fantasy and 40k balanced armys!!!!!

Hello my fellow gamers.

Alright guys I’m going to need some help from you all. I wanted to know who would like to help the Inner Circle with a balancing act for the army’s we all know and love. I'm going to need a team of 3 to 4 people in both systems to come up with balanced army’s.


1) Were going to brake down every book of fantasy and 40k.
2) We need to come up with army list for each named lord in each book.
3) List what that character can take to be themed with what he or she is all about.
4) Please only people that can devote time to this. I figured we could get together during the club meetings, or at my house
Or at your house.

I'm going to spearhead the fantasy side of this. I'm going to need someone who knows allot about the back story of the 40k characters to do that side of this. Make no mistake this is going to take a couple weeks to get all the stories right.
Were probably going to be using this in some of our tournaments to try and help balance the books. not by telling people what they cant take but by altering what’s rear and common and special. I would love to take sign ups here for fantasy and 40k. If you are interested in helping with the 40k side of things please post it here to so we can get this ball rolling.

There's no need to balance the 40k side, it's not broken the way fantasy is (or at least whole armies aren't broken, just some units).

I consider myself well-versed in the 40k side of things.
However, there is only the need for rules clarifications, 40k is, in my opinion, a balanced rules set.
That being said, I would be glad to offer my input.

-Mike

Now, what would be all sorts of crazy...would be to balance out the really bad unit entries into actually being worth taking.
I'm looking at you: spawn, possessed, daemonhosts, vibrocannons, shining spears, storm troopers, pariahs, flash gitz, legion of the damned, vespids, biovores, sisters repentia and half of the dark eldar codex

Scooter,
I can help with the Fantasy side. I can prolly come up with a greenskin list pretty quickly. I also have the VC book and the TK book I can look at those as well.

C.J.

I am in...but I would like to suggest up front that we do one system first then move onto the next. More than likely begining with Fantasy and moving into 40k. It would be wise to do this so we don't take on too much at once and we can get the rules done faster by concentrating on less material. That said, I can take on Empire, High Elves, Vampire, Bretonnia, Wood Elves, and Dark Elves. I can think of three comp fluff lists right now for each off the top of my head excluding Bretonians because they are pretty boring as an army. I could also help with Warriors of Chaos, Beastmen, Orges, Khemri, Deamons, and Dwarves if need be. I would be of no use with Lizards and Skaven.
~Brian


P.S. Making statements like this "There's no need to balance the 40k side, it's not broken the way fantasy is (or at least whole armies aren't broken, just some units)." makes all of us dumber for having to read it. PLEASE STOP, my head hurts!

May make your head hurt but I'm with Saint on this one. There are a few armies that aren't great in 40k, mostly because of the age of their army lists but there is no single army that is dominate in 40k. I don't really even think there are a group of three armies that are dominate in 40k. Plus two of the armies that suffer from old army lists will be getting new ones next year, Necrons and Dark Eldar.

One thing that 40k does need though is a big honkin FAQ for the rules.

Are we trying to balance units with in-house rules changes or are we trying to build balanced lists out of what each codex/army book has to offer?
I am certainly in favor of the latter, I think the former has no practical use and may end up being an exercise in futility.

That being said, I think there is good reason to do both systems concurrently, it seems like there is very little overlap between our "experts" in 40k and those in Fantasy. Having half of us sit out while the other half does one system seems like a solid waste of time.

A question about balance. Are we defining "balanced" in terms of "can perform in a tournament against other lists of similar build" or are we taking it to mean, "balanced with respect to other codices in which we have also built a balanced list", or "balanced from a fluff perspective"?



There is no question that 40k is far more balanced than Fantasy, at equal points, every codex has a decent chance to beat any other codex. That is not to say that some lists are not stronger than others, however. That being said, the extreme loser in this case is Codex: Necrons. They definitely drew the short end of the stick when it came to 5th edition rules changes. However, it has been pointed out that they will be getting a new codex in the next few months. (rumored, as will Dark Eldar)
If I may be so bold, I recommend shelving Dark Eldar and Necrons for the time being. Neither are really popular armies, and those that play them are shelving them in favor of a race with a newer codex. (there was not a single DE (or Eldar) player at the doubles tournament and only a single Necron player)

That being said, we are left with the following codices with which to work.
Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Black Templars, Space Wolves (the new one), Space Marines, Witch Hunters, Daemonhunters, Imperial Guard, Chaos Space Marines, Daemons, Tau, Tyranids, Eldar, and Orks.

-Mike

I can't click through to it at work, but I assume Chrispy posted the INAT faq they use at Adepticon?

If so for 40k I'd argue that our work is done and that we just adopt that FAQ, or more likely, a sub-set of that FAQ (since there are sections where they actually rewrite the rules to play the way they think they should).

Any attempt to rewrite the codeci to be more to our liking is only going to limit the players we can attract to our events (on the 40k side at least).

I assume what waffle meant to say was that the rules are so obviously broken in places (not unbalanced, just badly written) that to claim they were fine was folly. I would agree with that. BUT if what waffle meant was that the codeci themselves are so unbalanced (i.e. one is so transparently better than another) that there are only a few dominant armies or army builds, then I would have to disagree.

Therefore, to the extent that we need to clean up the rules and remove ambiguity and shitty writing I'm all for it (which essentially means adopting a version of the INAT faq). But if you expect the exercise to be writing the codex for every army so that the army is what you think it should be ("let's make vespids not suck, lets fix the chaos codex completely, etc...") then I would be opposed to that, because there's no basis for believing universally that your opinion in any better than the designers, and the whole attempt just breaks down into people rewriting their favorite armies to be better.

As poorly written and inconsistent as the codeci might be, they are what's published, and if we want to be taken seriously as a regional organizer for tournaments we have to use what's published (with the FAQS obviously).

I agree with Avatar for the most part, however, I am not a fan of the INAT FAQ. (which is what Chrispy linked to)
I agree doing something like it is a great idea. We should definitely edit what they have, or build our own from scratch.

However, I do not think that is what Scooter had in mind when he started this thread.

Quote :

1) Were going to brake down every book of fantasy and 40k.
2) We need to come up with army list for each named lord in each book.
3) List what that character can take to be themed with what he or she is all about.
4) Please only people that can devote time to this. I figured we could get together during the club meetings, or at my house

-Mike

Yeah, my understanding from talking to Scooter is that he's looking to break the army books down into themed sub-army lists essentially each lead by one of the lord or lord types from the book. The goal would be to have a tournament where players are restricted to the sub-lists, rather than the whole army book.

This works reasonably well for Fantasy, but not nearly so well for 40k I expect.

Guys I love you all. I’m going to need every one to step back calm down and looky here. The goal of this is NOT to re right rules. GW has done that for us. Yes I believe we need to come up with our own version of the rulings they have put out. I do not agree with all of the rules that they have decided to publish. If you all want to make adopt or use any other ruling I agree. But I don’t think we should be using rules that contradict any ruling GW has put out in there newsiest book. I need you to see the word book. Faq’s are fine with me clarifying a rule so people know what it means is cool with me I love it, lets do it. However reweighting rules to mean a completely different thing is way to elitist and silly I really don’t think we should start doing that.

After reading all your wonderful replies to this post, I feel the need to give you an example of what I’m talking about.

Once again all of you know I play some 40k so I’m not as confident talking about that, as I am about fantasy. So this is what I was thinking, this is rough so don’t kill me.

IN fantasy you chose dark elves. The named Lord you choose is Malakith. Nothing about him or the point limit would change; the only thing that would change is what you would allow him to take. All Kanit choices become 0-1 choices Kanite hero’s cost you a hero slot and a rare. You can not take a kanite lord. Basically everything gets fluffed of the story in your army books and who the “person” was in I hate to actually say this “there real life”.

It is my belief that we can make a tournament that all fantasy veterans and new players can get behind. The goal of the club is to build the community, one of the easiest ways to do this is to have events that make veterans think and say wow. For fantasy this is a really good idea. Like I said I don’t know about 40k I know that the rules aren’t very clear but that’s what happens when people look for ways to break the game.

Were going to have a tournament like this whether you’re for it or against it. I would like to have the most amount of input I can get. I think as a club taking on a project like this is a good thing. It’s all about getting our name out there. Let me know what you all think about the fantasy idea and if it’s possible to do it in 40k.

i started to type that and when i was done 2 people posted befor me Man I'm slow lol

By whose definition do we go by for a fluffy list centered around each special character?
Does there exist enough background material on each character for this to be possible?

-Mike

For the most part for Fantasy yes. Plus we can do what ever we want . we need to remmember thou that people are going to be playing these lists and we need to stay true to who they are or people wont like it.

Quote :

Does there exist enough background material on each character for this to be possible?

This was the issue we ran into when talking about it. That for some books the lords map onto sub-lists well, and for other not so much (or at all).

How to solve that problem might be that for some books there are no sub-lists.

that is true the book were talking about is VC i don't know enogh about the background to answer the question on that.

Vampires is easy for sub-list. You can do the Konrad list, or the Manfred list or the Vlad list (which by the way would actually inculde the bunker w/regen banner because that is Vlad's personal banner). If you wanted to go further into detail with VC sub-list you can actually breakdown all vampire powers an magic items back into their respective bloodlines. Its not hard to do and would give people a chance to relive the days of Blood Dragons or prehaps Strigoi themed lists. Bretonina on the other hand will be stright forward....Bring the King....Bring the Fay Enchantress.....or bring both.

"I assume what waffle meant to say was that the rules are so obviously broken in places (not unbalanced, just badly written) that to claim they were fine was folly. I would agree with that. BUT if what waffle meant was that the codeci themselves are so unbalanced (i.e. one is so transparently better than another) that there are only a few dominant armies or army builds, then I would have to disagree."

You know what happens when you ASSUME right? I am saying both of those statements. The actual rules books for the most part have decent rules, its just the way some of them are written that leads to the confusion or conflict of interest. The unbalance aspect comes into play with the actual Codecies/Army books. According to your statement above you are basically saying that Grey Knight, Sisters, and Dark Eldar are on the balance level as say IG or the new Space Wolves. I pray your job doesn't do random drug testing. 40k is all about the list build and yes the newer books have multiple of these power list an about half of the older codices have atleast one, maybe two. The new Spce Wolves Codex is a perfect example. When this booke drops, GW should punt everyone in their nuts who bought a Space Marine Codex. Fantasy suffers from the same thing. Most army books have that one power list while the newer books (I.E. 7th Ed power creep) have multiple of these power lists. But I believe the point of this thread is to bring out the fluff not debate over what FAQ is going to be used to try to bring balance into the game.
~Brian

Weren't the people who were lamenting the new Guard Codex before it came out the same ones who are currently screaming about the unreleased Wolf Codex? I hate to say it, but there are alarmists who just scream, "Overpowered!" until they actually get an army on the table rolling dice.

Quote :

Weren't the people who were lamenting the new Guard Codex before it came out the same ones who are currently screaming about the unreleased Wolf Codex? I hate to say it, but there are alarmists who just scream, "Overpowered!" until they actually get an army on the table rolling dice.

Completely agree.

Besides, Dark Eldar are still one of the most powerful builds in the game, same with Mech Sisters. Older books might not have the same number of power-builds in them as the newer codeci (Guard and Marines are particularly good on this measure) but the power eldar builds, power DE builds are still competitive if not better in some cases than those. There are just fewer choices in the older books, and so they look more homogenized, but I'll take mech eldar against some vulkan list, or alpha-strike valks anyday.

Check out YTTH for a good overview of the units in the SW codex.

Call me crazy but I think a well played mech guard is nigh unbeatable. The trick is just to avoid a lot of the flashy toys available. Only real problem is its cost in $$ and the sheer boredom such a list would produce.

155 points for 3 meltaguns hiding inside an AV12 transport w/ multilaser & heavy flamer vs a raider squad with dark lance & blaster inside an AV10 open topped transport w/ dark lance...my money's on the guardsmen.

From what I remember INAT FAQ does not change any rules it only clarifies them.

The SW seem fine. There might be a something to exploit but nothing worse then SM Vulkan lists.

To be honest not sure exactly how this little experiment is going to go.

There's a specific category of footnote in the INAT FAQ for Rules Changes...

Show up on Tuesday and we all can talk about it. I’m doing this for a bigger tournament we’re going to hold in a couple of months. Since I don't play 40k I figured one of you would like to step up. If not that’s ok The goal here is to be a club that runs some of the most unique tournaments around if we fail at that were just another cookie cutter tournament organizer.

I would like to see us come up with unique tournaments that no one else dose. A nitch in the hobby and run them annually not just. “Inner Circle presents a 40 man fantasy or 40k tournament”. We need to be different if you want veterans to come out and play. Get them to leave there basements or garages and actually compete . IE bring back the tournaments.

There isn't really a "cookie cutter tournament organizer" in the first place in the area. I personally think we need to offer both - standardized events and special funky events - since there's no community as it is, both are needed.

I agree with avatar. However, I think that most tournaments get recognition based on two things.

1. The efficiency of the TO. I think that a transparent tournament system working like a well-oiled machine speaks wonders and keeps people coming back. I'm still hearing about last year's Adepticon tourneys where all games were run ON TIME. They also achieved transparency by having the time limits and processes projected onto the wall so that everyone could see.

2. Originality. New missions/objectives/scenarios. These things excite gamers and keeps them on their toes.

If we can blend these two into consistent tournaments, I think people will keep coming back. Add in persistent rankings and I'd say that we could have very successful tourneys.

Chris you are right on the money adepticon has been doing a great job. They also have been doing this for about 7 to 8 years now. They have a tournament seen filled with veterans and new players. That’s what we need but to get them to come back we need to give them something the have not seen before. I like to consider my self a good fantasy player. I have fun at all tournaments because I’m a tournament player. However the best tournament I’ve played in was a tournament that involved cards that gave you extra stuffs. The different style tournaments are the ones people remember a well thought out tournament. Fluffing the army books is a great idea for fantasy. I’ve said in my previous post I don’t play enough 40k to know if you can even do that. However it is very possible for fantasy so were going to do this. I’m looking for help and ideas. That’s all.

Like I spoke with Scooter on Tuesday, the problem with this model and the VC book is that there are only 2 named lords in the VC book. Vlad and Mannfred, both would theme to pretty much the exact same list as they are both Carstein just from different time periods. My suggestion would be to go back to the previous Army Book for fluff on the other blood lines, use the customizable lord options to recreat Walauch, Zackariah and the Ghoul King and then theme lists around them as well. Yes they aren't named lords but the effect would be the same and would be fun IMHO.

For 40k orks & chaos at least, it may be easier to theme armies by Legion/Clan rather than special character.

Over on The-Waaagh they have quite a bit of work gone into creating variant lists for each of the different Clans, but they actually change units around. A similar design without all of the changing in unit entries would not be too bad. I'd help out with that.

When all is said and done you won't really be seeing Kans (a more Goffy type unit) marching along with a ton of trukks (primarily evil sunz, blood axes if they're trying to emulate a steel legion battalion). Lootas would be more in line with Deffskulls, etc.

My bad, I think I see what you're trying to do. I'm predominately a 40K player, so I'm not really understanding this "theme army list" idea. Since 40K is relatively balanced, I don't think that it needs army lists pre-prepared. However, if you're doing from a fluffy fun aspect, I can certainly help with the Ork list.

Chrispy definitely strikes me as a Goff.



...You know, because he's smelly.

thats a cool ide tim i love it but can you do clans and chapters in 40k things like. salamanders not able to get speeders cause they were a foot troop army chapter i don't know so don't bt my head off. a simple yes or no

Err, what do you mean?

is it posible to break down each book in 40k to a fluff idea? is there enough background information on the named charicters to have a army list for each one?

Probably. The only real issues you're going to have are Necrons & Tyranids. Every other army has plenty of thematic potential.

In fact, it should be real easy for several of them.
Both Loyalist & Chaos Marines have had plenty of WD articles about the different chapters. The same goes for Orks. Eldar had Craftworld Eldar & the Ulthwe Strike Force back in 3rd edition (*sniff* I miss my Eye of Terror Codex). Guard wouldn't be too bad either as they describe the different planets in pretty good detail. Dark Eldar have only so many options but it's still doable. Daemonhunters actually gets really cool if someone's willing to fluff up a Radical list. Daemons is simple enough to do God Specific lists, and finally Tau has a couple of options but is a little harder than the others.

So...are we looking at unit restrictions here or changes in Force Organization, or both?

we are going to do fantasy first see if people like what we do then dicide if were going to also do 40k.

C.J. wrote:

Scooter,
I can help with the Fantasy side. I can prolly come up with a greenskin list pretty quickly. I also have the VC book and the TK book I can look at those as well.

C.J.

LOL - TK - good luck finding something broken in there.

2250 or 3000?

TK can only take Setra in 3000 because he is 2 Lord slots. Which would mean Khalida is the only named character for TK.

4000 point tournaments the first 2 books were doing will be beast of chaos and bretonnia

I'm one of those dorky people who read all the back stories for everything. I could help out a bunch with fantasy if'n you want. Give me five seconds with a book and I'll find a thematic army for a character. Or make up one. ;D

40k I'm iffy on...

can you come down to the bunker on tuesday steve

Yall should do ogres......they cool and not many people play them

Tuesday is a maybe. I have to get to campus by 7:00 for fencing. Plus me Jonny, possibly Sam, were going to down to James n' Stuff for a bit.

Does Thursday or Friday work?

I'll b e posting my first 3 army we have done for your approval.

You better....punk!

I know next to nothing about fantasy. I've been trying to put together a Lizardman army for the the last few years, I just can't seem to keep my interest up. That being said I've never actually seen a Mazdamundi army. I'm trying to do one right now, sort of, I'd imagine you'd have a tricked out Slann Throne on the back of a tricked out Stegadon. Lot's of gold and precious metals being from the city of the sun. It might even be a good way to put two Slann on the table in theme since Mazdamundi would have Slann under him. Just a thought. Let me know what you think. Oh and since Krog-Gar is supposed to be garrisoned out of Hexoatl you'd probably have access to him and or good amount of cold one riders. I've been trying to theme my Lizzies for three years and that's the coolest thing I could come up with.

While I'm thinking about Lizardmen here's another thing I wanted to bring up, I'll elaborate on this elsewhere in the proper thread. Why would a civilization where everyone believes in the same thing with undying fervor (the old one's plans) need Priests? Just think about it. I think there's a lot of potential for untold Lizardman fluff there.

Necrons are god specific. You make it up from there.
Nids you just take from different hive fleets and where those hive fleets have been and what they have absorbed and created. all not very hard, 40k codeci dont give you much fluff but give you enough to get by.

scooter wrote:

I'll b e posting my first 3 army we have done for your approval.

when is this happening???