# What Would You Ban/Restrict?



## Lord_Aaron (Sep 24, 2010)

iamtheeviltwin said:


> It looks like the new escalation and stronghold supplements have finally pushed the first major tournament to create a comp rule set. Feast of Blades will be a comp tournament next year.


If you were the TO of a tournament, what units would you ban and/or restrict? Would you limit restricted units to 0-1 per detachment or per army? Why?

I myself would ban EVERYTHING that's not in a basic codex or BRB (nothing from a "Supplement" and restrict everything to 0-1 per army that's not a Troop Choice (or dedicated transport). I would do this for many reasons. One is to be "fair" (quotes intentional - "You restricted heldrakes! Why not [insert random unit]!? They're OP too!")

But what would you ban/restrict?


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

It's hard to say really- because if you ban say drakes chaos will bitch that they have no good options
Ban everything and armies like guard perhaps won't have much to take
Tau I know would struggle with only one of everything- they have limited AT outside broadsides and hammerheads, limited anti-teq outside riptides


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

0-1 restrictions on Baleflamers, Ion Accelerators, and possibly Divination Psykers.
0-2 restrictions on Wraithknights and Vendetta Gunships.

Other small erratas would be;
- Grimoire of True Names only affects the Invulnerable save given by the Daemon special rule - it does not stack with psychic powers or other wargear.
- Wave Serpent Shield is one-use-only.
- Battle Brothers cannot join each others' units.
- Formations, Escalation, and Stronghold Assault are banned.
- Maximum of 3 Flyers in a single army.


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## Pssyche (Mar 21, 2009)

I'd ban dice.

They've screwed me over millions of times more than any poxy, so-called "over powered" model ever has.
Laughing at me, what with their six faces and "randomly" generated values...

Oh, yes.
I'd ban dice...


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## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

Taking more than 2 of any unit from all books. Still allows redundancies but we actually get some variety in armies.


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## Zion (May 31, 2011)

I'd ban tournaments and run large campaign events instead with missions based on story things for the various armies, pitting different sides against each other.


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## Lord_Aaron (Sep 24, 2010)

kiro the avenger! said:


> It's hard to say really- because if you ban say drakes chaos will bitch that they have no good options
> Ban everything and armies like guard perhaps won't have much to take
> Tau I know would struggle with only one of everything- they have limited AT outside broadsides and hammerheads, limited anti-teq outside riptides


As a chaos player, I wouldn't mind having my heldrakes restricted. 
And I used to play Tau too. They still have crisis suits with fusion blasters, don't they? 



Stephen_Newman said:


> Taking more than 2 of any unit from all books. Still allows redundancies but we actually get some variety in armies.


0-2 seems reasonable. And yes, I agree it would add more variety


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

Fusion blasters involve being close, and if you take fusion blasters in a 1 max army
Your only termie killer or even marine killer is basically riptides with ions or plasma rifles


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## Gret79 (May 11, 2012)

I'd ban...banlists!

Everything is legal - lets just play 40k with the gloves off!
When everyone is special no one will be!

Mwahahahaha!


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## seermaster (Feb 22, 2012)

I wouldn't ban anything peops is just annoyed cos there old 6ed lists need changing witch is imo a good thing.


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## Ravner298 (Jun 3, 2011)

Ban lists are a slippery slope. What are the biggest offenders? 2++ rerollable? Ok make it a 2+/4+ or something instead. Chip commanders hugging riptides? Slap the tau guy and tell him to knock it off. Wave serpents? 1 use only shield. Super heavies? Change D weapons to str 10/ap1 ignore cover. If the revenant waac starts bitching, slap him too. Av15 fortress? Make it av14. Put a 0-1 limit on fliers. No allying with your own supplements (no cherry picking the best of both worlds). 

Or...quit pretending 40k is competitive anymore and just have fun with it?


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

seermaster said:


> I wouldn't ban anything peops is just annoyed cos there old 6ed lists need changing witch is imo a good thing.


So how do you change your lists to make a bunch of Screamers with re-rollable 2++ saves into a fun, tactical challenge to fight? What units do you take to make three Heldrakes into an interesting strategic dilemma?



Ravner298 said:


> Or...quit pretending 40k is competitive anymore and just have fun with it?


Yeah, I really enjoy having my army cleared off the table by a Revenant Titan which I can't damage in return.

Midnight


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## Mokuren (Mar 29, 2011)

Ravner298 said:


> Or...quit pretending 40k is competitive anymore and just have fun with it?


That would seem like the best option. I go to tournaments to play with new and different people I couldn't play with otherwise so I don't particularly care.

Still, if the game _was_ better balanced and the cheese wasn't so glaringly obvious I most certainly wouldn't cry tears of blood.


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## Ravner298 (Jun 3, 2011)

You have a tournament list that can't put damage on something that's av12? Not a single flier or fmc?


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## Nordicus (May 3, 2013)

MidnightSun said:


> So how do you change your lists to make a bunch of Screamers with re-rollable 2++ saves into a fun, tactical challenge to fight? What units do you take to make three Heldrakes into an interesting strategic dilemma?


Man, you really hate Chaos xD Although, if people play them as exploitative as you claim, I probably would be a bit bitter too.

Rest assured though, some of us play them responsibly too!


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## Ryu_Niimura (May 1, 2013)

And others try to cram a Lord of Skulls into a 1,500PTS list:grin: For me the game is about having fun and having an army that looks badass on the field. Ban lists are an interesting idea but I think it's going to be hard to keep it balanced for every army out there.


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## seermaster (Feb 22, 2012)

MidnightSun said:


> So how do you change your lists to make a bunch of Screamers with re-rollable 2++ saves into a fun, tactical challenge to fight? What units do you take to make three Heldrakes into an interesting strategic dilemma?
> 
> 
> Yeah, I really enjoy having my army cleared off the table by a Revenant Titan which I can't damage in return.
> ...


None of these lists are fun or tactically challenging.

But when you think about it people bring a screamer star to stack the odds in there favour.

Well suddenly that unit has a rock to its scissors,and that is escalation and any d weapon attacks.

So a tourney player isn't going to take a list were they lose to any army with d weapons are they?

So my point escalation effectively neuters the most broken unit in the game,witch is only a good thing imo.

Heldrakes are a very powerfull unit,and 3 of them can be very hard to deal with depending on your army. 

But again supplements are the answer,strong hold assault you can get like 8 defence line auto cannons or something,so again a cold hard counter to a overpowered army.[/COLOR] 
Yeah, I really enjoy having my army cleared off the table by a Revenant Titan which I can't damage in return.

Know the revanent ok its big its mean but only if you dont have tools to deal with it and that doesnt mean 1 turn its gone.

Do you normally remove 6 av12 12 10 tanks from the feild t1 or 800 points or so if you do you shouldnt be complaining about anything :grin: 

The revanent is very potent but your vulnerable to air units and its a huge wad of points gone.


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

Ban no units, ban the cheesy players who use them! Oh wait, I didn't mean me! Guys, come back!


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

seermaster said:


> None of these lists are fun or tactically challenging.
> 
> But when you think about it people bring a screamer star to stack the odds in there favour.
> 
> ...


The only problem being that Destroyer Weapons are a hard counter to EVERYTHING, and encourages you to take a fuck ton of infantry. Destroyer weapons completely remove the viability of Terminators, Paladins, Nobz, Land Raiders, Battlesuits, and in fact just about everything except Flyers and GEQ. Wait, isn't that what's strong in the game anyway? Driving people to bring only Guard blobs and Flyers or nothing at all isn't improving the game.

You say that Destroyer is a rock to the scissors of Screamerstar, but it's not a rock to scissors. It's a nuclear missile against paper. Yeah, Screamerstar is not viable in a meta with Destroyer weapons, but neither is anything else except gigantic blobs of cheap infantry and Flyers.



seermaster said:


> Heldrakes are a very powerfull unit,and 3 of them can be very hard to deal with depending on your army.


If a balanced list can't answer it, then that thing needs to be changed, surely?



seermaster said:


> But again supplements are the answer,strong hold assault you can get like 8 defence line auto cannons or something,so again a cold hard counter to a overpowered army.


But not, because if you bring a massive amount of anti-air then you have no answer to Massive Fortifications, which will clean you off the board with surprise surprise, Destroyer weapons. Bringing loads of anti-air makes you worse against ground targets because AA weapons pay to have Skyfire/Interceptor, so you end up being inefficient against anything but Flyers.



seermaster said:


> Know the revanent ok its big its mean but only if you dont have tools to deal with it and that doesnt mean 1 turn its gone.


What's the thing the Revenant's going to be shooting at? Your counters to it, to achieve complete control of the game. And it's more than capable of doing so - the Revenant removes things. Completely.

And I'd be interested to know the tool to deal with four Destroyer large blasts on a chassis with a 4+ unmodifiable save moving 36" per turn with a range so large it doesn't actually matter on almost any 40k board.



seermaster said:


> Do you normally remove 6 av12 12 10 tanks from the feild t1 or 800 points or so if you do you shouldnt be complaining about anything


Removing a Revenant on the first turn is exceedingly difficult.


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## Ryu_Niimura (May 1, 2013)

It better be difficult to bring one down considering the fuckton of points it costs to field one.:grin:


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Ravner298 said:


> You have a tournament list that can't put damage on something that's av12? Not a single flier or fmc?


Nothing that can reliable strip down 18 AV12 hull points at long range with four wounds per model, no.


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## Ravner298 (Jun 3, 2011)

MidnightSun said:


> Nothing that can reliable strip down 18 AV12 hull points at long range with four wounds per model, no.



It has 9? Unless you're averaging holofields. And things like combi melta termicide/sternguard will do horrible things to it for half the cost (and that's max squads). 

Again, everyone assumes that every tourney list is going to be eldar featuring revenant. Which is simply not even close.


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

Wait wait wait wait
So escalation lets you take apoc units in 40k?
Shit just got worse, tournaments are a no go for me with that- balance is just an 80's concept


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

Might just be me but I'm beginning to get the feeling that 40K is becoming "pay to win". To counter the big walker you have to get 2 flyers, to counter the 2 flyers you need bring heaps of AA, which conveniently is is either fortifications or a big walker and at the end of the day normal units are just cannon fodder. 

Or I am getting this wrong.


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## Ravner298 (Jun 3, 2011)

kiro the avenger! said:


> Wait wait wait wait
> 
> So escalation lets you take apoc units in 40k?
> 
> Shit just got worse, tournaments are a no go for me with that- balance is just an 80's concept



Writing it off before even playing with the ruleset once? Or even knowing the rules to escalation at all?


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## seermaster (Feb 22, 2012)

MidnightSun said:


> The only problem being that Destroyer Weapons are a hard counter to EVERYTHING, and encourages you to take a fuck ton of infantry. Destroyer weapons completely remove the viability of Terminators, Paladins, Nobz, Land Raiders, Battlesuits, and in fact just about everything except Flyers and GEQ. Wait, isn't that what's strong in the game anyway? Driving people to bring only Guard blobs and Flyers or nothing at all isn't improving the game.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Okay my point witch I really failed miserably to explain sorry about that was. 
Screamerstar and other such things beat the crap out of infantry. 
Super heavys beat the crap out of screamerstar elite stuff and mech.
Flyers beat the crap out of superheavys for the most part. 
Stronghold assault beats the crap out of flyers. 
Mech beats the crap out of stronghold assault as does infantry.
So everything has a counter.
Witch means that we will see more balanced lists that can adapt to all of those sub types of spam or atleast thats what I hope will be happening.
I challenge you to come up with a spam one unit list that has no counter from that list.
I would quote and reply each sub bit but i dont no how


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

seermaster said:


> Super heavys beat the crap out of screamerstar elite stuff and mech.


And pretty much everything else; those with D-weapons, leastways.



seermaster said:


> Flyers beat the crap out of superheavys for the most part.


I think the Harridan and Thunderhawk would disagree.



seermaster said:


> Stronghold assault beats the crap out of flyers.


Does it really? Because I've only seen it proposed for the Destroyer weapon on the Aquila Strongpoint. Granted, it's not been out for very long, but that's what I've seen.



seermaster said:


> Mech beats the crap out of stronghold assault as does infantry.


Except the Destroyer strength Large Blasts, and the fact that AV15 is very hard to crack without Strength D.



seermaster said:


> So everything has a counter.
> Witch means that we will see more balanced lists that can adapt to all of those sub types of spam or atleast thats what I hope will be happening.


So I don't need to spend money and time on this hobby at all? I can just go to a rock, paper, scissors, lizard, spock competition and have the same experience? Well, who knew.

The problem with your list of the great circle of counters is that Strength D weapons are a hard counter to everything on that list except Flyers.



seermaster said:


> I challenge you to come up with a spam one unit list that has no counter from that list.


I challenge you to build a list that can counter a Titan, a super-heavy Flyer, Cronair, four Riptides, four Heldrakes, 8 Tervigons with 200 Termagants, 6 Wave Serpents, Screamerstar and countless other less major builds such as Azablob, and come out favourably against all of them.



Ravner298 said:


> It has 9? Unless you're averaging holofields. And things like combi melta termicide/sternguard will do horrible things to it for half the cost (and that's max squads).
> 
> Again, everyone assumes that every tourney list is going to be eldar featuring revenant. Which is simply not even close.


Yeah, averaging Holofields. Revenants are the best Lord of War hands down, and they're so good that if any Lord of War is taken it'll be a Revenant. They are seriously, _seriously_ good. Melta squads will take off half as many Hull Points as they have Meltaguns, then it'll scoot 36" away from them.


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## Ravner298 (Jun 3, 2011)

10 combi melta termies/stern....around 400 points. 7 hits, 2d6+8 on back armor, so 7 pen, assuming it moved (which in some cases especially t1 podding sternguard it will not), 3-4 get through. Assuming 1 six with an average result, you're doing 5-6 hull points on it right away. And you still have an entire army chalked full of strength 6 or higher weapons to take the remaining 3-4 HP off It. It can remove 2 of your squads at best a turn. You should have WAY more than 2 squads capable of handling av12 at 1500-1850. And this isn't even taking fliers or fmc into consideration.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Ravner298 said:


> 10 combi melta termies/stern....around 400 points. 7 hits, 2d6+8 on back armor, so 7 pen, assuming it moved (which in some cases especially t1 podding sternguard it will not), 3-4 get through. Assuming 1 six with an average result, you're doing 5-6 hull points on it right away. And you still have an entire army chalked full of strength 6 or higher weapons to take the remaining 3-4 HP off It. It can remove 2 of your squads at best a turn. You should have WAY more than 2 squads capable of handling av12 at 1500-1850. And this isn't even taking fliers or fmc into consideration.


Erm...

How exactly are you deep striking within 12" of a Revenant Titan? And how are you Deep Striking behind it?

Midnight


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

Ravner298 said:


> Writing it off before even playing with the ruleset once? Or even knowing the rules to escalation at all?


This isn't the one thing at all, I'm already pushed to my very limits, over them really by the rock paper goo game that 40k is right now
Tourneys, I think, aren't eve fun as you only get 10+mins of small talk while his screamer star or heldrakes take the fucking piss
Now add apoc and I just can't take it, I play for fun and narrative and my list has been beaten by every player that sat down and had a think about it.
There fucking hilarious games as I love watching my squads being ripped apart by bolter waves
Only if I also get to rip apart their dudes with tooth and claw at the end of it
Tourneys it's just "hi, good bye" no "what the fuck! That sergeant totally mashed that captain! Wow!"
So yeah, not just oh apoc, bye! This is the straw that broke the camels back so to speak- and it's one robust camel I have to say!


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## Ravner298 (Jun 3, 2011)

But writing it off before you try it isn't really a fair thing. It's not as imbalanced as the Internet leads you to believe except for maybe D weapons. 

You admittedly aren't a tournament player, so why are you affected at all? Play narrative and for fun...a campaign...anything. Your success in this game isn't determined by how your list holds up to 2++ rerollable deathstars and heldrake spam.


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## seermaster (Feb 22, 2012)

MidnightSun said:


> And pretty much everything else; those with D-weapons, leastways.
> 
> Apart from mass infantry and flyers witch are what I left out
> 
> ...


 I was trying to say is for lack of better example are there competitive rock paper scissors tournaments ,not that im aware of. 
Reason being is you cant really play it competitively all you control is whether you pick rock paper scissors. 
40k is a element of chance were you stack the odds as best you can in your favour,so you have the best chance possible vs many different lists. 
So at a tournament you cant be having a list witch just loses 1/5 of its games,just on the oponents army 
if you want to have a chance of coming top table. 
So because you cant just take that one unit type eg 6 heldrakes because chances are you will come up against an interceptor list from tau with craptons of gun emplacments. 
So after all that it comes down to tournie players wont take a list with a counter list that auto beats there's.
There fore this will cause there lists to come away from im playing heldrakes to im playing 2 heldrakes with a mek element and a lord of skulls for example.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

It's not about whether you can defeat a Revenant.

It's not about whether you can shoot down three Heldrakes.

It's not about whether you can drop four Riptides.

It's about what the existence of those units does to the game. How it alters what is and is not playable.

Having S in the game means that people move away from anything elite that relies on Invul saves.

Having Heldrakes in the game means that people move away from foot power armour (BA, GKs, Vanilla, SWs).

Having Riptides in the game throwing out multiple Ignores Cover Large Blasts means people move away from wargear and units that rely on Shrouding or Stealth to work, or that bring their own cover saves such as Bikes.

Just by having those units in the game, and by having them be so cheap and powerful that almost every codex that has access to them will take them, you're reducing the number of options that every other player has when creating their army lists. In any competitive environment you ARE going to face off against Tau and Chaos (to only name two examples, there are others) and therefore you MUST play a list that doesn't instantly fold to their best units.

When something has a hard counter that ISN'T also the best unit in any given codex, then that's fine, because you're not guaranteed to come across someone fielding it. As a simple example Fire Dragons are a hard counter to Land Raiders, but because not everyone takes Fire Dragons, you can bring a Land Raider and hope you don't run into them. Obviously this is a flawed example, but you know what I mean.

No-one is saying that Heldrakes are undefeatable. They are. They're not even as bad as people make them out to be. But they DO prevent my BA codex from functioning competitively because it relies almost entirely on Assault Marines surviving more than two turns of the game.


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

I obviously run a very similar list to you sethis
And I did go to tourneys because I could have a nice chat and meet new people. Now the game (faster after 6th) has spiralled into ridulous one unit wears the trousers so you can't have fun enless everybody wants to have fun- if one person decides to win and brings 'drakes or 'tides, everybody's fun is spoiled
Call me dick for jumping the gun- but if it wasn't escalation that pushed me put finally, I'm sure the next codex would!

EDIT: I've also moved into far more balanced games- BFG for example so wonderfully balanced and refreshing from what I've played so far
It's the only game that I've had a 2v2 that left 3 dead and 1 on the brink that hinged on a matter of a single dice amongst tens
Not marines gunning down orks at range or orks cracking skulls at short


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

So I'm guessing no-one has brought the "Just how many Nova Cannons can you fit into an Imperial Fleet?" list yet. So long as people stay the fuck away from that, then you'll have a great time playing Gothic.

Actually my BA were reasonable enough (although not great) post Heldrake. It's trying to drop two Riptides with Storm Shields up with only Meltaguns and Dev squads after eating Interceptor pie plates to the face that finally made me pack them away in favour of breaking out my Eldar when the new dex came out for them.


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## Lord_Aaron (Sep 24, 2010)

Sethis said:


> ...Just by having those units in the game, and by having them be so cheap and powerful that almost every codex that has access to them will take them, you're reducing the number of options that every other player has when creating their army lists. ...


Very well said Sethis. That was the point of this thread. :good:


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

Sethis said:


> It's not about whether you can defeat a Revenant.
> 
> It's not about whether you can shoot down three Heldrakes.
> 
> ...


Or maybe it's because people are too stuck in their ways to bother trying anything new.

I know a guy who brought a tau/ enclave alliance army to a tourny, he was able to run four riptides plus battlesuits as his troop choice. I think he played 10 people and they all tried to destroy his riptides, well guess how that worked out.

He eventually was beaten by a player who targeted his troop choices thus preventing him for scoring objectives and winning.

That's the meta of the 40K scene as a whole. Only a small fraction of the player base understands the game, most people take a book from Zapp Brannigan's book of military tactics. Most players I know only own one codex and that is for the army they play, even then they don't understand their armies.


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## Lord_Aaron (Sep 24, 2010)

Reaper45 said:


> Or maybe it's because people are too stuck in their ways to bother trying anything new.


People aren't stuck in their ways to try new things - it's that people are forced to use the new thing, or the counter to the new thing. It's not very fun.


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

Lord_Aaron said:


> People aren't stuck in their ways to try new things - it's that people are forced to use the new thing, or the counter to the new thing. It's not very fun.


Well what do you expect to happen? It would be pretty pointless to release a new edition with the exact same rules as the last one.


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## Lord_Aaron (Sep 24, 2010)

What do I expect? Or what do I want?

I want a new codex to have all equally useful units. I want Heldrake spam to be just as "good" as Possessed spam.

And I also want to work in a chocolate factory run by supermodels - but it ain't going to happen. 

However, I do want a better tournament system, and I think we can do it.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Reaper45 said:


> Or maybe it's because people are too stuck in their ways to bother trying anything new.


This statement isn't supported by the rest of your post - so I don't know if it's actually what you meant. Obviously lots of players ARE able to try new things, because we all buy new models and units to go into our armies, and the vast majority of us have more than one army. I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here.



Reaper45 said:


> I know a guy who brought a tau/ enclave alliance army to a tourny, he was able to run four riptides plus battlesuits as his troop choice. I think he played 10 people and they all tried to destroy his riptides, well guess how that worked out.
> 
> He eventually was beaten by a player who targeted his troop choices thus preventing him for scoring objectives and winning.
> 
> That's the meta of the 40K scene as a whole. Only a small fraction of the player base understands the game, most people take a book from Zapp Brannigan's book of military tactics. Most players I know only own one codex and that is for the army they play, even then they don't understand their armies.


Now this reads like "Most people are idiots" which I can kind of agree with, but you're ignoring the point that everything we've spoken about in this thread isn't having an impact on those people. It's having an impact on the highest tiers of tournament play. Guys who just go down to the local store don't care about the metagame, or which codex is most relatively powerful etc. They just want to have some fun with their mates, which is fine and great, and doesn't require you to be the next Scipio.

Your example of killing the Troops is a good one for demonstrating how to win against armies that exclusively spam such super units, but those armies are generally bad for that exact reason.

The problem isn't defeating them, like I said. I can defeat Quad-Tide. It isn't even the hardest game I've ever played.

The problem is that Quad Tide entirely prevents certain armies from existing, and that's a bad thing. To continue the example, a Blood Angels list in any form other than Las/Plas spam or AV13 wall cannot survive the pie plates being thrown out that ignore all of their saves, and outrange them by a factor of three or four. They just can't. That's an entire codex more or less rendered useless by a single unit, and not a unit that nobody takes, but a unit that EVERYBODY takes. Ditto the Heldrake. Since they've existed, how many GK armies have taken top tables at tournaments like they used to? None. Because most GK lists relied on disembarked 22pt power armoured troops to do their heavy lifting. Guess how well that works out against S6 AP3 flamer templates?

You can be the greatest general in the world, but if you come across a hard counter for your entire codex every single time you go to a tournament, you're going to lose. And if you keep losing, you'll stop going. And if you stop going, you can bet your ass that other people have stopped coming too for the same reason, and suddenly there are 20% less people going to events on average, and tournies that used to sell out quickly no longer sell out at all. Which is exactly the situation we have right now. The only viable way we have to fix that is to start limiting the numbers of those units that are strangling inventiveness, and limiting the competitive scene to maybe 3-4 codices, with 1-2 builds per codex.


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

And then gw shuts them down as if it's somehow our fault


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## Lord_Aaron (Sep 24, 2010)

Sethis said:


> ... The problem isn't defeating them ... The problem is that Quad Tide entirely prevents certain armies from existing, and that's a bad thing.


I think you've summed up the problem nicely. :victory:


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## JAMOB (Dec 30, 2010)

Sethis said:


> To continue the example, a Blood Angels list in any form other than Las/Plas spam or AV13 wall cannot survive the pie plates being thrown out that ignore all of their saves, and outrange them by a factor of three or four. They just can't. That's an entire codex more or less rendered useless by a single unit, and not a unit that nobody takes, but a unit that EVERYBODY takes. Ditto the Heldrake.


My strategy with this is just hide behind shit and eventually run to grab objectives, spread the fuck out, and try to hit them with my baals :grin: But yeah, I hate riptides for this exact reason. One riptide is fine, two is not horrible and still winnable, but 3-4 is just impossible...

I'd be a fan of limits.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

JAMOB said:


> My strategy with this is just hide behind shit and eventually run to grab objectives, spread the fuck out, and try to hit them with my baals :grin: But yeah, I hate riptides for this exact reason. One riptide is fine, two is not horrible and still winnable, but 3-4 is just impossible...


The thing is, how do you hide against a Heldrake? It's going to do a number on your Baals with Meteoric Descent, and then moves 36" per turn with 360 degree LOS with a flamer template that essentially just removes Marines (yeah, you can spread out, but spreading out against a Flamer template is really hard; you can conga-line against Blasts, but Torrent templates can usually find a way to screw you over).

Sethis has completely nailed it in that certain armies are completely invalidated. Codex: Grey Knights cannot go to tournaments, because if you're running Power Armour then you'll come across a Heldrake, and if you're running Draigowing then you'll come across a Riptide. It's not the units themselves, but the armies they invalidate.

Midnight


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## Gret79 (May 11, 2012)

Is every army not completely invalidated by it's hard counter?

Cos thats not just grey knights that are affected by the heldrake, it's all MEQ.
All TEQ is removed by the riptide.

Riptides are removed by D-weapons, as is screamerstar so there's no point taking them either.

Super Heavies lose to Alpha strike MSU Melta (sternguard in drop pods etc) so there's no point taking super heavies.

Which leaves Horde armies - these are removed by spamming barrage. 

Every army has a hard counter - look at what Dark Eldar have had to put up with - being labelled the 'spoiler' army (they destoy some armies and bounce off others)

This just means tournaments got more interesting - if you can beat quad-tide (whether through some awesome generalship or complete blind luck) with your army then thats something to be proud of and tourneys might actually progress from 'which eldar/tau build wins today' 

As I said before, I wouldn't ban things. But it would be interesting to lose points for army building - If you bring more than 2 of any slot bar troops then you start with a minus amout of points. 

For example
1 x Riptide = fine
2 x Riptide = Still fine
3 x Riptide = -1 VP
4 x Riptide = -2 VP

In essence, you'd lose the bonus for first blood and slay the warlord for being a cheesey quad-tide spammer - It'd make the armies more interesting by increasing diversity imo :good:


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Gret79 said:


> Cos thats not just grey knights that are affected by the heldrake, it's all MEQ.
> All TEQ is removed by the riptide.


Grey Knights feel it more as they're at least 50% more expensive than all other MEQs, and have always operated around being a foot army rather than being able to hide in/take lots of tanks. And any Terminators with Storm Shields (i.e. everyone except Wolves and Grey Knights) are pretty crazy survivable against a typical Riptide.



Gret79 said:


> Riptides are removed by D-weapons, as is screamerstar so there's no point taking them either.


But *everything* is removed by D-weapons, not just MCs and 2++ saves.



Gret79 said:


> Super Heavies lose to Alpha strike MSU Melta (sternguard in drop pods etc) so there's no point taking super heavies.


No, they really, really don't. Nobody is going to take a Super-Heavy and let you Deep Strike near it. Whether it's through native abilities (Warp Quake, bubble-wrap units), Allies (Inquisition, Tau, any horde for more bubble-wrap) or simply basic clever deployment; hide the rear and one side of your Super-Heavy with board edges, then you need very, very little bubble-wrap to cover the other sides.



Gret79 said:


> This just means tournaments got more interesting - if you can beat quad-tide (whether through some awesome generalship or complete blind luck) with your army then thats something to be proud of and tourneys might actually progress from 'which eldar/tau build wins today'


But if you remove some Battle Brother abilities, limit the number of Ion Accelerators and Baleflamers, make Serpent Shields one-use-only, and ban stacking Grimoire with Forewarning, then you've stopped 'which eldar/tau build wins today' situations without turning 40k into glorified rock-paper-scissors.

Midnight


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## JAMOB (Dec 30, 2010)

MidnightSun said:


> against a Heldrake?


Oh I just die k:

Well, maybe it's not a good thing... but I'm ok with it dealing some damage because hopefully my raven will come in the next turn. Against more than one though... *shudders*



MidnightSun said:


> Sethis has completely nailed it in that certain armies are completely invalidated.


Yeah... Still, I'm ok with losing when it's unwinnable.



Gret79 said:


> Every army has a hard counter


But some are more popular than others. When something is a hard counter to your army and no one takes it, that's fine. No big deal. You might play it once and then, well, shit, but most of the time you're fine. When it's the helldrake or the riptide, things that pretty much everyone takes, you can't just say "oh well." It's every game.


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## Gret79 (May 11, 2012)

Grey Knights can still bring razorspam etc. They also have stormravens which are good at taking out heldrakes.
Wolves get storm shields 
Terminators with a 5++ can still fight/survive against a riptide - I've done it. I used 10 chaos terminators with MoS and fnp. I just marched straight towards it too. But while I did that, I took the objectives and so I won. 
I've seen super heavies taken out by sternguard (Revenant vs BA sternguard in a drop pod)
That worked even though his opponant had bubble wrapped with guardians.

I don't think just limiting the serpent shield to one use only will slow down the eldar much. And if you limit things, I guarantee there will be something you've missed and a player from somewhere will work out a new build of an army you've not foreseen and then spam that.

I think you'd have to make far too many sweeping changes to even attempt to balance 40k.
I think looking at the points system might get more results.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Gret79 said:


> Grey Knights can still bring razorspam etc. They also have stormravens which are good at taking out heldrakes.


What's the 'etc.' bit? Razorspam died at the end of 5th.



Gret79 said:


> Wolves get storm shields
> Terminators with a 5++ can still fight/survive against a riptide - I've done it. I used 10 chaos terminators with MoS and fnp. I just marched straight towards it too. But while I did that, I took the objectives and so I won.


Nobody takes Wolf Guard Terminators 

I've seen an Aspiring Sorceror run down the Avatar of Khaine in close combat, does that make it likely to happen? As an aside, I'm not entirely sure what kind of Tau player can't kill 10 Terminators when they're walking towards him with only a 5+ Invulnerable to protect them, especially being as how expensive they are for precisely zero added benefits against an Ion Accelerator (Mark of Slaanesh is useless as you hit before or after a Riptide with basic Initiative or Unwieldy respectively, Icon of Excess since Riptides ignore Feel No Pain).



Gret79 said:


> I've seen super heavies taken out by sternguard (Revenant vs BA sternguard in a drop pod)
> That worked even though his opponant had bubble wrapped with guardians.


Even though the Eldar player obviously didn't bubble-wrap. If you bubble-wrap a unit and it's vulnerable to Drop Melta, then you've done something terribly wrong.



Gret79 said:


> I don't think just limiting the serpent shield to one use only will slow down the eldar much. And if you limit things, I guarantee there will be something you've missed and a player from somewhere will work out a new build of an army you've not foreseen and then spam that.


Yeah, people will find the new super-lists. But the fact that people haven't found those yet implies that whatever super-lists exist after the proposed restrictions take place won't be head and shoulders above the rest of the Codex's builds. For example, CSM Fast Attack is a pretty cool slot. Spawn and Bikes vying for the top, with a little competition from Raptors and then a dud/fluff unit in Warp Talons. It's a nice slot. Unfortunately, if you want to compete, the Fast Attack slot becomes the Heldrake slot, because the Drake is head and shoulders above any other choice in the whole section. If you make the Baleflamer a 0-1 choice, then that 1 will be taken and then a strategic decision needs to be made; do you take Spawn or Bikes? Do you take two units or one, leaving you with a slot for a unit of the others or a Raptor drop melta squad? 

Removing Baleflamer-armed Heldrakes from the CSM Fast Attack slot means you have to evaluate units and pick which ones you want or which would be better for the army, rather than taking 3x Heldrakes as the default.



Gret79 said:


> I think you'd have to make far too many sweeping changes to even attempt to balance 40k.
> I think looking at the points system might get more results.


Really? There's not an incredibly long list of concerns from what I've seen around the internet;

- Grimoire of True Names interacting with Forewarning (2++ re-rollable)
- Ion Accelerator
- Baleflamer
- Wave Serpent Shield
- Large numbers of Flyers (Cronair, primarily)
- Battle Brothers joining units (for Buff Commanders and others)/Battle Brother interaction.
- Stronghold Assault/Escalation.

That's... not really a vast paradigm shift.


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## lokyar (Apr 24, 2011)

seermaster said:


> I wouldn't ban anything peops is just annoyed cos there old 6ed lists need changing witch is imo a good thing.


what..............................


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## JAMOB (Dec 30, 2010)

Gret79 said:


> Grey Knights can still bring razorspam etc.


Helldrake vector strikes razorback, it dies. Then it flames their asses with it's s6 ap3 torrent. Goodbye GKs. 



MidnightSun said:


> 've seen an Aspiring Sorceror run down the Avatar of Khaine in close combat,


Isn't the Avatar fearless? Or did someone use that power that removes fearless? (Or is that a fantasy thing... I get mixed up)



Gret79 said:


> I've seen super heavies taken out by sternguard (Revenant vs BA sternguard in a drop pod)


Although I would love to see this happen more as a BA player... The point of bubble wrapping is surrounding it to the degree that no one can get inside 6" (melta range) of it, otherwise all you do is give it a cover save. That's kinda useless.



Gret79 said:


> I think you'd have to make far too many sweeping changes to even attempt to balance 40k.


It doesn't need to be balanced - it's fine if one codex is worse than others or vice versa - what it needs is to have some variation, where there are not 1-2 builds that kill everything except 1-2 other builds, invalidating all the other ones. See MidnightSun


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

JAMOB said:


> Isn't the Avatar fearless? Or did someone use that power that removes fearless? (Or is that a fantasy thing... I get mixed up)


The Aspiring Sorceror had Terrify, yeah :victory:



JAMOB said:


> Although I would love to see this happen more as a BA player... The point of bubble wrapping is surrounding it to the degree that no one can get inside 6" (melta range) of it, otherwise all you do is give it a cover save. That's kinda useless.


This. Board edges will block two sides of the super-heavy, then the rest of your army piles around the rest of it. Even if you have, I dunno, 30 Guardsmen - place 10 of them at maximum coherency in a line 3" away from the Shadowsword's hull, then place 20 of them 6" away (honestly, if you're going to full 2" coherency, you probably don't even need 30 Guardsmen). Now, with absolute ideal scatter, you're going to be shooting from 7" away. Account for Interceptor fire, I've Been Expecting You from Coteaz (who all Imperial armies can ally in as an Inquisitorial Detachment as a Battle Brother, even if your Primary Detachment is Eldar; you AoC in a Guard platoon with Coteaz, and it's still dead cheap).



JAMOB said:


> It doesn't need to be balanced - it's fine if one codex is worse than others or vice versa - what it needs is to have some variation, where there are not 1-2 builds that kill everything except 1-2 other builds, invalidating all the other ones. See MidnightSun


Again, this. It doesn't have to be balanced to the Nth degree. Just a departure from the current four-list-fest we have at the moment. Anything for some bloody variety. Anything which stops any and all gaming tables containing at least one Heldrake, Riptide, Screamerstar, or Serpent Spam army (or any mix of these, like Taudar). Not 'nerf Tau and Eldar into the ground', just remove the stupid stuff to let Blood Angels and Dark Eldar be viable contenders again.


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

Sethis said:


> This statement isn't supported by the rest of your post - so I don't know if it's actually what you meant. Obviously lots of players ARE able to try new things, because we all buy new models and units to go into our armies, and the vast majority of us have more than one army. I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm not going to argue that some codex's are screwed, but have you looked at any other options? Is running a pure BA army the best way to win? 6th allows allies is there any sort of detachment you could take that would give your BA's a better chance or doing their thing?

We have new codex's but we also have new rules for other things. I see allot of people who complain about fliers but when pointed out a aegis would assist them greatly they flat out refuse to buy one.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Reaper45 said:


> I'm not going to argue that some codex's are screwed, but have you looked at any other options? Is running a pure BA army the best way to win? 6th allows allies is there any sort of detachment you could take that would give your BA's a better chance or doing their thing?


Dark Eldar are easily the most competitive army out there, I honestly don't know what the complaining is about. I mean, a Haemonculus and two minimum-size squads of Kabalites in Venoms with double Cannons allied to Wave Serpent Spam is really strong, no idea why the Dark Eldar players are bitching.

If you need Allies to make your Codex good, it's not really a good Codex. Allies will usually make codices _better_, but if you (like Dark Eldar) rely on allies to be remotely feasible then there's a problem.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Reaper45 said:


> I'm not going to argue that some codex's are screwed, but have you looked at any other options? Is running a pure BA army the best way to win? 6th allows allies is there any sort of detachment you could take that would give your BA's a better chance or doing their thing?


I shouldn't have to ally in another race entirely to my Raven Guard (the army I was using the BA rules for) in order to win games. I'm a pretty damn good general, and routinely top 3 at county level tournaments, but even I've given up being able to win against thoroughly mediocre players who have two or more Heldrakes or Riptides or Serpents. It simply isn't realistically possible.

Sure, I could take Necron, Tau or Eldar allies, but then I'm not running my army, I'm running another army which has my army tacked onto the side of it. There's nothing you can add to the basic core of 30+ ASMs that make up 80% of BA lists, allies or otherwise, that can make them good enough to be worth the 235pts each squad costs you. Not when a Serpent is 130pts and a Heldrake is 170. If you want to win games, you simply can't play a codex printed in 5th, not because the rules are out of date, or codex creep, but because of three individual units and one wargear/psychic power combo.

This kills variety (hopefully no-one needs to have it explained why variety in games is inherently a good thing) by making 50% of printed codices near-worthless if you want to actually win games, and neuters interesting combinations and archetypes that could arise from the 6th books if only the metagame would let them. I know there's a good, old fashioned, meched up Marine infantry list in the new codex that's just dying to get out with IF or UM Chapter Tactics. I know that Chaos Bikers could make a really nice list. I know that Daemons could do a great melee horde army. The books have this potential. But until something is done to remove S, Serpent Spam, Heldrakes and the rest, they're never going to be able to be taken by someone who is interested in winning games regularly.



Reaper45 said:


> We have new codex's but we also have new rules for other things. I see allot of people who complain about fliers but when pointed out a aegis would assist them greatly they flat out refuse to buy one.


I know what it's like to try to persuade casual players to get better at the game, or to buy better units, or use them in better ways (better, in this case, meaning "win more") so I understand where you're coming from and what you mean.

However I will point out that against AV12 Flyers, a BS4 Quad Gun only inflicts a single damaging hit on average, which has a 50/50 chance to be a glance instead of a pen, and has no AP value worth a damn, so only has a 50/50 chance of causing permanent damage if it pens. And that's assuming your opponent didn't put a building in front of it, or hasn't killed it on turn 1 (because killing a T7 2W model with a 3+ save isn't hard). So while it helps a tiny bit against flyers, realistically it's like spitting into the wind.


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## seermaster (Feb 22, 2012)

lokyar said:


> what..............................


Anytime anything changes people on the internet rage,its just what happens.Anyway this argument was had several pages ago.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

I'm sorry, people are upset about changing their old 6th Edition lists? You realise that 6th Edition is this edition, right? And that most people aren't annoyed about changing their lists, they're annoyed about having to play Tau or Eldar (primarily) if they want to win games consistently? Which is why we've seen tournament attendence drop by approximately 20% since this time last year, a drop previously completely unheard of in competitive 40k?


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## Lord_Aaron (Sep 24, 2010)

MidnightSun said:


> ... Yeah, people will find the new super-lists. But the fact that people haven't found those yet implies that whatever super-lists exist after the proposed restrictions take place won't be head and shoulders above the rest of the Codex's builds. For example, CSM Fast Attack is a pretty cool slot. Spawn and Bikes vying for the top, with a little competition from Raptors and then a dud/fluff unit in Warp Talons. It's a nice slot. Unfortunately, if you want to compete, the Fast Attack slot becomes the Heldrake slot, because the Drake is head and shoulders above any other choice in the whole section. If you make the Baleflamer a 0-1 choice, then that 1 will be taken and then a strategic decision needs to be made; do you take Spawn or Bikes? Do you take two units or one, leaving you with a slot for a unit of the others or a Raptor drop melta squad?
> 
> Removing Baleflamer-armed Heldrakes from the CSM Fast Attack slot means you have to evaluate units and pick which ones you want or which would be better for the army, rather than taking 3x Heldrakes as the default...


As a Chaos player, I totally agree.


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## Gret79 (May 11, 2012)

MidnightSun said:


> As an aside, I'm not entirely sure what kind of Tau player can't kill 10 Terminators when they're walking towards him with only a 5+ Invulnerable to protect them, especially being as how expensive they are for precisely zero added benefits against an Ion Accelerator (Mark of Slaanesh is useless as you hit before or after a Riptide with basic Initiative or Unwieldy respectively, Icon of Excess since Riptides ignore Feel No Pain).


He killed every last one of the terminators and got Abaddon down to two wounds. Abby ended that game hugging tau in cc to stop himself being shot. He even managed to keep his troops away from my (1) heldrake
While he was annihilating my terminators, I quietly grabbed enough objectives to win. If The game would have carried on, I'd eventually have been blown off the table.
Tac lists are a dream. I've made a list and I accept I will have some bad games (eg Abby vs Tau = no warlord trait)




MidnightSun said:


> Yeah, people will find the new super-lists. But the fact that people haven't found those yet implies that whatever super-lists exist after the proposed restrictions take place won't be head and shoulders above the rest of the Codex's builds. For example, CSM Fast Attack is a pretty cool slot. Spawn and Bikes vying for the top, with a little competition from Raptors and then a dud/fluff unit in Warp Talons. It's a nice slot. Unfortunately, if you want to compete, the Fast Attack slot becomes the Heldrake slot, because the Drake is head and shoulders above any other choice in the whole section. If you make the Baleflamer a 0-1 choice, then that 1 will be taken and then a strategic decision needs to be made; do you take Spawn or Bikes? Do you take two units or one, leaving you with a slot for a unit of the others or a Raptor drop melta squad?
> 
> Removing Baleflamer-armed Heldrakes from the CSM Fast Attack slot means you have to evaluate units and pick which ones you want or which would be better for the army, rather than taking 3x Heldrakes as the default.


When you remove these units and people are forced to re think their lists, they'll find them then - they wouldn't find them before as there would be no need to. For example, you've said nothing about blast masters. Just taking one of them has won me games before - so I'll bring six min units of 5 nm to get as many in as possible, a heldrake, 2 Demon princes (one with the BM and one with the burning brand - making a mini heldrake) and an allied detachment of demons - so I can bring the grimoire and make my one heldrake have a 3++. Cause thats not playing fair either imo.

I guess it's just down to the fact that I like this game warts and all - all the armies have some awful match-ups now. Its nice when you fluke a win against a bad match up.

But anyway, have you got a chance to run a tourney with the restrictions you suggested?
That'd be the way to go about it - run a mini tourney (or a full one if you could) and see what people thought.
Cause this is just two people with different opinions on the internet - if you could get positive primary evidence from tourney players then that would prove you right


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## Gromrir Silverblade (Sep 21, 2010)

Zion said:


> I'd ban tournaments and run large campaign events instead with missions based on story things for the various armies, pitting different sides against each other.


I totally agree with this and is the way my gaming group plays 40k, it's what the game is designed for really.


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## Lord_Aaron (Sep 24, 2010)

Gret79 said:


> ...When you remove these units and people are forced to re think their lists, they'll find them then...
> 
> :shok:I don't undersand your sentence here. How can you "find" something that's been banned? Or how can you find 3 of something that's been restricted? If you mean "replace" them with similar, but weaker units, that's totally fine. That's kinda the point.
> 
> ...


This discussion was inspired by a major tournament, Feast of Blades, announcing that they will be having bans and restriction. You can read it here: http://www.3plusplus.net/2013/12/feast-of-blades-will-be-enacting-restrictions-and-bans/ Unfortunately the site is down at the moment. 
I started it because I wanted to get people's ideas on what to ban and/or restrict.

Anyway, weather your for or against bans and/or restrictions, check out an alternative idea here:http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=130202&page=7#68
I'd like to hear your input.:victory:


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## Gret79 (May 11, 2012)

Lord_Aaron said:


> This discussion was inspired by a major tournament, Feast of Blades, announcing that they will be having bans and restriction. You can read it here: http://www.3plusplus.net/2013/12/feast-of-blades-will-be-enacting-restrictions-and-bans/ Unfortunately the site is down at the moment.
> I started it because I wanted to get people's ideas on what to ban and/or restrict.
> 
> Anyway, weather your for or against bans and/or restrictions, check out an alternative idea here:http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=130202&page=7#68
> I'd like to hear your input.:victory:


In that case - I'll wait until after feast of blades to make my mind up - I'm not for any bans but if that tourney is seen as a resounding success, then the idea has more merit than I've given it.

The sentance you quoted - My thought is if you ban things, other units will rise in prominence. 
Purely as an example, if ap2 became a thing of the past, terminators would be king.

If we ban everything on the list I think a different, less considered unit would become more prominent.
But as I said, I'll wait for Feast of Blades to happen to make my mind up if bans are a good thing or not.


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## seermaster (Feb 22, 2012)

Sethis said:


> I'm sorry, people are upset about changing their old 6th Edition lists? You realise that 6th Edition is this edition, right? And that most people aren't annoyed about changing their lists, they're annoyed about having to play Tau or Eldar (primarily) if they want to win games consistently? Which is why we've seen tournament attendence drop by approximately 20% since this time last year, a drop previously completely unheard of in competitive 40k?


I didn't mean like that I was borrowing from reeces video were he sais about old 6ed vs new 6ed.
Old 6ed deamon screamer star. 
New 6th ed super heavy's.
To borrow your example asault marine ba army's might have been fine at the start of 6ed then chaos marines came out and hell drakes.The assault marine army I would refer to as an old 6ed list.


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## humakt (Jan 2, 2008)

Its interesting when you talk about 5th edition and 6th edition lists.

Near the end of 5th Edition I designed an Ork list that centered around Mad dok and 5 cyber mega nobs. They raced forward in a truckk and basically beat up anything they could get near. I took choices that most other players ignored. So storm boys, tank bustas, the shockk attack guns and gretchin squads were in. No battle wagons, lootas or Gazkull. This list did not do particularly well but was immense fun to play.

When 6th came out the mega nobs have been rampant. Only on a few occasions have they failed to perform well. I have on numerous occasions been the most successful ork player at local tournaments (twice at Throne of Skulls). Admittedly I have dropped the very very poor tank bustas for a pair of dakka jets but this shows that the usefulness of units does change form edition to edition.

With the advent of flyers and escalation I think a revaluation of tournament style play is interesting. GW have not made a tournament game. Its not desgined for that. The addition of some restrictions is not an entirely undesirable thing in tournaments. Take a look at all competitions in the sporting arena. You can only have x number of players, you cannot have an engine bigger than x in a f1 car, your safety equipment must match this standard etc etc. I see nothing wrong with saying helldrakes template weapon can only target in its front arc and D weapons are str10 ap1 ignore cover or maybe even saying that you cannot have allies that use the same base codex (regardless of any additional rules produced by GW).


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## iamtheeviltwin (Nov 12, 2012)

humakt said:


> With the advent of flyers and escalation I think a revaluation of tournament style play is interesting. GW have not made a tournament game. Its not desgined for that. The addition of some restrictions is not an entirely undesirable thing in tournaments. Take a look at all competitions in the sporting arena. You can only have x number of players, you cannot have an engine bigger than x in a f1 car, your safety equipment must match this standard etc etc. I see nothing wrong with saying helldrakes template weapon can only target in its front arc and D weapons are str10 ap1 ignore cover or maybe even saying that you cannot have allies that use the same base codex (regardless of any additional rules produced by GW).


This is where things are heading. If you compare 40K to the other two major tournament games (WFB and M:TG), 40k is currently the only one of those three that does not have any standard "restricted" tournament environment. There are different tournament (or comp) packs for WFB...ETC, Swiss, Event Specific, etc...M:TG has unlimited, Legacy, Modern, Vintage, etc. All of those comp types are "living" documents where things change when new units/codexes/sets change the meta. The main difference is that M:TG comp rules are maintained by WOTC and the various WFB comp rules are maintained by separate organizations. However, no one really decries these systems as "illegitimate" and often people will agree to use a particular comp system even before playing friendly games.

It seems odd that 40k has not seen any standard comp systems. (It has needed it before now) However, there has not been an equivalent "standard" set of tournament rules for 40k (there are always local differences, some ban FW, some do not allow double FoC, etc)...but 40k players seem much more resistant to a comp system than these other games. Not sure why that is.


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

I'm a new player and I'm sure everybody says this, but I started CSM before I even knew what a Heldrake was.

Using 0-1 Heldrakes, I lost practically every game. I'm willing to chalk most of this up to tactical errors and a list that can't handle x or y effectively, because that's a fair admission. I could have won a game or two by doing things like shooting the last marine holding an objective instead of killing the HQ guy standing off the objective, but I wanted to impress the blood god. :victory:

One Heldrake isn't a big thing. Sure you could lose a squad of troops if the table is arranged just so, but a quad gun or 2 Stormtalons can take it out pretty quickly and minimize the damage it can do.

I've lost against lists that are super cheesy and those that were fair enough for me to have had a shot at victory. Then I bought a second Heldrake because I wanted to win a game or two.

I've used 2 Heldrakes twice, and won both games. I'm sure my perception is partially colored by the multitude of players screaming "CHEEEESE! CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!" but those victories felt sort of lame. Vector strike through the enemy vehicles, baleflame 7+/10 of a squad of troops twice with ideal setup, and then more kills as possible given rotations and enemy movements throughout the game. Vector strike through flyers if they're on the board, and intercept them with the quad gun if possible. The chances of 2 heldrakes being shot down are pretty low without anti-air stuff.

What I really want to be doing is playing a Khorne-themed close combat army. Every time I do that, I get ground into a bloody paste. Sometimes it's fun because I can pull off a draw against a player who isn't super experienced or super cheesy, other times it's just counting the turns until I lose, because from deployment I can see it's going to go that way.

I will freely admit I'm prone to whining too much about stuff, but the point of this post is to bolster the argument for people feeling the need to take the best, "cheesy" units because the bulk of the units in the codex just aren't great. Or to put it another way, the army that I want to run isn't terribly "competitive".


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## Ravion (Nov 3, 2010)

Khorne can be competitive if you get the right units and play them right.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Ravion said:


> Khorne can be competitive if you get the right units and play them right.


I don't see it competing with Eldar or Tau, I'm afraid. The inability to assault out of transports even when stationary crippled anything not mounted in a Land Raider. And without access to the Crusader, CSM are just fucked. Neither the speed nor resilience needed to get across the table in the face of the 100+ shots that tourney level Eldar lists can put out, or the 6-8 AP2 pie plates that ignore cover which result from Tau.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Ravion said:


> Khorne can be competitive if you get the right units and play them right.


No shit, we know Heldrakes are good. Preaching to the choir, my friend.


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## Lord_Aaron (Sep 24, 2010)

Gret79 said:


> In that case - I'll wait until after feast of blades to make my mind up - I'm not for any bans but if that tourney is seen as a resounding success, then the idea has more merit than I've given it.
> ...
> But as I said, I'll wait for Feast of Blades to happen to make my mind up if bans are a good thing or not.


Fair enough 
I'll be looking forward to the results too.

Oh and venomlust, pay no attention to MidnightSun. His family was killed by a heldrake when he was young.


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

Ravion said:


> Khorne can be competitive if you get the right units and play them right.



So what are the right units and how do I play them right? I want only Khorne or unmarked units.

It isn't always the unit choice, but rather the game mechanics that are hindering. As mentioned, the inability to charge out of rhinos sucks ass. Same goes for deepstriking. I'm sure if these things were possible the pendulum could swing the other way and they could overrun shooty enemies, making the shooting underpowered instead. Not sure what a healthy balance would be.

I must admit, this reminds me of all the mmorpgs I've played. Some classes are better than others, with certain builds being best of all. Rarely is a true sense of balance achieved, as classes are constantly getting nerfed and buffed, and game mechanics getting changed. In trying to create different options for players while keeping them as unique as possible, the likelihood of success seems inversely proportional to the amount of options. But then, options are good!

Balance, to me, doesn't mean that a squig should be as tough as a terminator, but that any way you choose to run your army (within reason) has clear strengths and weaknesses not blatantly overshadowed by the "OP" builds, and that they always have an equal expectation of victory. To be honest, I don't envy the game designers' task in trying to achieve this, or if it's even truly possible.

Now, perhaps _certain_ players are all but assured victory. Not because they pick cheesy lists, but because their tactics and such are superior. Losing to an opponent who's better than me is totally acceptable and even welcome, because a challenge is fun and provides the opportunity to learn and improve. Taking units that guarantee a win provide neither, and such a victory has nothing to do with my skills as a tabletop general.

Then factor in the fact that this is a tabletop game where the company figures out as many ways as possible to get you spending as much as possible, and any realistic expectations for balance just fly out the fucking window. GW doesn't need the game to be balanced, they need us to buy shit. Perhaps expecting otherwise is foolish.

This may seem overly cynical, perhaps those with more experience in the hobby have better informed thoughts on the subject.


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

Lord_Aaron said:


> Fair enough
> I'll be looking forward to the results too.
> 
> Oh and venomlust, pay no attention to MidnightSun. His family was killed by a heldrake when he was young.


Haha, they thought being inside of a cement bunker behind the drake would save them! The drake must have rolled the cursory 1 for Midnight.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

venomlust said:


> So what are the right units and how do I play them right? I want only Khorne or unmarked units.


Khorne Lord on Juggernaught with Axe of Blind Fury, three Heldrakes, Cultists and Fauxzerkers (CSM with Mark of Khorne, VotLW, and Icon of Wrath), Havocs/Obliterators in Heavy Support.



venomlust said:


> Now, perhaps _certain_ players are all but assured victory. Not because they pick cheesy lists, but because their tactics and such are superior. Losing to an opponent who's better than me is totally acceptable and even welcome, because a challenge is fun and provides the opportunity to learn and improve. Taking units that guarantee a win provide neither, and such a victory has nothing to do with my skills as a tabletop general..


Most really good players happen to use really good lists, I think you'll find. Not many excellent generals running Vespid and Mandrakes.

The rest of your post was right on the money though.


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

venomlust said:


> Then factor in the fact that this is a tabletop game where the company figures out as many ways as possible to get you spending as much as possible, and any realistic expectations for balance just fly out the fucking window. GW doesn't need the game to be balanced, they need us to buy shit. Perhaps expecting otherwise is foolish.


Bang on the money here. GW has moved away from creating a balanced game a while ago and with their newer faster release schedule (which isn't necessarily a bad thing mind) this is increasing. It's been said that due to concerns about IP breaches they aren't doing as much in the way of playtesting as they used too, I don't buy that for a second, actually putting time and effort into play testing takes up time and slows down release schedules if you don't have the staff and if you do have more staff then that costs money. Saying its because of fear of leaks is bullshit, we all know how the GW legal team is with C&D, they are more trigger happy than a Alabama teenager who just got a ammo shipment accidentally sent to them rather than the Army, you are honestly telling me they can't write up a NDA gag order that works? Get them to sign the same one that the likes of Svart does and be done with it. 

At the end of the day GW wants you to buy minis first and foremost. The more minis available the more likely you are to buy them. The more minis there are the harder it is to keep everything balanced.


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## emporershand89 (Jun 11, 2010)

Grey Knights and Dark Eldar, no questions askeed. both these Army's are way too over-powered and honestly need to be Redone or kicked out all together. I'd also bann eating at tounrey Tables and letting girlfreinds distract you while playing. 

That is all.


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

emporershand89 said:


> Grey Knights and Dark Eldar, no questions askeed. both these Army's are way too over-powered and honestly need to be Redone or kicked out all together. I'd also bann eating at tounrey Tables and letting girlfreinds distract you while playing.
> 
> That is all.


Grey knights yes I can see as they have cheesy builds and require no brain to play, DE on the other hand requires work.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Reaper45 said:


> Grey knights yes I can see as they have cheesy builds and require no brain to play, DE on the other hand requires work.


He was joking. Dark Eldar and Grey Knights are shit tournament armies.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

We need a sarcasm font. :laugh:


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

A lot of people use orange text to show it.


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

MidnightSun said:


> Khorne Lord on Juggernaught with Axe of Blind Fury, three Heldrakes, Cultists and Fauxzerkers (CSM with Mark of Khorne, VotLW, and Icon of Wrath), Havocs/Obliterators


Is it just me? Or does not seem to be a khorne close combat army, and rather a flying dragon list painted red?

And balance I think is absolutely possible, it may take time and effort but that's what the community's for though right?
You release a codex, say the CSM one. You see that 99% of tourney lists bring drakes and no one brings warp talons
You go, right, let's up hull mount the heldrakes bale flames and remove vector strike, and let talons assault after deep strike.
Whoops, now 99% of tourneys use warp talons! let's remove assault after deep strike but give them +1 ws/attacks
Rise repeat
You will achieve balance where wins depend on not just the army you happen to face, but the general you face, and how your particular units stack up against each other as opposed to heldrakes- gg, screamers- gg apoc- gg

Examples may not be perfect, but you get the gist


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

kiro the avenger! said:


> Is it just me? Or does not seem to be a khorne close combat army, and rather a flying dragon list painted red?


It's Khorne-themed and competitive. You could make it more competitive (Noise Marines), or more 'fluffy' (Berzerkers instead of Fauxzerkers, or... well, that's the only change that would make it more typically World Eater-y, but as it stands it's still a strongly Khorne list), which is the trade-off. Personally, there are no 'un-fluffy' lists, but that's just my view.


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

kiro the avenger! said:


> Is it just me? Or does not seem to be a khorne close combat army, and rather a flying dragon list painted red?
> 
> And balance I think is absolutely possible, it may take time and effort but that's what the community's for though right?
> You release a codex, say the CSM one. You see that 99% of tourney lists bring drakes and no one brings warp talons
> ...


I wish that's how they updated rules, instead of making you wait years to spend 50 bucks.Not that I had to wait, though. . I really can't complain on that front.

Faq and errata should also include points/stats/rules tweaks to move the game in the right direction, but they wouldn't make money that way. At least, not directly.

I wonder if they're gonna start releasing dataslates of slightly improved versions of units that already exist. Don't need to release new figures, just give them better rules/fix useless units and charge us for the dataslates. That's a good 40 dollars a player, minimum! GW needs to get in touch with me asap, there are plenty of ways to bleed us dry and keep us coming back to "get well."


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

I think that my system would actually make gw money- they release it, everyone buys a heldrake, gw balances them an accidently unbalances warp talons
Everyone buys warp talons
Then they need them and buff rhinos, everyone buys rhinos, so they sell not just x3 drakes per player, x3 drakes, then x whatever talons, then x whatever rhinos ETC so they could even gain more money doing that, that people will thank them for it!
And paying for FAQs would be a bit of a dick move, I wish they would rewrite FAQs into codex's when they print them
Same with updating box set designs- like how the 6th ed style is a black background, 5th was scenic background 4th I believe was like real pictures- not models...


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## lokyar (Apr 24, 2011)

kiro the avenger! said:


> I think that my system would actually make gw money- they release it, everyone buys a heldrake, gw balances them an accidently unbalances warp talons
> Everyone buys warp talons
> Then they need them and buff rhinos, everyone buys rhinos, so they sell not just x3 drakes per player, x3 drakes, then x whatever talons, then x whatever rhinos ETC so they could even gain more money doing that, that people will thank them for it!
> And paying for FAQs would be a bit of a dick move, I wish they would rewrite FAQs into codex's when they print them
> Same with updating box set designs- like how the 6th ed style is a black background, 5th was scenic background 4th I believe was like real pictures- not models...


this works, look at league of legends. they make money hand over fist with this system


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

How does LoL make money? It's F2P right? Not to mention a piece of shit...


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## lokyar (Apr 24, 2011)

kiro the avenger! said:


> How does LoL make money? It's F2P right? Not to mention a piece of shit...


you can buy champions with irl money and getting them without money is annoying and since there are more or less 100 champions...

they release a champion horribly overpowered, which everyone buys, then nerf the shit out of it.


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

Right, let's hope gw doesn't get any ideas


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

kiro the avenger! said:


> I think that my system would actually make gw money- they release it, everyone buys a heldrake, gw balances them an accidently unbalances warp talons
> Everyone buys warp talons
> Then they need them and buff rhinos, everyone buys rhinos, so they sell not just x3 drakes per player, x3 drakes, then x whatever talons, then x whatever rhinos ETC so they could even gain more money doing that, that people will thank them for it!
> And paying for FAQs would be a bit of a dick move, I wish they would rewrite FAQs into codex's when they print them
> Same with updating box set designs- like how the 6th ed style is a black background, 5th was scenic background 4th I believe was like real pictures- not models...


Let's not forget to raise the dollar price of a newly improved unit. After all, it's more valuable to the player now. Why should they get a free upgrade?


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

They already have yearly price hikes dude, any more and I WILL leave!
But I think we should stop disgusting how gw could get more money, their legal could be anywhere
Trust no one!
<.<
>.>
<.<


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## lokyar (Apr 24, 2011)

kiro the avenger! said:


> They already have yearly price hikes dude, any more and I WILL leave!
> But I think we should stop disgusting how gw could get more money, their legal could be anywhere
> Trust no one!
> <.<
> ...


everyone is their legal


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## Achaylus72 (Apr 30, 2011)

I'd ban girls and restrict any space marine player to 500 points.


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## humakt (Jan 2, 2008)

Achaylus72 said:


> I'd ban girls and restrict any space marine player to 500 points.


Is that just a generic ban on girls or girls playing 40k or female figures?


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## Pssyche (Mar 21, 2009)

Puts a whole new slant on his signature "Ultramarines are Pussies"...


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## d3m01iti0n (Jun 5, 2012)

Pssyche said:


> Puts a whole new slant on his signature "Ultramarines are Pussies"...


It doesnt make sense before or after the slant.


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## Uveron (Jun 11, 2011)

If I was running a tournament I have a feeling that I would ‘ban’ the following: 
None-battle brother Allies. I would also say that you can have only 1 force allocation group, even including your Allies. So if you use Allies you only get 1 HQ slot in each group. 

I would also limit the games to 1500pts. Which I still think is the best point level game for a game, and with the lords of war now running around it makes using one of them… a lot more restrictive on the rest of your force.


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## Shas'Ui (Feb 28, 2013)

I would ban CC  I mean for realz, this is the future why must we fight like barbarians?


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## JAMOB (Dec 30, 2010)

Shas'Ui said:


> I would ban CC  I mean for realz, this is the future why must we fight like barbarians?


Of course a tau would say that :grin:


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## Uveron (Jun 11, 2011)

On this topic of conversation This Post has created quite the debate on my FB feed recently... Thought I would let others whom may not have seen it


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## Ryu_Niimura (May 1, 2013)

Haha an exelent point and I fully agree!:grin:


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## tu_shan82 (Mar 7, 2008)

Zion said:


> I'd ban tournaments and run large campaign events instead with missions based on story things for the various armies, pitting different sides against each other.


Amen to that brother. Having said that though, I would restrict certain things like these new datasheets like the Tau one and the SM one with the two storm talons and the storm raven either to one per primary detachment or alternatively limit the amount of points you you spend on them to certain percentage of your overall total. same goes for super heavies.Tthe only thing is that if you do that with the super heavies it may end being unfair becuase super heavies are worth differing points values and if you're only allowed to spend say 25 percent then some armies would be able to take super heavies lower points level games than others because, for instance a baneblade costs less than a lord of skulls. If I had of been the one authering Escelation would have been authored differently and would have been far more balanced, for example I would have put a percentage restriction in place, but instead of limiting the lord of war slot to certain select list of super heavies, I would have included other option from Apoc like the linebreaker squadron as it's pretty much the equivalent of a similarly priced super heavy, both use the big pie plate, also three vindictors have the same number of hull points as a baneblade as well. Still the great thing about 40k as a game is that we are actively encouraged to modify things to our liking and negotiate with our opponents as to what we are llowed to take or not, which rules to include or not, and even the ability come up with our own unique rules from scratch. Of course this is only really applicable in the beer and pretzel environment, which luckily is where most of my hobby and gaming takes place. I plan on experimenting with things a little with my gaming baddies and try out a few things, find out what works for us and what doesn't.


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## humakt (Jan 2, 2008)

Banning allies is interesting. From a personal point of view I wouldn't care. I never have enough points to get everything I want in my primary codex, let alone spend stuff from another codex. Since 6th edition I don't recall ever having allies. But I am also not opposed to other people taking them regardless of the power combo they create.


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## Pssyche (Mar 21, 2009)

humakt said:


> Banning allies is interesting. From a personal point of view I wouldn't care. I never have enough points to get everything I want in my primary codex, let alone spend stuff from another codex. Since 6th edition I don't recall ever having allies. But I am also not opposed to other people taking them regardless of the power combo they create.


I couldn't agree more.

I've got 18K of painted Eldar and it's hard enough to choose an 1,850 Points army list from that little lot, what with them all shouting "Play me! Play me!"l. 
And now I'm going to start leaving even more of them out of my list just to shoehorn in some Johnny-cum-Lately's?

I don't think so...


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## CommissarAidan (Apr 9, 2012)

i would ban captain sicarius he is a bit to over powered with the 5 ed codex he had more special rules than marneus calgar


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## Da Joka (Feb 20, 2009)

Uveron said:


> On this topic of conversation This Post has created quite the debate on my FB feed recently... Thought I would let others whom may not have seen it


I like this thought. Ban Allies. That actually fixes a lot of the broken lists...


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

Id ban strength D, allies, and FAQ some stuff like the screamer star and wave serpent shield


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## Ravion (Nov 3, 2010)

Allies in an army are fine ,in my opinion, as long as the player has a really good reason to have allies in his army (THEME!) and the army doesn't look like its OP.
Players need to remember the game is play for fun not play to win and piss everyone else off!


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

This is for tournaments right? So no ones gonna bring any theme based stuff, and the allies are so intone mic it's not even funny- blood angles/necrons your having a laugh! Tau/orks when was I friends with my greatest enemy?
Allies in tourneys are just a way to patch up your armies failings- taudar for instance or space wolves with tau for melee defence, or imp guard for blob squads or cheesy fliers or tanks ETC


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