wallacer:
Imo, give up on the idea of GW making the game balanced and fun and accept that it is up to the players to make the game balanced and fun.
Does it matter if the books aren’t clinically balanced? Not really, if the players accept they aren’t and are mature enough to make allowances for it.
BilboBaggins:
Players and tournament organizers shouldn’t have to make allowances to even out armys. Two equal armies should ahve the game decided on tactics and dice rolls.
Now there are two GW stores in my area (Voorhees, NJ and Philadelphia, PA) while the NJ store seems to have players going power gamer the PA store has people playing more balanced lists. I haven’t seen a Daemon, Dark Elf or Vampire Count army in a while but plenty of Orc and Goblin, Lizardmen (only one person has done the 3 Steg 2K build) and Warrior of Chaos.
Of course GW is closing the Philly store at the end of September, thier lease is up and I guess they couldn’t come up with a satisfactory arrangement. Of course being GW they haven’t looked in Philly for a new location but are putting one in the “region” (Bear, Del) and a second proposed (Levittown, PA) but they aren’t as Public Transit friendly and there are many players who took buses to get to GW Philly. They claim they will be putting another 2 in the region but they haven’t figured out the locations yet.
The Brain:
Thank you guys for making some good points. You guys have given me some good ideas to try with my group of friends, if we can get everybody together at one time. It seems that you all have very well established gaming groups; it is a little harder to find players that can agree on a balanced fun game in my area. There is a nice group of us that will do that, but we all have kids or odd scheduled jobs and some are getting married so it is hard to get everyone together these days for some friendly gaming, so a lot of times we are at the mercy of whatever is lurking in the local GW. In my area the local regulars have become very power gamer oriented, there are a lot of hard-core tournament players. Part of the problem is that in the US there are no longer any officially GW rune tournaments they are all independently run. It is insane because you will see all these unpainted power gamer lists that in some cases are almost completely proxied and the GW staff does noting about it. Myself I love a themed or converted army, I even have an all halfling army, but I can not easily figure out what the other person is playing or if it takes longer than 10 minutes for them to explain their proxies then I refuse to play them. I ran into a guy at tournament in the GW store a few months back, it was 3000 points, he had two units of 10 skeletons, two units of 20 zombies, two necromancers, two vampire thralls one a BSB, two Vampire lords, and three units of wraith each with a banshee. Not a single model was a VC model, not a single model was painted and he was allowed to play, and even was in the top 3 players. I think GW could help by balancing the books close to each other, but if they won�?Tt do that then they could at least come up with some official tournament rules for their stores and not leave it all up to the local clubs. That might help to curb some of this. I know that a lot of the big tournaments discourage this kind of thing because they want people to have fun, but it does not help you when the wife gives you the day off from kid duty and says go have fun and all you find hanging around the store are people like that. It is just really funny that people with Daemon or VC armies have no problem coming up with cheesy lists but those same people are afraid to play against CD with a RH list because �?othey�?Tre not fair�?�.
Hay Baggronor
I don�?Tt know if it is legal or not, but we have a regular guy at our store that plays skaven and he plays a list at 2250-2500 points and has 23 power dice. The last time I saw him in a tournament with it, the staff said it was legal (they supposedly check lists); fortunately I have never had to play him when he uses that list. I have also seen several of the 17 pd VC armies at 2250.
Baggronor:
It is insane because you will see all these unpainted power gamer lists that in some cases are almost completely proxied and the GW staff does noting about it. Myself I love a themed or converted army, I even have an all halfling army, but I can not easily figure out what the other person is playing or if it takes longer than 10 minutes for them to explain their proxies then I refuse to play them.Ohhh... that is bad, seriously bad... in my local store, the staff don't allow unpainted models or proxies for the majority of the gamers (its only the old-timers like me who get away with the occassional 'its not finished yet but I wanna test it'). I dunno if its a UK thing or a London thing, but all the stores I have frequented over here tend to do that.
It is just really funny that people with Daemon or VC armies have no problem coming up with cheesy lists but those same people are afraid to play against CD with a RH list because �?othey�?Tre not fair�?�.Nothing is more entertaining than destroying a power gamer, especially if you do it pleasantly. :)
I think GW could help by balancing the books close to each other, but if they won�?Tt do that then they could at least come up with some official tournament rules for their stores and not leave it all up to the local clubs.I still say they are close to each other, not level but not far off. The double Wraiths combo is pretty harsh, but so is double Treemen, double Hydras, double Giants, double Organ Guns, etc. Everyone has their equivalents, and all of them can be dealt with. Admittedly there are some unit types which are under-costed (Flamers, Flesh Hounds, Hydras, Ghouls, The Masque spring to mind) but they are still relatively rare. I think the main problem you are experiencing is the mentality of these people, not their armies. Unfortunately, they will build armies like these no matter what. The best thing to be done is beat them with a balanced list and make them look silly.
I think they're balanced in the sense that a game between an army from one book of x,000 points against an army from another book of x,000 points will generally be decided by a mixture of luck and player skill. People seem to think that a) it ought to be 50/50 every time, regardless of relative experience or troop selection and b) differences of a few points can "break" this mythical balance.Yup. Everything from the way troops are deployed to terrain, to players' knowledge of the rules all makes Warhammer far less balanced than, say, Chess. But thats also part of the appeal, when is a real battle balanced?
Thommy H:
This is a thought experiment I seem to remember first being floated around on Warseer. I’ve adapted it here:
MAGIC ITEM
Amulet of Perfect Balance… x points (where x is the size of the game being played minus the cost of your army)
This mythical pendant contains within it a spell of supreme power created in ancient times by the Old Ones themselves. It has the power to instantly vapourise an opposing force, but at the cost of possibly backfiring and visting the same horrific fate on your own troops! Woe betide the wearer who upsets the balance of fates and misuses this mighty artefact.
After deployment, roll a D6. On a roll of 1-3, every model in the enemy army is immediatley destroyed regardless of wounds, toughness and with no saves of any kind allowed (not even ward or regeneration saves). On a roll of 4-6, every model in your own army is destroyed instead. One use only.
Which just goes to show: perfect balance is not the same thing as fun.
BilboBaggins:
GW Philly used to have a rule that stated armies had to be painted to play but that went out he window years ago.
GW staffers are now using the old Lord of the Rings excuse for Warhammer Fantasy. They are claiming that WHFB are not tournament oriented. They took a game that was great for tournaments and changed the books to allow special characters and the ability to create some ridiculous builds of heroes and armies.
It seems there are less things that use double slots (2 hero, hero rare) and limited in use (Old Steam Tank was 1 per 2000 points).
I still remember at Games Day before 7th edtion was released hearing they were going to balance the armies, I’m guessing their idea of balance is different than the rest of the world.
Thommy H:
Warhammer has never been great for tournaments.
slev:
I agree with Tommy and Neil on this in general.
Yes, I prefer the kind of unit emphasis present in WFB6/40K3. However, I also found those lists overly restrictive on a background standpoint. The newer books free people up to play a number of different army types with the same lists: You don’t need a variant for every different flavour of the same race.
I’ve played a “competitive but not min/maxed” WFB6 Skaven list against other such WFB7th lists and it plays just fine.
The fact though is that the only people who really complain about GW’s edition revision completely invalidating their armies tend to be the power gamers with the extreme builds.
Also, the power games is a minority, although they are over-represented in tournaments & organised play, and this sort of thig was requested by the gaming mainstream.
Kera raises a point on pricing, but after adjusting for inflation and real value changes in money, the cost of buying an army as a whole is cheaper now than ten years ago, and the models come with more options and a higher quality of sculpt and material.
The Brain:
Skaven power dide:
2 basic
4-5 per grey seer*
1-2 per warlock engineer*
*equipment pending.
for 23 PD, he’d likely have a Seer, and would need around 8 warlocks!
Thorne:
It’s the hard line tornament style gaming that did bring in a myth amongst players that Warhammer is supposed to be some kind of tornament and that will lead to the problems and lack of distinct fun that you are talking of.
wallacer:
The Brain:He also has warpstone tokens (one per Warlock and 4 per Seer) which the rat player may have been factoring in as "Power Dice" (which of course they aren't).
Skaven power dide:
2 basic
4-5 per grey seer*
1-2 per warlock engineer*
*equipment pending.
for 23 PD, he'd likely have a Seer, and would need around 8 warlocks!
slev
The Brain:
He also has warpstone tokens (one per Warlock and 4 per Seer) which the rat player may have been factoring in as "Power Dice" (which of course they aren't).I don't know how he does it but the staff says it is legal, he is not a bad guy off the playing field I might ask him next time I see him.
wallacer