Feast of Blades Will be Enacting Restrictions and Bans
EDIT: Yes, I am reading all the comments. No, I do not have the time to respond to even 1/4 of you, and will generally try to stay out of it. I appreciate all your thoughts and ideas.
This is not going to be a short post. I will do my very best to explain what Feast of Blades as a tournament is doing, and to give you some insight into the thoughts going around at the high-level organizational level. For those of you who are unaware, I am the head 40k Tournament Organizer for Feast of Blades, an annual major 40k event.
With the recent release of Stronghold Assault and Escalation, 40k is, to put it bluntly, no longer suitable as a tournament game. The inclusion of Strength D into the game, following months and months of “power combo” lists taking top tables at tournaments has made it more than evident that this game as written simply isn’t designed for or appropriate for ANY sort of high-level competitive play.
Some people think that’s a good thing, or may simply say “no duh”. Believe me, none of us are blind to this fact, it’s something we’ve all been aware of for the few decades 40k has existed. But up until this point, we’ve still pushed for competitive play and organized tournaments because they’re fun. It’s great to be able to go to a tournament for a weekend, drink beers and play games against strangers. It’s awesome to see the variety of lists, the master-level paintjobs, and the crazy conversions that people come up with. And there’s nothing in the hobby quite like seeing one of those big-event Apocalypse tables, with more Baneblades, Titans, and Thunderhawks than you’ve ever seen, flying around and fighting on the same board.
There’s no doubt that 5th edition was the closest this game has ever been to a “tournament” rule set, but 6th has turned things the other way around. This isn’t due to 6th being an innately terrible rule set, (yes, it definitely has problems, but it’s not awful) but rather due to the rapid-fire codex release scheduled creating very powerful builds and combos.
Recently, we’ve been hearing from several very reliable sources that GW has stopped their playtesting, or has at least reduced it to a very minimal amount. This jives with the releases and units we’ve been seeing show up all across the country. You’ll find mass Wraithknights, quad-Riptide, Necron Airforce, and Screamerstar as common contenders in many major (and not so major) tournaments across the country.
Can these lists be beaten? Yes. Definitely. We see top players beat them all the time. But are they fair? Do they create a fun tournament environment? To address that I’m going to take a very long quote from an article by Sirlin, a man who has designed several of his own games and rebalanced several more. I believe it cuts to the heart of the issue:
“…While I think the earlier arguments that good balance leads to problems in Chess and Starcraft make no sense at all, the argument about the metagame is much more subtle. I believed this same argument for a long time, but I don’t any more. The argument goes like this: it’s ok for a character to be too powerful because then players will try to find ways to beat that character with otherwise weaker characters who happen to be good against that particular strong character. Extra Credits further says that you explore more strategy in a game with this property than with a game with actually fair characters because with fair characters you’d be locked into doing the same kind of thing and not looking for counter-characters.”You could make that same argument about decks in Magic: the Gathering. I think this is an illusion, and I was caught in it for years because it’s kind of “conventional wisdom” and never even really questioned or talked about. I only really started to realize why this doesn’t add up when I was working on my own customizable card game. A “rich metagame” means there are lots of decks that counter other decks, and you get to sit around thinking about which deck will be common at a tournament and which you should choose in response. For example, if you discovered an unusual deck that could win 9-1 against the most of the field and lose 1-9 against part of the field, that could be a very, very strong deck. This is metagaming at its finest, yet it also leads to 100% of your games having terrible gameplay. (emphasis mine -Biscuit)
“And there’s the rub. The kind of metagame under discussion is one where global imbalance is assumed to be “good.” The assumption is that sitting down to play another player and having a advantage or disadvantage before the game even starts is a great thing. Well, it kind of sucks actually, and violates the concepts of basic fairness. You could define “the game” to be the larger thing that involves “picking a deck/character + playing it” but that’s hardly an answer. It’s just admitting that the part where you actually play is kind of sucky and unfair.
“I’ll tell you the key moment of discovery I had about this issue. I had several decks mocked up for my CCG. You would expect a variety of decks to happen to have several really unfair matchups, and for that to cause a metagame to form. The thing is, I didn’t design these decks to win a tournament, I designed them to test out how the game plays, so I used a few rules of thumb in deckbuilding that actually prevented any really unfair matches like 8-2 from happening. I figured that later when we thought about how players would really build their decks (not according to my personal rules), we’d have to figure out how to deal with those inevitable 8-2 matchups. The CCG community often assumes they are great (“it’s the metagame!”) but I think the emphasis should be on the part where you actually playing the game and making decisions. Deckbuilding is great, but not if it wrecks the fairness of individual games you will actually have to play.
“Anyway, allowing players complete freedom in deckbuilding in my game absolutely would lead to 8-2 matchups (like in any customizable card game) AND it would actually lead to worse strategy than my playtest decks! When metagaming and trying to win, you really want to take out all the “strategy” you can, and make sure you just stomp as many opposing decks as possible, even if you have pretty bad matches in there somewhere.
“You probably already see the revelation. Why not codify the rules of thumb of deckbuilding I was using into real rules of the game? Put limits on deckbuilding in such a way that still allow it, but that prevent the majority of unfair matches from happening. This seemed so obvious in hindsight.
“Now, unrelated to that, I also went to great lengths to give the player more strategic choices during a game than is usual in the genre. Tricky to do without being too complicated, but that’s another story. The bottom line is so far this game is shaping up to be a game with more strategic choices during gameplay than other similar games I’ve played AND with fewer unfair matchups. This is possible by REDUCING the importance of the metagame. It’s just more fun to have the GAME, the part where you actually sit down and play give you a) a lot of strategic options and b) as fair a match as we can give you.
“We shouldn’t dwell on this particular in-development card game though. It’s a general principle that you get more strategic depth during a game session by, well, focusing on making that as good as possible. As good as possible means putting more strategic decisions in and taking unfairness out. That’s the opposite of the intentional imbalance glorified in the Extra Credits video. It’s the opposite of making the decisions made before the game even starts become more important (necessarily making in-game decisions that much less important.)
“Making a bunch of unfair matches intentionally is just a poor man’s solution to the problem of strategic variety. In the end, that poor man’s solution constrains your strategic choices anyway, rather than opens them up. You’re constrained to playing the overpowered characters or the counters, rather than having free choice of all characters. Having a set of characters who ALL have fair matches and who ALL have a lot of strategy options makes you wonder what the point of intentionally having unfair matchups ever was in the first place.”
Obviously, there’s no way for us to make 40k into a “perfectly balanced” game without rewriting it from the ground up- no amount of banning or small rewrite is going to significantly alter the game to the point where listbuilding isn’t a major part of the game that provides a major advantage to those who do it well. To be honest, I’m not even sure such a game would be fun- to make it work, much of the character of 40k would be stripped away in the process. And even if we did, no game is perfect. (I suppose it’s another Sirlin reference, but the discussion of Chess’ evolution and current state is what I’m more interested in with that article.)
Right now top level tournament lists are incredibly polarizing, much more than they have been in a long time, and playing these lists simply isn’t any fun. No one is having a great time playing against Screamerstar, even most of the Screamerstar players I talk to aren’t having a great time playing it. The mere existence of 3+ Heldrake builds has an extreme effect on the meta, annihilating hundreds of possible builds through it’s ability to simply obliterate them. (So why even bring them?) I could go on, but I think you all know what I’m talking about.
It’s past time for tournament organizers to step up and start taking some stewardship of the game. The top lists in 40k are, as a rule, simply no fun to play or play against, and limit much of the field by being so overwhelmingly powerful against so many reasonable builds. Really, the fact of the matter is that games in 6th edition between what we would consider mid-tier lists are a heck of a lot of fun, and what most players are requesting to play.
Feast of Blades is not the only tournament who is thinking this way. I would be extremely surprised if there is a major tournament from this point forward that does not use some form of restrictions and bannings in order to create a better game. GW has made it extremely clear that they do not care to balance the game for tournament level play, or create a fun top-tier metagame, so that architecture falls to us.
We are interested in running a tournament who’s results fall more to player tabletop skill than listbuilding skill. We are interested in running an event where many builds are possible, not just a few power-and-counter builds. To that end, Feast of Blades will be enacting limits and bans.
The exact nature of these restrictions are already well into discussion and development, and will be available in their discrete form VERY soon. We know what the problem builds and combos are, now we are giving them the axe. Below, I will preview some of our potential changes:
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1.) The Grimoire of True Names from Codex: Daemons is banned
As of right now, this is the only true banning. We feel there is too much potential for abuse, and disagree with the effect it has on the army and the game.
2.) A few units will receive 0-1 status
For those of you who weren’t around when 0-1 was a thing in codecies, means that a maximum of 1 of that unit may be taken per army. These are all units whose mass inclusion limits the potential lists in the game, and will thus be restricted. (As none of them are a problem on their own.) Rest assured that this will be a very short list, we are not interested in creating very restricted armies.
3.) Supplemental Codecies will no longer be able to ally to their base codex
There will be no more self-allying, no more cherry picking the best parts of a supplement while paying none of the costs, and no more force-org bloat from doing so.
4.) Dataslates will take an ally slot
Taking units from many, many different books and ignoring the force organization chart is too much. This change will make dataslates an interesting addition to the game, without allowing for truly bizzare armies.
5.) The number of psychic mastery levels in an army will be limited
This change will eliminate a great many power combos from the game, and will stop a player from making a lot of lucky rolls on the psychic power tables to effectively win the game before it begins.
6.) Strength D is out, Lords of Battle are in
We feel the the Lords of Battle are not overpowered on their own, the fact that they give the opponent some advantages (bonus to seize, and especially victory points) balances out their fearsome firepower and powerful endurance. Strength D, however, is too powerful. This is well-known by every apoc player (and I am one of them), and has been the case for the past two editions. (Yes, it was even overpowered back in 5th, and it was much worse then.) There is some debate still going on, but it looks like S:D will become S:10, ordinance, ignores cover. That still makes it very powerful, but more in line with the price paid for the superheavy as well as it’s other weapon options. In addition, superheavies will have to start on the table.
7.) Super-forts are gone, or at least downsized
No AV15, it will be AV14 instead. Every individual fortification from Stronghold Assault is allowed, but the “network” choices are simply too big and unwieldy to allow for tournament play. (As a consolation, they’re pretty terrible, so I think it’s OK.)
8.) Dedicated transport flyers will be limited
Flyers are not the be-all end-all of this edition, but all-flyer and mostly-flyer armies change the meta in uncomfortable ways and are notoriously unfun to play against.
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For the vast majority of players, this list of changes will have little, and frequently no effect on their army build. Many of the games power builds, however, will become quite different.
We are aware that limitations such as these also create “new” power lists- after all, what was once second-tier must now be first. Perhaps. In the new environment there will certainly be builds better than others, and some that are extremely powerful. We expect that, but we also expect there to be a much greater variety of competitive options and lists vying for those spots. We also expect the game to be much more fun.
This is obviously a living document, and will be updated as time goes on. Not necessarily when a codex is released, but when we have had time to evaluate whether a certain unit, combination, item, etc. is actually very limiting to the field or not.
Our goal is to limit the game at the top end in ways that will be very small to most players in order to create a more balanced and fun tournament scene. We do not want to rewrite unit rules or entries or do things like adjust point costs, nor do we want to create massive documents that preside over army composition and limit force creation in detailed ways. We believe simple changes are for the best.
Obviously there are some who will cry foul at our attempt, or disagree with some of the things we have done. That’s fine. They can always choose to play in different events, or create their own! But I think it is worth noting that Feast is simply the first of many events that will be instituting policies like these in one form or another, so you should be prepared. It’s worth remembering that the 2013 Feast event was one of the the most by-the-book events ever run- it even used straight book missions with no modifications. If we’re the first to do this, we certainly won’t be the last.
GW is no longer creating a fun tournament environment, so it falls to us. In the same way that casual gamers are adults who can agree on how they would like to play, the tournament scene will adjust itself so that it creates fun, memorable, and challenging games of 40k.
Anything else would be a failure on our parts.
Which units are getting the 0-1 treatment?
TBA. This is purposefully vague at the moment as there is still discussion of the specifics. But the full list should be out within the week.
I don't like comp. Also under this I won't be able to play my sm list I loving bought and painted no scars/imperial fist(sentinels of Terra) for me.
Why would you not be able to play your army? If anything, look at it as a challenge to find other ways to do what you want.
I worry from your response that you may be the exact type of power-gamer that these changes are meant to address.
Oh, he is… LOL You know it Kyle.
Probably Heldrakes, Wraithknights, Centurions, Riptides, Daemon Princes off the Top Of my head
A better choice IMO rather than merely reintroducing the 0-1 tag for some units would be a Fantasy style FOC Limit of 25% of your points on Each FOC Slot, however troops have a minimum of 25% and no more than 2 of a non troop unit can be taken. Dedicated Transports point costs would fall under the allowance of the unit they are designed for. IE Drop Pods for Sternguard fall under Elite, but a Tac Sqauds would be Troops, Assault Squads would be Fast Attack, etc,
A well rounded Army should be okay, maybe make command squads not count against the HQ allowance, Certain armies that have weaker FOC slots or weak troops may suffer but those armies aren't excactly in good shape now.
I disagree with Banning the Grimoire, I would keep it make it only use able on a Daemon Save from the Daemon Codex, limit saves so no unit can have an "invuln/armor average better than" better than a 3+, what i mean by this is limit a unit to a 3++ save, and no unit can have a 2+/3++ the best would be a 2+/4++(giving an average of 3+) Assault Terminators take a hit, Seer Councils do as well and we no longer have 2++ Save Daemons
Eh, there are tons of things that are perfectly reasonable in 3s. No one's seriously complaining about even the solid options like triple Predators or Dev Squads, let alone the fluffy wacky stuff like the guy who wants to run 3 Assault Squads outside of BA, or three Broods of Raveners, or three Squads of Rough Riders.
One of the goals here is to get the biggest final difference out of the smallest change to the rules themselves, and Biscuit's changes mess with the core rules far less that your suggestions, and I think would actually do better at opening up a greater range of viable options.
Why would you 0-1 Daemon Princes? They almost always cost 250pts+ and are not even slightly overpowered.
My expectation is that if Demon prices go to 0-1 it will be because Flying Circus is simply another flavor of flyer spam.
"all-flyer and mostly-flyer armies change the meta in uncomfortable ways and are notoriously unfun to play against."
True, but…
CD with CSM (BL) Allies:
Fateweaver, LoC, Tzeentch DP from CD
Nurgle DP with Last Memory, Heldrake
4 FMCs & 1 Flyer, no duplicates.
So, why bother?
Exactly. Daemons actually require tons of skill and finesse to play with the big boys, unlike Tu and Eldar whose tactic is shoot every gun until everything is dead.
Also, Daemons are not winning big tournaments, so I don't exactly see the problem…
IT'S A FINESSE ARMY YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND.
Of Course, the only army that required more finesse was Guard back in 5th, I mean you had to choose between firing your Lascannons or moving to get your meltas/plasmas in range, that is the kind of choice that really keeps me up at night
I have watched my local Tau player shoot down and kill every daemon prince/flying greater daemon in the list by turn 2 or 3.
And many other armies are completely unable to do this; this was the point of the entire article. Just because there is one (or two) counters to an army doesn't mean it's balanced.
The flying counters are there with fortification gun emplacements, heck now you can have more than 1, and your own aircraft. Everyone has this stuff and every new codex has more options to counter flyers.
A) An all flier list is just one example of the most broken aspects of the game, there are others that were listed in the OP
B) Dark Angels still don't have any good anti-air and MUST buy fortifications to make up for this. "Everyone" doesn't have the same access unless you start buying larger kits.
C) Where you see balance I see ham-fisted attempts to sell fliers, fortifications and super heavies.
Well it would depend of course if 0-1 Choices were limited to the army or just detacthment, I cannot in good faith say Its okay for a CSM/Daemon Player ally in an Extra DP, using allies if we aren't allowing Tau/Eldar to ally with their supplements for their extra big guys.(Fair is fair after all)
Also if LoCs were to be considered 0-1 Choices I do not think making Fateweaver Counting as the LoC slot would be a complete surprise. Much like any named character that is based on a generic choice typically follows the same rules, if Chapter Masters were 0-1(because you can't have 2 presidents) would you allow Calgar and a Generic Chapter Master?
Like I said earlier I personally believe limiting where points could be spent is better than limiting the amount of a given unit that can be taken
Allying in a different codex is different from allying in supplements.
Technically it isn't supplements are essentially standalone armies that GW was to lazy/cheap to print out a a whole separate codex for. Imagine they could just as easily reprinted every single Tau unit entry in the Farsight Enclave book but substitute in the new wargear in place of the old one, and added Bonding Knife Ritual and baked those points in. If they had done so would it be any different than what supplements are? (besides now needing 2 books instead of just 1)
They have been doing this for years with the Marine Chapters and still are (Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves and until recently Black Templars) The intent of the intent of disallowing supplements from allying with themselves is to prevent them from cheesing the 0-1 requirement (as well as ending the cherry picking/abusing wargear combos) and for all intents and purposes a Daemon Prince in the CSM book is the same as a Prince in the Daemons Book, (and the same as a Black Legion Daemon Prince) the difference is just the wargear options , just like Devastators from Dark Angels are the same as Codex Marines.
I am just expressing my Opinion on the issue, while it technically would be allowed, I would probably downgreade someone's comp/sportsmanship score, much like a Marine player trying the same with Blood Angel/Dark Angel/Space Marine ally abuse
It Depends on the powers/gifts they roll, a FMC, with Iron Arm, Enfeeble, Warp Speed, 4+ FNP, Rerolling Invulns saves even at 300+ points 2-3 of these can be fit into a list and these can really tear through armies with little active psyker defence(IE rune staffs and shadows in the warp), or anti air(most 5th ed armies and CSM)
Also I would REALLY like to see any armies with more than 1 Heldrake that have even placed in the top 10 at a big tournament.
I think it's less that these armies are winning major tourneys, and more that multiple Heldrake lists are one of the biggest culprits in terms of invalidating massive numbers of builds. Just because they don't win against some of the other top lists (because really, what's a baleflamer against 2++ rerollable?) doesn't mean that they don't have a MASSIVE impact on what is considered viable to take to a big event. Things like Screamerstar and Flying Circus suffer against tons of bodies that can tie them up or force a crapton of grounding tests, but with multiple 'Drakes on the table bodies in the open just become fodder, as one example.
I would suggest that banning HELDRAKES or making them a 0-1 choice is not the correct path as nobody cares about a drake with a hades autocannon – the limitation would need to be on the wargear.
I don't think they should be banned, because they're the best thing CSM armies have right now. and while i don't believe in spamming them i've been running one just to keep up with the newer codex's really powerful units. But i think making the 'drake 0-1 is not a bad idea, its a unit that is abused way too often to go unaddressed.
Couldn't they just take away the turret that would make things a little easier to deal with.
This is it! These rules are the ones that should be used in every game! I know recently, esp. on this website, people have been freaking out about the escalation expansion. Yet how many have done their research. Many lords of war are very expensive and are balanced (sort of). The only "overpowered" addition is strength D, yet very few lord of war actually have this, being the eldar revenant, the shadow sword, the tessearact arc and transcendent ctan. Note however that one the two necron ones, it is an optional power that can be chosen among many. I really do like the idea of making d st 10, ordanance ignore cover. Even not being able to ally with oneself and dataslates (and thus formations taking an allied slot) reasonable and making the experience more fun. Very good job whoever wrote these, we might actually start using these at my local gaming group.
Everyone freaking out about the D Units is still valid even tho there are only a few, because those are the ones that are actually going to be taken in a competitive setting.
Look at how CSM and the Helldrake turned out. Same thing will happen here.
True. But no one's even giving the dust time to settle. Just freakin' out before seeing the aftermath is silly. I've only seen one battle report with a Str D weapon, and that was with the Revenant (Which is stupid anyways) against a list that was pretty bad at taking it out (Daemons with no real competitive pull). Three extremely lucky shots with Str 8 weapons can take out a Superheavy on turn 1. Yeah, that's really hard to ask for, but….it's sort of the point. Don't take three Str 8 weapons, have 10+, and you can deal with those things. Str D can't kill your entire side in one turn. Just spread out and get ready. They still need LoS anyways. It is a major thing to adjust to, but most people are just crying about it instead of working around it like everything else that has come in the game.
You're missing the point. Just by having S:D exist in the game means that lots of unit choices are no longer even slightly viable because their points cost takes into account their extreme survivability (such as Paladins or Nob Bikers, there are many others). If you have a freely available unit that straight out ignores all those multiple layers of protection (Armour, FnP, Cover, Invuls, Multiple Wounds) then it means you're wasting any points you spent on those layers of protection and may as well just take 5pt models like Guardsmen, Boyz or Gants, because then at least you're only losing 50pts per shot instead of 500.
All of the above simply leads to a reduction in variety in army lists, as the more expensive and elite models get left out in favour of massed cheap units. Which is a bad thing.
Downgrade all Battle Brothers one step and you'll neuter a lot of the combos.
This would make a lot of sense.
I'd be fine with that, though I don't think you even have to go that far. Just remove the ability for battle brother ICs to join other units. They can't get in an ally's ride, don't let them join units. O'vessa Star and Seer Council both get dialed back without becoming worthless.
This is what I was thinking as well. Just need 1 other mod to effect the 2++'s.
That's our local solution at the moment, we'll see how it goes.
A year ago I would've cried foul at this, but now I'm extremely interested in how you implement this. Many, many games implement bans at competitions, and I see no reason that 40k should be any different. Restrictions breed creativity, or something to that effect. I also think that bans are just a better way to handle things than comp, since comp rarely actually gets people to remove things from their list.
To take things one step further, do you think it would be worthwhile creating different formats or metagames with their own individual banlists a la MTG or Smogon's Pokemon tiers, so that individual organisors can tailor the hardness of their event to what they want? It'd work well for pick-up games as well, you just ask people if they want a game of "Legacy 40k" or whatever, both people can therefore have an agreed upon level of hardness without their own pre-conceptions affecting their judgement.
I would think that will happen anyway, as it is notoriously difficult to get event organizers to agree on anything, and everyone likes a different fix when we're all playing game designer.
Seems very reasonable. I would suggest that Strength D be changed to S10, ignores invulnerable. There already is a lot of ignore cover and 2++ units are still going to be very powerful under this format.
Maybe S10 AP1 ordnance, "overpowered"*
*overpowered – any save taken against this weapon that is normally better than 5+ is reduced to 5+
I like this really hard.
That works but doesn't make a lot of sense fluff wise. (Cover save of a tree and a fortification shouldn't be the same). Maybe add back ignore cover, or just give it a blanket -2 or -3 to saves.
I prefer S10/AP1/re-roll successful saves. That way it's not specialized against any particular type of save, but good against all of them.
I'd be largely ok with this.
What 2++ units? You did read the part where the Grimoire of True Names got banned, right?
Invulnerable saves are very expensive on most models, all those become unplayable as soon as you can simply ignore them.
"In addition, superheavies will have to start on the table."
What about superheavy flyers?
That was my first thought when I read that, as well.
they start deployed in hover mode?
Even the ones that don't have hover mode?
Them tiny support wings on the Thunderhawk just have to flap furiously. Have faith in the Omnissiah! Gravity is for heretics!
To be fair, given the Imperium "Flying Anvil" design principle, I suspect they probably feel gravity is optional…
Faith in the omnisiah will free your souls from the chain of gravity. Sieg Zeon
obviously this is a work in progress. FOB has collectively decided that they WILL be using bans & list building restrictions, specifically what restriction is still up in the air.
^^^^^
Will jerseer 2+ reroll be impacted as well?
well if type d weapons are str10 ignore cover, yes, they go through their armor and and ignore their jink save…they still have invulns but they are much easier to kill…
they will probly fall under the limited psyker mastery levels.
Its hard to believe you guys have done this. I have attended feast of Blades before and even helped sponsor one at our local shop (I paid their package out of my pocket) I assure you , you lost a supporter as long as the 2 invul re rollable ban is in effect.
D weapons is understandable but 2 invul re roll is part of the game and I personally do not play it and have beaten it in a tournament setting (just like you mentioned) . My advice is that people who play in tournaments should not support this silly banning and learn how to play the game better.
Agreed. I use this combo and it is far from unbeatable.
To counter it, shoot the Grimoire bearing demon prince first, then shoot the Tzeentch chicken the following turns.
If you are shooting aganist a 2++ rerollable, you're doing it wrong.
Shooting the bearer out of a unit of screamers is far from being easier, especially for some armies. Don't try to simplify the complicated to lesser it's effect.
"Part of the game" is not a valid defence when creating a list of rules that alter the game.
You need to tell us WHY you think it should deserve to remain in the game. What does it add? Is it more fun? More variety? More tactics or strategy?
As far as I can see, it does none of the above (admittedly, it's a little subjective) and so I have no problem with it being taken out.
Actually, what it does is that it gives a reason for more armies to take tarpit units. Since the Screamerstar doesn't have Hit & Run, it can be held up by a mob of Zombies or an IG Blob.
I think the counterargument would be "it's not broken, so don't fix it." Sure, 2++ rerollable is really good, but it's eminently counterable- if the other guy goes first, if you fail the Grimoire (1/9 chance even with Fatey, and I've lost games to worse odds than that), if they negate it with Misfortune, if they fail to cast a power, etc, etc. There's tons and tons of things that can go wrong with the plan, just as with any deathstar unit.
When it works, it's essentially impossible to kill, but even that doesn't actually win you a game.
"When it works, it's essentially impossible to kill"
You're right. We should have more units in this game that are "essentially impossible to kill". That absolutely makes the game more fun.
Hell, GW already released the perfect counter to Screamerstar anyway…D weapons! Why bother trying to counter the unit? Just blow it off the board with a D weapon. It's way easier. Now we just have to wait for the next supplement, which will release an even bigger unit than the Lord of War that has a weapon that kills any LoW on a 2+, and on a 6 will collect your opponent's tears and form them into a new super-unit made of rainbows.
Also, I'm going to call it now: next supplement will release the new "Titanknight Lords", which will be 5 Titans that form into one super Titan. I'm calling mine Voltron, which has no irony whatsoever.
The problem with "the counter to Screamerstar" as D weapons is that they remove any reason to bring in all expensive models that are expensive because of good saves to the tournament. Terminators, Centurions, Obliterators, Dread Knights etcetera… plus expensive vehicles. Russes, Land Raiders, etc. So to solve one relatively minor problem, we introduce far more balance issues
BTW, while Screamerstar is extremely difficult to kill while all of its buffs are up, it CAN be tarpitted by a ton of units. And given that it's a 600+ pts unit, tying up that many points for a few turns can lose the game for the Daemon player.
Lastly, Hell, GW already released the perfect counter to Screamerstar anyway… Rune weapons!
sure so lets all play either bugs or guard for tarpit units, and ally in space wolves so we can bring a rune weapon along… that solves everything for everyone who plays every army on the table!
Planning on (a) going first, or (b) my opponent failing a single critical dice roll is not tactics. It is not tactics when you plan for your opponent to make a mistake in target priority (refer to: AP's previous article on just that subject) so why is it a valid tactic to stop screamer-star or seer-star? short answer: its not.
You mean, "ally in" Guard or SW. But if you think about it, who can't bring in SW or Guard? Or has no options for putting down a large mass of Fearless blobs either inherently or with other Allies?
DE: Beastmasters with 40+ wounds in the unit, plus a Farseer with the Shard to make them Fearless. Heck, if the Farseer gets Fortune, they might even beat the Screamerstar.
Eldar: Same as DE but with reversed Allies.
Tau: You expect to get beat in CC. Shoot the others, or hire 60 Ork Mercs who will protect you from CC, score, kill some infantry, and tie up the big, bad Screamerstar for quite a while.
Daemons: Heh. Mirror matchup, or run mass Beasts or Hounds. Or Flying Circus.
There are similar suggestions to be made for pretty much every Codex. Pretty much everyone has some option to deal with Screamerstar. And to deal with Flyers. And to deal with Seer Council. And to deal with Land Raiders. Granted, you may not be able to make a list that can deal with the Council, and the Screamerstar, and 3 Land Raiders, and 4 FMCs… but that's not because Screamerstar is broken. It's because sometimes you can't cover all of the bases at the same time.
And you just missed the whole point of the article. If every Army has to be built to counter one specific Build, that Build is fucking up the metagame, reducing viable options, and making the game boring.
You missed the point of my point… I'm saying that you can build to beat that specific build, if that build worries you so much. And that these "build to beat" counters are not so ridiculous that they invalidate your army in general.
Yes, "bring melta weapons" is a reasonable argument to saying "how do I handle Land Raiders", and it's reasonable because it doesn't have to break the list for most lists.
I think that the same holds for Screamerstar. You may have to dedicate 300-400 pts to a unit that can handle the Screamerstar, whether by beating it, blocking its powers, or tarpitting it… but that doesn't break most builds, because it's not like those 400 pts are going to do nothing versus other lists. There is a big difference between saying "every Army has to be built to counter", and saying "every Army has to have something in it to counter". Especially when that "something in it" is a good unit on its own.
It's not like Rune Priests or Fearless Beastmaster units are a bad thing to bring. Maybe they're not the best for all occasions, but they're generally good units. And my point is that you can fight some of these extreme builds by including decent units that are still good in TAC lists.
The point is clearly not "can you deal with that army", the point is that so few builds can, it's simple presence in the tourney limits the look of the whole tourney scene. This is bland and many players do not find the game fun when they have to build an army to handle once specific opponent list. He specifically calls out the Heldrake as single handedly eliminating hundreds of potential lists.
Personally, I like playing a competitive game, but GW has become so broken, I have to retool my army every time a new codex or supplement drops. The new codex should fit into the meta of an edition, not break it…unless you're a model company and not a game company.
Goodness the heldrake is so easily countered with a balanced list utilizing transports, fortifications, aircraft, and anti air firing units built into newer codexes, surely the choice is there.
Nice of you to cherry pick something Abusepuppy said. Why don't you also quote the paragraph before it where he completely outlined how many things can and do go wrong?
You missed the reading comprehension part where his second statement contradicts his first statement.
In essence, "The Screamerstar is totally something you can counter, but actually it's impossible to kill".
"Counter" is not a synonym for "Destroy".
WHEN it works, it's impossible to get rid of.
Except that it very often does not work. That was the point.
except it works 8/9 times …. an exemplary track record tbh, it is also absurdly strong against things not running a tar pit. If your army requires other armies to run a tar pit (which most armies have to ALLY for) you are poisonous to the rest of the game.
No, the Grimoire works 8/9 times… while Fateweaver is alive. Which you shouldn't leave him, and he's a lot more fragile than most FMCs. Also if they pass their psychic check- which is a 15% failure right there as well (unless they got multiple Forewarnings, which is possible.)
And that's assuming you don't have a debuff power of your own (Misfortune) on them, that you didn't negate their power (Rune Priest) or their Daemonic Gift (Dark Excommunication) or snipe their character (the bearer of the Book doesn't benefit from it).
And that also assumes they got to go first and put all their buffs up- half the time you'll go before them, either by rolling higher or by Seizing. And you know what that unit is without all its fancy buffs? It's meat. 26 T4/5++ wounds is really not that hard to kill at all, and the more models you drop then and there- even if you don't wipe the unit- the less it can do. Four Heralds and one Screamer flying around is a LOT less scary and a ton more vulnerable, even with their buffs up.
Planning on going first or planning on your opponent to fail a single critical dice roll is neither a winning strategy nor is it a fun strategy. This is the crux of the issue here – not that it is possible to beat unit X or Y, but that a significant portion of the community is put-off by the need to design around the next broken combination.
You may be one of the few in the community who enjoys that prospect but the fact is that you are in the minority. If FOB ONLY caters to the players like you, the majority will cease attending (this is evident now based on recent tournament showings) and FOB will not be able to offer a tournament that caters to the needs of either the majority or the minority.
All I'm hearing from you and the people who share your point is, "I have something that's POINTEDLY OVERPOWERED. But because it has a theoretical percentage chance of being beaten, it's actually A-Ok."
So I could have some sort of unit that wins the game if I roll ten 6s in a row? Eventually I'm going to roll that, might be in a game against you. Then what are you left with?
Point being, just because it CAN be beaten doesn't mean it's fair to anyone not running a hard-counter (Oh wait, there aren't any) or who don't want to be forced to build a soft-counter to one specific 'strategy' (sarcasm) which otherwise completely walks all over them. That is the very essence of not being fair. When you show me that the majority of players with random, non anti-Screamerstar lists can at LEAST 5-5 Screamerstars, I might actually take that viewpoint to be worth something.
Until then, like anyone else who has an OP beatstick, all they'll do is be biased towards it when it comes time to defend it.
If that's all you are hearing, then you are not paying attention. It's not pointedly overpowered, you can manage it with smart play, good tactics, and strategy, and it completely sucks and is an easy win when it rolls bad.
>> LEAST 5-5 Screamerstars
Hand me any tournament list, at random, and I'll go more then .500 against Screamerstar.
Seriously. Learn to play the game before you think you enough to start changing it.
what everyone replying to this is forgetting is the fact that the Original article is encouraging more in-game strategy with its decisions and less "determine the outcome of this game before it even starts" list building and random dice roll outcomes that no one has control over.
As it stands, the player has no control on when someone brings a screamer star, nor when a screamer star gets all its necessary powers off, nor whether a sufficient tarpit unit is present to "Tie up" said screamer star. Simply listing what players SHOULD or should NOT do before the game even begins is like saying "Roll a 6 to win, if you do this, you instead roll a 5+ to win, if you bring this particular unit, you instead roll a 2+ to win"
This is also why heldrakes are such a big issue. yes you can bring interceptor fire, yes you can bring sky fire, and yes you could bring monstrous creatures, but the fact of the matter is that making range and armor almost a non issue for removing large chunks of an army from the table while avoiding 90% of the retaliation that can be tossed at it is poor balance. Even when everyone can get access to a Quad gun or something similar, if your defeat is determined by whether you brought a skyfire interceptor weapon or not, then the game has issues to address, because thats less viable variety.
Long story short, encouraging the inclusion of specific counters is not what game balance is about, its about giving every unit tactical value so that it has a reasonable chance against most otherwise equal armies, regardless of whats in either army.
When its all said and done, if your defeat is obvious before you even get to deploy an army, thats what this article is trying to solve.
D-weapons are as much 'part of the game' as 2++ rerollable saves now. Neither really should be in a tournament 40k game.
Yes, screamerstar is beatable if you have the right tools in your army, but not every army does.
clearly you missed the point of the article. The discussion isn't about the folks who want to bash face against these hard lists. The discussion is about the folks who DONT WANT TO & are staying home because they're not prepared to subject themselves & their pocketbooks to the current meta of stupid combos. When you consider that tournament players make up maybe 50% of the gaming community & hardcore, top table tournament players make up maybe 10% of that market you're focus on "let us bring everything that is dirty and hard and whoever goes first wins most of the time" is leaving 95% of the gaming community (or 80% of the tournament community) out in the cold.
Tournaments and gaming events are losing money through attendance because casual gamers who attend tournaments for nothing more than an excuse to interact with fellow hobbyists & have several fun games over a weekend are not coming. Thus the scene must evolve or die.
This. All of this.
"When you consider that tournament players make up maybe 50% of the gaming community & hardcore"
Not even close…. maybe 8 to 10 %..
They are just very loud
Nail on the head.
Love all of these, only worry is the psyker master level limits. As a grey knights player almost all of my units are psykers…
Many units are exempt from counting towards this limit, such as units with Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers, psychic vehicles, etc.
What about Tyranids? Any nid army that wants to stay out of the bottom 10% of a tournament is chock full of psykers.
There's quite a few exceptions, and 'nids will certainly even get another look once their new 'dex drops. I'm not interested in banning on sight, only if it becomes a problem, so we're trying to be as lenient as possible.
Awesome, thanks for the reply!
And the one Thousand Sons fan who was going to run a fuffy Rubric Marine army in a tourney is out-of-uck too… Every squad contains a Mastery Level 1 Sorcerer
He *just* said that there will be exemptions, let's give the man a chance before we assume everything.
Look at the time stamp, he and I were apparently typing at the same time.
yeah but he's going to lose anyway
Im all for limiting things, but outright ban of grimoire gimps daemons too much. would rather see limiting invuls to a 3++, as you still have eldar with a 2++ re-roll or 6 wave serpents. sleep on this more before making any definitive announcements please.
Eldars is a cover save that can be neglected. Also only one character can have it and as a result he loses IC.
I love all the screamer star players crying here.
I think that just not letting it stack with a 4++ psychic power should be enough. 3++ re-rolling 1's is much better than 2++ re rolling 1's. and i think it is more in the spirit of what the designers were aiming for I think.
I concur the Grimoir would have been balanced better if it was a +2 to invulnerable save to a limit of 3++, to just knee jerk say "BANNED" lacks creativity or fairness. Codex Daemons is a low save army at 5++ that any list designed to deal with hordes will table as it attempts to cross the table and engage in melee, especially seeing as most models are only T4/3 in the codex besides monstrous creatures.
People are referring to jetseer councils, not the Mantle.
If removing a single optional item of wargear nerfs an entire codex to be no longer competitively viable, then it was a god-awful codex to begin with.
Eldar have no way to get a 2++ unless running Dark Eldar allies (who are terrible), and even then it's a single Independent Character who gets ID'd by S6 which is a vastly different concept to a unit of 10 models with T4 and 2W plus characters.
Chaos players as a whole agree with this…the book and the demon chicken are the only things holding their codices up right now…
From what I hear, flying circus is till doing well.
Please reference which big tournaments flying circus is winning?
Plus, Eldar does not need 2++ saves to work, all they need it wave serpents completely blowing away everything with 60" guns.
You don't have to WIN a tournament to be doing well/too well. There's always one or two lists above combos that are too strong EXCEPT for the most broken. Just because a combo or list isn't THE most broken, doesn't mean it doesn't need to be nerfed because of what it does to the playing environment.
Get out of your shallow thinking.
>> Get out of your shallow thinking.
:o)
Alright, so give evidence that Flying Circus is doing so well it is a degenerate list and can only be managed by banning/restricting its components.
as a life long chaos player I disagree with your statement.
Chaos players who happen to be poor generals may agree with you however
Life Long is irrelevant. This codex is not the 5th edition codex, is not the 4th edition codex, is not the 3rd edition, or 2nd edition codex.
way to contribute, thanks for coming out. Did you have a point or did you just need to add your 2c?
I think your handle is looking rather clever today, CH.
every now & then I try and add something of value that isn't simple trolling or flaming of Abuse Puppy.
Codex Chaos Daemons is a cool and fun codex to play but it does heavily lean on the grimoir to increase the survival of its naturally low save units.
And yes allying in HQ choices from codex dark elder completes the warlock/seer star combo.
You might lean on it. I personally don't. I haven't written a list yet that depends on it for survival or victory.
DA are definitely not terrible. Go find a player who knows what he's doing & I guarantee you will have your hands full.
I didn't say they were terrible overall, I said they were terrible allies for Eldar because they add nothing we don't already have outside of adding Baron to a Jetseer unit. We don't need Venoms, we don't need blasterborn, we don't need Ravagers. If an ally isn't filling a hole in your list then it's a bad ally choice.
Dark Eldar are a sleeping monster. They either destroy or get destroyed. When they destroy a list, I've either tabled or left a few models standing. I would never take Dark Eldar as allies. But I usually make them the main branch and add Eldar allies in. So I'm not sure if you mean Dark Eldar Allies is horrible or Dark Eldar are horrible.
Seers 2+ save is atleast a cover, and seer will likely fall under the limited mastery levels
I think this is great. Can't wait to see you develop it.
Many armies can deal with screamerstar, I would suggest the current daemon book is rather underpowered and that the grimoire (whether on a star or something else) at least levels the field a little bit for them.
evening the field by having one superhard unit that 95% of the community does not have fun playing against is a problem
Well that sucks I was thinking about attending feast in the next year or two. But their is simply no way I will play in a comp tournament. I respect their decision and they absolutely have the right to do as they want but I'm having a blast playing the game as is and will continue to do so.
Expect that most major tournaments will be going to a "tournament 40k" system. I suspect you won't be playing in any major tournaments within six months if you aren't willing to accept a modified rules set. 40k has become untenable for balanced competitive play. That's not to say these decisions are the end all be all or what will shake out as the standard for TOs, but it's a starting place. This is not comp system where soft scores will affect your ranking, rather a modification as to what is allowed. As has been pointed out, many major game systems do this if the base rules set does not lend itself to balanced competitive play.
They're only trying to tone down the overpowering reach of models, options, and combinations that kill the game for everyone who isn't a victory-over-all addict.
There's meta, which is already deplorable, and then there's when meta goes too far and becomes what we have now. "Patently unbeatable killing machine! You can only stop it if you're lucky, there's no surefire way that almost every codex can even slow it down, let alone kill it!"
If you're not going to show up because the OP crap is being made more tolerable so things are more fair for people on the whole, then obviously you're one of those people who relies on said OP crap. Basic deductive logic.
Im interested on Kirbys thoughts for 3++…..
Im interested on Kirbys thoughts for 3++con…..
It'll come – I have been massively busy at work but I think we need all the major TOs to sit down and work it out. I'm fine for modifications – we've done it since Day 1 without mysterious terrain, etc. but we all need to do something of a similar note otherwise it becomes everyone's own little version of 40k. Little changes we see across tournaments are natural but if we have some people 0-1ing, others doing this, others doing that, etc. then 40k fragments into a crazy pile of homebrew everywhere and the national/international tournament scene flounders to obscurity and our game hits a rock bottom even 4th edition can't match.
Biscuit,
Bravo. I will email you. I am thinking the same thing for my GT.
If the Heldrake makes the 0-1 list, please consider allowing a second one with a Hades as Chaos has very little in the AA department.
Agreed. I would say that Heldrakes need to be controlled, but rather than a 0-1 restriction on Heldrakes I’d like to see a 0-1 restriction on Baleflamers specifically.
The question is whether that will have any impact on the fact that 90% of all CSM armies take Heldrakes over any other FA choice? After all, even without the Baleflamer it's still one of the toughest models in the entire game that's effective against all targets.
And if you restrict the Heldrake and Dedicated Transport Flyers, suddenly you don't NEED all that much anti-air, which puts older books without Skyfire back onto equal footing (Space Wolves, Dark Eldar et al).
Heldrakes with Autocannons are effective anti-tank choices with a bit of utility and a bunch of resiliency measures. Heldrakes with Baleflamers are absolute infantry annihilators, and incredibly reliable at said job.
Its like; i want to have two heldrakes to keep up with other lists, but i want to be limited to one so everyone has to start using the other fast attack options in the book. Because chaos bikers are good and spawn are worth the points and warp talons are…. well bikers are good.
I agree, do not ban the Grim of true names. Make a ruling where it does not stack with other abilities, or a 2++ cannot be rerolled, or something along those lines. As some have said, seercouncil can potentially pull this off.
I also am not sure on the Psyker mastery limit. That does hurt armies who are supposed to be based on army wide psykers. Maybe limit the number of lvl 3 in an army. Or maybe only so many powers may be cast from a squad, regardless of who many psykers are in it. Or limit how many can be in a squad.
I'm not fond of #3, allying with suppliment, is good sometimes, but I can live with this ruling if it sticks.
for 0-1. Maybe consider 0-2. normally two of the units are tough, but not unstoppable to a balanced army.
Actually, a more convincing Argument for allowing Supplements to ally with parents. Why would this be banned? normally because it allows extra of the best units to be taken? (heldrake, riptide etc?) I'm assuming these are the units that would receive the 0-1 limitation, and thus allying wouldn't matter.
Would marines still be allowed to ally with themselves? How about just say units cannot be taken from both books. So you can't take a Farsight and a normal riptide when allying together. Marines can't bring whitescar bikes and iron hand bikes. I don't know, still spit balling Ideas.
Too many changes too fast without any proper playtesting is bad. It's amusing that the article references GW stopping any real internal testing before releasing stuff, yet just tries to address issues without playtesting the results itself. If I can't play my army the way I want to because I have to adjust to tournament meta kinda blows, but so does not playing my army the way I want to because I have to adjust to a tournament FoC.
How do you know they haven't been playing with these rules for the last 4 months in their own games?
Apart from that, how would you suggest playtesting rules for a major tournament? It seems the only way to playtest them is to put them in place, and see what the results are.
I would suggest attempting to treat the random psychic powers like fantasy: each power may only be selected once per army unless a particular caster has loremaster (or its 40K equivalent such as Be'lakor)
I am not a daemons player but I have to say that the grimoire is really what keeps them in the top tier. In the end the grimoire relies on a lot of rolls and the warp storm table plus failing the roll can easily make that unit very vulnerable for a turn, not to mention turn 1 they are mincemeat against alpha striking wave serpents. 300+ point characters with a 4++ or worse spells disaster.
Not to mention with the grimoire gone jetseers can still have their cake and eat it too.
Monobuilds are bad. They're bad for the game, and they're bad for the players who use the army. If you can't keep an army in the top tier without a single item of wargear that relies on having a Special Character + Deathstar unit then that's a bad army, and no amount of crutches will help.
Daemons are a good Codex without the Grimoire.
But, that said, the Grimoire is not so overpowered that it needs to be banned.
So, in the end, I would be against this particular ban. Bring Rune Priests or bring tarpit units or bring MSU and let the Screamerstar eat a single 90pt unit a turn.
Not everyone plays Wolves. Not everyone should HAVE to play Wolves. Not everyone brings just masses of units. Not everyone SHOULD HAVE TO. If the current meta is so far gone that a single item of wargear forces you to build lists using all sorts of FOC trickery just to have a shot at slowing it down, then it //NEEDS// to be stopped, because that's only fun for the person who gets to have a nearly unstoppable combo that will 8 or 9 out of 10 times absolutely wreck everyone else who showed up and didn't want to be a cheap little bastard like that person.
You really need to stop commenting and start reading.
You've made it wonderfully apparent that you have much to learn.
It really sounds like he has never actually played any of these lists, but is still condemning them.
You're acting as if the meta is hinging upon the grimoire. Daemons are barely making showings in the top levels at events, and Tau and Eldar are keeping steady unoppressed domination. Why do Daemons need a bump down? All that will do is definitely make sure every army in the top rankings is Tau/Eldar.
you're kind of wrong here. Daemons are making a showing & I believe that many tournaments ran through the summer & fall showed a significant number of Daemon players in the top 5. Please review some of the tournament result analysis articles on BoLs for details.
And they were not until Eldar and Tau hit tables with tons of ignores cover shooting….and there are 2 top Daemon builds both which are hurt by losing the Grimoir.
What you are saying is akin to me saying…lets ban serpent shields…or marker lights…
If you don't see the difference between:
A 50pt Wargear Choice taken only by a single HQ once per army, useable on a single unit to improve only their saves, and requiring upwards of 500pts investment to make work…
And Markerlights; which are useable by any number of units, can be given to about a dozen units freely, cost around 10pts, require no points investment to make work, and provide numerous situational tactical benefits…
Then I can't even be bothered talking to you.
And also, how the frak does cover-ignoring shooting screw Daemons over? Apart from Nurgle then they're the least cover-reliant army in the entire game.
Wow, this entire comment showcased your lack of reading comprehension and why you shouldn't be commenting on the issue at all. You have no idea what you are talking about or what is even being talked about.
"Then I can't even be bothered talking to you"
Seeing as you couldn't even be bothered to read his comment properly in the first place, that is no shock.
So why don't you tell me, instead of just throwing out insults?
Or do you think the Grimoire, Serpent Shields and Markerlights are the same thing as well?
"So why don't you tell me, instead of just throwing out insults?"
This. Why do some people think saying just "pff, I'm obviously smarter than you, simpleton" is a legitimate counter to any statement?
Prove it, smartass.
serpent shields are broken & should be limited to a one use only (had I written the rule the range would be 24", and it would be a one shot only & the eldar player loses their protection for D3 turns rather than just the turn used.
Grimiore isn't broken in & of itself, however when used the way the community does in the particular combo we've discovered it is broken (relying on your opponent to go 2nd or fail a 1/9 chance roll is NOT an effective strategy to win)
Markerlights are fundamental to the Tau army & are not DIRECTLY the cause of the problems with Tau – those are more related to the significant ability to output damage per point coupled with very good survivability on the (non-troops) options in the codex either through good saves or great mobility (or both)
>> (relying on your opponent to go 2nd or fail a 1/9 chance roll is NOT an effective strategy to win)
You don't need to rely on that, though. It makes things a lot easier, but Screamer star is very beatable even when it "works."
That comes off as pretty biased, Tau player much? I bet you see no problems with a buff commander then?
Here's a quote from a post by me a few days ago in the "Dataslates" topic:
"Frankly the amount of attention Tau is getting from GW is pissing me off slightly now… Or maybe it just feels like they're getting more attention than other armies because THE INTERNET WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT THEM."
So no, I don't play Tau. I don't even like them that much, falling squarely into my "Meh" category of armies.
But seriously, you can't compare a unique named wargear item to a system of interdependent buffs that are a part of pretty much every unit in a codex. It just isn't a valid comparison in the slightest. It's like saying windfarms are better than giant squid.
If you want to compare the PEN chip, the SNS or any of the rest of the stupid experimental crap Tau commanders can strap on that sounds like the latest console release/sexually transmitted disease to the Grimoire of True names, then go ahead (for whatever it'll get you), but don't compare it to what is effectively an armywide USR.
Both Nurgle and Tzeentch can use cover saves to greatly enhance their survivability often at 2/3+, but Tau just ignore the cover save and knock them off the table, as well as serpent shields with near 100% reliability. 5++ is not that buff, its nice but not worth bragging about. I play daemons and it is all to easy to be tabled by Tau and Eldar based on not going first or missing just one die roll. Remember folks Daemons randomly roll for their wargear, and sometimes you plain fail a 3+ roll even with a reeoll, and don't forget were the only army that on our turn can roll a 4 on the warpstorm table and our army looses a +1 to our save table wide.
Exactly. If it weren't for Tau and Eldar ignoring all cover way too easily, there wouldn't necessarily be such a huge need for the grimoire.
Armies like Guard, Nids, Necrons etc don't seem to have a problem with it, and they don't have the native 5++. Like I said, Nurgle obviously is neutered by it because you're paying points through the nose for Shrouded on everything, but I don't see the removal of cover as being the reason Tau and Eldar can deal with Daemons – I think it's far more due to torrent of reliable high Strength fire.
Are you smoking or snorting something? Did you really just trivialize using cover saves to keep scoring troops alive in a game where 5/6 of the missions are objective based and only troops can hold/score them.
I have no idea what you read into my comment, but I'll prove this statement with simple math:
"Daemons are the least cover reliant army in the entire game".
A Daemon behind a Forest, Hill, or any other non-ruin feature gets a 5+ cover save.
A Daemon in the open has a 5++ save.
Therefore it doesn't matter what the frak you're being shot with, you have a 33% chance (roughly 50% chance if you're Tzeentch) of ignoring it, cover or no.
A Guardsman in non-ruin cover has a 5+ cover save.
A Guardsman in the open has a 5+ armour save.
Therefore if you shoot a Guardsman in the open with any AP5 or better weapon (i.e. everything that matters) he has a 0% chance of ignoring it, compared to a 33% chance of ignoring it when in cover.
This means that Guardsmen rely more on cover to keep them alive than Daemons do.
This means that weapons that ignore cover are more efficient against Guardsmen than against Daemons.
Provided your weapon has a good enough AP value, then this efficiency grows better and better as you go against higher armoured targets like Space Marines because they cost more per model, hence why the Baleflamer is so good – it toasts Marines just as effectively as Guardsmen.
I don't think I can really explain it any more simply. As I said, Nurgle (which is the only deity that relies on Shrouded as a defence mechanism) is the only part of Daemons that suffers significantly. Obviously from time to time your save is going to go from a 4+ cover to a 5+ invul, but it's still better than going from a 4+ cover to nothing at all.
So, your answer to an army that has to rely on a crutch is to kick the crutch out from under them and tell them they're shit for not being able to stand up without it? Yup, that's a solid plan that's sure not to screw over players with the misfortune to love a weak codex.
I'm sorry, but I don't see a very satisfying difference between:
"You must run this specific not-very-fun list with little-to-no variation in order to win in tournaments"
and
"You cannot win tournaments"
For the love of god, have people even properly experimented with the Daemon codex to find other competitive builds, or has everyone just copy/pasted the same list or three? (Dog rush, Circus and Star)
Hell with it, you could ban the Grimoire, make Serpent Shields a once-per-game attack, and make Riptides and Heldrakes 0-1 and all of those codices would still be books that are able to win games against anything released in 5th. If CSM players weren't dead set on burning their FOC slots on Drakes then Bikers and Spawn would actually be decent showings that change how the army plays entirely. If people took fewer Serpents then we might see larger Jetbike units or War Walkers.
Just because a crutch is the most obvious, most common solution doesn't mean that it's the ONLY solution and that without it the codex can't compete.
'Just because a crutch is the most obvious, most common solution doesn't mean that it's the ONLY solution and that without it the codex can't compete. '
This.
There's also the main purpose, which is levelling the field – yeah, you don't have multiple Baleflamers anymore, but your opponent isn't fielding 3 Riptides or firing 6 Serpent Shields every turn or spitting out 100 Twin-Linked Bolter shots from Scouting Bikers.
Is having to actually put effort into building your list a bad thing? Is it even possible to argue that it's a bad thing?
Troop transports are a good answer to helldrakes its a really easy counter. Quadguns and your own fliers can handle a couple of helldrakes with little problems. Heck stronghold assault makes air turrets even more accessable for not to crazy a points investment.
To be fair Transports are a terrible counter to helldrakes. They swoop and kill your transport, not hard to kill a rhino with 3 str 7 hits, and then flame the squad that came out of it.
I see people say this all the time so lets see how it stands up to the math:
Lets see, 3 S7 hits will average 1.5 HP against AV 11, inclusive of 1 AP 3 penetrating hit, per turn. That means, statistically, the Helldrake really shouldn't kill jack shit. Also, if its swooped over the Rhino, it's likely left its self very little else to drop its pretty little template on, meaning you've reduced 175 points of not coming in till turn 2 at the earliest and sometimes not coming in till tun 4 into taking off roughly 20 points worth of HP from one Rhino. A unit that cannot score, and cannot directly impact the victory conditions of the game in any way besides killing things, just took off 1 or 2 HPs from a 35 point model.
If you have bubble wrapped, hugged the side of the board or other vehicles, or any number of counter tactics, the Helldrake might not even be able to pull off its miraculous1 to 2 HPs at all.
Yeah. Totally broken, that fearsome Helldrake….
And if there's a pair of them then they just wiped out the transport and the unit it was carrying with no difficulty, or to put it in your terms, roughly 240pts of scoring unit.
God forbid you rely on Chimeras, Venoms, Trukks etc which have side AV10.
>>And if there's a pair of them then they just wiped out the transport and the unit it was carrying with no difficulty, or to put it in your terms, roughly 240pts of scoring unit.
1.) 240 points? WTF army are you playing, GK?
2.) So now, the 350 points worth of Helldrakes, who did not come on till turn 2, and might not have come on till turn 4, are wiping out your entire unit? Rhino's have access points on all three sides, yes? Are you that retarded that you can't pile guys out of a transport from three separate directions without them ending up in Template formation?
3.) Trukks and Venoms are open topped. Also, they carry much cheaper cargo (making it much more difficult for the HD to earn its keep). But more importantly, open topped. As in you have zero excuse for them ending up in kill me with a template formation.
4.) Fuck IG.
jk.
AV 10 is only 2 HP and 1.5 pens/turn, though. Venoms have a 5++, so they will obviously lower that even further.
The point is, it's not nearly as devestating, or hard to counter, tactic as people think it is. I think there are people literally not bringing transports against Helldrakes for this very reason. It's bad gaming. Just bad, bad gaming.
While you're right on a number of your points, I think it's worth noting that the Heldrake isn't the only AT a list is going to bring. The Heldrake's main advantage is that disembarked units will be absolutely annihilated by its template in most cases, so if you have units that are getting forcibly disembarked, you are not going to be able to use most of the typical counters to a Heldrake (spacing, ruin levels, etc) and are thus going to take far more than average casualties.
1. Any Space Marine variant? 10 Marines, 140. Sergeant, 150. Rhino. 185. Meltagun, 195. Multimelta, 205. Maybe a power weapon for the Sarge? 220. Chaos obviously have it worse (much worse in the case of cult troops), as do GKs. God forbid you have a Libby or something in there.
2. If you want to keep your squad in coherency, the best you can do from 3 access points is a giant "U" shape, which is perfectly flamable from 3 sides, and is assuming the transport didn't explode outright, denying you the opportunity to disembark.
I'll *agree* that having your troops in metal boxes gives them an additional layer of protection from the toasty flame of soul death, *and* is probably worth the 35pts, but don't imply it's a hard counter either. Not when there's an unspecified number of Auto-havocs and Obliterators running around the table from turn 1 if the CSM player wishes.
If you can't deal with an army that has one guy that gives this buff and killing him ends it… then you are a bad player.
But this isn't a "Screamerstar is impossible to beat, how can we break it?" post. This is a "Screamerstar is not fun to play with or against, and neither is Quad-Tide, Quad-Drake, Hex-Serpent or D-Weapons, how can we ameliorate them?" post.
And yet, they didn't ban ion accelerators, bale flamers or serpent shields. The other things may need 'ameliorating', but the fact that the Grimoire itself is specifically banned, on the first point no less, rather undercuts the idea that it's just them dealing with one of a number of builds in an even-handed across the board way.
But on the other hand, we haven't been provided with a 0-1 list yet, which I'll bet includes Riptides, Baleflamers and presumably some kind of change to Serpent Shields (probably add One Use Only, but ultimately only Biscuit knows).
The 'ban list' in the article is not the set in stone, authoritative source. It's not even complete yet.
My point is, there are myriad ways to tweak the Grimoire; you can make it only affect the native Daemon save, meaning 3++ is the maximum, you can restrict Fateweaver from using his once-a-turn re-roll on the activation, giving it a thirty percent chance to catastrophically backfire, you can do all the things that apparently they'll be doing with everything else people are complaining about. But they didn't. They just threw any kind of subtlety out the window when it came to Daemons, and only Daemons, and hit them as hard as they could with the ban-hammer.
Given that this will be followed up by 0-1 restrictions (including FMCs, no doubt) and psyker restrictions (primarily hampering Nids and Chaos, at the moment), one could almost be forgiven, I suspect, for thinking that someone at FoB just doesn't love Daemons…
I didn't want it to come to me saying this, but it is interesting to note that Kirby is a Taudar player…
This is Sir Biscuits post, who runs Tournaments on the american west coast. Kirby lives down under.
Excellent comments all around _Garnet_. You are not being a generic non gender related pejorative at all, here ;).
Well, one does one's best. : p
You are in no position to tell anyone what armies are fun to play WITH. Now, you might not like playing against it….I really don't know why you wouldn't (assuming you like playing the game to begin with), but that is certainly your right.
I'm not, FoB is by telling people that those builds will no longer be allowed.
But given that I am allowed to have an opinion, my opinion is that none of the previously mentioned armies are fun to play with or against, having played with three of them myself.
To each his own. Admittedly, I've never faced D weapons outside of Appoc. Buy everything else you mentioned is hardly "broken." In fact, the Quad lists are plainly bad.
I didn't say "broken". I said "Not fun". 🙂 Not the same thing.
Yet all your arguments seemed to be based on defending something that harms the game in terrible ways. You're so biased that no one should even consider listening to you.
Are you sure you didn't mean to register the handle "Dimwit?"
How am I biased, exactly? I play an INCREDIBLY non standard Necron army. I don't have a single Night Scythe in my entire army. Yet I crush these power builds like flies.
I just like seeing people come up with crazy combinations and trying to beat those crazy combinations. You just like being an anonymous internet non gender specific pejorative.
Even at its most egregious, something like screamerstar doesn't harm 'the game'. It might annoy certain players at prestigious 'high-level' tournaments, but the vast majority of 40K games have nothing to do with such 'elite' events. And even then, the complaint that screamerstar requires specific armies, or prohibits specific builds, is an incredibly weak one; Grey Knights basically killed BA assault armies, Guard heavy artillery builds can cripple a shooty Marine force in one round, triple-Tervigon lists can flood the field so hard Deathwing can't hope to accomplish anything, and yet nobody has suggested banning force swords, or Griffons, or Tervigons.
well the thing is that it doesn't harm "the game" but it does harm "the community" . Two completely different yet intimately intertwined entities. As has been mentioned several times the fact is that EVENT ATTENDANCE is suffering because a significant portion of the gaming community has no interest in wasting their hobby time and/or money in ways that they don't consider fun. As event attendance suffers & events cease to turn a profit the organizers cease to run events. The trend of declining attendance is empirically measurable & visible – ask SB how many players attended the last event compared to previous years? How about local events in your area? In my area both WHFB & WH40K are seeing significant drops in event attendance (20%+ drop, events that would sell out in 48 hours are not selling out PERIOD). This is not because of the "top level" players, but the rest of us. You 1%'ers need to stand on our shoulders to support your hobby & if we're not interested you have no hobby (damn, channeling my inner occupy [gotham] I guess)
Chaos daemons is an unconventional codex seeing as it is a predominantly melee oriented codex in a shooting addition of the game. Heavy shooting lists can heavily damage Daemons the first 2 turns of the game before the opportunity to engage in melee. It is not a codex for the faint of heart. You get clobbered hard before you get a chance to give it good to your opponent.
It's not a monobuilds, though, Sethis. Its a keystone in a wide, wide variety of builds.
It's not a monobuild, though, Sethis. Its a keystone in a wide, wide variety of builds.
I've never used it and still win plenty of games, so frankly I don't see what all the crying is about. From my point of view.
I get that, Sethis. You are doing fine with out it. But, surely, there are some elements of your list that ARE critical to it, yes? And if a bunch of non gender specific pejoratives had trouble beating that element, and banned it from a tournament you were planning on attending, it would upset you, yes?
then don't attend the tournament and use your cash votes. Instead run your event that is YOUR version of perfect 40K. If the community prefers your version they will attend your events, until then be happy that others are prepared to run events for your leisure (while sacrificing their own) and accept that just like living in a society, you may not agree with all of the rules but the social contract obliges you to follow them for the greater good.
No need to ban the Grimore, just address the 2++ reroll mechanic. Perhaps allow for a single 2++ reroll for each shooting attack, or simple limit the second roll to a 3++.
I applaud you stepping up to the plate and its a good start. I would probably address the broken combos first like Jetseer+Baron and the 2++ mechanic and work from there.
Jetseer isn't broken, because you can simply focus fire the baron until he drops because he doesn't have the same cover save as the bikers. Nor does he move as quickly. It's rather harder to do it to Screamerstar.
If the unit is Invisible or Concealed and benefiting from cover of any kind (not exactly hard to do), he will have the 2+ cover also, so you can't Focus him.
He only moves slower when Turboing, which they arguably can't even do when he is attached.
I don't think Jetseer is broken because for one 2+ cover is very different from a 2+ invuln, but…
The problem is that it is not just 2+ cover
It is 2+ cover
2+ armor
2++ invul on baron….so you focus fire him, and he look out sirs and takes a 2++ re-roll on failed look out sirs….yeah…that sounds reliable.
2+ armor with 2+ cover is not all that different from 2+ invul because cover ignoring AP2 shots are not exactly common.
But again, that's assuming they pass all their psychic tests and get all the right powers. With eight warlocks, there's a pretty non-ignorable chance that they just don't get any of a particular power- and the combo is EXTREMELY dependent on getting Protect and Fortune in combination. (Let's remember that there's about a 1/4 chance of them not getting Fortune, either.)
With the full setup going, sure, they're pretty hard to kill, but the chances of them actually getting it off consistently are not very high- and, unlike the Screamerstar, the Council is not putting out any meaningful firepower at range and is actually rather middling in melee (at least for its points.)
With the upside being that you cannot lock them in combat at all, like you can with Screamerstar.
and that T5 they "explode" into multiple units that can each move 48" and contest objectives whereas screamer-star can only grab one.
I like the sound of these restrictions; they seem to restore a level of sanity to a game that has gotten a bit too silly over the last couple of months (and much more so over the last couple of weeks)
May I suggest adding another restriction: independent characters may only join units from their parent codex.
Out of curiosity, have you guys tried super-heavies with S:D weapons other than the Revenant in playtest games? I'm mostly wondering because I look at things like the ShadowSword and think "Yeah, it can instant-kill an MC or a tank or something like that, but at something like 450pts I can likely get similar amounts of firepower in other things". I mean, the Revenant is obviously over-powered (it's about as durable as any two lords of war and has roughly the same firepower as any 3 or 4), but with most of them it doesn't seem like a single S:D gun is going to break the game anymore than having their points in Leman Russes or the like.
Perhaps I'm completely off base with this and you've playtested ShadowSwords and the like extensively already, but it does honestly seem to me that other than the Revenant S:D weapons aren't quite the issue most people seem to be making it out to be.
The short answer is yes: I am a massive apocalypse fan, as are many of my friends. I love love love it, and even own a Warhound. (Though he only has one turbo-laser arm.) So yeah, I've played with a ton of strength D appearing on a pretty wide variety of platforms.
The problem with Strength D is that it's not only good at busting tanks and such, it's good at busting *everything*. Think about it this way: if you know S:D can be across the table, are you going to take any kind of terminator? Any kind of ANY elite unit? Probably not. And you're certainly not going to take something like a Land Raider.
Besides being artificially limiting in that way, it also makes superheavy-on-superheavy combat very boring. Basically, it simply boils down to who shoots first. (And who rolls lucky on the D table.) It's actually pretty silly and anticlimactic when two gigantic war machines meet on the field of battle, and one just opens fire first and obliterates the other.
This is a pretty superficial and short response, but I hope it gets your own wheels turning. S:D is just one of those things that warps the way the game is plays and the way people build lists too much.
My gaming group has made a few amendments to D weapons. It makes them tolerable and much more "Cinematic" 😉 Instead of just removing all our super fucking awesome toys every time someone hits with their 10" hubcap at 48", we get to play a somewhat strategic mega awesome battle.
We still do not allow any type of save as per the Apoc rulings.
Tanks:
1: Glancing Hit
2-5: Penetrating Hit D3+1 Hull Points lost
6: Penetrating Hit 2xD3+1 Hull Points lost
Not Tanks:
1: No effect
2-5: D3+1 Wounds
6: 2xD3+1 Wounds
My bad…
Change each 6: to 2xD3+3 Wounds/Hull Points lost.
We were also toying around with
Not Tanks:
1: Pinning Test
Surely the answer is to keep S:D as is then, but limit the amount of wounds / HPs to 1? That way a Revenant will still pretty much destroy a Land Raider or 300pt character in one turn (as it probably should be able to) but won't destroy 4!
Personally, I don't think S:D should effect invulnerable saves though. Kind of goes against the very word 'invulnerable' doesn't it? Perhaps rule that only cover or standard armour saves can be rerollable?
It was a short but overall pretty good answer. And you're right. Being able to wipe out a unit of assault terminators or a LR for 450pts with an 83.333% chance is pretty powerful. You have a pretty good chance of taking out either of those for the same points with other choices, but thinking about it the lords of war still allow those other choices since they take a different slot. Deathstars usually aren't the most viable of things, but S: D weapons makes them worthless in one shot no matter how tough they actually are.
Thinking about super heavies, I wonder how well it would work if normal vehicles were modified to work the same way. Ignore all results other than immobilize and explodes, explodes instead deals +d3 hp of damage, and it explodes as normal if it loses all of it's hp due to that result. It may make vehicles more useful and a bit more survivable while not making them 5th-ed kinds of dominating and also gives anything with 3+ hp a chance to survive a critical hit (explodes result).
>> Think about it this way: if you know S:D can be across the table, are you going to take any kind of terminator? Any kind of ANY elite unit?
I don't think this is necessarily a true statement as usually your elite units are the ones best suited to put the hurt on something like a titan. Chaos terminators deepstriking with combi-weapons & chainfists, tau crisis suits, dark elder trueborne packing blasters, etc.
The inclusion of SD weapons does nothing but further the "I go first I win" problem that 40K currently has (this is of course helped a bit utilizing proper amounts of LOS blocking terrain to mitigate shooting alleys)
Just a tangent on your comment, CH, but I think the current tendency for many armies is shoot for second.
The first/second balance is an extremely critical one in this game, and it's one I think this edition has balanced out better then any previous one. There are very good arguments to be made for either side, and it largely depends on the kind of army you have.
the game is still very much a "identify your opponents linch-pins and blow them up before he does the same to you" the player who goes first has the significant advantage (if designed for it, notably shooting armies have this advantage). The leafblower archetype rose to prominence for a reason & while the actual concept changed from the initial guard template & autocannon spam it evolved into rasorspam / venomspam (all significant long-range, high concentration firepower) to the current Tau & Eldar which are both armies full of long range shooting based on units that put out significant amounts of mid-strength shooting per point. The counter to this type of army is to bring ones that are incredibly resilient & able to withstand the first turn barrage (hence screamers, dogs, beastpacks, etc rising to the fore). The go first, shoot first, win first concept is HUGE in games workshop games
Another way to limit strength D is by making those weapons use the next smallest size template. Two small blast turbolaser/pulsar shots per gun are much less scary. Even elite units can handle that by spreading out. And the gun still keeps its utility vs Armoured targets.
bravo to the FOB crew for having the foresight on this. I'm the TO for my local and with these releases as well as the data slates i was totally at a loss for what the competitive scene was going to be like. Remember s D under the new books is not limited by what super heavy you have. There are fortifications with it as well now and everyone has access to them. I have met with the players here locally and we have decided on our own ban lists, or more accurately the books we will be ignoring. I'm looking forward to the decisions you guys make on this and will adopt it once it is realized.
At least you can add forgeworld now right? Or are we going to argue how a ban list can fix GW units but not FW ones?
It's still a hot topic. Personally, I don't think Forge World is all that borked and actually puts out a lot of really cool, balanced models these days. (*generally*) But their status is still kinda unclear and there is something to be said for rules bloat and rules inaccessibility. In the end, it's a bit of a different topic than I'm addressing here.
How can this not be clear nowadays? The FW introduction in every FW book is the same or very siilar to what is in the Escalation and SA books you are accepting? The FW books are designed for normal play. FW models and armies are featured in every White Dwarf as products recommended for players to buy and make things with. And very publcially GW employess like ADB have defended FW as official: FW and 'design team' staff work together.
More so, FW are making the game more even than the design team books allow – very soon they will add alot more 'more fair' or 'more interesting' Lords of War to the game (http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/forgeworld-pdf-coming-for-escalation.html). this means that in addition to the limited ones in Escalation, and in addition to the five for space marines ALREADY marked Lords of War in IA2:2nd edition (Fellblade, Cerberus, Typhon, Thunderhawk and Thunderhawk Transporer) and the one for Grey Knights (their own Thunderhawk), they will add countless options for
– Nids (for LOW, hierophants and hierodules; for normal Malanthropes and alternate Carnifexes)
– Elder (for LOW, Scorpians, Cobras, Lynxes, Warp Hunters, Phoenixes, Dragon Bombers, Nightwings, Vampire Hunters, Vampire Raider)
– Tau (for LOW, Mantas, Orca, the other Tiger Shark; for normal, the beautiful Barracuda)
– Imperial Gurds (for LOW, countless, but also more fun than endless Baneblade variants; also the great fun Imp Guard tank company, the Elysians, the Krieg list; etc)
– Chaos Daemons (for LOW their greater daemons, the Brass Scorpian, the Blood SLughterer, Great Chaos Beast, etc; but also Plague Drones, Decimators, etc)
– Chaos Marines (Fire Raptors, Hell Talons, Hell Blades, Spartans, etc)
– Dark Elder (the far more fluffy LOW Tantalus; then also Reavers, Ravens and Dragon Pheonices)
– Sisters of Battle (presumably LOW will includes Titans, but also things like the Avenger Strike Fighter or this will be additional fun options like Lightnings and Thunderhawks, as well as the Repressor).
Surely all these additions help make some lists alot more viable (chaos marines for example), and when combined with 0-1s, more interesting? FW even include 0-1 as part of their list design, as a balance tool, with things like the new Relic rules requiring HQ sacrifices to feature more (see the Fire Raptor pdf).
How can this not be clear nowadays? The FW introduction in every FW book is the same or very siilar to what is in the Escalation and SA books you are accepting? The FW books are designed for normal play. FW models and armies are featured in every White Dwarf as products recommended for players to buy and make things with. And very publcially GW employess like ADB have defended FW as official: FW and 'design team' staff work together.
More so, FW are making the game more even than the design team books allow – very soon they will add alot more 'more fair' or 'more interesting' Lords of War to the game (http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/forgeworld-pdf-coming-for-escalation.html). this means that in addition to the limited ones in Escalation, and in addition to the five for space marines ALREADY marked Lords of War in IA2:2nd edition (Fellblade, Cerberus, Typhon, Thunderhawk and Thunderhawk Transporer) and the one for Grey Knights (their own Thunderhawk), they will add countless options for
– Nids (for LOW, hierophants and hierodules; for normal Malanthropes and alternate Carnifexes)
– Elder (for LOW, Scorpians, Cobras, Lynxes, Warp Hunters, Phoenixes, Dragon Bombers, Nightwings, Vampire Hunters, Vampire Raider)
– Tau (for LOW, Mantas, Orca, the other Tiger Shark; for normal, the beautiful Barracuda)
– Imperial Gurds (for LOW, countless, but also more fun than endless Baneblade variants; also the great fun Imp Guard tank company, the Elysians, the Krieg list; etc)
– Chaos Daemons (for LOW their greater daemons, the Brass Scorpian, the Blood SLughterer, Great Chaos Beast, etc; but also Plague Drones, Decimators, etc)
– Chaos Marines (Fire Raptors, Hell Talons, Hell Blades, Spartans, etc)
– Dark Elder (the far more fluffy LOW Tantalus; then also Reavers, Ravens and Dragon Pheonices)
– Sisters of Battle (presumably LOW will includes Titans, but also things like the Avenger Strike Fighter or this will be additional fun options like Lightnings and Thunderhawks, as well as the Repressor).
Surely all these additions help make some lists alot more viable (chaos marines for example), and when combined with 0-1s, more interesting? FW even include 0-1 as part of their list design, as a balance tool, with things like the new Relic rules requiring HQ sacrifices to feature more (see the Fire Raptor pdf).
How can this not be clear nowadays? The FW introduction in every FW book is the same or very siilar to what is in the Escalation and SA books you are accepting? The FW books are designed for normal play. FW models and armies are featured in every White Dwarf as products recommended for players to buy and make things with. And very publcially GW employess like ADB have defended FW as official: FW and 'design team' staff work together.
More so, FW are making the game more even than the design team books allow – very soon they will add alot more 'more fair' or 'more interesting' Lords of War to the game (http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/forgeworld-pdf-coming-for-escalation.html). this means that in addition to the limited ones in Escalation, and in addition to the five for space marines ALREADY marked Lords of War in IA2:2nd edition (Fellblade, Cerberus, Typhon, Thunderhawk and Thunderhawk Transporer) and the one for Grey Knights (their own Thunderhawk), they will add countless options for
– Nids (for LOW, hierophants and hierodules; for normal Malanthropes and alternate Carnifexes)
– Elder (for LOW, Scorpians, Cobras, Lynxes, Warp Hunters, Phoenixes, Dragon Bombers, Nightwings, Vampire Hunters, Vampire Raider)
– Tau (for LOW, Mantas, Orca, the other Tiger Shark; for normal, the beautiful Barracuda)
– Imperial Gurds (for LOW, countless, but also more fun than endless Baneblade variants; also the great fun Imp Guard tank company, the Elysians, the Krieg list; etc)
– Chaos Daemons (for LOW their greater daemons, the Brass Scorpian, the Blood SLughterer, Great Chaos Beast, etc; but also Plague Drones, Decimators, etc)
– Chaos Marines (Fire Raptors, Hell Talons, Hell Blades, Spartans, etc)
– Dark Elder (the far more fluffy LOW Tantalus; then also Reavers, Ravens and Dragon Pheonices)
– Sisters of Battle (presumably LOW will includes Titans, but also things like the Avenger Strike Fighter or this will be additional fun options like Lightnings and Thunderhawks, as well as the Repressor).
Surely all these additions help make some lists alot more viable (chaos marines for example), and when combined with 0-1s, more interesting? FW even include 0-1 as part of their list design, as a balance tool, with things like the new Relic rules requiring HQ sacrifices to feature more (see the Fire Raptor pdf).
So now I'm basically forced to buy Forgeworld models to complete with your Forgeworld models? Because you spent $500 on your huge Forgeworld LOW, if I don't do the same to get some kind of parity on the table, I'm boned?
No thank you.
That's not exactly true sir. Pirated PDF's are free and available and 90% or more of the rules can be used with regular GW models.
For instance: You can make a punisher Vulture by gluing Assault Cannon or LR Punisher bits (cheap on ebay) to a normal Valkyrie chassis.
Believe it or not, there area actually people who don't pirate things, probably more than you would think.
how is that different than being forced to buy the new shiney when either your codex gets reprinted or mine does? I'm willing to bet all the internets ever that there is no man standing in your room with a gun held to your head whispering "that's it, add the centurion box to your cart. Good. Good. Now lets grab some fancy new bikes. What? Vanguard vets? What are you doing? If you mess around like that again I'll F&#$ing shoot you! See this gun? It's not a F&(@#ing toy!"
I mean, I could be wrong but I'd suggest that if I am, you have bigger problems than a few plastic models….
🙂
Did you really just list a Manta as a LOW option for standard 40k games. You know it takes up the whole table right?
It's also 2500 points all on its lonesome. I don't think a lot of people play 'standard' games of 3000 points.
You could be playing the game on top of the manta, I guess.
Sabre. Defense. Platforms.
Balanced?
Most of FW is fine. But unless they're also going to take a long look at it to make sure that a few OP units are limited or banned, just saying "all FW is fine" would be a mistake.
This is further complicated by FW's inane policy of not keeping an updated list of where the current rules for any unit may be found, as some units have 2-3 sets of rules in different publications.
I read a lot of BRs from a major tournament that allowed FW and I also didn't see a single broken thing about SDPs. They may have seemed stronger in the 5th edition meta, but in the current edition that seem about right.
I might add another specialty that only FW seems to do these days: They revisit their rules. For example, in the new IA2 book the Mortis Contemptor Dread has its third incarnation now. The changes? In the second variant (from IA: Aeronautica to IA:Apocalypse) they reduced the BS from 5 to 4. In IA2 they increased the point cost from 155 to 175. I mailed them about my anger that the Aeronautica I bought got obsolete for me due to their changes and they told me they thought the Mortis Contemptor was to strong for the points cost and thus toned it down a bit. The Fire Raptor is also toned down from the experimental rules to its now official appearance in IA2.
Do you see this kind of "living rules" from GW these days? Get over this "I still dunno if it's official"-sillyness and just incorporate it. If necessary give all FW-Units a 0-1 restriction. They are great models, great to play with and against and enrich the game,
My biggest objection to Forgeworld is still that I have to buy multiple books to get the rules for a single army. It's like they release the FW equivalent of codex: Tyranids, then they release codex: Dark Angels but it has a single, updated version of one of the Tyranids units in it, so now I have to buy the new one just to get the updated rules for a unit that should have been in the old one. WTF?
I feel your concerns. As I described, I got the same WTF moments. On the other hand some of this "mess" is tied to 6th edition changes that inferred with their releases. And the books themselves do have more to offer than just the data for a single unit. I own now a Stormeagle, another standard contemptor (which didn't change btw, although it is represented in the new book) and a lucius droppod. So I somewhat get more value out of one book. Although, I see your point. Still, you are not forced to field FW.
It's not like FW didn't know GW was working on 6th, and they could hardly expect the core game to remain stagnant forever just so as not to interfere with their tiny niche market. They should've been ready for 6th when it dropped, with erratas and FAQs, just like GW was.
I think the fact that FW upates their rules is part of the problem. Not so much that they do it, but how. Rather than releasing a pdf faq for a book, they just incorporate it into the next relevant book. I have models from aeronautica (released just last year) that are incorporated into IA2;SE and I have no idea if the rules I have are out of date.
I have no problem with FW in regular games, the problem is that in a tournament setting you need to be knowledgeable on all of the rules.Given FW's relative inaccessibility to the general populace,
Indeed GW has still not come out and sanctioned FW even at their own events. However, I still feel the topic is relevant to this post:
If you reduce options by banning things you might want to add way more options by allowing FW thereby promoting attendance for your event. We all know that FW is horribly imbalanced but by banning or limiting artillery models the issue is contained*.
*IMO
I disagree. If you are going to make all these changes then settle it now for "Approved for 40K" stamped entries….May as well find out now.
As to the "It's still a hot topic"…Really , compared to the can of worms you just opened up?
Get all the pain out now.
It is interesting that the only ban so far is the grimoire. It is an item with a built in "downside". The problem is the interaction between this and fate weaver's reroll, mark of tzeench, and forewarning. Rather than a ban, why not just rule that it may only modify the target's daemonic save (which was probably the items intent), or that it isn't subject to fateweaver's reroll. More likely to fail the d6 to give a negative result, and no risk of the 2++ with reroll.
On it's own it isn't overpowered, but in this combination it is. Don't remove the item, remove the combination. Otherwise this will be a slippery slope of deciding which things are too effective and need to be banned. Limit, but don't ban.
I'm curious what tournaments Daemons are winning that merits the ban stick. Eldar won Feast. Eldar won Da Boyz. Why do you want to cripple one army's ability to deal with the best army out there?
(To sirbiscuit) For example. I won the Feast qualifier in my local area and had to face an Eldar list with six wave serpents and two wraithknights in the final round. I had Fateweaver, the grimoire on a Tzerald in a bastion, three Soul Grinders and an allied Drake plus troops. Hardly a netlist you see complained about.
The board had no LOS blocking terrain save for the bastion I brought. My entire army was almost completely slaughtered by a faster, shootier force. I was only able to kill one Wave Serpent and four squads of Dire Avengers, but I was able to win 8-1 due to superior generalship and using the Grimoire to keep Fateweaver alive long enough to contest an objective. Without the Grimoire, I get shot off the board by an army with superior maneuverability and firepower in four turns.
In a game with ignores cover weapons everywhere and tons of dakka, how are Daemons supposed to compete if you take away our best tool to weather the storm? Make Tzeentch Heralds 0-1 if it's the Screamerstar you're worried about, or change it to a 2+/4+ on the reroll as has been proposed.
This is a perfect example. The grimoire sounds absurd to non daemons players, but it really is completely necessary for daemons to survive.
Also like said before daemons are not winning these big tournaments. Eldar are, with a sprinkling of Tau. Daemons are up there, but they really can’t beat 6 wave serpents.
On top of this, he wants to cap the number of psychic powers I can take in my Deamon army. Thanks a lot, guy. I don't rely on those to be viable at all.
Great posts, Slaede. Very valuable perspective.
It is interesting to note that Kirby is a Taudar player.
Kirby also plays GK, BA, SM, and Nids. Most of us here at the blog have lots of different armies.
Yeah true. I'm just seeing a lot of Daemons hate, but it's my dumb fault for not looking at the author…
The way I read it, the problem your army not being able to kill either wraithknights nor serpents (without rating – your codex might not be able to actually produce such an army). Which is pretty much is what the article was talking about before announcing the bannings. You daemon scissors just met an eldar rock and broke. The real problem is eldar being able to exclusively field so many powerful and resilient models, not your models being too weak without the grimoire. Balancing rules is an iterative process, if the next tournament is completely dominated by wave serpents, they'll just have to put a limit on them, just like they are planing to do with the croissants of doom. Suddenly you're facing four waves serpents, one wraithknight and a bunch of other eldar stuff you can actually kill in your final round. You might not need the grimoire to keep alive your fateweaver in that case.
The way I read it, the problem of your army is not being able to kill neither wraithknights nor serpents (without rating – your codex might not be able to actually produce such an army).
Which is pretty much is what the article was talking about before announcing the bannings. You daemon scissors just met an eldar rock and broke. The real problem is eldar being able to exclusively field so many powerful and resilient models, not your models being too weak without the grimoire.
Balancing rules is an iterative process, if the next tournament is completely dominated by wave serpents, they'll just have to put a limit on them, just like they are planing to do with the croissants of doom. Suddenly you're facing four waves serpents, one wraithknight and a bunch of other eldar stuff you can actually kill in your final round. You might not need the grimoire to keep alive your fateweaver in that case.
There's a much more quantitative argument for Wave Serpents breaking the tournament scene right now, rather than daemons.
Just because Daemons aren't _winning_ tournaments, doesn't mean that they aren't part of the problem. I once place second in a magic tournament where three out of the eight top players were playing the same deck, none of them placed first or second. Pretty usual for a magic tournament. However, 108 out of 128 of the tournament participants were playing that deck. That IS a problem. WotC then went and banned the deck to death, and suddenly there were dozens of different decks in the next tourney.
Sir Biscuit explains that he wants to make the game more enjoyable by limiting spam of overly reliable units and combos. Screamer star is one of those combos, and probably one of the biggest offenders. If this really cripples daemons to the point where they become unplayable, he still could take a step back and just prevent it from buffing the psychic 4++.
It's not like he is printing those rules in a book, sells it to you, and then refuses to change them for the next three years. 😉
"If this really cripples daemons to the point where they become unplayable, he still could take a step back and just prevent it from buffing the psychic 4++. "
Wouldn't it be better, though, to work in the other direction? Start with preventing Grimoire from buffing Forewarning, and if Screamerstar is still such a commonly spammed build that it needs further adjustment, at that point looking at an outright Grimoire ban would make sense.
Yes, from a balancing point of view.
No, from a practical point of view.
Yes, because you are right, taking little steps is more likely to get your stuff ballanced than not.
No, because right now this is just one rule change you have to know about and remember. The next step would be a document akin to the INAT FAQ being handed out, which in turn would cause more anger and confusion when people find out about the nerf at the wrong time, because you might have built your list differently or have already used the wrong rules during a previous turn/game. People can hardly remember rules changes made by 6th, FAQs and codex updates, no need to add to that problem.
"The following things are banned/restricted to X" is pretty much non-arguable. You brought six serpents but were only allowed four? Please rewrite your army list before the first game. Simple problem, simple solution, no room for honest mistakes.
Why is it that people can be told that there's a four-Wave Serpent limit far enough in advance to rewrite their lists (and have access to the necessary models to make use of the newly-available points), but wouldn't learn about the change to the Grimoire/Forewarning interaction until they're halfway through their game, exactly?
Feast of Blades isn't a saturday afternoon tournament put on by your FLGS; it's got a dedicated website, you have to pre-register, it already has an FAQ section, it's already made specific alterations to the rules that players would have to know about ahead of time. There's no reason at all to assume that the sort of people who are going to this, especially the invitational, are going to just wander in without checking anything out, plop down a random army list, and expect to start playing straight away.
People still forget rules, mix them up with the codex from two editions ago or flat out cheat in hopes to BS their opponent, who isn't as solid on rules from a codex he doesn't own. Even in kirby's battle reports of tournament games posted this very page you read things like "I totally forgot that my X could do Y", "we both forgot that something had to roll for something" or "my opponent didn't realize his unit could do foo".
Not to mention that people are lazy. Some simply don't care about whatever material you handed out before an event, no matter how professional it is.
Army lists are checked before the game, your complete knowledge of the rules isn't. In addition, a tournament game is a stress situation, you screw up things while under stress.
Yes, but when a rule chance directly effects your entire list's linchpin, people will remember it.
>>However, 108 out of 128 of the tournament participants were playing that deck. That IS a problem.
That's a nightmare. But we're not talking about anything remotely close to that here. We have 4 big dog Codexes, Tau, Eldar, Daemons, Necrons, and a variety of builds, with a vareity of Ally combinations, out of each one, not to mention all the other Codexes that people are still bringing armies to Tournaments with and winning. There is not a single build in the current Tournament setting that is so good it's CLEARLY the only way to have a chance at victory.
Ignores cover weapons can be fixed by simply using LOS blocking terrain. Building LOS blocking terrain doesn't take much time: buy a flat of tall boys. Finish said tall boys. Spray paint them silver & put them on the table upside down. BAM! You just got yourself a grain silo / frac tower. Put two of them together & you've got a decent LOS blocking piece of terrain that most vehicles / decent sized units can hide behind.
Sure the wave serpents may be able to move around the terrain but that's kind of the point of the game….. mobility and junk…
I'd amend dataslates taking up an ally slot to having Formations take up an ally slot. Be'Lakor is a dataslate, and he really shouldn't eat up your ally options.
I think this is a good idea. It will take tweaking but it seems you are going in with eyes open.
I think an alternative to baning the grimoire and a way to fix seer councils etc. to some degree would implementing a simple rule. "Any reroll saves always uses the units base save for the second roll with no modifications possible" This removes all but the baron and he is easy to negate with good positioning and LoS sniping.
Actually, I have been thinking more about the Grimoire ban, and it's probably the wrong target for banning. The problem isn't the Grimoire itself, seeing as a 3++ with rerolls one is strong but really not that busted- the real problem is the combination of Forewarning AND Grimoire, so I would suggest the following-
Allow people to take the Grimoire, but errata the Grimoire so that either a) it is capped at 3++ or b) taking the Grimoire bars you from taking any Divination psykers in your army.
So Eldar 2++ that only has to pass a psychic check if you roll the power is fine, but Grimoire that requires a psychic test plus a grimoire roll each turn is broken? Going from a re-rollable 2++ to a 3++ with re-roll 1's is a HUGE increase in damage the unit takes. For reference sake, even just limiting the re-rolled save to a 3++ rather than 2 is doubling the amount of wounds the star will take.
I think a simpler solution to rein in daemons somewhat would be to impose a blanket rule that for a model to utilize its special rules/warlord trait, it has to be on the table. Then if you want your re-roll on the grimoire and on the warpstorm table, Fateweaver has to be present for the action. At present, smart players will hold him in reserve and/or fly him off the table, limiting the risk to him, because he's the lynchpin of competitive daemon lists, for minimizing randomness. Force him to be on the table and opponents actually have something to shoot at.
That rule, plus prohibiting ICs from joining allied units wouldn't DRAMATICALLY alter the game, but don't involve banning or subjective restrictions. And they'd decrease the power level of the currently dominating builds out of daemons, tau, and eldar. And that was the intended goal, right?
Do the Eldar reroll their saves off a single psychic check? Last I checked that combo needs 2 powers to go off, which has a pretty hard counter in Runic Weapons. How are they even getting a 2++? If you're referring to a 2+ cover save, don't even bother comparing that to an invulnerable save- the former can be pretty easily ignored by a helluva lot of stuff within the metagame (Tau, opposing Eldar, Heldrakes, etc).
Note that we're also talking about this restriction in the light of other bans- most notably the proposed cap on mastery levels, which is pretty much designed *exactly* to harm the consistency of the Eldar deathstar you're describing.
Also, the argument that my proposed limitation doubles the damage taken is disingenuous- yes, it is technically correct, but when you're doubling a number that's next to nothing (which is currently what the deathstar takes) it's still a damn small number- 3++ rerolling ones is still extremely resilient.
"3++ rerolling ones is still extremely resilient."
See Eldrad from the last codex to confirm this.
3++ re-rolling ones isn't even the same as a Terminator. Given the metric fuckton of shots that Eldar and Tau vomit out on the table, you're not going to weather the storm for more than two turns at best.
And while the entire Tau army is shooting at this one unit of Screamers, the rest of the Daemons army is, what, having a nap? Attracting that much firepower for two full turns could easily be counted as a win in itself as far as the unit goes, even if it's wiped out afterwards.
Are you seriously comparing Terminators to Screamers?
Screamers are much, much faster. Screamers have 2 wounds. Screamers don't care about their opponent's AP. Screamers may have AP2 attacks at initiative. Screamers can perform Sweeping Advances. Screamers are *cheaper*. Screamers even have the option for Slashing Attacks if they don't particularly feel like engaging their opponent.
And as Garnet said, if the unit is taking 2 turns of shooting from an Eldar or Tau army, then there's probably going to be a couple of Daemon Princes or a shedload of Khornedogs connecting in the next turn to ruin their day. This slight reduction doesn't nerf the deathstar into the ground, it just means the rest of the army actually has to do something.
Or just rule the Forewarning is a set value modifier and thus is applied after the grimoir buff…which fixes the 2++ on everything except Fateweaver (who can re-roll it but is a single model that is not extremely killy) and Be'lakor, who cannot re-roll it.
This seems like a good option as well, and is probably the best. In all games, bans should be as specific and targeted as physically possible, thereby minimising their effect on other interactions in the game, and this method does what Sir Biscuit is attempting to do best- it nerfs the 2++ without removing any of the less "degenerate" (and I use that word not as a judgement or anything, but more in the "clearly is an untintended consequence of GW's rule writing) combos that still rely on either half of the 2++ combo.
At any rate, I think most people at least agree that an outright ban on the grimoire is over the top, whether or not you think some softer restriction is necessary.
best way to limit would be it would only improve the save given by the Daemon rule so wouldnt satck with froewarning.
I agree that the rules for "normal" 40k" need to be changed for competitive play, but I disagree that these changes are fair.
1.) The Grimoire of True Names from Codex: Daemons is banned
Too specific and it seems to target Daemon players unfairly. The Eldar/Dark Eldar rerollable 2++ seer council crap is still allowed under your rules.
2.) A few units will receive 0-1 status
Which ones? It is too hard to be fair here.
3.) Supplemental Codices will no longer be able to ally to their base codex
Just ban the supplements. It is too much to keep track of. This also seems to unfairly target the Tau one.
4.) Dataslates will take an ally slot
Just ban the dataslates. It is too much to keep track of.
5.) The number of psychic mastery levels in an army will be limited
This doesn't work. Grey Knights and other armies have lots of psykers. Lots of armies rely on psychic powers to be competitive as well. Be'lakor is already banned as he is a dataslate.
6.) Strength D is out, Lords of Battle are in
Just ban escalation. It does not have any place in competitive play.
7.) Super-forts are gone, or at least downsized
Just ban stronghold assault. It does not have any place in competitive play. No fortress of redemption because it takes up too much space on the table.
8.) Dedicated transport flyers will be limited
No comp please. Flyer spam armies often do not have enough on the ground and they really aren't that powerful. There are plenty of counters to them now.
9) "Codex Inquisition"
Banned. I do not want to see Coteaz/inquisitors in every army. No FOC shenanigans.
10) Codex Adepta Sororitas
This would be considered a core codex and would be allowed. Sisters do not have a choice. See, I am allowing new things.
11) Formations
Banned. No FOC ignoring bullshit with multiple broadside/riptide formations included in an army with free overpowered rules at no cost.
12) Forge World
Banned. Way too much crap to keep track of. Players should not be surprised when they reach the tables and should not be reading (if they are lucky) unheard of rules for the first time right before a game.
Players should only need to know the main rule book and the core codices. This streamlines the game immensely. You can clearly point to the rule book or a codex and have all your answers without having to look in supplements, formations, digital products (except Sisters), data slates, forge world, escalation, stronghold assault, etc. I pity any new player who has to wade through all the extra garbage released this year while also mastering their core codex and the main rule book.
I think specific nerfs/restrictions to equipment/units/armies are a bit too hard to do. We don't know how Tyranids will shake up the meta when they are released.
"Too much to keep track of" is not itself a reason to ban things.
When it gets to the point where someone is rocking up to the table with 4+ different rulebooks then for practicality and time limit reasons then I would argue that it is a valid reason. Purely for tournament games – no-one is saying you can't do this in friendlies.
You're already trying to fit in a, what, 1800-2000pt game in 2 hours or 90 minutes against another player? That's tight enough without having to spend literally 15 minutes pre-game telling each other what each individual unit you brought from Forgeworld does, what is allied to what, any special rules from your supplement etc etc.
I think going back to "Codex + Rulebook – that's all you get" is actually the fairest way to do it.
Nobody is required to show up with 4+ codexes, it's a choice, and if you're shitty and can't keep track of all your rules you're going to be a slow-playing mess stuck down on the low tables. It takes maybe two minutes to walk someone through your army list, which should contain things like "this formation has Tank Hunter" and the like, and you can just hand the other player your Forge World book (because you should have to bring all the relevant books) and let him read the rules himself while you set up. There's nothing at all 'literal' about your hyperbolic fifteen minutes. : p
There's no requirement to have every element of your codex memorized; you could show up and be referring to your book for every single shooting attack, armour save, close combat assault role, leadership test, every time you want to use a special rule, and all of that would add far, far more time to the game than someone who knows what they're doing and has taken the time to memorize a couple additional units' stat lines from a couple of extra books.
You can know everything there is to know about your army, but if you're playing someone who is forgetful, doesn't pick things up quickly, or has his own shit-ton of things to worry about, then it can eat far more than 15 minutes from your time in games. I laugh in the face of the suggestion that you can explain a near-2000pt list made entirely from FW models in 120 seconds to someone who has never seen any of it before, taking into account time during the game itself.
And I truly have better things to do than read your FW supplements while you set up, such as making sure you're not deploying illegally, roll my own psychic powers and warlord traits, analyse where you're placing models so that I can place my own to counter them and so on.
And yes, there is no requirement to memorize things, but at tournaments it's about minimizing the amount of time spent doing things other than rolling dice and moving models so that everyone has satisfying and full 7 turn games (where applicable). Sure, if you play against someone who doesn't know their own codex, or even the BRB very well, games can take longer so that you only play 4 turns. But how about that same person having the freedom to use any supplement, any FW model, and any terrain piece they want – even models that you've never seen yourself? Does that help or hurt the time it'll take to play the game?
I worry more about my opponent forgetting to mention that his Nurgle Prince has S&P and therefore cannot perform a Sweeping Advance. Or the equivalent disadvantage for a Forge World unit that I never saw before. What if he has 10 FW units that I have to read up, how much non-playing time would that add to a game?
I'm not sure I'm onboard with "Codex + BRB only", but let's at least understand the reasons why it's being proposed before dismissing it.
You know, GW could really help everyone out here by making a standard, across all books and supplements, army builder software. One that will atomically print all relevant rules for every unit you bring.
I know third party has gotten close to this, and GW tried, and failed miserably, back in the 90s, but it's really time they went back to that. If you own the relevant book, electronic or in print, there should be some way to "authorize" that book's use with the software. TOs should be able to by a "commercial" edition of this software, and they could then print out every one's list for them so everyone is on the same page.
Man, that would solve so many issues.
It would. And Army Builder has gone away from printing what the rules do, and instead just say "See Codex X, Page Y", in order to head off lawsuits. So you can't depend on any army builder software that I know of, to give you a good summary of what you need to know.
"Too much to keep track of is not itself a reason to ban things."
Except it is.
So here are some things they released beyond the core codices (did I miss any?):
Clan Raukaan supplement
Sentinels of Terra supplement
Black Legion supplement
Farsight Enclaves supplement
Iyaden supplement
"Codex" Inquisition
Escalation
Stronghold Assault
Be'lakor dataslate
Tau Fireblade Support Cadre Formation
Space Marine Storm Wing Formation
Eldar Ghost Warriors Formation
and more to come this December such as Cypher…
And for the core codices (did I miss any?):
Dark Angels
Daemons
Tau
Eldar
Space Marines
Sister of Battle
Really GW didn't start this supplement trend until the Iyaden supplement which was mid 2013. At a very conservative estimate I can expect GW will release another 10+ of these things by this time next year increasing the number of things that break the FOC. So we will be sitting on 20+ supplemental rules things. Add Forgeworld and you have a borderline incomprehensible system. Just by looking at an army you will not be able to tell if its legal or not. You will have no idea what the special free rules are either. To check each submitted list you will have to consult 20+ supplements. No thanks. To me that is too much to keep track of on top of what will probably be at least 3 (conservative estimate) core codex releases in 2014 such as Tyranids, Orks, and Imperial Guard.
These releases are a big "F you" to competitive players and the tournaments scene in general by GW and should just be ignored.
Yup, 20+ supplements for every list. Because, if I'm playing Tau + Farsight with an FSC formation, obviously you'll need to consult the Clan Raukaan supplement, Codex: Adeptus Sororitas, and Bel'akor's data slate.
Obviously not for each list, but you can already have 4 armies in a list. This will simply expand in the coming year. As a TO you would have to be on top of all the supplements/crap though, which is a just a nightmare. As a player would also want to be aware of all these rules.
I am sorry but all of your posts have been pretty terrible. Seriously, guy?
I haven't spent a dime on a GW core book or supplement in over a year and I'm pretty on top of what every single thing you just mentioned brings to the table. Just by reading blogs like this one. I also never pirate, although I did take an extended gander at the Elder ARmy List pages that were leaked.
Seriously, the vast majority of "new" from each supplement is fluff. For the most part, its the same units you've seen before, with slightly different ways to field them. OH THE HUGEMANITIES!
"To check each submitted list you will have to consult 20+ supplements."
"Obviously not for each list, but […]"
I'm not the one contradicting himself within two posts, friend.
Clearly he meant that you would have to consult 20+ supplements, overall, in order to check each submitted list (although each list won't individually require 20 supplements). It's pretty clear when read that way.
I like these suggestions better.
"Just ban… just ban… just ban… just ban… whoa, whoa, comping flyers? That's outrageous! You can't just change the meta like that, it's already perfectly balanced, just let the players play! Anyway, just ban… just ban…."
Seriously, guy?
I agree wholeheartedly here with Orthon. This WAS my suggestion! Go the route many other "Organized Play" systems go & stick with the meat & potatoes! Core Assumption! You MUST have the MAIN RULEBOOK as well as a MAIN CODEX to play. Everything else is where the problems arise the most!
Can't C: Inquisitor just be part of C;Sisters so i at least get a flyer. My book is crap and I'd just really like some more options like when i had a witch hunters codex
This is LONG past due. Bravo, Sir Biscuit. I've played in your Invitational for the last three years, and I was certain that the recent releases would push me out of the game. Put some serious thought into your restriction list, and I will most likely use it for tournaments I run.
get lost, I'm out.
you wont be missed. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Seriously, perhaps I'm knee jerking but what do you think chaos is going to do when you arbitrarily drop that 0-1 on their heldrake?
Is it going to fix the codex? Hell know it will still get trashed consistently by almost any other book in the game.
Escalation and stronghold I get, arbitrarily banning other things is part of the reason fantasy died hard.
By all means re-introduce hard comp but don't go telling people they straight up can't play their own codex.
sigh, so many spelling errors.
Fantasy died hard because of the Magic Phase, Steadfast, and 1+ Armour Monstrous Cavalry.
At least, that's what I hear from people who stopped playing it.
*shiver* Playing Fantasy is like playing a Chaos Daemon mirror match of the Scouring using Mysterious Objectives, Mysterious Terrain, Archeotech and Warzone Traits. The main difference being that instead of just casting spells at each other while rolling dice to roll dice to determine dice rolls, you do the exact same thing while smacking giant blocks of Stubborn infantry into each other to make the game grind on for longer.
THAT'S why Fantasy died.
CSM is already a horrible codex, and even with 3 (or 4) drakes it isn't even coming close to winning tournaments. The only problem I see is that the mere existence of 4 Heldrake lists completely disallows a bunch of other lists from existing.
So you claim GW havent done any playtesting, have you done playtesting for these proposed changes?.
Restricting psykers and banning grimoire you have made daemons un playable in a tounry setting (bar dog rush).
I can easily see it not being hard to write a very good list which when run by a very good player is not fun for people to play against once you have released the final requirements. Doing this will keep tau and eldar at the top, and will keep assault phase as just one where people JSJ.
I agree 100%. People are WAAAy to concerned about the stupid Screamerstar. It's not that great! I've used it several times and I much prefer my Dog-star (4 Jugger Heralds and 20 Hounds). That kills Screamerstars
Kind of hilarious that people are complaining about the power of one build in a codex when another build eats it alive.
"So you claim GW havent done any playtesting, have you done playtesting for these proposed changes?"
Running a tournament and seeing the effects of dozens if not hundreds of battles doesn't qualify as playtesting to you?
He wasn't arguing that the current meta couldn't use addressing, he's asking if they've tested their proposed changes. And given that the new supplements just came out, its probably a fair assumption that they've had minimal experimentation at best. Which is the same crime they accused GW of doing.
implementing changes in a theoretical setting in a studio with math crunching and estimation of effects vs points values is one thing, Seeing the effects of rules and the outcomes of battles over multiple years? thats another thing entirely, Both are experimental, but completely different in what information and impressions are created.
Sure, and I promise you GW is 100% aware of all the free play testing that happens every day with their product. You don't go rolling around with a 125 million/year product and completely stick your head in the sand when there is that much free and readily available consumer feedback to be mined.
That doesn't mean that always make the right decisions with that data, but anyone who thinks that GW isn't cognizant of this stuff is sadly wallowing in festering pit of their own asshurt.
They know about, they just don't care or look at it. The only thing that would make them take any kind of action is a drop in sales. Otherwise they see all of this that we are dealing with as pure profit as people scramble to constantly buy the latest & greatest.
I think the vast majority of the 2000 people who work for the company and actually make the day to day decisions care a lot more about the final product, and how fun it is to play, then you think.
Do you really think the design team gives two shits about the quarterly reports, other then hoping they are good enough so they can keep their job? And what keeps their job? Making plastic that people actually want to buy. Either because its a beautiful piece of plastic, or its a valuable contributor to the table top. Those are pretty much the two reasons people by plastic. I guarun-fucking-tee you that Matt Ward is sitting around in his office trying to figure out the next way one of his units is going to fuck you out of your money. He's trying to make units that are fun to play with, and good enough to include several of, so that you will play the game that pays his mortgage.
Human beings don't magically turn into troglodytes just because you can't see them far, far away on the otherside of internetland.
Try $160mil but I digress…
DAMN YOU WIKI!!!!
I will be looking forward to seeing what this creates.
Please remember there is a difference between playing 3-4 of something and maybe two of something.
Also please realize some people don't use allies. Blanket restrictions because of ally interactions can hinder pure lists that don't cheat the system to cover their weaknesses. While I too think some codexs weren't balanced to exist alongside others, for the most part each by itself is somewhat internally balanced.
As much as I dislike Escalation and Str D, I think this is an overadjustment. Screamerstar is far from unbeatable- it fails psychic tests, fails Grimoire, goes second, etc, pretty often. It's very much a gimmicky list, even if that gimmick is fairly good.
I agree with your rationales, but this is pretty much just making FoB a comp environment. If that's what you're going for, fair enough I suppose, but I've been against comp for a long time, as I don't think it really solves anything.
I would rather just fix the rules for D-class weapons: S10, AP1, either Ordnance or Armourbane, then something about saves… either Ignore Cover or Re-Roll Successful Saves.
Neither Screamerstar nor Seer Council is such an overpowered list that it needs crippling. They just take advantage of the metagame where everyone brings just shooty units, so mediocre CC units that can actually survive the shooting seem to be dominant. Bring more real CC units to fight those two deathstars, and they get stopped. And it adds a reason for CC units in tournament lists, too.
Screamerstar 2++ will fail at intervals because of the things you list. The issue with it is that you are pretty much left with waiting for your opponent to get a bad roll before you can do anything to it. A 'strategy' of 'wait for him to roll badly' is not a recipe for a good tournament game.
Banning it is not a good solution though. Make the grimoire work off the native 5++ save, not any others. The rerollable 2++ only occurs if you get a 4 on the warpstorm table. The rest of the time they are failing 4/18 saves instead of 1/36 – still tough, but not ridiculous.
I definitely agree with AP here. The only real complaint about any of the new stuff is D- weapons. All the rest of it ( new terrain, non SD superheavies, dataslates ) aren;t really any more of a problem than allies were, or any new codex is that has some 'OP' stuff.
Therefore the only thing you need to fix is D weapons, and there seems to be a couple of different ways to do it.
So would you twiddle your thumbs against a Screamerstar with everything up or would you actually work on wrecking the rest of the army that only has 5++ saves?
Exactly.
Well, you can shoot at and kill Fateweaver and the other stuff in their list in the meantime- I mean, that's part of the strategy. Screamerstar can still only shoot one unit per turn, so cut away the rest of their list, wait for them to be vulnerable, and then hit them with everything, same as any other deathstar.
I can see changing the Grimoire to only work on the Daemon save being a reasonable thing to do, but I'm not really sure if it's needed or not- as many others have noted, the army is not exactly tearing up the top tables at tournaments, and I think that's indicative. Good armies minimize luck by including redundancy and multiple layers of strategies, because if you're leaning entirely on one trick, that trick will fail you sooner or later, and in a 4-6 round tournament, chances are you're going to bomb out at least once that way.
Sorry but you just don’t get it yet. People continually brining up “screamerstar doesn’t win tournaments” (anymore because it was for a bit there) are ignoring the point. The 2++ star is going to wane because the 40k tourney scene is about winning the metagame more than the actual game.
If everyone is bandwagoning build A, and build B beats build A 9/10 times, you can expect build B to win the tourney. Congrats someone just won a tournament because they made one shrewd choice before, they played a game. That person didn’t actually prove they are a good player or a superior general, just they can do well when the odds are vastly in their favor.
It’s like 40k tournaments have become about betting on ponies instead of actually being a part of the race. It’s all about picking the right horse not about your skills as a jockey.
It seems like the feast crew has acknowledged this fact and are looking to address it. Don’t get caught up in the minutiae and just applaud the effort. If it ends up working like they hope it’s good for everyone.
>>It's like 40k tournaments have become about betting on ponies instead of actually being a part of the race. It's all about picking the right horse not about your skills as a jockey.
Yeah, but in reality, it's nothing like that. Screamerstar isn't struggling to collect Tournament wins because it keeps hitting its hard counter, its struggling to collect to tournament for the same reason that every other build in the entire game is struggling to collect tournament wins…there's just not that many tournament wins to go around.
If you really think the list/codex dictates the game more then the player, its just a testament that you have a lot, and I mean A LOT, to learn about the game.
AP and I will disagree with a lot of things, but I absolutely agree with you here. I like the Matt's intentions here, I really do, but killing the Grim effectively kills some of the best builds in an entire codex. I'm sorry, some of this sounds like players who play one way are sick of having to play people who play a different way and want to change the rules to favor their way of playing.
You can even see that in Tarrasq's post, just above yours. That guy isn't even worried about actually facing a screamerstar, he just hates the fact that he might have to build a list with the tools necessary to deal with it and then fight other people with the tools to deal with it.
Proof 6th sucks.
If by 6th you mean the BRB then I have to disagree. The BRB is something like 80% OK.
If by 6th you mean Supplements, then yes, I agree.
So…will you stop then?
Many of these new rule supplements are too new to make these rash decisions. Nobody's had a chance to test anything yet.
Why not ban the Powerfield Generator between 4 Land Raiders? Or the Banner of Devastation between 30 or 40 bikes? Or Tesseract Labyrinths? Or Jaws of the World Wolf? Aren't all of those huge potentials for 'abuse'?
By the suggestions above, that means Chaos Marines can't ally with Black Legion? WTF?! That's just stupid.
Belakor because he's from a Dataslate would take up an entire Allied Detachment by himself? With no other FOC units in the detachment as required by Allied Detachment rules? That's really stupid!
If you want to write your own rulebook, make your own damn models. I may have considered going to FOB next year, as I expect to have more money to attend. But if such restrictions are put in place there's no way in hell I'd go. Challenge and adaptation are fun.
If you want to have separate composition-themed event go ahead, but there should always be a true rules event; and then for the super gamers a no-holds-barred Gladiator style event, which is exactly what Escalation and Stronghold are for.
Agreed. Why can't someone run CSM/CD with Be'Lakor in one of the Detachments? It's about the same as running a loaded Daemon Prince, except that for some reason it's banned at FoB.
None of what you just mentioned is near the level of easy mode as the top 3 dexes have at their disposal.
That's what he was getting at…
Wow why is Escalation causing THIS much of an issue? Just ban the Lord of War section, is it really that difficult?
I agree, but there are other problems to be addressed.
I think you have taken the right approach here. Super heavies, forge world, fortification upgrades, formations and data slates have all added a whole bunch of variety to the game, while also creating some massive problems. You seem to be limiting the problems while allowing as much variety as possible.
I hate it when people say things like "ban forgeworld" when really it only needs one or two units banned.
But getting any sort of agreement on which specific units need banning is a LOT harder. For a TO it is easier to keep it simple and causes less griping from players.
That's easy then, ban the race that uses Screamerstars,,,what was that race, no one would mind would they?
The only fair way to have a tournament is if all players play exactly the same army, on tables with mirrored terrain. Any other type of tournament is basically unfair.
GW has stated again and again that they are not caring about tournament play, and their limited playtesting was evident in the number of simple questions rising after each publications. Question that would pop up, and be discovered if any kind of serious playtesting had taken place in the first place.
I'm intrigued about the deeper thought process here, but willing to accept that (as far as I can tell based on the contents of your post) that it's still in a First Draft kind of state. However, at the same time, I trust that before it gets to Tournament Final state you lads at FoB will do the proper playtesting.
I look forward to seeing what kind of data you guys come up with (either through more posts because MAN, I LOVE ME SOME DATAS, or the posted final list of official rulings for FoB – which I hope you aren't thinking of getting away without some context! …Not that I have any pull to ask, but all the same). Luck on it, mates.
I'll do my best. I don't particularly enjoy making rulings without context and explanation.
Cheers, then. o7 It's vastly appreciated. Once again, I wish you lads the best of luck in getting this nailed down in a fair and equitable manner – not an easy task by a long shot.
I like how people are thinking about rebalancing the game. And I like how a variety of listbuilds are encouraged. However, I do not understand how allying with your own Codex or Supplement is cherry picking and allying with other Codices is not. As the seer council shows, battlebroter combos can be at least as powerful as any combination of supplement and codex. Can somone explain this to me? I think too that degrading battlebrothers to allies of convenience would make the most sense.
I think they want to encourage people to actually play a Black Legion, Farsight or Clan Raukaan army, instead of most people using supplements to just ally in either supplement's best units or to just get more things from their original codex by increasing their FOC size by one.
I am glad you guys are taking a stand this is what the game needs. I would just ban dstr outright to be honest. Cover is already too ignored. Any way I applaud this step and am totally behind you guys.
"With the recent release of Stronghold Assault and Escalation, 40k is, to put it bluntly, no longer suitable as a tournament game."
It never was in the first place, no way, no how, never. The player communities wanted it to be, but it just isn't.
20 years of thousands of people coming together and playing the game in a tournament setting disagree with you here.
It will always be a tournament capable game. Always. Certain people might not like the parameters of a particular event or system, but don't confuse your personal bias and subjective opinion for objective and established fact.
and a significant portion of those players coming together spend more time bitching about how unsuitable the rule set is for competitive play than they do actually playing the game….
"The Grimoire of True Names from Codex: Daemons is banned"
Uhh…. WHAT?! I can understand the Grimoire on Forewarning while on top of Tzeentch Daemons being banned but the Grimoire itself? WHAT?! It's pretty much the only form of defense that can only be used on one unit at a time. A 3+ Invul makes the unit as tough as a Space Marine against small arms fire but that won't matter much thanks to the torrent of fire coming out of everyone these days. Why ban the Grimoire? Why not ban the stack of the Grimoire on top of Forewarning instead of the wargear itself that actually make Daemons actually viable?
Banning Grimoire is definitely the wrong decision and highly questionable. Most likely a subjective decision.
Expansions, Dataslates, Formations etc should be assessed, but the original codices should be left alone.
^^
Using grimoire disable your 1" reroll
Giving daemons a strong 2++ (usually on 2 wounds+ units) without being game breaking?
"The Grimoire of True Names from Codex: Daemons is banned"
Total nonsense. Very subjective decision.
On the other hand they allow the new Tau formation. Now that's something going too far (even if it used a slot).
Expansions like Escalation and Stronghold assault should be carefully assessed, not the original codices, people.
Ban allies as well. That would cut down on a lot more of the stupid combinations available.
Banning allies entirely is a gross over-reaction in response to a handful of stupid lists, and would kill variety in list building for this tournament.
Allies need looking at, but not banned entirely.
I would suggest that rather than look at the Allies mechanics, the only real change needed is the Allies chart and who has which level of alliance. Battle Brothers should be reserved for factions that get on really, really well (Inquisition should be Battle Brothers with nobody; nobody is the Inquisition's best friend, for the Emperor's sake, not even the Inquisitors); however, this cuts Battle Brothers down to Imperials-only. Change what Battle-Brothers entails, and change the ally chart, and I'd say it's ok.
Actually, banning allies would get rid of a lot of stupid stuff, but I don't think it goes far enough- as the Daemons and CSM books show, there's lots of combos that are broken within a codex. So I would suggest banning allies, but also banning parent codices and Inquisitorial detachments as well. (Formations would be in, but they would take your ally slot as normal, which would be banned.)
Lol!
Dr Puppy, ‘In order to save the patient, we’re going to have to kill the patient first’
that happens. More often then you may think…
>>there's lots of combos that are broken within a codex
I don't know how you can say that. Incredibly high strength, low AP, large blasts that ignore cover are one of the most frustrating combination in the game to deal with. I don't think there is a single combination in Demons and CSM that come close to how effective that is. That being said, I don't consider it "broken." Its relatively expensive, and relies a minimum of two units to pull off.
Yep. Ban allies ( unless you're going to fix them to reflect the 40k history). As is, the allies page is just a means to sell more models and makes NO sense.
I assume from the phrasing, the Grimoire of True Names from Codex Inquisition will be allowed?
(Does different stuff completely, even though it's the same book fluffwise)