouldn't play tournament games but to expect rules written encompass such a large variety of player lend choices is going to lead to heartbreak

It's worth noting that WM a game that was built from the ground up (twice) to be the ultimate in competitive balance still requires a 14 page supplement for tournament balance.

Also the intended apex for 40K is not tournaments, thats probably for the early middle of your gaming curve, the true apex is when you've gone beyond that, and points values, into true scenario based stuff balanced by what works for the story and what the players know will provide a positive experience for both players.

For context don't forget this game was written in Enlgand ( not Britain in this context). And we are also the people who gave you test Cricket a game which is played for 5 days and quite often has no winner. It's all about the journey not the destination

TLDR

40k is to big and played in too many ways by too many people to provide any thing other than a nod to balance. You can tailor it to your needs but this will change the game to somthing that will only have a passing similarity to the game player by others.