Great podcast as always, really enjoyed Dave's rant and Vik's attempts to reign it back in!
Dave did kind of lose me with the statistic of 'Josh Roberts over four games beat me and Nassim four times so that's indisputable evidence that the changes suck!' (Although I agree completely, the changes do suck). Even ignoring this tiny sample size, Canoptek Court inherently counters indirect guard lists. The lone op strat is incredibly powerful. The army regenerates wounds, lessening the impact of attritional damage which compounds on lone op and the durability of the units. Immortals scoop up guard bodies. Yes, wraiths were (and absolutely still are) busted. But like - I dunno man, it strikes me as a bit self centered to say that those four games are THE metric when there's other matchups and an entire rest of the planet that plays this game too.
Aside from that I agree with basically all points. Guard got nerfed too hard, necrons needed points on wraiths badly, wtf is happening with Tsons, meganobs???, entire armies with bad internal balance and zero changes... all in all, a bit of a disappointing slate. But like Vik said, the meta has never been closer. Here's hoping that tau and orks don't break it wide open!
It feels like they were either lazy or cowardly to not touch anything in some of the ~50% armies. You could have easily dropped some of the really bad daemon units without breaking the game, or just do what they have done previously, a slight increase on the strong daemons, slight drop on the weak.
And CK are even worse. As nice as the models are, next to nobody started CK because they wanted to run all wardogs. I know knights are really hard to balance but if nobody runs successful lists with big knights, then you can drop them by at least a fee points and see if that helps a bit.
Yea let me clarify on the '4 games' thing becuase it's an important point.
I think more than anyone, Vik and I have tried to cut through the 'Win rate X%' arguments and have consistenly said that win rates don't reflect the true power of a faction in a top pilots hands.
So when I did the comparison between Guard and Necrons I wanted to both have the context of "X win rate, Y GT wins' but also compliment that with the head to head statistics of the best pilots in the world playing against each other, namely Josh, Nassim, Vik and I, respectively in our factions.
I did this to personally try and understand why Guard was nerfed as much as Necrons and I think what it shows is that across any aggregate statistic or pilot-dependent analysis that the changes were alittle out of line.
How valuable is army performance in the top players' hands for purposes of balance to a larger game?
For example, John Lennon can do well with Tyranids. He can do well with a lot of stuff. However, if everyone but 2-3 people are struggling with Tyranids, other than 2-3 people who do well, what does that tell us about balance? And if the 2-3 people doing well with the Tyranids would do well with other armies, is their Tyranid success useful for data purposes? Isn't the broader data of win rates amongst Tyranid players more useful at that point?
It really comes down to - if player skill is a very important factor in win rates, and 40k is already swingy because of the significant randomness built into it, is the performance of the top 50 people in the world really of much value, particularly when those players are often focused on 1-2 factions and aren't playing the whole faction base equivalently?
I think the "top players" approach sometimes fails to account for the fact that the top player base of 40k is miniscule compared to other games, and is not nearly as fluid. Most players aren't rotating through every army - they're focusing on a handful.
To take League of Legends for an example, Faker (one of the best players in the history of the game) is an expert in LeBlanc and Orianna. Even when those champions had poor win rates, his pure expertise made them threats. But the game was not balanced around "faker can win with this" - he can win with almost anything. His comfort and skill with the champion is part of its winrate that's not reflected in general balance. He is not a useful datapoint for balancing that champion.
Great comment - I play tsons and don’t win many games but I also run a thematic list that looks like a Tsons army. Not a min/max destroy at all costs list. I really struggled after the first points increase especially as I just happen to own a lot more bolters than flamers but don’t intend to paint anymore. Why should I be nerfed because they might be good at tournaments in the hands of a few sweaty players?
Hey, thanks for the response! Want to quickly say that again, I love your work and the podcast is a frequent listen of mine.
I agree entirely that you need to look beyond the 'win rate x%' arguments. Factions have different skill floors and skill ceilings. In a perfectly balanced world where everything is viable / balanced at the top, guard will have a winrate below necrons because necrons are inherently easier to play and folks with less skill and/or experience will win more with them.
All I am saying is that I'd have received your argument better if you had framed it around a larger sample size instead of what sounded like personal experience and bias. So like, on stat check if you look at the top 90th percentile necrons have a 57% winrate just behind sisters at 59%, and if you look at the top 99th percentile necrons have a 62% winrate behind Chaos demons at 71%, BA at 68% and Tau at 63%. (Although, when you get into the top 99th percentile variance between games and matchups plays a big role in the data. Nobody thinks that chaos demons are the best army in the game at the top, and they only have 7 games of data to back up that 71%. Same with BA at 11 games. Tau have 32 and crons have 64, so there the data looks much more representative of actual power).
The data backs up your point, and all I wanted to say with my comment was that your comparison weakened what is an irrefutably strong argument. Guard perform worse at every percentile when compared to necrons. Why they got similar (arguably more) reductions makes zero sense. I would say GW just hates indirect, but that doesn't explain the kasrkin bump. Hopefully we'll get some better changes soon!
Honestly, my disagreement is on two levels: one, Guard was never the "low floor, high ceiling" faction, so people that have been playing it for years can't well have the rug pulled out from under their feet like "sorry, you are now too bad to enjoy playing your army, go play something else despite having several thousand points worth of Guard". Two, that high ceiling needs to be reasonably reachable as well: if you need to be in the top 0.5% of ELO to play Guard well, then the army is bad for such a wide slice of its playerbase that "but Gaylard can smash a GT+ with it!" loses any significance, and the army is *still bad*.
I can’t really speak to what guard were like to play pre 9th edition, as that’s when I got back into the game in a serious capacity.
I do think though that having armies with different skill ceilings and skill floors is good for the game! You want there to options that beginners can succeed with and options for veterans to hone their skills on. Ideally though, and to your point, the disparity between the ceiling and the floor shouldn’t be so vast that it alienates one group entirely. I don’t think guard are there (but I also don’t play them so correct me if I am wrong). If a faction is there, I agree with you, rules changes are necessary
I’m curious to see if the trend follows right now there simply isn’t enough data for it, but part of it seems a reluctance to overly nerf Codex releases. GW does seem to want to power creep 10th, not to the extent in 9th but currently Orks, Tau, Necrons are probably 3 of the strongest armies in the game, won’t be receiving another book for 3-5 years, but aren’t overly powerful like Eldar at the start of 10th.
Now this could just be a tinfoil hat moment, but it will be interesting if the trend continues of hammering the indexes with nerfs while lightly tapping the codices.
>GW does seem to want to power creep 10th, not to the extent in 9th but currently Orks, Tau, Necrons are probably 3 of the strongest armies in the game
Yet at the same time you have Dark Angels (Codex), Ad Mech, and Custodes. It's not a matter of GW wanting powercreep. There's just one guy who writes strong Codices, and another guy who seemingly hates the game. And it's a coinflip which guy writes the Codex for any given army.
Imo it looks like Orks, Tau and Necrons can (and will) be reigned in by points adjustments as their codices seem to work otherwise as intended (be fun).
What worries me more is things like the AdMech codex, where point cuts don't work, but the codex will still be there for the reminder of 10th.
I think we need to wait on data before we nerf meganobz. Even if they are too strong, theres no telling by how much they need to be increased without some data to back it
To me I think the changes to eldar and where they are at now is kinda what the game should aspire for (just took them 9 months to get there lol).
Before the latest MFM, they were strong, but not oppressive with very consistent results week after week.
The nerfs were targeted right at the least interactive units - specters, hawks, D-cannons and characters that come back on death, the only unit I kinda feel escaped that probably should have had a small bump was the dark reapers. In return they got meaningful points decreases to rarely seen melee units in a way that lists might actually change. If you stick to MSU shooting you lost about 60 points or one unit, which seem comparable to sisters and GK, but you have the option to build a more balanced list and basically end up with a side grade.
When I look at the lists that people are working on right now I see upwards to 30-40 different units being included with lots of variation in play style as far as an index goes.
Where they missed the mark imo, and it sounded like that was your take as well, is that they didn't go this far with most other armies. If they instead of making random 5pts decreases to guard units, took them down 10-15 points, the nerfs might not have felt as harsh and there'd be lots of room for innovation.
Not to mention leaving so many of the middle codexes untouched which just felt lazy.
The problem with doing that for Eldar is that, in current design paradigms at least, they require a certain level of uninteractive mechanics. They're meant to be an elite army that doesn't rely on pure raw tankiness in terms of stats. This is also 10th edition so apparently lethality has to be lower. So you're left with units that don't do crazy amounts.of damage but also cannot take a punch but who *also* have to be relatively elite and not a horde army.
So they either need to do insane damage for their points, have better raw defensive stats or have movement shenanigans to avoid taking return fire. Or we can just keep reducing the points on everything so now a fully kitted out unit of storm guardians is only 100 points and Banshees, the supposed elite, are a measly 14ppm.
It's why any potential new detachments will have to work hard to be appealing because they likely won't have FaF or Phantasm which the army arguably needs to function in a reasonable manner.
Nerfing dcannon points again is funny because with 18 wraiths and meganobz being a thing there's little else in the Index that can deal with those profiles damagewise, so they'll be in lists even more than before probably.
But yeah I agree with you that eldar will keep having problems with some of the top armies, cause currently there is just not a good way to deal with those tanky units you talk about.
But that's more of a necrons and ork problem, than an eldar one imo. 18 wraiths should not be a thing.
Yeah I def hope for some more output on the damage of melee units in the codex, but at least we'll have more units see play after this update.
If they don't want to update rules in half of the updates this is a step in the right direction imo and something I think they could have done more for others.
Sometimes I see the complaint that the eldar index is so deep that the nerfs don't have an impact. That's a good thing! More armies should be this deep!
Thank you for calling out 18 wraiths. I'm soooooooo sick of this horrendous stat-check that doesn't take much brain power to play. The nerf wasn't nearly enough, Necron lists are still too strong for the vast majority of armies.
Maybe if they didn't have reactive move... didn't have nurgle strat... didn't revive guys/heal automatically... didn't have OC2... didn 't re-roll hits most of the game... Something man. For 885 points, you've got 72 wounds at T6 with 4++ and 5+++, with solid consistent damage, and major OC. Then go ahead and add 2-3 c'tans which take an entire turn for most armies to deal with. Then fit in some doomstalkers and you've got everything.
The only thing that deals with this kind of degeneracy is stuff like 30 Death Company Marines, which, for those not aware, can have 30 powerfists and 30 inferno (like mini multi melta) pistols. Or maybe new busted Orks/Tau, or crazy TSons.
For the other 90% of us, competitive warhammer just sucks when this stuff exists. Let's please actually address these problems and not keep having "new hotness" break the game.
Don't forget a 4++ against shooting and respawning a guy every turn from the Bigmek attached to them. This unit should be at least 50 points per model, if not more.
You could also add they they do clap more in melee and have lower profile (thus easier to hide/ will not break apart if the dice hit them). They will make the wraith looks like weak unit quickly.
They only hit on 4s btw, for the average unit of 5 + mek that's just 11 hits, depending what you're fighting you'll anywhere from 3-9 times. If a ctan gets into them you'll do about 2 damage, 4 if you're incredibly lucky. The ctan will basically one shot them back for their trouble, and they're about the same points cost.
The mek is probably not that valuable: 4++ is only better than a 2+ against AP-3 , and with cover ap-4. With a boss they will hit on 3+.
During the waagh they have 2+/5++/4+++, and they will have two turn of waaagh.
6 meganobz with a boss during the waaagh will have 18 attacks, 12 will hit, 10 will wound with double kill saw. 5 will cross the invul, 3 will wound. That unit is 260pts. The NB with the strike would have 4 wound success, 3 that would pass the invul leading to most likely 2 dead meganobz
The wraiths would not be much better:
24 attacks>18 would hit in canoptek court with reroll. 6 would wound, 3 would cross the 4+ and 2 will wound. A unit of wraith is 220 pts, 205pts with the techo.
TWC are also egregious. I think they’re only not hated as much as wraiths is cause everyone and their mom has a necrons army with a lot of wraiths while only dedicated SW players (or meta chasers) have all the TWC, characters and wulfen
I think my perspective is biased from my local meta where I'm one of two or three dedicated Necrons players. No one else here has the amount of wraiths needed to run 18 so it's not something we run into
I wanted 3 things from this Dataslate.
Necron Wraiths to go way up. Meganobz to go way up. Ctan to go up.
I kinda got some of those. Kinda.
The thing is I love playing 40K. EXCEPT against braindead unkillable units that are just really OP.
Unfortunately I think Canoptek Court with 18 Wraiths is still not only around but remains the best list in the game. I REALLY don't want to play against that army ever again. But I will a ton unless I quit competitive Warhammer.
Then there's the new Ork hotness in the Meganobz that look even worse than Wraiths. So i'll get three terrible months of playing into that. NOT FUN.
AND then my last comment. David is wrong about Aeldari. That army was really relying on 3x1 Support Weapons as an attempt to fight back against Wraiths/Nobz. And Specters was our anti horde. By losing both of those units it really hits the army harder than he expects. My list went up 85 points for example. And as someone who owns Necrons... my Necron armies were so much better than Aeldari. And they still are.
Overall I loved this episode and I think these two are incredibly intelligent and offer the best takes on 40K. I'd hire them.
The 18 wraith build is beyond daft. Crazy they didn’t touch it in the MFM. My theory is that they will do something with the rules in 3 months with the data slate (unproven speculation). Otherwise the fact they weren’t touched makes no sense.
That's really not much for how strong they are, and I'm still not sure why they nerfed the technomancers and not the wraiths given techomancers were unused in warrior and immortal squads and now they won't see the light of day
Do you think they might have held back on increasing the wraiths themselves this pass to wait and see if they’re still being spammed by the next points update and increase them then?
Would it be crazy to suggest armies are limited to only 2 of a unit? I know it probably punishes WE and Votann who are still running around with few units, punishes Codexes like Orks and Tyranids where every detachment was made super focused (unlike for example Necrons), but it would stop the triple MSU spam at least.
Would probably force GW into fleshing out the armies without enough units and deal with internal balance within factions too.
I've always thought that units costs should change when you take multiples, so you'd list wraiths at something like 80/100/130.
The first unit would cost 80, the second 100, etc. so the harder you skew, the more you end up paying for it. It would obviously involve a bit more tuning than that, but I generally think 40k is more fun when both players have a variety of units on the board rather than just 3x the 3 beet units in the faction.
No idea why you’re downvoted on this, 2 of each unit would force more variety in lists. Not a bad idea, probably not for 10th but I’d be down for that in 11th.
2 is hard for armies with small rosters, armies with poor internal balance (sure GW could playtest more and write better rules but we all know that won't happen in the near future). It also punishes small, frail units since if you need them as a tool, it gets even easier to remove them. Rule of 3 already punished people with large collections, but the situation was bad enough that few complained about Ro3 & there are significantly more people with 3 of each unit in their faction than there are with 4+. And last but not least, it also hurts people who want to run thematic lists at events
Because most armies need at least *some* of their best stuff in triple copy, because there isn't a comparable unit in the same role in the roster, and sometime that role is vital.
Good content as always. What's the immediate thoughts on where Guard go next?
I know you said you don't like the play style of the Hellhound but from a competitive standpoint, they seem like a solid mid board unit that will play well into both Orks and Tau? (both struggle to trade well into t10 2+ save units). Could they fill the gap of some of the lost midfield board presence of the second unit of Bulgryn's or the dmg of the 2nd/3rd unit of Karskin? Like you said, 130ish points is hard to make up.
Yea, but if you look at the cultist points change it almost balances out the enhancement increases. I think overall it was 10 points increase or something. But point taken, we didn't cover enhancements in geneal either.
Same for Eldar.
And although the Eldar list the Liam was running only went up 70 points, some builds that leaned on indirect and fnf along the lines of what Mani Cheema ran went up 100-110 points.
And Guard indirect being superseded by Green Tide and Mont Ka is hardly a matchup improvement for Eldar.
I'll be surprised if Eldar GT wins or win rate improve significantly, despite cheaper Scorpions.
Having said that, I don't think that Eldar got much worse. Still a good army that is fun to play, still will find places in teams and win singles here and there. I just don't think that they are now clear top 5 alongside Necrons, Orks, and Tau, as David from Fireside seems to imply.
They have some insanely bad matchups that being top 5 in that environment is just not going to happen. I mean Tau alone is a rough time for the MSU style, but then 18 Wraiths don't care about your cheeky MSU moveblocks, and neither do random armies like CK.
We all just gonna blow past that the guy who's in charge of balance shot to the top of the leaderboard with the list that still wasn't nerfed?
Now I may be just a simple guardsman, but that seems suss.
These guys have some of the worst opinions of the top players who make content. Not wrong, but the actual subjective opinion stuff. Make lists unplayable instead of timing them appropriately? Make units unplayable?
These are the opinions of pros who play too much Warhammer and want things bad for the vast majority of players. They are of course okay with this because they will grind 20 times the games of other people who already play a decent amount, and they have tons of stuff to pivot to. Just like their opinions are that things should be balanced around the absolute best of the best players which is also a bad idea. That's why they think win rate is a bad metric. Obviously you need to balance around the data that you have available, But it should be around all levels ELO players, and GW should strive towards balance not whack a mole hitting way too hard That makes the game feel like a roller coaster. It's terrible policy that aircraft or buggies are way too powerful and then way too weak after for a long time.
People whose job is to play have invaluable opinions but the game should not be balanced for them.
I agree that making units unplayable sucks hard, but making specific lists unplayable is entirely reasonable. Make it so you have reason to take those units in various lists, but aren't incentivised to play a particular unfun/overly-dominant-in-faction list like 'a pile of gladiators'.
Yeah I suppose if you can kill a list without killing any of the units in it then I would be fine with it but that seems difficult. I'm also fine with and I think it's best if it's no longer the best list possible the faction can field. But I don't subscribe to the idea that competitive means you can only use the absolute best thing available. I think the goal should be to bring a winning list down to just a strong option, and one that wouldn't feel like you're being punished bringing it to a tournament. That's far from the language of "killing" it. We shouldn't have the roller coaster We see of units going from being in every single list to being in absolutely zero of them. That's way too far and just shows ineptitude at balance.
Now I don't expect GW to be perfect at balance I don't expect them to be even very good at it based on history, But I think it's important to know what the goal is and have that be the right goal. Auspex tactics did a video on this recently that I thought was really good and discussed what I knew but a lot of people might not, especially those who are new; there are sets of unspoken rules in 10th that are basically traps set by GW that new people or people that don't follow so closely would not know until they stepped in though and that's terrible practice. Units that are purposely kept poor which just shouldn't be a thing.
There's even people in the community blaming the players when they do things like buy into models that become legended, Which to me just screams of people accepting bad practices by GW through just being exposed to them so much. It's consumer Stockholm syndrome. It's terrible practice to announce things are legends without ample forewarning. These are things that they're even selling, but that's not an excuse to do it to ones that they are no longer selling either. AOS continues to So it's the better team at the company with their recent announcements about 4th edition, where they gave a total of 16 months notice between announcement and the end of rules support and tournament legality for the factions they sunsetted. I still think given the high price and level of margins on these plastics that everything should be announced one edition ahead. Announce with the 10th codex for a faction what units will not be seen in 11th. That this is their last hurrah, given the short edition timelines of 3 years.
Hey there, well thanks for having a listen in the first place.
I don't think you've actually engaged honestly with the content I'm sorry to say. For example, we do use win rate when analyzing the relative nerfs of armies. In fact, at one point we actually compare general population win rate to higher elo win rate.
As for 'people whos job is to play'. Yea, I'm a busy ML Engineer, I play probably once a week and I'm trying to start a family.
- Dave
Not sure what's not "honest", I listened to it all and said it was factually accurate, I just disagree with your opinions on most fronts. I think some of your opinions are inconsiderate of people who don't play as much or as broadly as you do, or at various skill levels. They are understandable from your perspectives, but should not be followed by GW for the good of the game. I came in kind of hot but that's my response when people want to invalidate others models. I'm of the strong opinion that making a model noncompetitive should never be the goal no matter what the model is. The rules may need a significant change, But it's never the right call to make the model uncompetitive as a goal. Doesn't matter if it previously dominated, or an aircraft, or indirect, or Titanic.
While i dont think op made the point fairly, it has some merit. If you play a game a week and ~10-15 tourneys a year, you still play multiple times the amount of most people. I am not sure how much that should be factored in, and you guys obviously only state your opinions based on your needs. But i agree with op, that the average and even the average competitive player doesnt have the capacity to switch armies as easily as you guys do or has as much need for change. The game simply gets stale more slowly when you play half the games.
P.s. i wish you and your family all the best!
It is one beautifull step to take
Tell em Dave. Reddit is like 10% interesting view points. 20% the most rabbit hole fringe and cringe comments . And 70% regurgitated mid group think.
You are part of the 10% of unique viewpoints. Love your content, and looking forward to your future discussions. Curious on what your testing on Leman Rush turns out.
We are all better off with Flyers being unplayable. Nobody misses that. Nobody wants to lose a game because your oppoent brought 3 planes and got first turn.
Nah, that's a false dichotomy. The choices aren't broken or terrible, they could be balanced. Give them all hover to start. People should be able to play their models and not feel handicapped. Maybe the unique aircraft rules don't work, sure, but they don't have to be trash.
For most things I would agree, but I'm not sure 40k is capable of successfully incorporating aircraft. They're an additional layer of gameplay they tried to tack on in 7th edition without consideration for how they would actually fit and they've been flailing at the issue ever since.
You mean handling aircraft as their rules exist in current form? Sure. I'm fine with just pulling the idea of aircraft as functionally distinct from flyers. That's why I said give them all hover, That's a perfectly acceptable way to transition away from the aircraft rules. Give them hover and make the aircraft rules bad, and then pull them in the next edition. But don't make the models bad, that's completely unnecessary and my point of contention. You charging arm and a leg for these models make sure they're usable and you don't feel bad for doing so. And they are really nice models they're some of the best in the game, let people use them without feeling they're a penalty. There's nothing imbalanced about flyers, just specifically aircraft. And for anyone who has a problem with the idea of melee hitting aircraft... If you wanted to die on that hill you should have did it forever ago when any flyers got introduced. Can't hit a helicopter with a choppa any better than you can hit a plane.
My point is always don't kill models, and don't legend them without ample notice. And I mean *real* notice, not inferences from other actions or assumptions. I mean explicitly tell people what models will be leaving, when, and give them lots of notice. AOS is giving people 16 months notice. I think ideally it's just tell people When the codex drops if that's the last edition the model will be in. So one edition of notice. It's the least they can do considering the massive markup and margin on these models.
At that point they're nothing like the planes they're meant to be, though. My Crimson Hunter and Voidraven Bomber aren't meant to hover around at moderate speed like a grav-tank, they're high-speed planes. Why would I even want to play an aircraft that behaves nothing like an aircraft?
Obviously just my personal view, but I'd rather just shelf them as display pieces, personally. I bought them because I like the models but I don't think they have a place in the rules of 40k. Unlike most of the dumb things GW does (as you've mentioned), I think it's for the best.
But you can shelf them because you don't like how the rules feel. I can't play them competitively if they suck. There can even be weaker and fluffier rules for people who want to play them in a fluffy uncompetitive manner. Hence my suggestion of points balanced fliers with hover, and then separate aircraft rules that are weak and limiting as we have, so that everyone can choose what they want. I always lean to the side of letting people use their models. Right now you can't if you play semi-seriously. Like I don't need to use the best models, I usually don't because it's too cookie cutter and I'm primarily a Johnny and only secondarily a spike. But I won't use junk that actively hurts my game.
Nothing is lost from the other types of players by adding the word hover as an option and balancing them as you would any other regular flyer.
This is the competitive subreddit. For people who play competitive tournaments. Nothing stops you from agreeing with your opponent about points/rules in individual games when it's not tournaments. Think of it as when you were playing sports together with friends . House rules all over the place to make your experience better. I am soon playing in a doubles highlander tournaments shock full of own rules.
The balance patch is just for serious tournament games.
Also,Vic and Dave don't play wh40k for a living.
TBF, I personally subscribe to this subreddit because it's the only one I found where people consistently talk about actual gameplay instead of posting pictures of their models
I never said I wasn't talking competitive. But competitive is a wide range of skill levels, and the top 1/1000 players only represent 0.1% of it. The stats crew do a good job of showing this by looking at the different ELO win rates per faction.
It's like in league of legends, you don't just balance for the pros you balance for people playing ranked(i.e competitive) in the gold tier too.
All the cries of 'Guard are S tier and the top faction in the game' (albeit in teams), from such YouTube channels may have had a tiny bit to play in this 😛.
Don't get me wrong - as a Guard player the only points cost that I think was over the top was Kasrkin - should have been 10pts max (but then again - I play melee Guard, not been focusing my list around artillery anymore anyway, so haven't personally considered the artillery increases). As someone who runs 18 Bullgryn, them going up 20pts per 6 was justified imo. I'm gobsmacked that they reduced the cost of Rough Riders, but will definitely take it 😂. Very happy they didn't touch Straken or Solar.
On a side note - I've found melee Guard are one of the best counters for both major Necron detachments.
And you absolutely shouldn't. Ask those who paid 360 bucks for 18 Bullgryns how that investment feels at the moment.
To be honest, people say "well, at least Guard is cheap, compared to Admech", but... is it really? Since the start of 10th edition most stuff was used and then thrown away the following balance run - you got three Earthshakers early on? Well, those were 465 bucks that don't see a table anymore. 30 Kasrkins? 180 bucks, no table. 18 Bullgryns? Might play 6-12 still, but that's 120 bucks at best not on the table anymore. Sentinels? Lòl, lmao even - 45 bucks *each.* Sum it all up.
And yeah, people will say "it's for the collection", fine. Or "print them", sure. But that goes for Admech as well. And GW, since the beginning of 10th edition, has been forcing Guard players to churn and churn and churn their lists just to stay afloat - with the potential mirage of "if you are *literally* the top 0.5% of ELO, Guard is good" keeping people going.
(That number isn't random, by the way. Guard is among the factions requiring the most ELO before its first GT+ win shows up, and most of those wins - 4 out of 7 - are in the hands of literally the top 0.5%.)
Understandable - I print as well - but for Guard, at the moment, *buying* meta models is extremely risky, because GW seems *convinced* Guard is ready to become an all-consuming monster at the drop of a hat, and has been killing the best lists systematically since the beginning of the edition - even though the faction has been mediocre, *being generous*, since the start. Now - the first pass hadn't been *bad*, because launch Guard indirect would have been *ridiculously filthy* in the less hostile meta of today, and the accompanying buffs had been reasonable.
But these? Most of the units buffed were terrible, with some being decent and maybe a couple being good but overshadowed. Unless it becomes like 130 points (by which point you would see three everywhere just for the bulk), a Vanquisher isn't going to be much better than shock value and surprise factor. If you had a reasonable, balanced list, there's a good chance it either went down by a pittance or it went *up*, despite not being loaded with nerfed units, because *so little* that is worth using *profile-wise* was buffed, and you probably had *something* that was nerfed.
I tell people to buy the models they want for their collection and to print/etsy their meta chasing. It's financially impossible to meta chase with GW models for any reasonable person. Even the pros borrow each other's stuff.
I remember when Vendettas were all the rage.
Then they got sent to Legends.
Then we get it back but its called Voss Lightning and is a super expensive forgeworld model.
I disagree on the lore choices, honestly: what I *do* see is that, whenever a faction's meta choices are disliked or panned by its playerbase, or just hard or costly to get, most playerbases react by dropping the faction, and thus you have Dark Lance Spam or 18 Breachers being played by a couple of players total while the rest runs towards another faction (or another game).
The Guard playerbase, on the other hand, just refuses to play a meta it doesn't like. It *won't* drop the faction - it will just not play the way the meta wants them to play. And this shows on the playerbase just *not budging* from its player numbers, despite most of it not overly liking the Fouchane/Gaylard list. And, honestly, it's a healthy approach: if I wanted to play a list I don't like because "it's meta", I would cut beyond the (still costly and very skill-intensive) Fouchane/Gaylard list and just go play Necrons. After all it's still a list I don't want to play with models I don't want to play, but at least it wins reliably.
haha fair. I find 20 to be absolutely excellent on WTC if you tech into Reinforcements and not FoF. Even 30 if you keep one in reserves and use Rapid Ingress. But yeah if you don't have them the real life price point is nuts.
Guard player, I agree. I think the meme of guard being the best army (in teams, specific format, etc) might have lead to the heavy handed nerf. Kasrkin feels like too much. They were good at 100. 120 is too much. 110 might have been ok. Bullgryn at 90 is probably fair but wraiths and Meganobz should have gone up as well. Just Bullgryn going up feels bad. Artillery I guess is fair. I thought manticore was bad at 180 but some maniacs were still taking 3. Personally I would have liked instead of artillery being nerfed as much, nerf scout sentinels and buff armored so they are both the same at 65 points each with lighter nerfs to artillery.
I really enjoy your content and agree with 99% of your what you say.
Although I think nuking a unit because it's too strong is not the best call. If you destroyed meganobz, this would also ruin all the characters, ghazgull and the bully boyz detachment.
Would prefer something like 5+ fnp but without that just increase the points to where 1-2 units max would ever realistically be taken in a list (done with emergency points changes). Although this is easier said than done.
Same can be said for wraiths.
Also if a unit is seen to be too oppressive what if there was an emergency rule for limiting to one or two units per army.
Just some thoughts. Thanks for the content.
I don’t think units should ever be nuked. Just nerfed until they aren’t better than other units. Everything should always be playable. I spent $200+ on getting rogal dorns. If they were somehow even more OP than ctan or something they would need needs but I would hate it if it became unplayable. Primarchs, Ctan, superheavies can all be very powerful and need to be balanced but they’re also expensive and shouldn’t be made unplayable
Good episode, but I have to really take issue with David's overplaying (imo) of the Eldar points changes.
Howling Banshees and Guardians going down 10-15 is good for them, but honestly I do not think they are all that transformative in the scheme of things. Guardians frankly should have been cheaper a long time ago when you compare them to something like Kabalites who have both sticky obsec, similar defensive profile AND more than one gun that matters for the same price.
Banshees at 70 are nice and all, but what hole do they plug in a list that isn't filled by something cheaper with more utility like Scorpions or more expensive but better damage and scoring potential? If we were talking about 9th ed Banshees, I'd 100% agree but frankly we don't need a melee unit that maybe gets one charge and barely can trade into standard MEQ's before immediately dying afterward. Investing more into them with things like Falcons or Jain just seem very inefficient when Eldar really don't need much help clearing out cultist and scouts...
Nerfs to Fuegan and Support Weapons, along with Spectres do a lot more into the oncoming meta of Tau, Orks as well as Necrons being still one of the best armies and one of our roughest matchups. Less indirect potentially helps T3 armies, but now the question is shifting to dealing with the wave of Boyz and other pressure based lists. I seriously doubt it and none of the buffed units change that equation much from what I can tell.
Overall, we've been performing right where GW want armies to ideally be and the changes are fair on both ends while trying to deal with internal balance and free up builds.
Love the show as always guys.
I guess I'll be another person that thinks wanting them to nerf stuff into oblivion is terrible though. People actually like those units and just want them to be fair. They should be aiming for balance, not throwing stuff from too-good to useless. I totally agree certain lists should be killed, of course they should. But they can surely kill a list without killing the individual units.
I understand what makes you feel that visceral reaction though. GW should be balancing stuff more freely, not insisting on waiting 3 months and then often not doing it well and making us wait another 3 months for them to give it another try. It's frustrating as hell, and I vibe so much with Dave's exasperation at how they just piss about and don't care.
I *think* (hope) that when they talk about needing stuff into oblivion, they mean a bit like with CSM. In that GW nerfed them hard enough that they definitely weren't tier 0 any more and are now gradually creeping the points back down again until they get to a point where they're solid again.
I think that's a decent strategy overall to make sure nothing stays broken, but will probably make it's way back up to playable within a few months time.
Frankly, that isn't good enough. Nerf it a moderate amount the first time. And if they discover it wasn't enough, nerf it some more sooner, rather than insisting on waiting 3 months. A few months isn't an acceptable time for an army to be way over-nerfed. People have spent a lot of time and money on those models and they want to use them.
I really don't like the line David took with regard to Josh Roberts. Honestly, the complaints came across as overly personal and in bad faith, You said you count him as a friend - but then quite clearly accused him of gaming the system for his own personal gain?
It was really exciting to hear that GW had hired an actual comp player to give advice... but I wouldn't be surprised if backlash like this puts him off - and/ or future possible candidates.
It was predictable but still disapointing.... how do you get expert input into balance if the player base doesn't let you be an expert player while doing so?
I would note that it looks like he has nerfed his actual winning list by 140 points. It was really quite disingenuous how someone listening to your rant could come away thinking that wraiths (for example) got no nerfs... when you know fine well that they only really work with technomancers... so each squad went up 11%... not insignificant.
You and Vic usually have some of the most insightful takes on the game... but I really didn't like this one. It felt like some sour grapes from recent losses came through.
You were right about guard winning at top tables... but I suspect you are wrong about ongoing necron dominance... the nerfs have probably been done quite smartly i think.
I think most competitive players would argue that Wraiths were the most overpowered and frankly unfun aspect of 40K. An 11% drop isn't enough. That's really why people who play a lot of competitive Warhammer are upset. I know I am. Because I don't want to play into CC Wraiths more.
Id rather dance around wraiths trying to precision out the technomancer than play against 2 manticores and a basilisk personally.. we all have our pet hates.
Pet hates are a thing. My pet hate is widespread 4++, because it makes any AP-based faction lose meaning. But at the end of it Guard was a 46% WR army, with 7 wins focused on the top .5% of players, that ate a 130-170 points nerf on its best lists while receiving a 20-30 points buff on its non-meta lists; and Necrons, the 58% WR faction with 21 GT+ wins, ate *less of a nerf*, and one of the most toxic packages in the game in particular were borderline untouched.
Honestly? Bullgryns didn't need that much of a nerf. Nor did Kasrkins. And buffs that end up not giving enough points to buy a single Cyclops are not balancing GW shooting the one meta list Guard had in the knee. Give me 70-100 extra points to work with as thanks for not using the nerfed units and we'll talk business.
The thing is, he's right. You might not like it but that doesn't change anything. The guy put forward to help balance comp 40k is on his biggest win spree playing the most powerful army and list in the game as supported by data dodges any meaningful nerfs entirely while other armies are left with no changes or nerfs. I feel sour grapes and you should too.
On Imperial Knights, they were very dominant in early 10th before the nerf. They also were huge in 8th with the big knight, smash Captain, and loyal 32. That’s when I started so knights have been a big presence for nearly half of my Warhammer experience
I mean in months that's less than eldar, nid or dark eldar dominance during the same time frame. And probably similar to IH, custodes, ad mech, orks (might be others as well but those are the ones I remember dominating for longer stretches) so knights are pretty average in that regard
I don't know why you're being downvoted, the question wasn't "Have Knights been a top tier army more often than other armies?", it was "When was the last time Knights were good?"
And the answer to that is right at the start of this edition in most areas that weren't playing with boarded up first floor ruins, and they were still good outside of that. And before that a little bit after their 9th edition codex dropped and people figured out the list for the Freeblade Lance build. On the Chaos end of the spectrum, Dog-Walker Abaddon was a viable build you had to prepare for if you wanted to do well in tournaments for a while in 9th.
Yeah. They’ve had several periods in the past 6 ish years where they were good. They were only top tier for a month or two each edition but they’ve been good quite a bit.
Dave, I'm begging you, you played ETC with him, please just have a 5 minute conversation with Anthony V about why he's not playing World Eaters _in singles_. Yes they're great in teams, please just ask him why he wouldn't play them in singles (and that might have changed very recently). I think it'll a) make your commentary on them vastly improved, and b) presents a really interesting stories about why WE are in a really _tough spot_ to balance. Not that they're bad, or that they're good, but that the situation they're in makes adjusting their points very fraught and difficult.
I think that could be a really good discussion point for you guys, about how the places that armies find themselves in the meta, outside of raw win percentage, make them easier or harder to balance with points.
Great podcast as always, really enjoyed Dave's rant and Vik's attempts to reign it back in! Dave did kind of lose me with the statistic of 'Josh Roberts over four games beat me and Nassim four times so that's indisputable evidence that the changes suck!' (Although I agree completely, the changes do suck). Even ignoring this tiny sample size, Canoptek Court inherently counters indirect guard lists. The lone op strat is incredibly powerful. The army regenerates wounds, lessening the impact of attritional damage which compounds on lone op and the durability of the units. Immortals scoop up guard bodies. Yes, wraiths were (and absolutely still are) busted. But like - I dunno man, it strikes me as a bit self centered to say that those four games are THE metric when there's other matchups and an entire rest of the planet that plays this game too. Aside from that I agree with basically all points. Guard got nerfed too hard, necrons needed points on wraiths badly, wtf is happening with Tsons, meganobs???, entire armies with bad internal balance and zero changes... all in all, a bit of a disappointing slate. But like Vik said, the meta has never been closer. Here's hoping that tau and orks don't break it wide open!
It feels like they were either lazy or cowardly to not touch anything in some of the ~50% armies. You could have easily dropped some of the really bad daemon units without breaking the game, or just do what they have done previously, a slight increase on the strong daemons, slight drop on the weak. And CK are even worse. As nice as the models are, next to nobody started CK because they wanted to run all wardogs. I know knights are really hard to balance but if nobody runs successful lists with big knights, then you can drop them by at least a fee points and see if that helps a bit.
Yea let me clarify on the '4 games' thing becuase it's an important point. I think more than anyone, Vik and I have tried to cut through the 'Win rate X%' arguments and have consistenly said that win rates don't reflect the true power of a faction in a top pilots hands. So when I did the comparison between Guard and Necrons I wanted to both have the context of "X win rate, Y GT wins' but also compliment that with the head to head statistics of the best pilots in the world playing against each other, namely Josh, Nassim, Vik and I, respectively in our factions. I did this to personally try and understand why Guard was nerfed as much as Necrons and I think what it shows is that across any aggregate statistic or pilot-dependent analysis that the changes were alittle out of line.
How valuable is army performance in the top players' hands for purposes of balance to a larger game? For example, John Lennon can do well with Tyranids. He can do well with a lot of stuff. However, if everyone but 2-3 people are struggling with Tyranids, other than 2-3 people who do well, what does that tell us about balance? And if the 2-3 people doing well with the Tyranids would do well with other armies, is their Tyranid success useful for data purposes? Isn't the broader data of win rates amongst Tyranid players more useful at that point? It really comes down to - if player skill is a very important factor in win rates, and 40k is already swingy because of the significant randomness built into it, is the performance of the top 50 people in the world really of much value, particularly when those players are often focused on 1-2 factions and aren't playing the whole faction base equivalently? I think the "top players" approach sometimes fails to account for the fact that the top player base of 40k is miniscule compared to other games, and is not nearly as fluid. Most players aren't rotating through every army - they're focusing on a handful. To take League of Legends for an example, Faker (one of the best players in the history of the game) is an expert in LeBlanc and Orianna. Even when those champions had poor win rates, his pure expertise made them threats. But the game was not balanced around "faker can win with this" - he can win with almost anything. His comfort and skill with the champion is part of its winrate that's not reflected in general balance. He is not a useful datapoint for balancing that champion.
Great comment - I play tsons and don’t win many games but I also run a thematic list that looks like a Tsons army. Not a min/max destroy at all costs list. I really struggled after the first points increase especially as I just happen to own a lot more bolters than flamers but don’t intend to paint anymore. Why should I be nerfed because they might be good at tournaments in the hands of a few sweaty players?
Hey, thanks for the response! Want to quickly say that again, I love your work and the podcast is a frequent listen of mine. I agree entirely that you need to look beyond the 'win rate x%' arguments. Factions have different skill floors and skill ceilings. In a perfectly balanced world where everything is viable / balanced at the top, guard will have a winrate below necrons because necrons are inherently easier to play and folks with less skill and/or experience will win more with them. All I am saying is that I'd have received your argument better if you had framed it around a larger sample size instead of what sounded like personal experience and bias. So like, on stat check if you look at the top 90th percentile necrons have a 57% winrate just behind sisters at 59%, and if you look at the top 99th percentile necrons have a 62% winrate behind Chaos demons at 71%, BA at 68% and Tau at 63%. (Although, when you get into the top 99th percentile variance between games and matchups plays a big role in the data. Nobody thinks that chaos demons are the best army in the game at the top, and they only have 7 games of data to back up that 71%. Same with BA at 11 games. Tau have 32 and crons have 64, so there the data looks much more representative of actual power). The data backs up your point, and all I wanted to say with my comment was that your comparison weakened what is an irrefutably strong argument. Guard perform worse at every percentile when compared to necrons. Why they got similar (arguably more) reductions makes zero sense. I would say GW just hates indirect, but that doesn't explain the kasrkin bump. Hopefully we'll get some better changes soon!
Honestly, my disagreement is on two levels: one, Guard was never the "low floor, high ceiling" faction, so people that have been playing it for years can't well have the rug pulled out from under their feet like "sorry, you are now too bad to enjoy playing your army, go play something else despite having several thousand points worth of Guard". Two, that high ceiling needs to be reasonably reachable as well: if you need to be in the top 0.5% of ELO to play Guard well, then the army is bad for such a wide slice of its playerbase that "but Gaylard can smash a GT+ with it!" loses any significance, and the army is *still bad*.
I can’t really speak to what guard were like to play pre 9th edition, as that’s when I got back into the game in a serious capacity. I do think though that having armies with different skill ceilings and skill floors is good for the game! You want there to options that beginners can succeed with and options for veterans to hone their skills on. Ideally though, and to your point, the disparity between the ceiling and the floor shouldn’t be so vast that it alienates one group entirely. I don’t think guard are there (but I also don’t play them so correct me if I am wrong). If a faction is there, I agree with you, rules changes are necessary
I’m curious to see if the trend follows right now there simply isn’t enough data for it, but part of it seems a reluctance to overly nerf Codex releases. GW does seem to want to power creep 10th, not to the extent in 9th but currently Orks, Tau, Necrons are probably 3 of the strongest armies in the game, won’t be receiving another book for 3-5 years, but aren’t overly powerful like Eldar at the start of 10th. Now this could just be a tinfoil hat moment, but it will be interesting if the trend continues of hammering the indexes with nerfs while lightly tapping the codices.
>GW does seem to want to power creep 10th, not to the extent in 9th but currently Orks, Tau, Necrons are probably 3 of the strongest armies in the game Yet at the same time you have Dark Angels (Codex), Ad Mech, and Custodes. It's not a matter of GW wanting powercreep. There's just one guy who writes strong Codices, and another guy who seemingly hates the game. And it's a coinflip which guy writes the Codex for any given army.
What a coincidence that all of the bad codices are imperium and all of the good ones are xenos.
Imo it looks like Orks, Tau and Necrons can (and will) be reigned in by points adjustments as their codices seem to work otherwise as intended (be fun). What worries me more is things like the AdMech codex, where point cuts don't work, but the codex will still be there for the reminder of 10th.
I think we need to wait on data before we nerf meganobz. Even if they are too strong, theres no telling by how much they need to be increased without some data to back it
To me I think the changes to eldar and where they are at now is kinda what the game should aspire for (just took them 9 months to get there lol). Before the latest MFM, they were strong, but not oppressive with very consistent results week after week. The nerfs were targeted right at the least interactive units - specters, hawks, D-cannons and characters that come back on death, the only unit I kinda feel escaped that probably should have had a small bump was the dark reapers. In return they got meaningful points decreases to rarely seen melee units in a way that lists might actually change. If you stick to MSU shooting you lost about 60 points or one unit, which seem comparable to sisters and GK, but you have the option to build a more balanced list and basically end up with a side grade. When I look at the lists that people are working on right now I see upwards to 30-40 different units being included with lots of variation in play style as far as an index goes. Where they missed the mark imo, and it sounded like that was your take as well, is that they didn't go this far with most other armies. If they instead of making random 5pts decreases to guard units, took them down 10-15 points, the nerfs might not have felt as harsh and there'd be lots of room for innovation. Not to mention leaving so many of the middle codexes untouched which just felt lazy.
The problem with doing that for Eldar is that, in current design paradigms at least, they require a certain level of uninteractive mechanics. They're meant to be an elite army that doesn't rely on pure raw tankiness in terms of stats. This is also 10th edition so apparently lethality has to be lower. So you're left with units that don't do crazy amounts.of damage but also cannot take a punch but who *also* have to be relatively elite and not a horde army. So they either need to do insane damage for their points, have better raw defensive stats or have movement shenanigans to avoid taking return fire. Or we can just keep reducing the points on everything so now a fully kitted out unit of storm guardians is only 100 points and Banshees, the supposed elite, are a measly 14ppm. It's why any potential new detachments will have to work hard to be appealing because they likely won't have FaF or Phantasm which the army arguably needs to function in a reasonable manner. Nerfing dcannon points again is funny because with 18 wraiths and meganobz being a thing there's little else in the Index that can deal with those profiles damagewise, so they'll be in lists even more than before probably.
But yeah I agree with you that eldar will keep having problems with some of the top armies, cause currently there is just not a good way to deal with those tanky units you talk about. But that's more of a necrons and ork problem, than an eldar one imo. 18 wraiths should not be a thing.
And banshees still don't do much. Their damage 1 and 4 strength with only 3 attacks for the regular blades just ruins their potential.
Yeah I def hope for some more output on the damage of melee units in the codex, but at least we'll have more units see play after this update. If they don't want to update rules in half of the updates this is a step in the right direction imo and something I think they could have done more for others. Sometimes I see the complaint that the eldar index is so deep that the nerfs don't have an impact. That's a good thing! More armies should be this deep!
Yeah, the point is to bring units into line with each other for better internal balance.
Thank you for calling out 18 wraiths. I'm soooooooo sick of this horrendous stat-check that doesn't take much brain power to play. The nerf wasn't nearly enough, Necron lists are still too strong for the vast majority of armies. Maybe if they didn't have reactive move... didn't have nurgle strat... didn't revive guys/heal automatically... didn't have OC2... didn 't re-roll hits most of the game... Something man. For 885 points, you've got 72 wounds at T6 with 4++ and 5+++, with solid consistent damage, and major OC. Then go ahead and add 2-3 c'tans which take an entire turn for most armies to deal with. Then fit in some doomstalkers and you've got everything. The only thing that deals with this kind of degeneracy is stuff like 30 Death Company Marines, which, for those not aware, can have 30 powerfists and 30 inferno (like mini multi melta) pistols. Or maybe new busted Orks/Tau, or crazy TSons. For the other 90% of us, competitive warhammer just sucks when this stuff exists. Let's please actually address these problems and not keep having "new hotness" break the game.
And conveniently the beasts keyword
Wait for the meganobz with a 2+ 4+++ for 2 turn per match
Yeah it's just more nonsense. For 30ppm I get a... bladeguard veteran XD
Imagine my surprise when they cut the cost of Possessed (better AND cheaper than Bladeguard) by a further 2 pts this update.
That build isn't that good. I'd worry more about green tide.
I kinda wonder. Bullyboyz does have a good set of stratagem, and 2 turn of waagh is quite fantastic.
Don't forget a 4++ against shooting and respawning a guy every turn from the Bigmek attached to them. This unit should be at least 50 points per model, if not more.
You could also add they they do clap more in melee and have lower profile (thus easier to hide/ will not break apart if the dice hit them). They will make the wraith looks like weak unit quickly.
They only hit on 4s btw, for the average unit of 5 + mek that's just 11 hits, depending what you're fighting you'll anywhere from 3-9 times. If a ctan gets into them you'll do about 2 damage, 4 if you're incredibly lucky. The ctan will basically one shot them back for their trouble, and they're about the same points cost.
The mek is probably not that valuable: 4++ is only better than a 2+ against AP-3 , and with cover ap-4. With a boss they will hit on 3+. During the waagh they have 2+/5++/4+++, and they will have two turn of waaagh. 6 meganobz with a boss during the waaagh will have 18 attacks, 12 will hit, 10 will wound with double kill saw. 5 will cross the invul, 3 will wound. That unit is 260pts. The NB with the strike would have 4 wound success, 3 that would pass the invul leading to most likely 2 dead meganobz The wraiths would not be much better: 24 attacks>18 would hit in canoptek court with reroll. 6 would wound, 3 would cross the 4+ and 2 will wound. A unit of wraith is 220 pts, 205pts with the techo.
now do TWC
TWC are also egregious. I think they’re only not hated as much as wraiths is cause everyone and their mom has a necrons army with a lot of wraiths while only dedicated SW players (or meta chasers) have all the TWC, characters and wulfen
I think my perspective is biased from my local meta where I'm one of two or three dedicated Necrons players. No one else here has the amount of wraiths needed to run 18 so it's not something we run into
I wanted 3 things from this Dataslate. Necron Wraiths to go way up. Meganobz to go way up. Ctan to go up. I kinda got some of those. Kinda. The thing is I love playing 40K. EXCEPT against braindead unkillable units that are just really OP. Unfortunately I think Canoptek Court with 18 Wraiths is still not only around but remains the best list in the game. I REALLY don't want to play against that army ever again. But I will a ton unless I quit competitive Warhammer. Then there's the new Ork hotness in the Meganobz that look even worse than Wraiths. So i'll get three terrible months of playing into that. NOT FUN. AND then my last comment. David is wrong about Aeldari. That army was really relying on 3x1 Support Weapons as an attempt to fight back against Wraiths/Nobz. And Specters was our anti horde. By losing both of those units it really hits the army harder than he expects. My list went up 85 points for example. And as someone who owns Necrons... my Necron armies were so much better than Aeldari. And they still are. Overall I loved this episode and I think these two are incredibly intelligent and offer the best takes on 40K. I'd hire them.
Spot on Dave - well said re: Guard nerfs vs Necrons. Love the podcast as always - Vik's voice a soothing balm to Dave's righteous fury! :D
The 18 wraith build is beyond daft. Crazy they didn’t touch it in the MFM. My theory is that they will do something with the rules in 3 months with the data slate (unproven speculation). Otherwise the fact they weren’t touched makes no sense.
They did touch it tho, it costs 75 more. You don't get wraiths without technomancers
That's really not much for how strong they are, and I'm still not sure why they nerfed the technomancers and not the wraiths given techomancers were unused in warrior and immortal squads and now they won't see the light of day
That I agree on, it's a side nerf on everything that can get the techno, should've been on the wraiths themselves
Do you think they might have held back on increasing the wraiths themselves this pass to wait and see if they’re still being spammed by the next points update and increase them then?
Would it be crazy to suggest armies are limited to only 2 of a unit? I know it probably punishes WE and Votann who are still running around with few units, punishes Codexes like Orks and Tyranids where every detachment was made super focused (unlike for example Necrons), but it would stop the triple MSU spam at least. Would probably force GW into fleshing out the armies without enough units and deal with internal balance within factions too.
I've always thought that units costs should change when you take multiples, so you'd list wraiths at something like 80/100/130. The first unit would cost 80, the second 100, etc. so the harder you skew, the more you end up paying for it. It would obviously involve a bit more tuning than that, but I generally think 40k is more fun when both players have a variety of units on the board rather than just 3x the 3 beet units in the faction.
No idea why you’re downvoted on this, 2 of each unit would force more variety in lists. Not a bad idea, probably not for 10th but I’d be down for that in 11th.
Not sure, it was genuinely a question and I'm sure there are more drawbacks I haven't thought of.
The internet would then just complain about any list that ran 2 of something, like they have for 3s since the rule of 3.
2 is hard for armies with small rosters, armies with poor internal balance (sure GW could playtest more and write better rules but we all know that won't happen in the near future). It also punishes small, frail units since if you need them as a tool, it gets even easier to remove them. Rule of 3 already punished people with large collections, but the situation was bad enough that few complained about Ro3 & there are significantly more people with 3 of each unit in their faction than there are with 4+. And last but not least, it also hurts people who want to run thematic lists at events
Because most armies need at least *some* of their best stuff in triple copy, because there isn't a comparable unit in the same role in the roster, and sometime that role is vital.
Good content as always. What's the immediate thoughts on where Guard go next? I know you said you don't like the play style of the Hellhound but from a competitive standpoint, they seem like a solid mid board unit that will play well into both Orks and Tau? (both struggle to trade well into t10 2+ save units). Could they fill the gap of some of the lost midfield board presence of the second unit of Bulgryn's or the dmg of the 2nd/3rd unit of Karskin? Like you said, 130ish points is hard to make up.
Regarding Tsons, you missed the changes to enhancements. So Viks comment that they needed a slight increase is actually what happened.
Yea, but if you look at the cultist points change it almost balances out the enhancement increases. I think overall it was 10 points increase or something. But point taken, we didn't cover enhancements in geneal either.
Same for Eldar. And although the Eldar list the Liam was running only went up 70 points, some builds that leaned on indirect and fnf along the lines of what Mani Cheema ran went up 100-110 points. And Guard indirect being superseded by Green Tide and Mont Ka is hardly a matchup improvement for Eldar. I'll be surprised if Eldar GT wins or win rate improve significantly, despite cheaper Scorpions.
Don't forget Shining Spears! They got a buff... oh wait /s
Having said that, I don't think that Eldar got much worse. Still a good army that is fun to play, still will find places in teams and win singles here and there. I just don't think that they are now clear top 5 alongside Necrons, Orks, and Tau, as David from Fireside seems to imply.
They have some insanely bad matchups that being top 5 in that environment is just not going to happen. I mean Tau alone is a rough time for the MSU style, but then 18 Wraiths don't care about your cheeky MSU moveblocks, and neither do random armies like CK.
Thankyou for calling out Wraiths, Necrons and Josh here. One of the more suss moments in 10th so far.
We all just gonna blow past that the guy who's in charge of balance shot to the top of the leaderboard with the list that still wasn't nerfed? Now I may be just a simple guardsman, but that seems suss.
I think if you look at his exact list it was nerfed by like 140 points. Hand waving the 25 points on the technomancer is disingenuous.
True, but he still had 3 months with it. I don't think its unreasonable to think it should have been caught in the previous update.
It's pretty blatant but people will prefer to pretend that it's all an accident.
These guys have some of the worst opinions of the top players who make content. Not wrong, but the actual subjective opinion stuff. Make lists unplayable instead of timing them appropriately? Make units unplayable? These are the opinions of pros who play too much Warhammer and want things bad for the vast majority of players. They are of course okay with this because they will grind 20 times the games of other people who already play a decent amount, and they have tons of stuff to pivot to. Just like their opinions are that things should be balanced around the absolute best of the best players which is also a bad idea. That's why they think win rate is a bad metric. Obviously you need to balance around the data that you have available, But it should be around all levels ELO players, and GW should strive towards balance not whack a mole hitting way too hard That makes the game feel like a roller coaster. It's terrible policy that aircraft or buggies are way too powerful and then way too weak after for a long time. People whose job is to play have invaluable opinions but the game should not be balanced for them.
I agree that making units unplayable sucks hard, but making specific lists unplayable is entirely reasonable. Make it so you have reason to take those units in various lists, but aren't incentivised to play a particular unfun/overly-dominant-in-faction list like 'a pile of gladiators'.
Yeah I suppose if you can kill a list without killing any of the units in it then I would be fine with it but that seems difficult. I'm also fine with and I think it's best if it's no longer the best list possible the faction can field. But I don't subscribe to the idea that competitive means you can only use the absolute best thing available. I think the goal should be to bring a winning list down to just a strong option, and one that wouldn't feel like you're being punished bringing it to a tournament. That's far from the language of "killing" it. We shouldn't have the roller coaster We see of units going from being in every single list to being in absolutely zero of them. That's way too far and just shows ineptitude at balance. Now I don't expect GW to be perfect at balance I don't expect them to be even very good at it based on history, But I think it's important to know what the goal is and have that be the right goal. Auspex tactics did a video on this recently that I thought was really good and discussed what I knew but a lot of people might not, especially those who are new; there are sets of unspoken rules in 10th that are basically traps set by GW that new people or people that don't follow so closely would not know until they stepped in though and that's terrible practice. Units that are purposely kept poor which just shouldn't be a thing. There's even people in the community blaming the players when they do things like buy into models that become legended, Which to me just screams of people accepting bad practices by GW through just being exposed to them so much. It's consumer Stockholm syndrome. It's terrible practice to announce things are legends without ample forewarning. These are things that they're even selling, but that's not an excuse to do it to ones that they are no longer selling either. AOS continues to So it's the better team at the company with their recent announcements about 4th edition, where they gave a total of 16 months notice between announcement and the end of rules support and tournament legality for the factions they sunsetted. I still think given the high price and level of margins on these plastics that everything should be announced one edition ahead. Announce with the 10th codex for a faction what units will not be seen in 11th. That this is their last hurrah, given the short edition timelines of 3 years.
Hey there, well thanks for having a listen in the first place. I don't think you've actually engaged honestly with the content I'm sorry to say. For example, we do use win rate when analyzing the relative nerfs of armies. In fact, at one point we actually compare general population win rate to higher elo win rate. As for 'people whos job is to play'. Yea, I'm a busy ML Engineer, I play probably once a week and I'm trying to start a family. - Dave
Not sure what's not "honest", I listened to it all and said it was factually accurate, I just disagree with your opinions on most fronts. I think some of your opinions are inconsiderate of people who don't play as much or as broadly as you do, or at various skill levels. They are understandable from your perspectives, but should not be followed by GW for the good of the game. I came in kind of hot but that's my response when people want to invalidate others models. I'm of the strong opinion that making a model noncompetitive should never be the goal no matter what the model is. The rules may need a significant change, But it's never the right call to make the model uncompetitive as a goal. Doesn't matter if it previously dominated, or an aircraft, or indirect, or Titanic.
While i dont think op made the point fairly, it has some merit. If you play a game a week and ~10-15 tourneys a year, you still play multiple times the amount of most people. I am not sure how much that should be factored in, and you guys obviously only state your opinions based on your needs. But i agree with op, that the average and even the average competitive player doesnt have the capacity to switch armies as easily as you guys do or has as much need for change. The game simply gets stale more slowly when you play half the games. P.s. i wish you and your family all the best! It is one beautifull step to take
I don't think you've actually engaged honestly with his comment either tbh.
Tell em Dave. Reddit is like 10% interesting view points. 20% the most rabbit hole fringe and cringe comments . And 70% regurgitated mid group think. You are part of the 10% of unique viewpoints. Love your content, and looking forward to your future discussions. Curious on what your testing on Leman Rush turns out.
We are all better off with Flyers being unplayable. Nobody misses that. Nobody wants to lose a game because your oppoent brought 3 planes and got first turn.
Nah, that's a false dichotomy. The choices aren't broken or terrible, they could be balanced. Give them all hover to start. People should be able to play their models and not feel handicapped. Maybe the unique aircraft rules don't work, sure, but they don't have to be trash.
For most things I would agree, but I'm not sure 40k is capable of successfully incorporating aircraft. They're an additional layer of gameplay they tried to tack on in 7th edition without consideration for how they would actually fit and they've been flailing at the issue ever since.
You mean handling aircraft as their rules exist in current form? Sure. I'm fine with just pulling the idea of aircraft as functionally distinct from flyers. That's why I said give them all hover, That's a perfectly acceptable way to transition away from the aircraft rules. Give them hover and make the aircraft rules bad, and then pull them in the next edition. But don't make the models bad, that's completely unnecessary and my point of contention. You charging arm and a leg for these models make sure they're usable and you don't feel bad for doing so. And they are really nice models they're some of the best in the game, let people use them without feeling they're a penalty. There's nothing imbalanced about flyers, just specifically aircraft. And for anyone who has a problem with the idea of melee hitting aircraft... If you wanted to die on that hill you should have did it forever ago when any flyers got introduced. Can't hit a helicopter with a choppa any better than you can hit a plane. My point is always don't kill models, and don't legend them without ample notice. And I mean *real* notice, not inferences from other actions or assumptions. I mean explicitly tell people what models will be leaving, when, and give them lots of notice. AOS is giving people 16 months notice. I think ideally it's just tell people When the codex drops if that's the last edition the model will be in. So one edition of notice. It's the least they can do considering the massive markup and margin on these models.
At that point they're nothing like the planes they're meant to be, though. My Crimson Hunter and Voidraven Bomber aren't meant to hover around at moderate speed like a grav-tank, they're high-speed planes. Why would I even want to play an aircraft that behaves nothing like an aircraft? Obviously just my personal view, but I'd rather just shelf them as display pieces, personally. I bought them because I like the models but I don't think they have a place in the rules of 40k. Unlike most of the dumb things GW does (as you've mentioned), I think it's for the best.
But you can shelf them because you don't like how the rules feel. I can't play them competitively if they suck. There can even be weaker and fluffier rules for people who want to play them in a fluffy uncompetitive manner. Hence my suggestion of points balanced fliers with hover, and then separate aircraft rules that are weak and limiting as we have, so that everyone can choose what they want. I always lean to the side of letting people use their models. Right now you can't if you play semi-seriously. Like I don't need to use the best models, I usually don't because it's too cookie cutter and I'm primarily a Johnny and only secondarily a spike. But I won't use junk that actively hurts my game. Nothing is lost from the other types of players by adding the word hover as an option and balancing them as you would any other regular flyer.
This is the competitive subreddit. For people who play competitive tournaments. Nothing stops you from agreeing with your opponent about points/rules in individual games when it's not tournaments. Think of it as when you were playing sports together with friends . House rules all over the place to make your experience better. I am soon playing in a doubles highlander tournaments shock full of own rules. The balance patch is just for serious tournament games. Also,Vic and Dave don't play wh40k for a living.
TBF, I personally subscribe to this subreddit because it's the only one I found where people consistently talk about actual gameplay instead of posting pictures of their models
Or pictures of their boxes
I never said I wasn't talking competitive. But competitive is a wide range of skill levels, and the top 1/1000 players only represent 0.1% of it. The stats crew do a good job of showing this by looking at the different ELO win rates per faction. It's like in league of legends, you don't just balance for the pros you balance for people playing ranked(i.e competitive) in the gold tier too.
All the cries of 'Guard are S tier and the top faction in the game' (albeit in teams), from such YouTube channels may have had a tiny bit to play in this 😛. Don't get me wrong - as a Guard player the only points cost that I think was over the top was Kasrkin - should have been 10pts max (but then again - I play melee Guard, not been focusing my list around artillery anymore anyway, so haven't personally considered the artillery increases). As someone who runs 18 Bullgryn, them going up 20pts per 6 was justified imo. I'm gobsmacked that they reduced the cost of Rough Riders, but will definitely take it 😂. Very happy they didn't touch Straken or Solar. On a side note - I've found melee Guard are one of the best counters for both major Necron detachments.
I just don't want to pay $300 for 360 points of horses.
And you absolutely shouldn't. Ask those who paid 360 bucks for 18 Bullgryns how that investment feels at the moment. To be honest, people say "well, at least Guard is cheap, compared to Admech", but... is it really? Since the start of 10th edition most stuff was used and then thrown away the following balance run - you got three Earthshakers early on? Well, those were 465 bucks that don't see a table anymore. 30 Kasrkins? 180 bucks, no table. 18 Bullgryns? Might play 6-12 still, but that's 120 bucks at best not on the table anymore. Sentinels? Lòl, lmao even - 45 bucks *each.* Sum it all up. And yeah, people will say "it's for the collection", fine. Or "print them", sure. But that goes for Admech as well. And GW, since the beginning of 10th edition, has been forcing Guard players to churn and churn and churn their lists just to stay afloat - with the potential mirage of "if you are *literally* the top 0.5% of ELO, Guard is good" keeping people going. (That number isn't random, by the way. Guard is among the factions requiring the most ELO before its first GT+ win shows up, and most of those wins - 4 out of 7 - are in the hands of literally the top 0.5%.)
AGree with all this. My bullgryns are printed. I also don't want to PAINT 30 horses. (18 bullgryn is a pretty easy paint)
Understandable - I print as well - but for Guard, at the moment, *buying* meta models is extremely risky, because GW seems *convinced* Guard is ready to become an all-consuming monster at the drop of a hat, and has been killing the best lists systematically since the beginning of the edition - even though the faction has been mediocre, *being generous*, since the start. Now - the first pass hadn't been *bad*, because launch Guard indirect would have been *ridiculously filthy* in the less hostile meta of today, and the accompanying buffs had been reasonable. But these? Most of the units buffed were terrible, with some being decent and maybe a couple being good but overshadowed. Unless it becomes like 130 points (by which point you would see three everywhere just for the bulk), a Vanquisher isn't going to be much better than shock value and surprise factor. If you had a reasonable, balanced list, there's a good chance it either went down by a pittance or it went *up*, despite not being loaded with nerfed units, because *so little* that is worth using *profile-wise* was buffed, and you probably had *something* that was nerfed.
I tell people to buy the models they want for their collection and to print/etsy their meta chasing. It's financially impossible to meta chase with GW models for any reasonable person. Even the pros borrow each other's stuff.
I remember when Vendettas were all the rage. Then they got sent to Legends. Then we get it back but its called Voss Lightning and is a super expensive forgeworld model.
[удалено]
I disagree on the lore choices, honestly: what I *do* see is that, whenever a faction's meta choices are disliked or panned by its playerbase, or just hard or costly to get, most playerbases react by dropping the faction, and thus you have Dark Lance Spam or 18 Breachers being played by a couple of players total while the rest runs towards another faction (or another game). The Guard playerbase, on the other hand, just refuses to play a meta it doesn't like. It *won't* drop the faction - it will just not play the way the meta wants them to play. And this shows on the playerbase just *not budging* from its player numbers, despite most of it not overly liking the Fouchane/Gaylard list. And, honestly, it's a healthy approach: if I wanted to play a list I don't like because "it's meta", I would cut beyond the (still costly and very skill-intensive) Fouchane/Gaylard list and just go play Necrons. After all it's still a list I don't want to play with models I don't want to play, but at least it wins reliably.
AdMech players wish they could get that good of a dollar-pet-point value, bro.
haha fair. I find 20 to be absolutely excellent on WTC if you tech into Reinforcements and not FoF. Even 30 if you keep one in reserves and use Rapid Ingress. But yeah if you don't have them the real life price point is nuts.
Guard player, I agree. I think the meme of guard being the best army (in teams, specific format, etc) might have lead to the heavy handed nerf. Kasrkin feels like too much. They were good at 100. 120 is too much. 110 might have been ok. Bullgryn at 90 is probably fair but wraiths and Meganobz should have gone up as well. Just Bullgryn going up feels bad. Artillery I guess is fair. I thought manticore was bad at 180 but some maniacs were still taking 3. Personally I would have liked instead of artillery being nerfed as much, nerf scout sentinels and buff armored so they are both the same at 65 points each with lighter nerfs to artillery.
I like your thinking with making the Sents the same cost. Yeah MNs and Wraiths should definitely have gone up since Bullgryn have.
Some justified anger here. Wraiths (package) goes up 9%, doomstalkers up 0%.
I think the doomstalkers not going up is even worse than the wraith package only going up 25 points.
I echo David's rhetoric on the mega post for the MFM and people fight me on it saying kasrkin nerf was justified lmao
I really enjoy your content and agree with 99% of your what you say. Although I think nuking a unit because it's too strong is not the best call. If you destroyed meganobz, this would also ruin all the characters, ghazgull and the bully boyz detachment. Would prefer something like 5+ fnp but without that just increase the points to where 1-2 units max would ever realistically be taken in a list (done with emergency points changes). Although this is easier said than done. Same can be said for wraiths. Also if a unit is seen to be too oppressive what if there was an emergency rule for limiting to one or two units per army. Just some thoughts. Thanks for the content.
I don’t think units should ever be nuked. Just nerfed until they aren’t better than other units. Everything should always be playable. I spent $200+ on getting rogal dorns. If they were somehow even more OP than ctan or something they would need needs but I would hate it if it became unplayable. Primarchs, Ctan, superheavies can all be very powerful and need to be balanced but they’re also expensive and shouldn’t be made unplayable
Good episode, but I have to really take issue with David's overplaying (imo) of the Eldar points changes. Howling Banshees and Guardians going down 10-15 is good for them, but honestly I do not think they are all that transformative in the scheme of things. Guardians frankly should have been cheaper a long time ago when you compare them to something like Kabalites who have both sticky obsec, similar defensive profile AND more than one gun that matters for the same price. Banshees at 70 are nice and all, but what hole do they plug in a list that isn't filled by something cheaper with more utility like Scorpions or more expensive but better damage and scoring potential? If we were talking about 9th ed Banshees, I'd 100% agree but frankly we don't need a melee unit that maybe gets one charge and barely can trade into standard MEQ's before immediately dying afterward. Investing more into them with things like Falcons or Jain just seem very inefficient when Eldar really don't need much help clearing out cultist and scouts... Nerfs to Fuegan and Support Weapons, along with Spectres do a lot more into the oncoming meta of Tau, Orks as well as Necrons being still one of the best armies and one of our roughest matchups. Less indirect potentially helps T3 armies, but now the question is shifting to dealing with the wave of Boyz and other pressure based lists. I seriously doubt it and none of the buffed units change that equation much from what I can tell. Overall, we've been performing right where GW want armies to ideally be and the changes are fair on both ends while trying to deal with internal balance and free up builds.
Love the show as always guys. I guess I'll be another person that thinks wanting them to nerf stuff into oblivion is terrible though. People actually like those units and just want them to be fair. They should be aiming for balance, not throwing stuff from too-good to useless. I totally agree certain lists should be killed, of course they should. But they can surely kill a list without killing the individual units. I understand what makes you feel that visceral reaction though. GW should be balancing stuff more freely, not insisting on waiting 3 months and then often not doing it well and making us wait another 3 months for them to give it another try. It's frustrating as hell, and I vibe so much with Dave's exasperation at how they just piss about and don't care.
I *think* (hope) that when they talk about needing stuff into oblivion, they mean a bit like with CSM. In that GW nerfed them hard enough that they definitely weren't tier 0 any more and are now gradually creeping the points back down again until they get to a point where they're solid again. I think that's a decent strategy overall to make sure nothing stays broken, but will probably make it's way back up to playable within a few months time.
Frankly, that isn't good enough. Nerf it a moderate amount the first time. And if they discover it wasn't enough, nerf it some more sooner, rather than insisting on waiting 3 months. A few months isn't an acceptable time for an army to be way over-nerfed. People have spent a lot of time and money on those models and they want to use them.
I really don't like the line David took with regard to Josh Roberts. Honestly, the complaints came across as overly personal and in bad faith, You said you count him as a friend - but then quite clearly accused him of gaming the system for his own personal gain? It was really exciting to hear that GW had hired an actual comp player to give advice... but I wouldn't be surprised if backlash like this puts him off - and/ or future possible candidates. It was predictable but still disapointing.... how do you get expert input into balance if the player base doesn't let you be an expert player while doing so? I would note that it looks like he has nerfed his actual winning list by 140 points. It was really quite disingenuous how someone listening to your rant could come away thinking that wraiths (for example) got no nerfs... when you know fine well that they only really work with technomancers... so each squad went up 11%... not insignificant. You and Vic usually have some of the most insightful takes on the game... but I really didn't like this one. It felt like some sour grapes from recent losses came through. You were right about guard winning at top tables... but I suspect you are wrong about ongoing necron dominance... the nerfs have probably been done quite smartly i think.
I think most competitive players would argue that Wraiths were the most overpowered and frankly unfun aspect of 40K. An 11% drop isn't enough. That's really why people who play a lot of competitive Warhammer are upset. I know I am. Because I don't want to play into CC Wraiths more.
Id rather dance around wraiths trying to precision out the technomancer than play against 2 manticores and a basilisk personally.. we all have our pet hates.
Pet hates are a thing. My pet hate is widespread 4++, because it makes any AP-based faction lose meaning. But at the end of it Guard was a 46% WR army, with 7 wins focused on the top .5% of players, that ate a 130-170 points nerf on its best lists while receiving a 20-30 points buff on its non-meta lists; and Necrons, the 58% WR faction with 21 GT+ wins, ate *less of a nerf*, and one of the most toxic packages in the game in particular were borderline untouched. Honestly? Bullgryns didn't need that much of a nerf. Nor did Kasrkins. And buffs that end up not giving enough points to buy a single Cyclops are not balancing GW shooting the one meta list Guard had in the knee. Give me 70-100 extra points to work with as thanks for not using the nerfed units and we'll talk business.
The thing is, he's right. You might not like it but that doesn't change anything. The guy put forward to help balance comp 40k is on his biggest win spree playing the most powerful army and list in the game as supported by data dodges any meaningful nerfs entirely while other armies are left with no changes or nerfs. I feel sour grapes and you should too.
On Imperial Knights, they were very dominant in early 10th before the nerf. They also were huge in 8th with the big knight, smash Captain, and loyal 32. That’s when I started so knights have been a big presence for nearly half of my Warhammer experience
I mean in months that's less than eldar, nid or dark eldar dominance during the same time frame. And probably similar to IH, custodes, ad mech, orks (might be others as well but those are the ones I remember dominating for longer stretches) so knights are pretty average in that regard
I don't know why you're being downvoted, the question wasn't "Have Knights been a top tier army more often than other armies?", it was "When was the last time Knights were good?" And the answer to that is right at the start of this edition in most areas that weren't playing with boarded up first floor ruins, and they were still good outside of that. And before that a little bit after their 9th edition codex dropped and people figured out the list for the Freeblade Lance build. On the Chaos end of the spectrum, Dog-Walker Abaddon was a viable build you had to prepare for if you wanted to do well in tournaments for a while in 9th.
Yeah. They’ve had several periods in the past 6 ish years where they were good. They were only top tier for a month or two each edition but they’ve been good quite a bit.
Dave, I'm begging you, you played ETC with him, please just have a 5 minute conversation with Anthony V about why he's not playing World Eaters _in singles_. Yes they're great in teams, please just ask him why he wouldn't play them in singles (and that might have changed very recently). I think it'll a) make your commentary on them vastly improved, and b) presents a really interesting stories about why WE are in a really _tough spot_ to balance. Not that they're bad, or that they're good, but that the situation they're in makes adjusting their points very fraught and difficult. I think that could be a really good discussion point for you guys, about how the places that armies find themselves in the meta, outside of raw win percentage, make them easier or harder to balance with points.