META TALK: IS THE GAME BROKEN?

Ok everyone, buckle in cause this could get a little rough.  Today I am going to be talking about balance in the game today and how it's out of whack.

You can argue all day long about how the game is better now than it has every been.  GW is putting out regular FAQs, adjusting points in the Chapter Approved books, and have been putting out rules, content, and models at a rate that has never been seen before.  I would agree with you, but with all of that growth comes growing pains.  Particularly the ability to play test on a large scale and quickly and efficiently change any errors or misinterpretations that may be a real or perceived problem.  So where do we begin?

Well, this may be an obvious one, but there is a serious problem with units in power armour.  I've talked about this before in my Power Armour Balancing Act post.  GW has been trying to improve the Astartes by dropping many of their points values, but I don't think that adding Space Marines to the table is going to fix the problem.  They introduced the Better Bolter Beta rule, which actually goes a long way in the right direction to making them better, but it only improves their damage output in a very specific range.  Unfortunately, I don't think they will really be everything an Astartes is supposed to be without a total revamp of their rules.  Right now, in the game, with as many ways of getting re-rolls and buffs, lots of dice is better than quality dice.

The next couple issues has to do with "soup".  Now I have to state first that I am not against soup lists and love the idea of having multiple factions like Knights and Guard working together.  However, I think that by combining these factions together, and being able to cherry pick all the best bits from each army with minimal penalty is too much, especially considering that there are many armies that don't have as many factions that they can choose from.

Now, when considering multiple factions and cherry picking units it's fair to take a look at the Auxiliary Support detachment.  This allows you to pick a single unit from any faction, but at the cost of 1CP.  Combine this with not being able to take relics or use stratagems from that faction.  This is a really smart way of keeping things balanced as there is a down side to taking just a single unit from another faction.

Then there is the Super Heavy Auxiliary detachment which does not follow any of those rules.  In this instance you can take a single Lord of War with no other requirements other than your army stays battle forged.  The most prevalent case would be the Castellan Knight.  Even though Knights are an army of their own, you can cherry pick this one unit from the army and take it in another Imperial army with no downside.  Now, the Castellan is a great unit, but it's the stratagems that make this unit a must take for nearly every Imperial army out there.  If you disagree, why don't you see Chaos Castellans in such numbers?  The Super Heavy Auxiliary detachment needs to have similar restrictions as the Auxiliary Support detachment.

We are not quite done with soup, and I would be an idiot if I didn't mention Ynnari.  This one, to me, is pretty simple.  Remove the access to the Craftworld strats and powers.  Now I know that they can take a Craftworld detachment to get those powers, but if you can't cast Guide and use Fire and Fade on Ynnari Dark Reapers, or Quicken and Raging Winds on Ynnari Shining Spears, they really lose some of their extra teeth, yet are still really strong.  Not being able to do so much stuff twice also brings their capabilities back in line with what they actually cost.

Now I know that I just said that there is nothing wrong with the Castellan, but that was a lie.  To be honest, it's only the Nova Cannon that's broken.  With no re-rolls, it will kill your average vehicle in one shot, from 80" away.  When you start adding the effects of stratagems, relics, and house traits, the damage skyrockets and that is just one of it's weapons.  The simple fact that that is possible is a huge deterrent to taking any sort of large model, especially if it doesn't have an invul save.  Now, I'm not entirely sure how you would fix this.  You could reduce the damage, the number of shots, the range, the S value, but whatever happens, something needs to tone down this gun.

The last thing on my list of balance issues is the "Chapter Tactics" and how they apply to each of armies.  Taking a look at Orks and Eldar, every single one of their units gain access to their Kulture and Craftworld Trait.  Vehicles, tanks, walkers, super-heavies, infantry, bikes. etc etc.  Yet when you look at the Astartes, both Adeptus and Heretic, their non-dreadnought vehicles don't get access to their Chapter Tactics or Legion Traits.  Why does an Iron Warrior's Helbrute ignore the cover save modifier but a Defiler doesn't?  Why do Crimson Hunter's get the -1 to hit modifier for their Alaitoc Fieldcraft but Alpha Legion Heldrakes don't?  Aside from some thing being able to make use of these abilities, they need to figure out how to make them all valuable in the game.  The Alpha Legion Trait, -1 to hit them when more than 12" away, is far better than the Night Lords, -1Ld when within 6" (to a max of -3).  Night lord armies have no interaction with an opponent's Ld except for Morale, and there are several ways for that to be ignored or mitigated.  There are no powers or stratagems that make use of the Ld penalties or anything like that, so for the most part, their Legion Trait goes unused.

Well there we go.  I know that with the upcoming FAQ that some of these issues may be dealt with, but one what scale and in what manner only time will tell.  Thank you all for reading the ramblings of an "old man".

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.