Balancing 40k

I never said guard couldnt loose never said that.

And I never said people don't play all the other armies.

I said the majority of people showing up for these tournaments are playing guard, why is that???

And I have been playing warhammer and warhammer 40k for over 13 years now, so from my experance and as jessie said there really is no balance because of how people will always agree and disagree.

But why not try a comp tournament and see how it goes. I have played in both and I like all of them. So why not try it out and see what happens and if you don't want to play then don't.

I see what you’re going for josh the problem is a difference in players. Fantasy players have no problem with comp. When we play in a comp tournament we look for a way to win.

I think 40k players that only play 40k don't see the IG or space wolfs as better books, because to admit that one book is better than another will kill their argument that 40k is balanced.

That fine with me our goal on this site is to have people play in tournaments they want to play in. Not tell a person what they’re going to do. I'm not going to talk about this subject any more with 40k players there happy I'm happy. I have said it a couple of times I'll play any list any time with my sisters.

40k is fun and that I guess is all that matters.

Yeah its really funny that people won't admit that their book is better than another

and would refuse to play in a comp tournament because it wouldnt let them take exactly what they want to take.

I guess we should just take all tactics out of the game and just let people keep doing what they are doing.

people show up to tournaments most of them leave happy so I'm happy.

joko12 wrote:

Yeah its really funny that people won't admit that their book is better than another

and would refuse to play in a comp tournament because it wouldnt let them take exactly what they want to take.

I guess we should just take all tactics out of the game and just let people keep doing what they are doing.

I play in tourneys on occasion with my Necrons, dude.

Comp tourneys punish them more than my Guard, all the time. That's the problem w/ comp.

guys for real lets let the comp thing go

Only if you do the thing your animated gif in the avatar is doing, in person, to me, while wearing blue overalls.

lol done and done bring me a cup of wip cream some ice cubes and a hokey stick and it's on. don't ask.

Quote :

Swiss system is one of the worse kinds of systems that a person can play in if you really want to get into the math of all this.

I do want to get into the math of this (perhaps in another thread) because I'm inclined to believe all the world's chess-nerds have figured out a better system then one guy playing with miniatures. But I'm prepared to be wrong, and so if you've got some analysis I'd be very curious to see it. I'm particularly interested in what standard of 'good' and 'bad' you're using with respect to tournaments.

http://whiskey40k.blogspot.com/2010/04/swiss-is-for-chocolate-seeding-and.html

re: swiss

Well, if you've really got 64 players you'd need 6 rounds to do Swiss anyway. And in a real swiss system you're only tracking 1 tournament point for a win, 0 for a loss. The only reason to track all kinds of intra-game scores is because you don't have enough rounds to generate enough pairings to actually let swiss run out, and therefore need the extra battle points or whatever to create more differentiation between players besides simple win loss records. (though you could use strength of schedule to replace battle points as a ranking tool and only have to track win/loss).

Also, I think you're mis characterizing swiss to some extent. It works best when the players are pre-ranked going into the event (as in Chess or Magic) but less well where they are not (as in local 40k tournaments). Random first round seeding addresses this to some extent. But it's not that #1 plays #2 after the first round, it's that each round sorts the players into buckets (first round 2 buckets, second round 3 buckets, 3 rounds 4 buckets). Without overall player rankings the assignment of players is random within the buckets, if you do have rankings you play the player in each bucket vs the top player in the bottom half of the same bucket. (i.e in a 16 player event #1 would play #5, #2 vs #6 etc (after the first round).

However, if the goal is to ensure that the first and second best players at the event play each other in the final round, random seeding actually doesn't stop this from happening from the get go either (though swiss will if you do it for the right number of rounds).

What Joko12 has been proposing for 'comp' is effectively accelerated swiss, where we 'preselect' the top half of the competitor pool and have them start against each other, rather than straight random seeding.

Mike you pretty much hit the nail on the head to why the swiss does not work for 40k

Im not saying it does not work for chess or checkers cause it does. But that is a differnt game same thing does not apply to warhammer.

But I do realize there are not a whole lot of other options I just said that because there are so many factors going into 40k that I feel that tournaments could be run better if there was not a swiss style but more or so brackets based off of comp score missions etc.....

Not to extend an already lengthy thread, but I remember when GW first started its Rogue Trader tournaments and introduced a Swiss system. I remember quite a few people feeling that it was a great deal more "fair" than a bracket-based system, as well as considerably less complicated to organize and run.

Seems like 10 years or so later, and we're full circle. :p

yeah i mean they go alot faster and its way last complicated i agree

i was just saying if we were on the argument of what a fair tournament was we could try a bracket type deal

ok, once again people seem to have missed that this is a thread for discussing effective ways to comp not to discuss if we should comp, many gamers, and myself, know that the game sis imbalance and our minds are not going to be shifted you whatever fallacious arguments the ig people throw at us, 9 tank vs 3 tanks is not fair, any first grader can do that math simple, so if you feel that ig is balanced great don't play in a comp event but, and i'm asking nicely, please stop belaboring your point on this tread, i have chosen and will continue to not respond to any one who trys to argue that guard or orks don't have a statistical advantage in the game and would ask that the people who are interested in the actual topic of this thread do the same


the bottom line is that at the last two 40k events i was out i heard alot of people complain that IG players were ruining the field for every one else and i want to address there complaints

Brent:

(1) composition restrictions won't work, unless they're list-specific. That is to say, you would need to go through army list by army list, and specify exactly what is penalized, and what is not. Having generic composition rules (X numbers of troops, Y numbers of vehicles, etc), will not have the effect you want -- which is, to restrict very effective alpha-strike Guard lists from being built. Generic comp WILL make things harder for older (4e) army lists.

(2) If you're serious about this, and don't want the work (and headache) of a codex-by-codex list of restrictions, there are other ways to artificially attempt to create a (different) balance, for example:

* Fixed game length. MVBrandt has suggested this one. Basically it gives armies that go second a large, and very predictable, advantage, hopefully enough to counter the advantage of an alpha-strike (Guard) list.

* Terrain placement phase. Can make alpha-strike lists a little harder to pull off. Downside is that it adds more time to the game.

* Much more terrain. Makes alpha-strike LOS more difficult. Downside is that it requires a LOT more terrain, and people don't always have that much.

* More terrain of the solid, opaque variety (for example: large solid multi-story buildings with no windows). Makes LOS more difficult. Downside is that this sort of terrain is usually quite Not Fun for most people to play in, because at a certain point you're playing Cityfight.

* Special missions. Makes running an alpha-strike list less predictable. Downside is that you're basically throwing game balance out the window if your special missions are too "special".

* Special in-game scenario rules. Same as above.

* Deployment restrictions. Same as above.

* Movement restrictions. Same as above.

=========

However, it looks like your bigger complaint is about mechanization. Unfortunately, mechanization is a key part of 5th edition, and it's here to stay, at least until 6th edition. Orks (to pick a completely random army list!!!) don't mechanize well, nor do they handle mechanized armies very well, so until they do, they're just going to struggle in games against mechanized foes.

As for your experiences at tournaments -- I don't know that two tournaments is a good sample size. The last tournament I went to, I played Guard, and placed in the middle of the pack. And in my experiences in the past six 40K tournaments I've played in, here are the overall winners:

IG (x2)
Chaos (x2)
Tyranids (x1)
Eldar (x1)

All of those tournaments had Imperial Guard players, and all had IG armies with LOTS OF TANKS. But that didn't mean they won overall, or even placed very high, all the time. I will agree that all the tournament winners above (except Tyranids) were mechanized. But that's because this is 5e, and 5e is about mechanization.

Are you people that stupid you still are not even trying to do what he is asking!!! This is so funny to me. That people are being that stupid.

If you don't have any suggestions about the comp system and how to try and make it work don't say anything. You really must be retarded or just so argumentitive that you can not let it go.

He wants to try comp let it happen don't show up if you don't want to play comp!!!

Not to continue this discussion further, but for Brent to say "bring up ideas to make a comp effective" and then re-address the issue of Guard being broken, as a closing point, is well... counter-productive to him trying to get people back on-topic.

"The bottom line..." if you want a topic to go back on topic, ignore the off-topic aspect of it, entirely in your post.

Cheers.

And joko, before you go around calling people "retarted" you might want to make it not appear like you are retarded. Oh, the irony.

poopy i love poopy

Thats about how usfull this is

There is no balancing or 40k. Some people think it's balanced others do not.


so what did we actually accomplish with this thread... besides the nerd rage.

pretty much

well, it did entertain me.

other than that i cant think of anything

Ok so I have a good idea or at least my friends and I think its a good idea

1850 40k World Cup Style tournament 32 slots!!!
(this will be a two day tournament or one really late night one.)

Must have a min of 4 troop choices
No troop slot max
Cannont have any Units be more then 325 points.
Special Charicators are allowed

People are randomly seeded into brackets of 4 people

Each Bracket plays pitched battle rules. With the exception that there will be three objectives to capture. One in the center of the board, and one in each of the players deployment zones. Each deployment zone capture will yield and extra 2 kill points.

4 pieces of terrian on each table 2 building, and two difficult terrian pieces (woods rocks etc)
Players each get a peace of terrian and get to set them up.

Every person plays every person in their bracket meaning 3 games before next round.

The rounds will be decieded on this score system only.
Win 3 points, tie 1 points, loss 0 points.

The top two people from each round move on.
In the event of tie breakers, Kill points will break the tie. If that is also a tie, then go to who captured most objectives.

After that round has been completed pairing from the 4 brackets will be strong to weak points. so if someone won all 3 games they have 9 points they get paired up agaisnt someone who might have only one a game and tied the other 2 so then you have a 9 vs a 4.

After this its single round elimination. You loose here and you are out.

You win and you go onto the semi's.

After the semi round you move onto the final game.

I think this would be a fun tournament to try out.

Things can change these are just some rough ideas.

see this is what I'm talking about.

Thank you no talk about comp no talk about thats isn't ok or that is. a tournament with guid lines i need to follow to play in. Very cool.

Scooter sisters of battle do they have to be painted?

that is a ton of games.

i like it.

I would say that they don't all have to be painted but your army needs to be 50 percent painted, because I do realize that everyone having all their stuff painted isnt going to happen, but I don't know when we could play this cause I know that I could not set this up until the weekend of may 30th to the 31st, so if people really want to play we could run it then.

what if we did a event based on percentages like new fantasy, 25% hq, 25% fast, 25%heavy, 25% elite, +25% troops, and just to prevent certain build, all wordings of counts as troops should be changed to counts as scoring, thoughts?

It might work if all armies had been written with the same logic. But what is 'elite' or 'heavy' for one army is different in another. Worth exploring, but you'd want to look at what suddenly couldn't be used, and what could.

This would stop someone taking 9 vendettas, but does nothing for someone taking all mech guard in chimeras. Some armies are hobbibly affected, some not at all.

true true

Brent,

My normal 1850 Thousand Sons army is

HQ: 22%
Elite: 17%
Troops: 33%
Heavy 28%
Fast: 0% (+/- based on spaw creation)

(Edit, in 2500 it gets worse, with an average of 46% in troops...)

Any Many people have voiced it being a cheese dick power gaming army, regardless of how unique, fluffy or challenging it is to play...

% don't mean alot, and there are ways around it...

Every system can be gamed, fundamentally that's all games are anyway, systems you can break. What makes you think you can come up with a better system?

avatar8481 wrote:

Every system can be gamed, fundamentally that's all games are anyway, systems you can break. What makes you think you can come up with a better system?

because i am god like in my wisdom, people run competed fantasy events regularly it's not a huge stretch to run a similar 40k event

dude i say do it

for some armies it is diffiult, or near impossible to hit 25% in HQ, would there be a min, and spill over of points into troops maybe?

Yeah I think HQ is the only place you might get a problem with but other then that you should be golden on the percentages thing

Well the troops would be the only min 25% all other types would be maxs, so no more than500 pts in hq shouldn't be a problem really

The question is: How does this balance 40k?

What can you suddenly not do that was unbalanced? And more of a concern, what does this allow you to do if you don't have a force org, just percentages?

It's easy to build armies using this system, but how are they 'better' or 'more balanced' armies than armies using a force org?

@mikhaila,

Well said!

40K army construction is fluid, right now Leafblower looks over the top, I am sure once Daemonhunters are cycled out and the next Codex generation is brought it we will see a new "uber" army... IG even with force org restrictions can be brutal..

Maybe I am slow, but I still don't see why 40k is so unbalanced. It's rock paper sissors, but if you build your lists, and always play with that in mind it's possible to counter even most of the worst "cheese" IMHO.

mikhaila wrote:

The question is: How does this balance 40k?

What can you suddenly not do that was unbalanced? And more of a concern, what does this allow you to do if you don't have a force org, just percentages?

It's easy to build armies using this system, but how are they 'better' or 'more balanced' armies than armies using a force org?

The game is imbalnced in many ways largly due to the ability of many armys to minmax, this is aided by a sloted vs % based seltion method, why do you think they changed it back to % in fantasy

Brent wrote:

mikhaila wrote:

The question is: How does this balance 40k?

What can you suddenly not do that was unbalanced? And more of a concern, what does this allow you to do if you don't have a force org, just percentages?

It's easy to build armies using this system, but how are they 'better' or 'more balanced' armies than armies using a force org?

The game is imbalnced in many ways largly due to the ability of amnyarmys to minmax, this is aided by a sloted vs % based seltion method, why do you think they changed it back to % in fantasy

I think you are vastly over simplifying. And WFB is very, very different from 40k in both play and army selection.

I actually asked those questions to see if you had answers to them, and had done some thought about it, not just hammer out questions.

1) What is the imbalance in current 40k?
2) How does using % allotments for a force org change this?

Specifically: What 'Imbalanced' lists go away with this format?

If you can't answer those questions, then you can't convince anyone this is actually 'balancing' the system, vs just changing it and allowing different ways to max/min.

I agree with Mike.

You have failed to articulate the two main things in any sale: What is the problem, and how does your idea fix it.

I would say the problem is that every 40k army has something that can be abused and spammed out. Mech armies, some people think damiens army is cheap because of all the troops. 3 monoliths is even had to deal with,

I think by putting a % on points you can't take those crazy armies like 9 vindicators

or 9 vendhettas not saying its going to solve the problem but I see what Brent is saying

the idea is that hopefully people will not try and power game and bend the rules to bring the nastiest army thye can make and hopefully expand an dmake more fun armies so that people that play dark eldar, eldar, necrons, and whatever people don't play that much can show up at a tournament and have a fair game.

Just like how fantasy rules have been changed to make ogres more fair and give the lower tier armies a better chance.

avatar8481 wrote:

I agree with Mike.

You have failed to articulate the two main things in any sale: What is the problem, and how does your idea fix it.

i don't i fee l failed at all, the problem is min maxing and percentages would help to limit min maxing, bottom line it forces people to do something different with there lists, isn't any one else bored with the same old tournament armies all the time

Brent wrote:

avatar8481 wrote:

I agree with Mike.

You have failed to articulate the two main things in any sale: What is the problem, and how does your idea fix it.

i don't i fee l failed at all, the problem is min maxing and percentages would help to limit min maxing, bottom line it forces people to do something different with there lists, isn't any one else bored with the same old tournament armies all the time

I get bored with grey armies, no matter what the composition is.)

You did fail. You say min maxing like it's a defined strategy. It isn't. Gamers talk all day on boards and throw out new terms, then argue about them.

What do you see the problems are?
How does the change in the rules make those problems go away?
What new problems will pop up?

You also need to define what you mean by percentages. Can I take as many of a unit as I can afford? Do 0-1 restrictions go away?

Have no illusions, most people will greatly enjoy breaking the new system just like they enjoy breaking the old one. You'll also get all the old arguements about why people can't play what they want, why their army doesn't work anymore, etc etc.

I haven't read all the posts on this thread but here's my 2 cents.

40k is inherently imbalanced. The only way to get balance in 40k, is to give everyone the same army list and tell them to play. That way it would be only smarts that determined the winner. Thats too much like chess though so...

Imbalance is what makes 40k what it is. Part of the game is knowing what weapons to use against what, what models can take on other models and so on. It's not a bad thing, it just means that 40k isn't a good game if you want real competition.

TimW wrote:

Imbalance is what makes 40k what it is. Part of the game is knowing what weapons to use against what, what models can take on other models and so on. It's not a bad thing, it just means that 40k isn't a good game if you want real competition.

isn't that was makes 40K interesting and a challenge? Winning with an underdog army, beating a "Leafblower" with a underpowered or atleast unequal list? Never knowing if in a tourney your going to be paired against your bane or the perfect patsy

I wonder why it is that fantasy players are more open to the idea of comp, there are compt fantasy events all the time and I have not observed any objection to them

Quote :

I wonder why it is that fantasy players are more open to the idea of comp, there are compt fantasy events all the time and I have not observed any objection to them

There are 2 types of comp in fantasy on the show me your list you get a 12 for your comp score. <------ when this happens i laugh and bring the gayest list I can bring If I just crush all my opponents comp won’t matter at all.

Or ETC a great system that tells you, you can tack this but it will cost you this. You can't take 2 of these you can only have this many of these. I much prefer this type of comp not because it hampers me but because I want to break it.

You’re not putting out well thought out ideas 25% this and 25% that I can still take my gay ass sisters list that rapes leaf blower gayness. Look at the units max melta spam las spam. But to do that you have to look BS skills. A guards man has BS 3 a sister has BS 4 so how many more lass can he take then me 1 more 2 more. There is allot of work you will have to put in to come up with anything close to ETC. I say do it try to make it happen I would love to play in a 40k comp tournament. Unlike all these scared people that are unwilling to try something different.

Brent makes the tournament and I'll be there to play. Just make sure it is well thought out and not special ed.

Just my 2 cents

Yeah ETC is cool, but that would be a ton of work every book would have to be broken down, but would be something intersting to see

I agree Go book to book put a limit on Melta like casting and dispel dice would be interesting.