Another Op-Ed I know. Primarily because my return to the workplace has minimised my hobby time - especially for sorting project logs. But this is a very ‘In Vogue’ question right now.

Introduction

To begin a story - when I was younger I started playing Warhammer 40k playing Tau. This was 4th edition, and one of my favourite units were the Broadside Battlesuits. Hulking 2+ armour save beasties, that packed twin-linked railguns! S10, AP1 they ripped apart any enemy vehicle they set their eyes too (although were near inept in melee or vs large hordes). After a few games my regular opponent began to refuse to play me if I was using them, citing them as being ‘broken’ because they often ‘one hit’ his Land Raider…

This was my introduction to ‘balance’.

As wargamers, or indeed anyone who has dealt with a game of any form, be it tabletop or digital, the concept of ‘balance’ is a frequent and often necessary topic. In warhammer in particular the idea or notion of a ‘balanced game’ or ‘balanced unit’ is often enough to bring a very wide variety of discussions, players, and opinions from the woodwork. Indeed with every new codex, army book, battletome, or Liber we seem to get another round of ‘Well thats just broken’ or ‘This is useless!’ depending on the unit/faction/day of the week. As a new or uninitiated player, I can imagine its quite daunting!

Now, for the purposes of discussing balance, I’m going to stick to Age of Darkness. God knows there are rants and discussions a plenty about the wider warhammer or gaming world, but the focus for this reading at least will be on the system I am best versed with, and that our site is all about. Thats not to say that examples can’t be drawn from elsewhere, and likely will be, but for the purposes of this discussion, we’re sticking to the 31st Millenium. In particular this is because I honestly do feel that of all the systems, 30k’s unique nature gives it a more interesting standing position to tackle the ideas of the ‘balance’ debate.

So, lets dive in.

What do we mean by Balance?

Dictionary Corner

Bit of a strange question to ask, but assume for a minute you are an entirely new player to the world of wargaming. A player starts talking about how this one particular legion that you like the look of are really just ‘unbalanced’ and ‘op’. What the fuck are they on about?

For the purposes of a dictionary definition. The following is neatly provided via google:

This is a good base to work with when discussing game balance - ‘A balanced system is one where the elements are correctly proportioned’. With in this case (for the discussion of Heresy) elements referring to the units and legions in play, and ‘correct proportioned’ referring to their relevant ‘power levels’.

Simple right?

What do you mean ‘what in the Dragonball is ‘power level’?

Okay. So we need to get a bit more specific.

Perceived Power vs Actual Power

The notion of ‘perceived power’ is one that is incredibly common and relevant to discussions of any gaming system and ‘balance’. Essentially ‘perceived power’ only really occurs when there are no clear lines of definition or categorising of a unit/character/formation’s capabilities, whereas ‘Actual Power’ is when these are easily noticable and defined within the parameters of the game system, to allow for better comparison.

I.e. Take the (now dying) MOBA ‘Heroes of the Storm’ as an example. It clearly from the outset categorises its characters into various subtypes, and for each character clearly outlines the numerical capabilities of every skill, upgrade, and ability. Almost nothing is left to chance, and everything can be mathematically calaculated to the perfect form.

You want the most ‘powerful’ dps hero? Well you can work that out. You want a support who does the most healing - easy.

This is the ‘Actual Power’ element. The bit that can be calculated and mathed out without leaving elements to chance, or subjective opinions. There will always be a fixed ladder of who can do the most, and who does the least, of any category. Ergo to create a ‘balance’ theoretically any dev simply needs to work with the builds of any hero to mean they become more or less equivilent to each other. I.e. This hero does more flat damage but slower, whilst this other hero does less damage but fires quicker. An oversimplification yes, but it serves as a clean example.

In the case of wargaming its not so easy though. Even though we do have numerical elements to work with, in the form of statlines for both units and weapons. There is a lot more on the table, much of which is left to the fates of the dice, and the composition of an army. Ergo when discussing units and forces in heresy we have to discuss the ‘perceived power’ - i.e. how good or bad we think they are based on the elements that we have in hand, and a hypothetical scenario, and when factoring in their points cost. For example is the damage output of a unit of 10 tactical marines equal to that of 5 veterans? One is about the same points compared to the other, so in theory they would be able to do roughly the same impact on a game, if placed in the same scenarios, with a similar enemy and army composition.

Consequently if we want to talk about the idea of a ’truly balanced’ system then realistically we are looking for a definition closer to…

Not so hard right?

Clash with Reality

So theoretically if we create a purely balanced system, where every unit is approximately capable and equivilent to each other. In fact its not too dissimilar from the state that 40k appeared to be wailing into as it barrelled towards the end of 9th edition. But this is, to put it bluntly, rather boring.

If every unit is about the same, or at least about the same power and nature as another unit of the same points/slot/army, then whats the point of playing different forces? A truly balanced system does allow for the best test of ‘generalship’ or ‘strategy’ (insofar as one can show that on a tabletop) but it loses a soul in the process, and quickly finds its community and events descend into competetive diatribe. And if you want an example of that writ in history then look no further than 40k’s once great competitor - Warmachine. A system with minimal upgrades, and clearly defined equivilencies between forces with a small roster to select from. A system designed around fast paced competetive gaming where ‘math-hammer’ style play was pretty commonplace. A system that martyred itself, as it’s own company lost sight of what it wanted to do with the system (though I’m reliably informed it may have had a small comeback with a new edition). Honestly the whole thing was rather a shame, but a shame that should stand as testament to warn anyone looking to create a similar system. The fact of the matter is, a perfectly balanced system is little more than a board game, and if that’s the case then there is far cheaper and easier options than collecting warhammer miniatures.

Further to all of this is the matter of ‘history’. The Horus Heresy is a pseudo-historical game system, and borrows many elements from historical gaming. This includes a natural asymmetry to its armies and units. For example in a perfect world yes, the Iron Hands would be a very powerful Legion, with an excellent collection of leaders and officers. In reality they are a legion who lost the majority of their best and brightest on the black sands of Isstvan. Their remaining officers will not necessarily match the ‘perfect’ imagery of an Iron Hand, because if they were that good they would have been down there with Ferrus. So instead you get Autek Mor or Shadrak Meduson - officers who are a little out of synergy with their old legion, but hold plenty of character. Similarly yes the White Scars do have strong quantities of dreadnoughts and terminator armours (all legions do), but don’t expect their rules to benefit that style of play. Similarly don’t take Solar Auxilia and expect your lasrifle squad to go toe-toe with a World Eater in combat…

These historical idiosyncracies hep to make the game more alive. The imbalances, the challenges, all add to the story and the realm we play in. And asking for perfect balance would be to drive an element of the game completely away. Many units that are labelled as ‘sub par’ are these style of units, characterful and interesting. They won’t rock the boat, but they do look cool and bring a character to your narrative. As a community we should embrace and enjoy these odd units, these characters, because if we don’t then we run the risk that they’ll simply stop making them! Enjoy the asymmetrical narrative, and try to move away from the competetive mindset where possible.

However having said that, there are times when the rules/game/company does cause itself community problems.

The True Balance issues!

Line

I know I’ve just said how good it is to have asymmetry and variety, and weaker units. But there are some units, legions, and rules within heresy that do create a natural imbalance within the game. An imbalance that doesn’t exist for narrative reasons, but instead for seemingly no clear purpose other than giving some armies an unfair advantage.

The biggest of these, is the issue with Rites of War.

Some Legions have Rites of War that make interesting swaps and choices. Many legions have Rites that introduce some units as a troops choice. Very few Legions have Rites that make these troops scoring… This creates issues, and severely damages some Legions unnecessarily.

For example: The Stone Gauntlet Rite of War makes Phalanx Warders troops, and gives them Line and Heart of the Legion. It makes them a manadatory troops choice too. This is not an issue, as the player can still take 2 and have 2 scoring troops choices without needing to spend much extra. (And gains a load of benefits that assist those troops in staying alive). Meanwhile on the Traitor side of the board there is Terror Assault. This makes Terror Squads and Night Raptors troops… and doesn’t give them line. So now you can take them in your troops slot to save on Elites choices, but they have no further benefit for doing so! For similar points to your Imperial Fist foe you’ve got two troops choices that can kill plenty, but cannot score and therefore cannot actually win the game. Now don’t get me wrong, winning isn’t everything, but the chance to score a point is nice!

And whilst I’m aware this may not matter in some game modes, it shows a short sightedness on the part of GW because most events including their own rely on scoring objectives to win/gain any event points! Having been to events where I’ve scored 0 despite having excellent battles, I can assure you that is not a fun feeling! And thr worst part of this is there is no concievable reason for this discrepancy. Or for why the same thing applies to almost every Traitor Rite of War! It creates a natural balance in favour of the loyalist factions (particularly Imperial Fists) who are noticable more successful in events at the moment for it. And theres an easy fix… Just grant line! Or better yet grant all non-vehicle troops choices the ability to score. There is no benefit to the asymmtery of rules as it stands, and by doing so it would fix a number of the “bad” Rites that players complain about.

(Also, to give an even more controversial take, Stone Gauntlet is not broken, it just presents a challenge that is dealt with in a different way. Out manoeuvre them, snipe the apothecaries, try to break the formations up, block them with vehicles or just pin them. The one time it is unfair is if your opponent runs it at sub-2000 points…)

Artillery

Another key fix desperately needed to restore ‘balance’, is a change to either to points or damage output of artillery. Yes I know. I said it. The story of artillery is a fantastic example of how important it is to consider more than one angle when discussing balance.

I’m going to come across as horrible here, and I am aware that artillery was undercosted for its output last edition - it was very cheap and could kill its points per turn. But taking away the damage of the guns, and then increasing the cost of the chassis, and the existence of Return Fire, has created a category of tanks that no longer perform a role and/or are obliterated as part of performing that role. And whilst for marines with their land raiders/predators/kratos etc are okay, the Solar Auxilia and Militia have suffered needlessly. It has damaged a balancing factor between the factions that allowed the natural asymmtery to still be fun. Artillery are a part of warfare, getting shelled by an offmap long range gun is a part of combat, and if you are playing a wargame you have to accept that it happens. If I can accept that my Auxilia die the moment they enter combat with a legionary, a Legion player has to in return accept that I intend to shell the geneseed out of you as much as possible before you get there. Its a part of the narrative and nature of this game as much as rolling a 1, or deepstrike mishaps. Shit Happens

Now I’m not advocating a return to 1.0. I’m happy to not see triple Medusas at 2500 points just obliterating my infantry. But I would like to be able to actually field my medusas and basilisks and not feel like I’ve intentionally gimped myself. Just reduce the damn cost, or increase the power of the guns (would a Medusa being short ranged but AP3 be that bad? It is a Siege Gun for christ’s sake.) It would also create a natural enemy and counterpoint to horde Legion forces like the Death Guard or Imperial Fists and give more elite forces methods of clearing an objective. Because I’ll give people a hint, playing against 60+ unkillable legionaries is just as unfun as playing against 3 medusas. Until this is resolved though (which I suspect it won’t be) artillery chassis are currently one of the few units I would absolutely call ‘sub par’, and that is a shame.

(I won’t discuss what happened to the Baneblade chassis. It’ll just make me angry.)

Conclusions

At the end of the day we want a game that will give people options, and not seriously penalise them for having fun. I want a system where you can take lots of infantry and are promoted to, but you can also choose to not do that and still have a chance of winning. That is a balanced heresy system. Not everything is great and powerful, but everything is fun to play and you don’t feel disappointed when you take it to the table. When we’re rocking up with equivilent points (and additional hundreds of pounds of resin!) I want to feel I have a fair chance. It might not be the biggest one, but there is a chance that I could do something with the units I’ve got.

And that is also why there has been, and will be so many arguments about this. Because we invest a lot in this hobby, stupid amounts. And despite some people desperately wanting a slim down and simple game they can math-hammer out, the majority of us want to play with our expensive toys and not think they were a waste of money!

Now back to crying over my shadowsword…