It is impossible to balance 40K

[Gridlock]

None of these things require perfect balance. Perfect balance is a myth. But there is no reason why professionally paid game designers can't identify some of the more obviously over powered combinations and the clearly useless unit entries no one will ever take in a competitive list.

And when it comes to profit, beautifully detailed collectible miniatures that ALSO have good rules in the game system surely make the most money?

As competitive players we just want GW to tend towards balance, we don't expect perfection.

I agree that there´s no such thing as perfect balance, heck even in Warmachine (from what I have heard), you have to bring at least 2 or 3 lists in a serious tournament; because no single list can take everything your opponent can throw at you.
So you do your best to come up with lists you think can take most of what is out there.

Speaking of Privateer Press one thing they seem to do, that Games Workshop hasn´t done is actively participating in tournaments actually listening to their players.

Okay Asphyxious 2 is a little overpowered, okay we´ll scale him down a bit so he becomes more balanced.
Yes he´s still a nasty piece of work, and a lot of players groan when the see him, because they know they are in for a fight.
But he´s no invincible and neither is the army he´s in, there are ways for every army out there to defeat him.

GW on the other hand seems to close their ears, whenever the tournament players complain.
The problem with just one design team without serious feedback from the outside, is that while you might think your product is perfect and something makes perfect sense to you, that might not be so for an outsider.

A thing they could do is getting a hold of some people for the ETC and ask them to test out this draft to the new rules for an army and give their feedback on what they thought of it and what they might want to change.

Then take it into consideration, sure it might not give perfect balance, but I think it would be a hell of a lot better, then what we got now.

And as you said in the end that´s what most tournament players want a game that´s fairly well balanced.

[Defenestratus]

I can plug in 3 units of Warp Spiders that are functionally immune to most shooting AND they get a BS buff? Let me do that immediately!

Funny.. I've used that before.

And still lost! To a space marine player using nothing but sternguard and vanguard marines and the 1st company formation.

Amazingly the game still manages to betray conventional wisdom of the collective brainiacs on the internet.

[AlexRae]

lol No comment

Funny.. I've used that before.

And still lost! To a space marine player using nothing but sternguard and vanguard marines and the 1st company formation.

Amazingly the game still manages to betray conventional wisdom of the collective brainiacs on the internet.

[Charon]

Funny.. I've used that before.

And still lost! To a space marine player using nothing but sternguard and vanguard marines and the 1st company formation.

Amazingly the game still manages to betray conventional wisdom of the collective brainiacs on the internet.

First of all, he did not write auto-win did he?
Also you did play a top codex vs top codex. And to be honest. If you play very strong formations from a very strong codex and still lose to a fun list, you might probably be not as good as you would like to think you are.

[Andrew Thomas]

Honestly, Charon, what does skill have to do with a discussion of the (apparent) inability to balance 40k?

[Defenestratus]

First of all, he did not write auto-win did he?
Also you did play a top codex vs top codex. And to be honest. If you play very strong formations from a very strong codex and still lose to a fun list, you might probably be not as good as you would like to think you are.

Never claimed to be good at anything other than making sure that both myself and my opponent have an enjoyable game playing 40k - in other words, I win at the only game that really matters, being a good person.

Nor did I claim that his list was a "top codex". In fact, his list is built around "the rule of cool" more than the rules.

In that game, my D-cannon battery died to drop podding sternguard turn 1. My Avatar died to a deep striking mortis contemptor in an icarus drop pod all before I was able to even move it. Two out of my three war walkers died to an orbital bombardment first turn before I was able to use them. Then finally when I was able to actually bring the warp spiders in, I managed to not even do a single hull point to the contemptor and his 3 ablative HP with 30 warp spiders @ bs5 (its all the anti armor I had left as lame as it sounds).

[Charon]

Because there are people in here that use their personal experience in their local stting as an "argument" that certain units/formations/book are totally fine and balanced.
Certain players here do honestly think 40k is balanced as they are able to win with their Dark Eldar against nightmarish powerful 1k sons or lose with their Eldar to fun lists. It is hard to have a discussion about balance when there are people who will not admit that the current system is quite heavily in favor of the newer (read post necron) releases and that up to a point where it is increasingly frustration playing an army before the necron power surge.
If "I always lose to Dark Eldar with my Eldar list, so Dark Eldar are OP and Eldar need to get buffed" becomes the metric of the discussion, it is rather pointless to actally discuss the topic.

[Sly]

Opinion 2 rather negates Opinion 3, doesn't it? If we can't know anything useful about a unit until six months after its release/revision, we're talking about huge, huge portions of the player base that can't, in good faith, observe that social contract, since, again, no one knows anything. Rather paralyzing, that logic.

Of course, it's silly, because we do know quite a bit about the armies the moment they're released. 40K's present framework has been out in the open for about three years now, and the underlying engine of the game was released during the latter days of the Clinton Administration. We know what works and what doesn't. D-weapons, extreme buffs (2++ re-rollable armor saves, anyone?) and hard-counter debuffs (Invisibility) are all understood. Contra the article, the consensus that forms around new releases tends to be pretty accurate, because 40K's base system isn't particularly complicated.

At the end of the day, this article doesn't really address the main problem with balancing 40K, which is that balance is not a priority of the design team. They are not an independent entity within the structure of Games Workshop, tasked with creating the best game they can and nothing more. Within GW's internal hierarchy, the Design Studio is a component of the Sales division, and their work reflects that fact. There's no magic bullet to "fixing" 40K, but the problems aren't hard to identify.

Pretty well said.

Also, I and many others who are good with math IMMEDIATELY said that the GK Psyfleman Dread was clearly better than other comparable units. And the previous edition of the Wave Serpent. And the current edition of Wraith Knights and Scatterbikes. And that the previous edition of Mandrakes was just bad. It's not all that rare that a unit's capabilities can be seen immediately upon reading the Codex. Frankly, the only two major units that I can recall being panned or not mentioned immediately upon release was the Screamerstar with a re-rollable 2++, and Daemon Princes being worth their 300 or so pt pricetags. Other than those, there have been smart people on the internet who were ACCURATELY lamenting a unit's lack of balance within days if not hours of a release. It's just shoddy that GW releases stuff like that.

Yes, perfect balance is elusive. But most of the complaints are not about a lack of perfect balance. They're about obvious mistakes such as: why does every other Eldar unit pay a 5pt premium to go from Shuriken Cannons to Scatter Lasers, except for the one unit that most would prefer to avoid being in Bolter range, and thus can make the most of the extra 12" of range? I mean, that's a right incompetent balls-ups, and it didn't take more than a few seconds of WTF?!?! before people pointed it out. Apologize for GW for being unable to make perfect balance if you wish, that's fine... no one is going to write a perfectly balanced system. But you must accept that GW has made some seriously simple errors in balance, and that is what drives most of the complaints.

[Denzark]

Thanks Yorkie - an enjoyable read. I think for a change I agree with your conclusion but not your argument. Without clarting on at length I think it is pretty well accepted pan-community from WAAC to fluff beards, that the Design Team are heavily influenced by sales.

You also miss the preponderance of USRs that are well nigh impossible to cost in points. Back in the day points of race profiles were balanced, equipment was costed to demonstrate availability to said race. In third it was effectiveness of equipment in multiples put the price up.

Nowadays who the hell knows.

[benn grimm]

Its not impossible; far from it; I'll take 1000pts of space marines, you take 1000pts of space marines (the exact same 1000pts of space marines) and we'll fight out some battle from the age of darkness, it'll be fun. We won't use any reserves, psykers or maelstrom missions and we'll set up in exactly the same place opposite each other and play on perfectly symmetrical terrain...

Or... I can take an Ork list from the old edition (coz i hate the new one) and run it at your blood angels (from the old edition too if you fancy) until we figure out what makes a fun game. Will it be perfectly balanced? No, thank the lord. Will it be more balanced than playing some random and hoping s/he has fun like you have fun? Will it be better balanced than 40k out of the box? Hells yes's, and by reaching a consensus; by communicating and using common sense and flexibility you know what we just created? Balance. And the only balance that matters a damn.

If you take a weak list to a tourney, then you just lost in the first round, the not taking a bad list round. I've heard guys who took a whole army of dreads to a tourney moaning about how broke the game is.... If you want to have a chance at winning, take the 'broke' list and get on with it. If everybody who moaned about scat-bikes n wraithknights or grav stars, went out and bought that very army, so tourneys were composed of all the same list, or maybe two or three variations on said list; a) tourneys would have suddenly become more balanced than they'd ever been at a stroke, and b) tourney organisers would be desperately saying to themselves; how are we going to get people to stop bringing these lists so we can get back to the good old days?