Well there was a post on H-O today that rather irked me. The post can be found here (link now up). In this post the original author is asking for a new edition because he is tired of facing walls of mech on the other side of the table. A lot of putting down on his “meta-game” and gaming group ensues, some general complaining about mech and my heart rate rose from 41bpm to 42. So let’s look at where this whole concept falls through.
First let’s pout upon the meta-gamers. We are all playing under the same rules and my balanced lists will do well in any “meta-game” because I’m playing according to the rules of Warhammer 40,000 5th edition (supplemented by official GW FAQs). Why is this so hard to understand…? This also relates to what was said about mech limiting versatility…uh what? Sorry but mech adds variety (see lists below) and tactics as everyone is capable of moving about and having decent defenses. Let’s look back at 3rd edition…everyone rushes forward, hops out, assaults…4th edition…everyone avoids tanks, sits on their deployment zone and shoots…ya fun. Let’s look at 5th edition where the missions demand you get into midfield, control objectives, build army lists which are capable of winning these type of games whilst appropriating target priority, etc. Before concepts like “making your points back” or just shooting down the most dangerous opponent units were common tactics. Use those concepts now and you’ll get rolled off the field.
5th edition made tanks viable. This is a lot better than the walking death traps they were in 4th. Did GW swing the balance too far? Maybe but it improved their sales without a doubt. Is there a need for a radical change when 6th edition comes out in a couple-few years? No. Personally the only changes I’d like to see are more balanced missions (so TO’s don’t create dodgy ones all the time) and removal of blanket KP. You want to imagine the backlash of GW making tanks crap again? Thanks for making the massive investment of money into your system useless *walks away.* Ya can’t see that happening. The author was also complaining about sweeping advances. You know that’s pretty much the exact same way it worked before except it’s based on your initiative and doesn’t benefit hordes but rather ability to do damage in combat.
So let’s take a look at what I posted and extrapolate it some more here. I pointed out that the general 40k community took FOREVER to cotton on to mech being good. Hell, we still have this argument (looks @ Grog over on YTTH). It took Warseer well over a year to figure out mech is good and armies which cannot handle mech aren’t good (we call this imbalance). Now this same general gaming community still believes Orks are competitive but won’t understand the diversity of lists out there. Let’s take a look at competitive non-fully tanked up lists (because this is what the original poster was reflecting upon, walls of tanks). Vanilla bikers (including Fast’N’Slow variants), Blood Rodeo, every single Tyranids list, SW TWC, Loganwing, Bloodwing, BA Jumpers, Hybrid Tau, Hybrid IG, Hybrid Immo Spam, Hybrid SW Mech. Hell the only really pure lists I can think of which are really good are Mech Eldar, Mech DE, Mech SM and Immo Spam (disclaimer: I’m sure I’ve missed some somewhere).
The community as a whole now seems to not understand why mech is good, they just understand it is. Mech provides mobility and protection. When you’re running a non-mech list you have to be able to counter these bonuses either through suppression fire, excellent anti-tank and being able to move. I’m not going to go through this on an army specific basis because it’s been done before but armies like Jumper BA and Tyranids are well equipped against mech lists and infantry lists alike.
These type of articles really annoy me. It shows a certain lack of understanding of how 40k works in this edition and a complete inflexibility. If you don’t like something, that’s fine. No one is forcing you to play it. As I’ve shown above there are competitive non-fully tank’d up lists (and there have been since the beginning of 5th edition *looks at Tau and Bikers*) and if you don’t want to play with lots of tanks, well you don’t have to. If you’re tired of seeing other players using tanks…cry me a river. It’s their choice. It’s the exact same concept as composition. I feel this is how it should be so you should play it like this too and if you don’t you’ll get penalised. Sorry not cutting it seeing as we live in democratic countries. /endrant
Ahem, final exam today so will try and put up a more…well thought out article later but have work after so might not be able to achieve it! Also, in this article note my concepts of mech generally means “tanks” rather than mobility. I’ll link to the post on H-O as soon as the site is back up.
13 pinkments:
Well said Kirb. I need to give Heresy some more of my time to help curb the stupid, mainly dealing with the Tau.
I've been makin ripples in my FLGS with my Tau, so people are slowly starting to fear the Greater Wood. All credit to Stelek on that, of course.
Seriously? I like Heresy on good days, but that's just Warseer level stupid.
As far as Heresy goes, there's been much worse, like the army bashing posts by ploss and the idiots on the list forums who keep giving crap advice. That is pretty bad though.
I wholeheartedly agree, except that our system of government has nothing to do with free choice in gaming. It's a democratic country, but it's not a democratic game. This is a legal concept that people often miss: the Constitution says what the powers of government are, and it says what rights the government may not infringe, and that's all it says. The fact that we live in a democratic country has nothing to do with whether an LGS owner can ban mech armies, or whether INAT can nerf them, or whatever.
But yeah, people who complain about mech are just whiny crybabies. They always say it's boring. The army that moves faster, brings more firepower on the move, and helps close-range troops actually survive so they can engage in short-range firefights and assaults... right. Boring. And it's not boring at all to have a foot army that probably never moves the whole game. Right.
Vehicles from the new codices just need to have a few more points tacked onto them. The damage chart doesn't seem too unreasonable.
Something Stelek has said previously was that he foresees a change in the vehicle damage chart that will result in EA being taken more often. So although vehicles are here to stay they may not always be so cheap.
Messanger
N.B. it is a conspiracy to force all players to move to higher point games. They lure us in with cheap vehicles and then jack the points. The only way we can continue to play with all our shiny tanks is to play higher point games... its brilliant!!!! *evil laughter*
*pats MoD*; aye they will certainly take a hit next edition but they won't be rendered useless, just not as "You're not meching up why?" Let us also assume GW is going to do a better job at developing cross-edition balance.
@Ixe; it was just a comparison not a literal "I don't live in CHina I get to choose EVERYTHING." More the fact that as a consumer, we can talk with our money. I'm impressed and happy about the way GW is going so I've invested in more armies. I didn't like 4th edition at all or Apoc so didn't buy or play much during that era.
The original author at least said he was whining but all the other posts *sigh.*
This sort of useless drivel really gets my goat!
I don't have a lot of experience with 4th, but played a bit of 3rd, so can't comment a great deal on comparisons, but I can say I have pretty much no complaints about 5th Ed. There are a couple of silly little rules that I don't necessarily agree with, but transferring a dynamic situation into a static game will always have these.
With regards to vehicles... how modern day armies take their soldiers into battle? Ask them to march? Yeah right! Of course the catch a ride... why? That's right... safety and speed... oh yeah, the same features that 5th Ed rules envelopes. Rubbish job heh? I don't think!
Why don't these people grow a pair, learn the rules properly and read their codices. Mech is great build, but as a recent post on YTTH stated... mech in reality doesn't necessarily mean everybody rocking-up in a tank. There is more to it than that.
The guy was complaining about other people bringing vehicles... Why the hell do some people think that everyone else needs to change so they can have fun?
As for complaining about the metagame, what a wash. We play under the same rule set and it is the internet age... Mech is the way to go now, get use to it.
- Buzzer
What I wonder is what is his idea of "fun, versatile lists". A 4th edition army that he's too cheap to upgrade? (most forum advice is given with that in mind) Gaunt/Genestealer spam? Pyrovores?
5e is the best ever 40k Edition, IMO.
I agree with TKE. I've played since early second (before they released the Eldar codex), and 5th has been the most balanced and fun, and with the tightest rules (although there are still glaring errors).
I also think that non-mech can succeed in 5th ed, though in some scenarios it's an uphill battle, and for some armies it just doesn't work. I have a friend who's been having a *lot* of success with GH-spam non-mech SW, as you can get LD9, a good CC upgrade, and 2 specials in a unit as long as you don't mind losing the rhino, it makes the Grey Hunter unit a very complete troops choice.
Similarly, Tyranids are by default non-mech, and can succeed with proper aggression and synergy, despite most of their units being more specialized than Grey Hunters.
I think that the balance between mech/non-mech is just about right, as long as your army is bringing the tools to deal with both (which is possible with most codices... less possible with others).
The effects of a destroyed vehicle can also be quite disastrous for units that aren't marines. People forget that when an Elar tank explodes, it's basically like shooting the unit inside with bolters, which Eldar don't like at all. Similar for any 3T unit, like IG. You can't only base game balance on what affects space marines, who are, admittedly, largely unaffected by the destruction of their transports. Most changes you make to how transports work would simply make non-space-marine mech much less viable.
I, personally, would be happy with no further edition changes.
-willydstyle
"I feel this is how it should be so you should play it like this too and if you don’t you’ll get penalised." - Some guy Kirby's hating on.
"I feel this is how it should be so you should play it like this too and if you don’t you’ll get penalised." - Kirby, in this article.
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The guy would prefer not to be penalized for playing without transports. That sounds reasonable to me.
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