WARHAMMER 40k's BALANCE PROBLEM, and why it's so hard to solve!

[@TheOneTheyCallJack]

Every time I see balance come up I’m reminded of a tweet by Eric Lang where he essentially says statistical balance is far less important than the perception of fairness and I think a lot of people conflate the two (wilfully or otherwise)

[@HeartlessNinny1]

That's a pretty good point.

[@Sup3rH4ns]

I remember reading something about the video game Overwatch when it was relatively new, there was one character who was perceived as being unbalanced, and even though they had objective data demonstrating that she wasn't, they acknowledged it and ended up reworking her. I always thought that was a pretty valid move

[@apjapki]

For game enjoyment, yes. For a competitive scene people care about, no.

[@ArbitorIan]

But....having a competitive scene people care about isn't required in any way by the game. The goonhammer survey in the video shows that even on the most popular competitive 40k website in the world, only 14% of players consider themselves 'competitive'. Creating a serious competitive scene just isn't a priority.

[@HeartlessNinny1]

@@apjapki well I'd hope that those two things aren't mutually exclusive... 🤔

[@Benry87]

I'm really happy you've broken through into the main GW channels as a voice for the game. You always give well thought out opinions and insights on the game that I feel help smooth out some of its rougher edges.

[@ArbitorIan]

Thanks!

[@normtrooper4392]

I really appreciate the balanced, nuanced position you provide. Other channels are definitely a lot more vitriolic without actually being helpful

[@ArbitorIan]

My pleasure!

[@TheEmpiricalGuy]

Really glad to see someone put together a sensibly worded video on this. My hot take: the reason people often perceive 40k as being so imbalanced is because they are not playing the game how it's meant to. That's not to say that they're 'doing it wrong' by playing competitively, everyone enjoys the game different ways, but it isn't something that was even considered to be on the radar when fantasy miniature wargames were first invented. As a result, although there's been a shift towards that, the entire framework of the system (such as moving freely on an open board, dice rolling for things instead of pure stat comparison etc) is based on not reducing the game to a pure competitive "I can break this game better than you" match up. Thankfully it's something GW has upheld. Where this becomes a problem is when people try to force it in to some form of perfect balance, but it was never designed for that. It was designed for 2 people to have a fun couple of hours playing with the miniatures they'd collected. Then you enter this loop of trying to constantly adjust for balance you'll never have. Look at things like Warlord Traits or Relics that you're not paying points for. You typically see the same ones over and over as people quickly identify which is 'best'. But why would GW be including sub-par options just to trick people in to choosing the wrong thing? Why not just make the best Trait a dataslate ability for the relevant character? It's because they don't want you to choose the free, tack-on rule that will help you get the most wins, they want you to read that flavour text on each ability as well and choose the one you genuinely think is coolest, that matches your homebrew character lore and seems like the most fun. When people ignore that they're really forcing the game out of the original design intent, and complaining that it doesn't work. It's like cutting wood with a metal hacksaw, sure it'll do it but don't blame the tool for not doing the best job possible. As a mainly narrative gamer who tries to mainly play against other narrative minded people, I've noticed that my perception of how balanced 40k is is generally a lot higher than most competitive gamers. On the flipside of that, when I do spot something to be an issue or needing adjustment, it often gets overlooked because though it is over/under powered, if it's not in the current meta the vocal minority of tourney players don't complain enough to get it changed. This is getting gradually exaggerated as the matched play balance dataslates become more and more extensive and just turn it in to an entirely different game from 'regular' 40k.

[@ArbitorIan]

Yeah, this is pretty much my view too. Warhammer 40k just doesn't work very well as a competitive game. All the secondaries and new scoring systems are ways people have tried to bend it into being one - because they REALLY want to treat it like a sport and know their rankings or whatever - but it's fundamentally flawed. That's not to say you can't do a silly 'who can break the game best' event - you can play WH however you want. But if you only play like that, all the time, then it comes down to 'who can break it best' and you end up actually playing a metagame around that, and the physical game just becomes a very time-expensive way to test out a theory.

[@mark3194]

As always Ian makes a lot of sense. Personally I'm fine with 40k being unbalanced I just want GW to target the most broken, "feels bad" rules and units. A big thing for me is that many factions don't make tradeoffs in exchange for their advantages. 9th Ed started well, Death Guard are really tough but painfully slow and have very little high quality shooting but then we got books like Nids and Custodes that just don't have any real drawbacks. Powerful, tough, active in most or all phases and mobile to boot. I like the old engineering saying, "cheap, good, fast - pick two". You can't balance 40k but I do think you can write rules that don't feel terrible to play against

[@gi1dor]

Not every faction should have drawbacks, it's fine to have a balanced army, just should be toned downed by power level or by points Tyranids are now the strongest army in the game and will be nerfed again in points update

[@dekai7992]

Eliminating rules "that feel bad to play against" is probably the most useful goal to chase. Current 40k is full of gotcha moments that really disrupt the flow of a turn an frustrate people's moves while they're making them. I see that as the biggest problem. A certain amount of imbalance is fine, even interesting. Current Necromunda is very good at this, pitting two only rudimentarily balanced forces against each other in an engagement that's more akin to controlled chaos - and that makes it fun. 40k is far too calculated in its layering of too many rules on top of each other, and whoever is able to exploit them can win the game even before the first dice roll. I like what 9th edition has done with respect to the lore accuracy of its rules and the diversification of stat lines. But it has to limit the rules stuff you can pile on top of each other, and those that cause the gotcha moments need to go first. Let players do stuff. If everybody is able to do ridiculous stuff in the game, everything will feel much more thematic and fun.

[@WALDO1000]

One of the things that makes Blood Bowl so great is that it is very transparent about the fact that some teams are just easier to play (i.e., better) than others. You want to play goblins or halflings, well you have accepted the fact that these teams are harder to win with (which is thematically consistent with the fluff too). You either embrace that challenge or pick another team. As long as you have the right mindset this can still be a lot of fun. Its often fun to actually put the pressure on my opponent by reminding them that, "they better not lose to Goblins, that would be pretty embarrassing" (in good fun of course). But importantly, even when showing up with a weaker team, I can still win if I am strategic and get a bit of luck. As I understand it, games like Warmaster were also were fairly transparent about this. Some armies are easier to wield than others, its just a fact. High Elves, Dark Elves (and any other command 10 army) are easier to make do what you want. This is balanced by points, but since command value is such a core mechanic to that game, if you choose Orc, or Skaven, you are accepting that your army has an inherent handicap you have to account for. Nevertheless, in the right hands and with a bit of luck any army stood a fighting chance. Necromunda (classic) also had this to a degree in that outlander gangs were just harder to play. Heck, even Warhammer Fantasy was fairly transparent about the fact that Dwarfs were one of the harder armies to play because they were slower. This thematic decision meant that you could easily end up in, "I can charge you but you cannot charge me" situations, although this did a bit get better with random charge ranges in 8th. Nevertheless, the slower movement of Dwarfs was a thematic handicap that you just had to accept. I think the problem with modern Warhammer 40k is that unlike the above handicaps, which may make an army or team more or less forgiving but you nevertheless have a shot at winning, the power imbalances in 40K are often such that some some games are can be more or less decided by list building before the game is even played. It not that this army is easier to play or more forgiving, its that this army is just better (I get the same equipment as you for 30% less type stuff). Its okay if some 40K armies are easier or harder to win with, but ideally that should be because of on the table game mechanics are more or less forgiving, not points values being so out of whack that there really is no way to overcome. The examples I give in Blood Bowl, Warmaster, and Necromunda feel like a challenge to overcome rather than a forgone conclusion and an exercise in futility.

[@JakeMcaulay]

100% agree

[@jackbriggs9318]

Makes BB easier to get into as well. I don't really vibe with the game aesthetically, and have no interest in American football, but I went to a tournament with a dwarf team having only played one game previously, and won 2/5 games because of how tough they are, and because the more seasoned players had uncompetitive teams lists because that's where the challenge of the game is. Might jsut have been a quirk of that community. But I've never been to a 40k tournament where the more seasoned players willingly play at a disadvantage.

[@benjaminparent4115]

Yeah but easier to play doesn't mean unbalanced. That's another complicated side of balancing, you don't just need to balance the game you need to balance it accross skill level. It is fairly common accross game to have a noob faction, a faction that is simply easier to play and will dominate other faction in beginner tournament, but might underperform or be balanced at higher skill level. I am quite a fan of AoE2 E sport for example, and in that game the chinese have significant differences in win rate depending from the skill of the player, with low elo player (not really skilled) struggling with the civilization and having a 46% win rate, and high Elo player having 51% win rate, this is explained by the fact one of their bonus is having +3 villager at the start but -200 food and -50 wood. In AoE2 having more villager is essential to win, so having a +3 villager advantage is quite good. But without food to continue creating villager at the start you can quite easily lose that advantage if you don't micro well. This is why there is 5% win rate differences accros Elo.

[@marcjohnson5991]

An element I didn’t consider about this was how some players won’t play with armies they like because they feel put off by them being overpowered. IIRC, JT from play on tabletop talked about how when Drukarii were ridiculously overpowered he felt he couldn’t even play them casually because it was hard to even deliberately nerf them

[@Michael_Raymond]

An important bit of additional context for Magic; a lot (most) of the cards released aren't meant for every format, and the vast majority of the simple/common/"weak" cards are explicitly meant for randomized play, where decks are built or drafted from random packs. The difference between that and a wargame where everything is expected to play in the same pool/format is impossibly vast.

[@tmort3189]

Which would be an interesting format if it could even remotely be practical. Draft your 40k army. Where you would need to bring a certain number of base units and then a draft-like opening would determine what you got to build an army from, with very limited flexibility. You could not rely on a crazy combo, but had to know your units well enough to find ways to make an odd combination work at a given mission (knowing that your opponent had an equally unknown and random army).

[@sangomasmith]

I think that another issue with balance is the internet. In the old days, your wargaming group might have "that guy" who took the competitive scene really seriously, read the rulebooks every night looking for exploits and generally made a nuisance of himself by trying to turn every game into an "I win" button. But his impact was limited to a fairly small area, and he couldn't crib too aggressively off the notes of other powergamers trying to break the game. These days, anyone can go online and look up optimised builds or rules exploits for any game. They can then test them, come up with their own variations or improvements and feed those back into the system for the next powergamer to work with. The result is that a small team of designers is now trying to out-think a fully networked super-intelligence that wants to ferret out and exploit every flaw in their game (ruining it for more casual players in the process). So they institute constant balance updates, unit changes and rule changes. Which results in the floor to be competitive rising and rising over time. Which, of course, favours the powergaming approach even more. So the casual players leave or adopt powergaming approaches themselves, and the process intensifies. In short, there's now a fundamental asymmetry in mental horsepower which favours the side trying to break things. Which I think contributes to the development of a balancing arms race by developers against powergamers that leaves the more casual players feeling either locked out or like cannon fodder.

[@tmort3189]

Exactly. The same has been seen in digital games for years. The amount of time and skill the hive mind can throw into exploits is unmatched by any development team. The sad part is that the “pros” all know and research. They play “level playing field” so to say. It is the average players that lose out when their mate “net list” a top tier army and steamrolls in the local club. Once you sort of know what is good it is tempting to min-max. It takes some mutual respect in a club to decide to tone it down so everyone can play. And to some players it takes the fun out of the game to play without a competitive mindset.

[@beardyhat9547]

And as a casual player, it's hard not to succumb to this. Being on Reddit, seeing a cool new unit come out and then its rules released and all you see is, "This is garbage" in the comments, convinces people like myself to not even bother. And even when I decide I'm actually going to try using that new unit, I can't help but hear the commenters in the back of my head, "This is not optimal. This is trash, you're going to lose because of this." But, onto another point: Maybe people would be less competitive and losing would feel less crap if the game went faster? My games tend to take 5-6+ hours, which is just too long and it feels awful to lose when you've spent that much time playing.

[@sangomasmith]

@@beardyhat9547 I fully agree on the time issue - I think it's part and parcel of the "throw everything in and see if it fits" approach that Games Workshop has to design.

[@RockRanchCowboy]

My biggest frustration with the balance of 40k is that there are many models that I love (I play Necrons) that I can't really even have fun with in a casual game at my small local game store, because they just don't do anything on the tabletop. I was disappointed when GW said that they didn't really care about internal balance in the latest dataslate.

[@ChopsTV]

This is one of the reasons I play Kill Team instead of "BigHammer" It's wildly simpler and better balanced, the community on the whole is *way* more flexible regarding proxies (even in competitive settings) so you can bring your army and models you love and play a game. Or several. Me and my gaming buddy routinely get through a game in about the time it takes the BigHammer guys to get through a turn or two. So if you lose, whatever. The next game takes less than an hour. And because the rules are simpler, theres much more flexibility and room to let the dice tell the a story. Rather than trading card decks worth of strategems back and forth that you probably didnt even know the other team had.

[@ArbitorIan]

And of course, it's quicker to play, which means that a one-sided game doesn't feel as much of a waste of time! Much better competitive game all round.

[@SusCalvin]

I like old Necromunda/Gorkamorka because of that. A basic gang or ork mob will follow exactly the same rules with exactly the same units and weapons. If you get a skill, and none of you start with skills, you have slightly different tables to roll on. A Necromunda campaign can and probably will knock down a gang at some point. More so in Gorkamorka where you can lose an expensive vehicle.

[@CrimsonTemplar2]

I love that you did so much research & cited your sources. I’m Going to keep this video in my hip pocket for the next time I get embroiled in one of these ‘balance’ conversations.

[@weetsy1]

Wow, finally someone agrees with me! This is what I've been saying for years. Balance = Not as deep of game play... If you want it so that you can always have a fair game, you're going to have to sacrifice bajillions of combinations of equipment, and all kinds of special rules... Every army will essentially have the same units, just re-skinned and re-named, you'd play on a board that was essentially always the same. We all like the game because its so diverse though. We like the customization. Therefore we have to accept there's always going to be an army that's the most powerful. If you could make a chess set with 6 queens, it would be cool, but that's obviously going to be hard to balance out against other lists without special rules that will probably be impossible to word correctly. But you can make a Warhammer army that's like a chess set with all queens if you want, and that's why we love the game. Tournaments I feel are the way 40k players have found a community. Its a really not the best community though, and severely limits the actual fun you can have with the game. Because everything is focused on efficiency and win/loss records, when most of us want to be playing narrative based games where our forces develop as characters and build a reputation for themselves, battling across the galaxy. Wanna play Inquisitorial storm troopers or Kroot mercenaries? In current 40k there's no reason to even try unless you're a really good painter. Even then, who wants to lose a tournament with nice looking minis? It makes the most sense to just pick whoever is best and then paint them up nice because the game is really all about win/loss records. Maybe its GW's fault, maybe they encouraged the tournaments in the old days an easy way to get data to improve their products? I'm sure the answers are out there. lol. My games of Necromunda lately have helped me bring these thoughts together about what I think would be best for the future of 40k. I think a good set of community-building tools for the Crusade system, along with a heavy re-vamping of it to support rich, interesting campaigns like you get in Necromunda would radically change the game for the better. A balance slate is fine, and could be used with a narrative based-system to make the world feel more dynamic, but helping the community re-envision itself as a community of model and lore enthusiasts, instead of serious sportsmen playing a balanced test of skill, will make it a lot more fun for everybody. Instead of 2 day tournaments, you can have 2 day campaigns with lots of awards for all kinds of stuff, so that who wins the most games isn't the focus of what's going on.

[@ArbitorIan]

I think the inclusion of Matched Play and Tournament Packs opened a bit of a gate. For decades some people were attempting to play 40k competitively despite that obviously breaking the game, and GW just ignored them. As soon as they threw them a bone and said 'ok I guess this can be used in tournaments' the comp players ran with it. And now we have a game where, in many parts of the community, competitive matched play is the ONLY way to play. And that's the only reason there's no point taking Stormtroopers or Kroot - because tournament players have made it like that.

[@BillNyeTheBountyGuy]

The best games are the ones where it starts a strange group superstition like 'Don't take flying Hive Tyrants', because every time in our games they got dunked out of the sky by the luckiest shots imaginable (Rolling all 6's on Tesla or getting so many hits from an Ork Boyz squad it died. That's what I live for.

[@andrewpackham8236]

I just wish GW would take time to consolidate and work with what it's got, rather than to relentlessly push for more rules, more faqs, more options, more new armies, and more ways to play. I just feel like I'm always playing catch up and have to do homework before my game to work out what is going to give me and my opponent a good time.

[@paladinpariah325]

But remember what Ian said... marketing affecting balance is a conspiracy theory... there's no evidence for it at all... GW just can't balance their game because it's too complicated, there's no way they'd change a unit's stats to manipulate sales... Ian gives one super vague example that's supposed to just shut down all the more granular evidence that GW purposely unbalances the game to sell miniatures... ... riiight...

[@ScooterinAB]

You and many, many other people. It's clear the company can no longer support the products it is selling. Always having more more more doesn't make things better.

[@JB-kh7eb]

Some of your points are things I've talked about in LARPing. We fight as a class with certain abilities and equipment and each person has their own inherent skill set based on their body and experience. Always choosing the strongest class for your skills and fighting your hardest significantly skews the game in your favor. Specifically limiting yourself by being inefficient when winning and exerting yourself when losing creates a much more balanced game. Basically Counterweighting. I've seen it in some video games too - battlefield gives the losing side big vehicles and stuff, for example.

[@jimmysmith2249]

I think one of the biggest changes to the game was when they allowed different "detachments" instead of the old force org charts. People are playing with a LOT more of the more deadly units than they were allowed to before, and thus the game is super lethal all the time. The force org charts limited how crazy you could go on your power units, and now the reigns are pretty loose.

[@supersiamesisk]

THIS is my problem with 40k. The time investment could so easily be shattered that I've come to focus more on skirmish games now. 2000AD, Monsterpocalypse, Kill Team and Gaslands see way more table time with me now and I love the 40k lore. I think the formula to this stipulated problem is to game with people you like and who share your vision of a great time.

[@mrbigglezworth42]

I've picked up Battletech: Alpha Strike for replacement to 40k. Lists are quicker to build, rules easier to explain, and so far it's been really fun playing games within a reasonable time span. The models are admittedly....not as good, but at the very least it's a damn sight cheaper to build an army.

[@supersiamesisk]

@@mrbigglezworth42 I forgot to mention Battletech! I play two great houses, two clans and it's great!

[@TheKevkevkevkev]

Incredibly articulate, considered and balanced. Fair play man!

[@usel1500]

Great video Ian! I'm an TTRPG game maker, an I've recently started playing some GW stuff again after giving it up 10 years ago. This video was really insightful and helped fill in some gaps for me. I've been trying to understand what I would professionally call strange choices from GW. The way you broke down the rationale and motives made things a lot more straightforward. Great video.

[@WISHARTfilms]

That mic drop at the end was great.

[@calebritywriter]

Great video. I think, when I'm playing casually, I honestly don't care about the back and forth. I really only play casually with people I like, so if they have some crazy model that table's me on turn two I think that's awesome. The most important thing for me is having a good time with a friend and telling a cool story with dice, no matter how that goes for me.

[@InsongWhang]

This is how I play, too. We tend to avoid the most broken combos and focus on having a fun game. Or when we did an all carnifex vs silent king + nightbringer 1k match😂

[@jlb7608]

The game you're describing is Killteam 2021. Every single decision feels like dismantling a bomb, in the best possible way. It's an incredible game.

[@RobAnybody79]

Thank you, Ian, for a well-worded, concise and yet comprehensive commentary. Your videos are always worth watching.

[@LionidasL10]

im just here for the books/audio books, the art, and the video games. I dont think I could ever paint minis or play in a tournament. This vid is a fun journey into a different dimension.

[@CptPanda29]

Love your work, I'm trying to get my hobby mates to start 9th Narrative / Crusade with me for a lot of these balancy reasons. I know it's going to be even more poorly balanced than Open or Matched play but the Missions are way jankier, every unit can get wonky upgrades or a weird nerf from getting destroyed and it's not even based on Points but Power. Going from crushing Necrons and their early 9th Codex with a very standard Orks army to the same force being totally blunted against Marines with Armour of Contempt is getting a bit old. Some of my TTRPG friends have shown way more interest when I was talking about it just because it encourages you to name every unit. Sidenote - I'm crazy for your "meta-history" stuff of the plot and company, I rewatch the Heresey and Badab ones a lot when I'm painting. It'd be cool to see some rundowns of your project armies, not exactly "here's everything in my collection" but if X army was made for an event or a narrative thing a local group did 7 years ago it'd be neat to hear about how well it went / did.

[@voland6846]

Oh I second that sidenote request _so much!_ That sounds like basically the perfect Arbitor Ian video

[@merci_ann]

I still hope to achieve better balance between painting and playing so I can complain about the in-game balance some more like the proper gamer haha. It was awesome to see that you even mentioned this aspect. Yeah, GW made me a hobbyist girl, not a gamer girl as I expected and I think it was the plan all along

[@lukemclellan2141]

I'd guess that hobbyist spend more, forever adding to their pile of plastic shame..

[@peterclarke7240]

@@lukemclellan2141 I dunno... the alleged "hardcore" gamers seem to spend a fair bit buying whole new armies and paying others to paint them so they can stay on top of the meta. Personally, I avoid that by being a Guard player- horrific casualties and humiliating defeats against overwhelming odds is why my brave plastic lads and ladies put their boots on in the morning. 🤣

[@bluebarrymore5442]

@@lukemclellan2141 naw you WAY off on that.

[@Lochtain]

@@peterclarke7240 This is why I'm going to play Imperialis Militia in Horus Heresy. If I win, I win, and if I lose, I get stomped to bits by marines, which is fluff accurate!

[@peterclarke7240]

@@Lochtain Exactly! The Guard aren't there to win anything, they're there to absorb damage and distract the traitors and xenos. If, by some miracle, they happen to actually win, then that's a happy little accident.

[@CalAndAly]

Brilliant vid, def what we all needed to hear. That being said, there’s a reason GW posted a “Game balance designer” job listing after the LoV PR fire they had to put out. That says they know they need to do better. Perfect balance isn’t an option, but there’s undeniably room for improvement. Cheers man! Great timing dropping this vid right after today’s vid!

[@WordsAreWarfare]

Thanks Ian for being a voice of understandable reason. I admire people who can summarize things and say it so well without being patronising.

[@Moxiltws]

Arbitor Ian: - The game exists as a way of using the models, not the other way around. Cursed City Nightwars: - Am I a joke to you?

[@MarauderPixie]

Great analysis! To your point about competitive games that aren't as popular I immediately thought: Right! There's Age of Sigmar and 40k, there's Warcry and Killteam and there's Underworld and... idk? I'd be interested in an equivalent in the 40k setting. :O

[@tharkwarrior]

It's called Fire Team. It came and went largely unnoticed. It is a much easier to play version of Kill Team on a hex board.

[@noamtepper456]

I feel like warhammer can learn a lot from Pokémon’s smogon, which is a community led completive battling rule set, with tiers bans on pokemon, items, moves and abilities from a community of experts in order to make the game the most competitive and fun possible, banning stuff that’s limiting fun and choices, it can be used in game to ban non model factors, like stratagems, warlord traits, psychic powers, relics, etc… trying to get rid of the most oppressive paper based combos while allowing most lists to have a fighting chance without limiting modeling options. Also you can have tournaments in different tiers like: 40k anything goes - no bans 40k general play - banning only essential problematic elements 40k heavily moderated - more liberal bans of most things that can throw the balance off And you can pick at which tier you choose to play Also community rulings gives us the opportunity to make needed changes quicker then GW to stop a single list from having a 70% win rate for 3-6 months for example.

[@lukusridley]

The Balance conspiracy theory genre is one of my favourites; every single moderately complex recent competitive game, whether video or tabletop, has a competitive community in near constant outcry about the lazy game designers/devs who are allowing the game to remain in such a broken unbalanced state, etc. And yet none of them think to sit down and say "wait, what do we actually think is possible? Do we really imagine humans who are so clever that they *could* be balancing the game perfectly but they deliberately sabotage it?" It's slightly tragic

[@Thoughtsmith]

I love to watch the Play On Tabletop battle reports, but every so often there's one where I just think "...that level of getting curb stomped is not fun." I've yet to run into this with Kings of War but I suspect that's low sample sizing.

[@WeeblokesBlogspot]

"...that level of getting curb stomped is not fun." - this is why I stopped playing Warmachine. I'm an irregular, casual gamer, Warmachine is quite openly a Tournament style game. I got fed up coming away from my spare time thoroughly miserable so stopped. Nice robots though!

[@marcjohnson5991]

From my limited experience, play on tabletop games can vary wildly from fairly casual and thematic to pretty competitive depending upon the players and the framing. A significant moment in my understanding of this topic was when JT shared how he felt reluctant to use Drukarii, his favourite faction, because of how overpowered they were and how that could ruin games for both players

[@Thoughtsmith]

@@marcjohnson5991 I think part of it as well is that there's a need to come up with a decent amount of entertainment and a certain minimum level of content for each episode. There's been a few where it's very clear who's got this won before turn 2 ends, and in many cases in my group, this would lead to us saying "Well, let's do one more turn in case something comes up, and if not, let's knock it on the head." The occasional episode still has this but only once they've got a certain amount of film. This is obviously necessary for what they're making, but still.

[@kostas225cmp]

Balance is an inherently unreachable idea in 40k not only for the reasons you mentioned, but also because a lot of the things that happen in a game are randomly determined with lots of dice. People can calculate the averages of something all they like, but I've been in games where I've done nothing but roll well while my opponent rolled poorly, and vice versa. In fact, imbalance can be fun. Lots of other war games either forgo points or don't emphasize them, instead giving players specific scenarios that they can play. Historical war games especially do this, since the actual historical battles that they try to "reenact" were rarely ever evenly matched for both sides. GW used to do this with 40k way back when in 1st and 2nd eds, and particularly with WFB. Maybe bringing that back could be the solution: a beleaguered garrison trying to protect as many civilians as they can from more numerous raiders; a commando team sent to assassinate a guarded enemy leader; a siege assault on a fortification, and so on. No points, just unit slots that need to be filled, and maybe a limitation on what can be brought by either side, whether they be units or gear. It'd be really interesting to see how faction fares against another in a scenario, then to flip it around next time to see if anything can be differently.

[@kostas225cmp]

And I also wanted to add that factions and sub-factions in 40k used to feel perfectly unique in older editions before stratagems and each faction's analogue for chapter tactics. In 3rd edition, for instance, there weren't nearly as many rules for specific Eldar craftworlds as there are now, but it was down to you to make your army feel unique: want your Biel-Tan to feel like Biel-Tan? Then fill your list with aspect warriors; you play Saim-Hann? Paint up a bunch of jet bikes and Vypers. And so on. An army doesn't need a bunch of crunchy "+1 to this and that" to feel unique. It's your dudes--make them yours.

[@Deimos0]

@@kostas225cmp that's true, but on the other hand look at White Scars vs Iron Hands - putting more bikes or dreadnoughts and tanks does not fully make them unique with the extra abilities for movement or shooting. Same thing with other SM/CSM factions - Deathguard vs Night Lords and multiple others.

[@kostas225cmp]

​@@Deimos0 If that's how you feel, then who am I to say that you can't enjoy a crunchier game? But an army's composition does make it feel unique and "yours." A SM list with a lot of bikes and melee-oriented characters is going to play and feel a lot different than the list with a lot of dreadnoughts and tanks. 4th ed marines had a cool feature in their codex that allowed you to "diverge" from the Codex Astartes by taking drawbacks and advantages from a list. The more advantages you took, more drawbacks as well, like giving your bikes the Skilled Rider USR at the cost of fielding fewer heavy support units if you wanted to make a White Scars list. And characters (including sergeants) back in those days could be given bionics (which gave them something like an invulnerable save) and a ton of other goodies if you wanted to play Iron Hands. And they weren't the only ones. Eldar in 3rd could take jet bikes as troops if you wanted to play a Saim-Hann themed list. Guard commanders used to be able to take all sorts of extra gear with their command sections to flavor them, and veteran squads could specialize in a similar way--not to mention that they could also field Leman Russes as troops if they wanted.

[@TheThaisHvid]

This was an amazing breakdown, Ian! I always admire people who do a well-researched analyses of contentious topics, where people often makes lots of claims without any evidence. Also a great balance between informative and fun and a mix of your own opinions. Always a pleasure to watch your videos!

[@dannash2916]

Hands down found this fascinating. Stats can only take you so far, and creating a data set that models such balance, can easily be mis leading. Even with the best intentions. I find your perspective interesting especially since you've been a part of a community who has developed unofficial content for Horus Heresy. So you have experience of being in the drivers seat a little. Keep up the awesome work man!

[@Alorand]

18:57 The way to fix the balance of "F-tier garbage that sucks" is to look at both list variety and tournament results. If options are not being brought to tournaments at all they need to be buffed first. If something is brought to tournaments and loses that needs to be buffed second.

[@andrewjolly319]

It's interesting. The last time I played 40k would have been probably 1998 or 1999. I don't remember these discussions of balance or competition really ever coming up. Maybe it's because I was a teenager and there was no internet - but even playing in GW stores with adults it seemed to be more narrative and fun based. Where there competitions back then?

[@davidlopez2363]

My last W40K game was in the 90s and I stumbled on Ian's videos thanks to YT's suggestion a couple weeks back... My first thought was: "how this thing got so bloated!". My second was "I wonder if it's still broken...". This video answered that pretty well indeed :D And yeah, it's still an awesome IP!

[@ryanschmidt8740]

Thank you. You simplified a two hour, raging, argument I had yesterday. This video brought out all the warts and slapped them with reality. What I hope to promote more of is that people enjoy playing. Too many min-maxers crying on the internet won't fix this.

[@foogrot]

Thank you for this, exactly why what this community needs to hear. I hope that your points reach some of us.

[@secondeditionwargaming]

Excellent topic! I've Never moved on from 2nd edition and in yesterdays game I was ready to concede at the end of turn 2! Balance is not a modern issue, it has always been in the hands of the players, not the rules. The key to enjoyment of 40k has always been to play with people of a like mind. Great vid!

[@21526]

The other thing worth mentioning and I am surprised you didn't, is that GW's business model for releasing new rules is anathema to competitive balance. Business wise it makes sense to stagger them how they do, they want a steady stream of income on their books and if they released everything all at once a lot of their player base would not be able to afford to get it all so for long term profit and engagement its good business... but it also means at any given time half the factions are using outdated rules not suited to how the game currently functions. Really the only way to balance it would be treat it like an E-sport release everything at once then have regular updates and tweaks to adjust whats broken or useless.

[@thiennguyendo]

Yeah 40k is the only game I can think of where you can spend 2 years releasing rules piecemeal and only 6 months with everything having updated rules. In my mind that means there is only 6 months where the edition was "fully" released.

[@paladinpariah325]

But remember, Ian said that marketing affecting balance was a conspiracy theory giving one vague piece of evidence that he thinks completely shuts down the mountain of evidence to the contrary... ... so you must be wrong... ... must be...

[@alexjones1027]

This reminds me of an old WFB battle report from an ancient issue of White Dwarf where a specific war machine was listed as 98.5 points, or sometihng similar. Even then, I thought 'who are they kidding, there's no way they've refined the cost of that unit to 0.5 of a point'.

[@Vaultboy-ke2jj]

I was involved in the playtesting of Mongoose Publishing’s Babylon 5 tournament rules and the approach we took was to strip out most of the options in order to get a balanced fleet for each faction that could only be used in tournaments. It got a lot of positive reaction but I don’t see GW doing something similar

[@DoktorApe]

I think you missed one big issue with balance, the fact that it leads to constant update churn and worse, cost associated with getting the updated rules (e.g. chapter approved). Players that aren't fully engaged with the IP are actively discouraged from continuing with the game because its costs both effort and money just to stay in the same place, unless you only play opponents that can agree to stick with a single version of the game.

[@kayosiiii]

Thankyou for spelling this out so clearly. I would like them to draw RPG elements like they had in the earliest versions of the game, for a format. In RPGs we most people understand that the challenge rating is at best a rough guide and it's up to the GM to create balanced and engaging experiences (well at least that is what I like to tell myself when I haven't recently been to the D&D subreddits). Maybe a strategic level in addition to the tactical play of the battles, (with teams, would be awesome). Other than that a format that could work well is one person builds both armies and sets up the terrain (with or without points values as a guide) the other player picks which army they play.

[@SuperFunkmachine]

When you had less then half a dozen types of models a side it was quite easy to balance them in terms of guns and stats after some brute maths. But that's not the game we have now, there's vastly more values an many of them can't be mathematically compared.

[@chappy4756]

Good analysis, and some great points. I always remember that GW is a miniatures maker first and the game is secondary and a vehicle/marketing tool to sell minis and promote their IP.

[@namjartaevh1957]

I have had a massive problem since 7th ed with maintaining my enthusiasm and will to keep going on hobby projects. I would thoroughly describe myself as a hobbyist first and a gamer 5th, my fun mainly comes from making up lore for my units and then spending hundreds of hours converting them to fit that lore, to really be MY army. However once 7th rolled around i started feeling like the game I had been in love with since I wandered into a 3rd party retailer my mom parked in front of on the way to get a halloween costume when i was around 7, had become a depressing chore. it always felt from that point on that the game was me taking my lovingly built armies that I was super excited about and invested in to games where my opponent would read their codex to me explaining why they won while I picked up unit after unit without a chance. what was the point then? 8th edition was a huge breath of fresh air in the index days through to the later part of the edition. sure some stuff was busted and there were rules interactions i thought to be dumb, but I actually liked to play again! hell i was playing in tournaments of my own volition, not just to rep my club, and I WAS ABLE TO WIN SOME! with an army I actually WANTED to play! I felt like I had rediscovered some of the happiness and excitement to hobby I had thought lost to childhood memories. then 9th edition came around, I was skeptical, the end of 8th had been bad, it had started to triggered memories of 7th and I was worried I would lose that spark again. But i was super excited for the new Necron models, they were my first army and to see them get such a glow up really set a fire in me, AND their codex seemed to set a tone for a more 8th edition level of play, they seemed super reasonable. I was hobbying at frenetic levels 10 year old me had achieved. Then that all came to a screeching halt, a mix of covid depression mixed with experiencing the latest and greatest codexes drove my will and desire to hobby off a cliff and it has still yet to recover. I have gone from finishing armies, entering painting contests, and feeling good about picking up a brush to not having touched one in possibly a year or more. the true coup de grace for my will to keep being truly engaged in the hobby was however the seeming switch to focusing on strictly competitive play. knowing that the game is balanced on the only available data because GW has decided to focus on collecting data from only tournaments told me that my style of appreciating the hobby wasn't of value and the game was switching gears and finally straight out saying it was no longer for people like me. this has become a big issue in my experiences at local game stores and my own home club I've been part of for over a decade. people went from a "whatever is fun" attitude to a mostly "lets do the math and figure out the most meta options" one. even when I attempt to run things like narrative campaigns the meta face kicking lists still show up because at least it seems to me, that newer players only know the game as that because the "meta" is whats advertised from GW, from, most youtubers, and from everyone around them. this has lead to people seemingly not being able to differentiate between a curb stomp and a fun close narrative game. I have so much more I could write but this has become way more than the one paragraph I went in meaning to write and I'm sure I've long since gone into TLDR ramble territory.

[@x3kj705]

My first ever game of 40k was with my new 1500 rooky nid army (3rd edition) against Black Templar player... who knew i was totally new. Swarmtyrant insta died to a psi weapon (which i never heard of before), Carnifex died to power fist from a sergeant, which i wasn't allowed to attack because it was in a squad... Warriors insta died to rocket launchers and powerfists as well. All the rest died to 2 assault squads. I think i took out 5 marines, that's it. The second game was against Nurgle chaos marines... He had basically 2 units of 5, and the rest of points was all in large models. Everything large insta died, the rest just couldn't do anything. Never played at GW again

[@jonrollason5709]

The customer resistance to simplification was really obvious in the shift from Kill Team 2018 to Kill Team 2022. Despite 2022 being *clearly* the better system and far better balanced, a significant number of players noped out because list-building was largely lost.

[@krulla]

I think that 40k has two big problems at the moment: The first is the perennial balance problem, and the second (in my view, bigger) problem is just the mental load required to play a game of 40k. But the good news is that they can make fixing the first easier by fixing the second. The amount of stuff you need to keep track of to play a game of 40k is huge. Just the scoring requires you to keep track of five different objectives - the regular primaries (hold objectives, simple), then there is usually a second primary in the mission which requires you to do something specific, and then there are three different secondaries. And not only this, you need to try to remember what secondaries your opponent picked, and prevent them from accomplishing those. I play a wide variety of tabletop wargames, and 40k is the only one that just leaves me exhausted after playing it. They could simplify the game a lot, which would improve the playing experience, and in the process make balancing it easier. This is incidentally, the approach they've taken to Age of Sigmar 3rd edition, and it's been working wonderfully over there.

[@wraith7268]

come for the Horus Heresy chapter breakdowns, stay for the excellent well thought out content!

[@BecauseOfDragons]

Fascinating video. I think I fall into the camp that you discuss at the end where it's our own changes/tweaks that can help "fix" the game to where we want it to be. Good ol' house ruling and just making sure you game with people who have a similar mindset to you solves a bunch of problems.

[@ArbitorIan]

Yeah, I think that's my actual conclusion - it's unbalanced, try not to be dicks to each other. 🎃

[@adcharz7105]

Really great video which pretty much hits the nail on the head. I think the other main issue that is one of the biggest blocks to balance, is that the game itself presents a continual moving target. In order to get close to something resembling a fair game, you've got to allow time to collect as much data as possible for to see how close to the base-line general rule of probability the game is. (i.e: the more you roll a six sided dice, the closer the odds of any particular number showing up will be 1 in 6). The problem with 40k is that GW spend 2-3 years collecting data, releasing Codices, and tweaking rulesets, only to then blat the entire thing with a new 40k rules release. It's like collecting years of D6 probability results, and then suddenly someone swaps your dice for a D10. I agree that GW doesn't purposefully make the rules unbalanced, but they certainly don't have a vested interest in making the "current" incarnation as balanced as it can be, when the final codex is published and focus shifts to an all new version of the game and the entire merry-go-round starts again. It's the board game equivalent of EA sports games. That's why I'd advise just sticking to an edition that suits you best, and tweak that ruleset yourself for the armies you play.

[@unrandomman3946]

The idea that balance isn’t necessary the goal of warhammer, options are kinda reminds of D&D. There’s some straight up broken combos you can do, but a DM is well within their rights to ban them to keep the game fun. Wonder if warhammer could use a sorta DM role. Like third party that could make neutral judgements on which options or combos would break a game.

[@arfived4]

As someone who started out with Rogue Trader, which was supposed to be played with a GM, I think the reason it doesn't, is because a lot of us never used one when it did

[@marcjohnson5991]

Something that’s come up in some conversations is that the players together can play this role to an extent by discussing these kinds of things beforehand. And some folks have limited tolerance for people who say they want to play a fun, casual game yet are unwilling to do this

[@marcjohnson5991]

I think some tournaments do this to a limited degree by providing constraints in addition to the codices in the rules pack

[@ElvenSonic]

You don’t “win” a game of D&D by optimizing and killing the bad guy in one turn, you “win” by telling a fun story with your friends. Which is totally different than the goals of a game of 40k. Sure, there are some groups that come at d&d with completely different design philosophies in mind (OSR gamers are all about beating the dungeon, which obviously does have a win state and it’s fun as hell. And optimizer 5e and 3.5e/Pathfinder tables are playing insane games where their absurd characters are necessary to beat the GM’s super boss enemies and strategically designed grid based encounters) but i’ve played a lot of d&d and combat has never really been the total focus. I don’t come to the table 100% expecting the minis to be placed on the grid this session, vs the 100% certainty that in 40k I’m gonna place my army on that table and somebody will win in the next three to four hours. Even a “narrative” game of 40k is still a game with a win state of army beating the other army(s).

[@arfived4]

@@ElvenSonic The presence of a GM doesn't remove the 'win state' from the game. In a wargame (and more precisely, in 40k back when the rules stated that it had one) the GM functions as an umpire between the two sides, and in OP's scenario would simply be refereeing balance. Also, a GM can allow gameplay elements, such as genuine third-party traps and hazards, and the original 'fog of war' rules for the interior of buildings.

[@apothyon2000]

Being relatively new to the hobby (started at the very beginning of 9th), my feeling on it has always been that I don't mind losing but I hate being stomped. If I've had a good time with my opponent and lost, then it was a good game. If I got absolutely steamrolled because of the army I was facing or the mission we played or something out of my control, that feels bad and makes me less inclined to play the game. I do think Tempest of War provides some kind of "patch" as it forces players to change what they're doing every turn. Someone playing T'au or Imperial Fists can't just sit at the back and blast me off the board if they've got objective or melee based secondaries, but again that's relying on randomness to balance the game. Solid video as always, interested to see more.

[@jblazeby]

I agree with the sportsmanship Ian. I hate playing people who take it too seriously

[@tharkwarrior]

Well thought out and articulately presented as usual, Ian. I agree with, and appreciate, everything you stated. That said, the main barrier I have to enjoying 40k is not the lack of balance. I feel the lack balance is the symptom. The basic reason I balk at playing 40k is the shear mass of rules. As you said there are over 4000 variables not including basic weapons options. That's too much for me and a lot my friends who used to play. If a game design has a core rules mechanic and a variable stat line but it still need thousands of strap-on special case rules to present the experience it's trying to simulate, then that game design is a failure. Unless you are "primarily a miniatures company" and don't give a toss whether people actually play and enjoy your game.

[@chrishughes1376]

I always feel that people overlook a basic element of balance when talking about 40k. Imagine trying to balance Chess if one player activated all their pieces before the other. There's a reason most modern games move to alternating activations. You're playing the game more, reacting to your opponent in real time, not just sat there with your fingers crossed waiting to see what models you have left at the end of the turn.

[@ArbitorIan]

Yeah, it's also a reason why Necromunda (hands down the most unbalanced, silly, RPG-like game GW produce) manages to produce pretty good gaming experiences. Alternate activation and assymetrical objectives.

[@chrishughes1376]

@@ArbitorIan Absolutely, although the 'random' wound chart always leaves my ranged specialists blind and my melee guys without fingers! :P

[@andyshaw5378]

I found this video very interesting. If GW main business is making miniatures it’s odd that so many are out of stock at any point in time.

[@ArbitorIan]

Well, it's second biggest business is selling miniatures!

[@michaelgrey1351]

Infinity is a good example of a game chasing balance. At the start of 3rd edition each faction was very different Nd not all of them had access to certain equipment or rules as dictated by the lore. Some were more powerful, but it was a flavourful game. Fast forward to 4th edition and every faction has access to pretty much every peice of equipment and most of the rules. A big choice of faction now comes down to colour do you like to paint. Is it more balanced? Yes, but at the cost of the games character.

[@stevepirie8130]

If Lady Luck deserts your dice results an OP army can quickly become ‘balanced’ by a luckier opponent. Hard to balance a bad day on the dice.

[@HeartlessNinny1]

You're quite right, but you can really mitigate bad luck if you manage to stack buffs on the right units, position then well, etc. At the end of the day I think skill plays a bigger role.

[@HeartlessNinny1]

That said... A clutch lucky roll or snake eyes at the worst moment can really tip the scales! So I guess I'm ultimately agreeing with you 🙂

[@nekrataali]

One of the things I actually like about 40k (hell, even WHFB) is just how many dice you get. It ends up creating consistent averages. You know when you roll 1,000 dice that 500 of them are going to be 4+. When you roll ten dice, statistically five of them should be 4+, but you're likely going to have something like a 6-4 split or 9-1. Because WH games tend to throw buckets of dice, rolls tend to feel less "clutch." Compare that to Chess, where that coin flip to see who goes first is the single most important roll of the game and the most likely to determine the winner.

[@stevepirie8130]

First game I ever played was with a rich mate’s collection and he had Harlequins I think they were called and I had bog standard humans of some kind (late ‘80s) and it was ridiculously in his favour warping in and out behind my troops and slaughtering them. I had no clue how to stop them or play. He always tried to con me with having vastly superior troops or vehicles until one time Lady Luck smiled upon the dice and nothing he could do to stop his own bad rolls. I always liked Terry Pratchett’s description of luck being The Lady but you never mention her name or even think of her or she’ll walk away but afterwards it’s polite to give an offering to her out of respect lol.

[@ArbitorIan]

I think, because of the imbalance issues, neither luck nor player skill are as important as what you bring - and picking a stupidly powerful army requires all the skill of 5 mins on Google.

[@AliceBowie]

Games Workshop is in the business of selling plastic models. The game and story is just an ad for the models. That's what they themselves have said.

[@beewee2152]

A balanced video on balance. Good stuff.

[@MisterTingles]

having no experience whatsoever with the game, this seems like a very sensible rundown of the complications with balancing the game. from hearing people whinge about these things, I do surmise though that it's not just the competitive scene that's fed up with the numerous examples of imbalance, as well as a perceived lack of proper quality control and proof reading... all three of those things, to my mind at least, could possibly be mitigated by hiring a few people with extensive experience on the competitive circles, who could bring the kind of out of the box powergaming perspective that identifies the truly broken stuff, as well as the type of scrutiny and diligence necessary to sift through every rulebook multiple times... #showerthoughts

[@ArbitorIan]

They've tried that, and it didn't work,

[@MisterTingles]

@@ArbitorIan ah, that rings true 😅

[@Evo1veTT]

Great video as always. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on some potential mechanical changes to the game though. Rolling off to determine which player goes first per turn (per Sigmar), alternating unit activation or unit initiative checks, for instance. I do generally agree with your thesis that playing for fun is really the key and that balance only really matters for competitive players. However, I can't but help dream of a world where 40k pick up and play games with random players down at a club or FLGs were much more likely to be both satisfing and 'fun' games.

[@kreeslak]

Now I want the colorfull chess

[@KingCronan]

I'm gonna send this video to anybody raging about 40k balance lol. Its such a great video that encapsulates almost all my thoughts (and I hope any reasonable person's thoughts) on why this game can never truly be balanced.

[@matthewbiro9689]

This is video is perfect in tone in my opinion. Having spent too much time on too many online settings balance gets people far too angry, far too much. This is despite the fact, and as you point out, because of the amount of 'stuff' and interactions you would need a super computer to even begin to address it, which sort of dispells the 'get gud' attitude of some comments about the GW rules team. Realistically if you want something that comes close to balance and will satisfy both casual and competitive players you probably would need to do a starcraft to what you can use. The only thing that you didn't cover (unless I missed it 😅) is the dice. The game has reached a point where even casual players seem to refer to a model or units effectiveness or lack thereof based on perception or stats. Yet you need to roll to hit, wound and save most things in the game (looking at you votann!!!!!) and dice can have a massive effect on an outcome, which is not always clear when you read that salty comment online about GW being rubbish at balancing the game. You cannot just roll 'average' all the time. I have had at least one person tell me that dice rolls should be removed from the game. Personally I like them and the randomness they bring. Balance is definitely not one of them 🤣 Also, thank you for advocating for a grown up attitude. I find it sad to hear people online complain about rules and not knowing what their opponent might be able to take. Yet when you watch live streams of tournaments usually they talk out the games from start to finish, which makes me question who these people are that want to have the ability to know all the rules and what your opponent can do, rather than knowing its not possible and to talk about it in game

[@fredogknopfler]

"In order to balance 40k you need to massively restrict complexity by just removing units, models or options and restrict interaction, that's the game system itself, by removing the ability for one rule to affect another, make the game much much smaller, much more abstract and more like a board game". Aaand that's why Kill Team is the better 40k

[@blastvader]

GW did manage some pretty decent balance in 6th edition WFB (which they immediately threw away in 7th). Which is a pretty impressive feat considering that it is the only edition where army books were a thing where EVERY army got its own book (with the exception of Chorfs...who had only ever had a collection of WD articles masquerading as an army book in the past anyway). Playtesting seemed pretty rigorous (and included groups outside just some nebulous GW 'design' team) and their release schedule was more relaxed at the time though. They did have to rerelease the DElf book with updated points values making everything cheaper though...because it was poo to start off with. Still pretty good going to keep 15 mainline armies (I'm excluding Chorfs, DoW and Kislev here though none of their lists were objectively terrible) all pretty much in line with one another, though I will admit that some balance did rely on player skill for certain armies (Beast of Chaos and Tomb Kings being a couple that required a bit of finesse). TBH looking at the the modern state of 40k trying to balance it looks a Sisyphean task not worth undertaking. There are just too many moving parts outwith what can be managed with points costs, which is amazing considering how may options they've actually REMOVED when it comes to list building since 3rd (where you could give a 1 wound SM Sgt like 75pts of wargear if you wanted). I was excited for 'new' 40k when 8th was on the horizon (not having played since 4th) but they lost me pretty much immediately when they broke their 'you won't need a million books' promise almost immediately. Fun to watch the implosion from the sidelines when you don't have a dog in the race.

[@nekrataali]

6th. Edition WHFB and 3.5/4th. Edition 40k seem like a bizarre catalyst for GW balance. It's also in that era they released LotR Strategy Battle Game, Epic: Armageddon, Necromunda 2nd. Edition, Inquisitor, Mordheim (ignoring Skaven sling spam), and so on. Maybe it was Kirby's leadership that tanked everything? Maybe because too many of the original designers left? It's like they had finally gotten all of the problems from Rogue Trader and Herohammer figured out, then said "Fuck it! We're making Y2K happen, anyway!"

[@blastvader]

@@nekrataali it truly was a golden age, and one, that in contrast to Ian's comments here, truly WAS design studio lead. I have (or in some cases /had/) armies/warbands/whatever for all those games (and a couple of BfG fleets).

[@kenwiggins4543]

Your point right at the end is 100% correct and why I don't really see much fun in the high-end tournament scene. But it's the same with high-end MTG, in any given season there just are a handful of best decks in a format that changes as more cards released or bans and tweaks made. High-end tournament play just isn't a creative outlet (for me), I would love to see more of a focus on official narrative campaigns and a more casual baseline for the game (also remove half the stratagems or include them on the unit profiles if they only apply to a specific unit anyway...)

[@devononair]

40k has and never will be competitively balanced, because it's essentially an "army roleplaying game," and I love it that way. Competitive gamers want balance but it's an illusion in 40k. If you want balance, play Warmachine or X-Wing. 40k is for storytelling and having a laugh. Some people don't quite get this (someone once told me I wasn't having fun because I wasn't playing competitively!), so for those people, I say that 40k is like watching a war movie and you are acting the part of a general. It's gloriously cinematic, but not because you win. It's cinematic because your tank exploded and killed your men and your librarian's psychic powers wiped out a bunch of Orks. Then it all went wrong and your army was wiped out by a bunch of Ork firepower and your opponent, in character, laughed a maniacal laugh. You sipped a sip of tea and congratulated them. You then spend the next hour reminiscing about all the crazy moments in the battle.

[@apjapki]

The weirdest thing about GW is that you have to buy the models, buy the crafting materials AND buy the rules. That's crazy if you think about it, especially when rules are updated through balance notes. Why aren't the rules free? Seems like the only reason is that 40k started pre-internet. If it started post-internet, there is no doubt PDFs would be free.

[@andyconnell7432]

Absolutely spot on. Narrative play with fun people ftw.

[@myrar8708]

Really interesting video. one of my favorite Warhammer content creators!

[@ejlongworth]

This was an extremely well thought out analysis of this issue within the hobby. Great stuff as always!

[@flaekingr5109]

You are ridiculously good at this. Well researched, well presented, just outstanding all the bloody time. Kudos to you, sir.

[@bigdazz8636]

I've played games with people that have wiped me out within a turn or two. This was their aim, I've not played with those people again. We all loose.

[@kitchensinkmuses4947]

i think you're right that it's important to remember that 40k is more like a simulation to use your models with than a tactical competition. I've always made my lists based on "I wonder how this sort of army would do against X". Of course, I try to play as well as I can, but list building is a way for me to use my lovingly converted and painted models, so often I just go, "all the special weapons are X all the heavy weapons are Y" to keep things simple. Interesting what you said about the battle reports on WHTV. It reminds me of old white dwarf where the battle reports would be staff armies or weird scenarios

[@chrisbeau76]

This is why Kill Team is being hailed as one of the better games this year. Thier are no points. You get access to a Kill Team and each team has a different amount of infantry and you can take two models out of your team to trade them out for 1 powerful Chaos Ogryn. Also the AoS Crowd seem to be more happy with their rules system than 40k.

[@jamestarbet9608]

@Discourse Miniatures did a video recently on this and pointed out that Big Wigs at GW admit to knowing this and know why. Part of it comes down to how they play test and what they are balancing new rules against.

[@lv100Alice]

the conversation about balanced usually comes up very angrily when tau have anything that looks good (even if it isn't) and more mild mannered for anyone else. how wacky

[@RockRanchCowboy]

I don't think that's true. Unnerfed Drukhari? Ork flyer spam? Voidweaver spam? Tyranids at near 70% win rate? Tau are just a little more annoying because when they are over powered, they just table you by turn 2, which is not fun to play against.

[@lv100Alice]

@@RockRanchCowboy the tau railgun got so much "it's so op game is ruined" when not even the winning list at a tournament spammed them

[@nekrataali]

Tau have traditionally been a really linear army that makes them frustrating to play and play against. It's either they shoot you to death while taking zero losses or one unit makes it into close combat and tears the entire army apart. I think they could easily fix this by introducing more alien auxiliary units and giving the Tau more options for close combat and movement. The fact you can't build a pure Kroot army out of the main book is a travesty.

[@gaston4269]

@@nekrataali not even then. They let tau shoot into melee, one of the fundamental rules of the game, making their one weakness not that weak. i charged my CSM with Mark and Icon of khorne and they got beat in melee by tau.

[@Ironic_daemonic]

I honestly was happiest in 8th ed at the end of it when there was all the splat books that let me build a very fluffy iron warriors daemon engine army. The specialist detachments and unique rules made me feel like the army was truly mine.

[@ryan_the_rizza2571]

This is a delightfully sophisticated video. Much like the female space marine one. Wonderfull quality!

[@markvargus6519]

As someone who paused in his playing after running into a "munchkin" who had a completely unbalanced army in a Crusade campaign I joined I have to say that this is good analysis. Warhammer 40K is an expansive and interesting game, but that same expansiveness results in the game being naturally difficult to balance. Worse, there are people who care only about winning and they will try to break the game with whatever army they bring. I'm a casual player who has always said that I'm at the table to have fun. I want to be able to cheer good rolls, curse at the bad ones (both mine and my opponents) and to play a game where ever move and countermove matters. One of my best games before pausing was actually an Age of Sigmar game where my opponent brought out one of the big trademark named characters. I was playing Daughters of Khaine and it was quickly apparent that no figure or unit I had could scratch this overpowered single figure. (And right now I can't remember the name.) However, what I did was spread out and use my manueverability to blitz the rest of the map. In the end I had managed to control 3/4 of the map despite this one figure that I could not take out. It did come down to the last turn though and both my opponent and I were interested and engaged the whole way. We had quite a good conversation at the end discussing what had happened. (we both made both good and bad moves and the dice had been equally erratic for us.) Contrast that to the 2 games that drove me from 40K. Both were Adepta Sororitas v Nurgle. The guy playing the Nurgle forces brought the absolute minimum number of actual troops, but that allowed him to have all sorts of heavy AOE artillery. These units were only vulnerable to my heavy squads and after he won the "who goes first" lottery, he made sure to table my heavy squads on the first turn. At that point the game became pointless for me as I could not take out these heavy tanks, and they'd just whittle my troops down over 2-3 turns. My opponents attitude was "I want to win, I'm preparing for tournaments." This was supposed to be a friendly/fun league and it clearly wasn't. I haven't returned to playing since that second game. I think the biggest issue with 40K balance is the players themselves. if you are playing with people who are there to have fun and just want to enjoy a game, they usually bring armies that are fun to play against. However, if the people playing are competitive you often get the min/max playstyle that results in games that are miserable to play and end up not being fun for either side. And that isn't entirely the fault of Games Workshop. I do believe they need to examine some of the rules and mechanics and look not necessarily to simplify, but rather to define in their mind the reason for such rules and narrow the implimentation so that all the pieces can have a place in a battle line. But there are so many that I don't think they could. And I do believe that they do want some imbalance to encourage people to constantly look for that better figure.

[@paulkingtiger]

This is exactly why I gave up on 40k, too many games lost before I got to the table due to the army list building meta. These days I play mostly historical stuff where different armies are much more similar, with very few faction specific rules. Where units do have special rules they are universal between factions meaning even if you play a army you've never come up against before you are going to understand the rules it's using and get a good idea of how it'll play. I have no idea how you apply that to 40k and maintain faction flavor, except by simplifying the rules, which is I guess is what One Page Rules has done.

[@tharkwarrior]

It used to be done by varying the stat line and equipment. Every character, troop type, weapon, phase, turn etc. having special rules is what has created the quagmire that is 9th Ed.

[@Nemrex]

Part of the rules design that also takes priority over maintaining balance is expressing a faction's character, lore, and themes through the mechanics and making it granulated so the player can have many options in expressing their army. T'au get alotta hard hitting range weapons and stratagems that can effectively snipe across the board, Harlequins are fragile but are quick and nasty with precision fire, Tyranids and Imperial Guard can have swarms of low cost units backed by massive monsters and machines that enhance said units, ect. I see it in other games too like Overwatch or League of Legends where the mechanics are designed first in mind expressing who those characters are and how their abilities tell about them. Destiny does too with their Exotic weapons.

[@davidwasilewski]

Re 40k and AoS - Any game where you can drop £600+ on miniatures and rulebooks, and then, because of your army selection you lose 20 games in a row is bad. And no, I’m not a ‘bad’ player, I win lots of other (non GW) games. The game shouldn’t allow you to make choices that if they’re not entirely meta listing and optimal you lose. Every time. E.g I bought, built and painted 60 Gor, 60 Ungor and 12 Minotaur for AoS because I wanted to recreate an old world beastmen army themed force. My (competitive) group now say there’s no point even playing against them because they’re tabled by turn 3 90% of the time. If I was to go out and buy loads of tzaangor and field a demon prince then I’d turn this around but I don’t want to. I want to field a narrative, fluffy army. I guess I need to go back to historical Wargames.

[@ArbitorIan]

True, but given that we all KNOW the game can be easily broken like that, I think the problem is first the game group, and second a culture in the game where players are encouraged to be like that - the only bring the best thing all the time. You want to play a 90s-style beastman army of basic troops. They could do that too and you'd both have a fun, more balanced game. They choose not to, or have been convinced that it's wrong to play that way.

[@davidwasilewski]

@@ArbitorIan you’re right. It’s my group. Too many competitive players.

[@MajesticDemonLord]

Although I don't play tabletop, there's something to add: Any game where RNG is a major element is extremely hard to balance.... From a player perspective. What do I mean? Well, for 2 dice being rolled, we know that *statistically* the most likely number is 7, with a bell-curve distribution around this. If we roll enough dice, enough times, we eventually expect to see something approaching a bell-curve. A player in a single game may roll many dice, but each time, it's for a different desired outcome - e.g. looking for a 4 up save, or rolling for moral or deny the witch - this means that in addition to our difficulty in judging random chance, the yardstick that we are using to measure it is constantly shifting. A Player who plays the 'same' game (e.g. same army, same points value, same scenario etc etc.) repeatedly would eventually get a good grasp on the most likely outcome, but this is incredibly difficult for most gamers to achieve. Next, we have the problem with min/maxed units, for example, a Glass-Cannon type unit that does high damage but has a low number of wounds/hit points might be absolutely OP in one game (according to the players perception) and weak AF and needs a Buff in the next - again, the problem is human perception and the number of games needed (statistically) to generate a meaningful impression as to whether a unit is balanced or not. TL;DR - RNG and Player perception is always going to add a layer of complexity to game balance that simply cannot be solved.

[@owenashbacher4507]

For balance, like the tau in a dense environment, or white scars in open terrain. My friend and I, me being a horde-ish army and he is armoured focus. When he comes to my house, home field advantage I get to build the terrain, type of thing. Or someone else who isn’t in the game sets it up. And I know what he could possibly be bringing so I build my army to counter. It’s like pre game recon. An aspect I consider part of the game. Like hunting deer, guys put up cams and scout through the year.

[@maciejmazur2622]

The big joke is that wargames were never meant to be balanced - they were invented to improve your strategic thinking with resources you have - the tournament players are just silly as they dont want to just win - they want to FEEL likle they won - this is just an elaborate way to convince yourself that you achieved something by doing the research and executing the meta. I like that you mentioned chess - all the problems tournament players have could be solved by them playing chess - but the ruleset is too robust, as you said, chess is a game of skill - so if you lose you cant copmplain on meta, nerfs, bad luck ect - YOU and your skill are just not good enough - cant have that. I truly believe the very idea of tournaments is hurtful to the hobby - ive seen newbies giving up on an armybecause they read online that its weak - and that BEFORE even knowing the rules.....

[@DrSomhairle]

I came across this recently, was a 40k player in the 90's, before the 2nd edition, and played an early eldar and harlequin army, against my brothers space wolves. It felt pretty even back then, he won sometimes and I did also. A friend of ours had a chaos army and another orks, I felt it depended a lot on tactics. How you used cover and set up you army.

[@Nathar45]

"The real selling point... is the IP" - Totally. This is why I followed Warhammer (Fantasy) for many years after I stopped painting and playing, and also why Age of Sigmar broke my heart a little. I can no longer follow the druchii's continually failed attempts at retaking our rightful homeland.

[@floggingluna]

Great video! I work in video game development and so much of the concept of balancing that you talk about can be applied on games as well. This made me think of football (soccer for the Americans) and how maybe a wargame should try to emulate how the sport is played. Hear me out. Football has an offical ruleset set by the FIFA association and its that rulebook that is used for competitive football all over the world but thats not how most games of soccer is played. Take a match in a schoolyard. The core concept of football is there but I would say that most FIFA rules is not applied. No kid tries to argue offside rules in a schoolyard. Maybe you only have one person wanting to play as a goalie, then scoring on him by any team is considered a goal. Maybe you don't have a goal at all then you make up some other rules to make it work for that. Maybe its possession of the ball that counts etc. Official rules and the enforcement of those rules are only made as you move up in competitiveness. Otherwise you just make up rules as you go to have a good time. We should do that as wargamers as well.

[@ArbitorIan]

And importantly, when it goes to the 'official sport' level, variation is minimised. You can't just bring shoes that make you much faster - if those existed they'd be banned, or mandatory. The idea is that variation or imbalance in the skill of the players is fine, but winning because you brought better equipment would be 'unfair'.

[@devononair]

Guendolin, that casual way you describe is literally how I play. We play 7th ed and it's not even "proper" 7th ed. We modify the rules so they make sense or feel fun to us. Sometimes we decide on a rule in game because someone wants to do something cinematic. It kinda baffles me that people just rolling some dice in a basement seem to think it's important that they follow all the latest rules to the letter. Nobody's going to check up on you!

[@TrillyC84]

I'll add to the many thanks and praises for this video and your content/commentary in general. Broadly agree with your definition of what 'fun' means for a tabletop wargame. Coming back into 9th after dropping out toward the end of 2nd has definitely been intimidating (and the expansion of the hobby since the late 90s is just *nuts*). It also defo feels like the more recent iterations of the rules are designed to provide frameworks for enabling the expression of different factions/units/lore through game mechanics (e.g. my different minis all *do quite different stuff*). I see the fun in that, even if the cost is an incredibly steep learning curve. Is the result an immense, unwieldy, frequently intimidating ruleset because of the huge array of customisation options? Yes, undoubtedly. Can I live with that? Still working that one out. One innovation I do like (and am keen to master more) is the move toward more objective-based play (i.e. you don't just win by killing stuff) - I certainly feel like that creates more potential for interesting tactical play. I also find the evolution of the 40k competitive scene interesting as a newb because I think it asks different questions of that mess. I like CraftworldEldar's advice/definition that competitive play is more about attempting to win the battle *before* one gets to the table (i.e. in list building) as much as *at* it - crafting a list that leverages certain tactics and strategies (and even pockets of 'imbalance' in the latest rules) to make a list that can take on all comers and win. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oYCwXmlqhpioqa8 Granted its definitely not everyone's idea of fun (and might not even be mine) - but as long as *both* players are in the same headspace (casual, competitive, narrative...) when they play, hopefully that can be navigated. Your 'competitive meta as supercomputer' analogy is very apt - how else could one meaningfully probe that incredible complexity toward the end of creating an (incrementally, imperfectly) more balanced (and hence broadly enjoyable) gaming experience?

[@sterster]

How about depending on point size of a game will dictate how many different unit types so eg 2000 point 4 types of units and 2 vehicle types and 2 heros

[@caspargregersjensen7372]

Excellent video, including heading off the inevitable "play OPR instead" arguments!