I just had to start a new discussion; I have a question for the council:

From the long Vior'la discussion:


Is this the official stance of the Epic rules devs; that new lists must be one trick ponies, focusing on a single tactic to the expense of everything else?

Is it, furthermore, the mission that old, approved lists should be carved in stone and nailed to every gamers wall, to be never altered again?

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That is in no way what Kyussinchains said. New lists should not be the old list plus extra stuff, that just renders the existing list obsolete. New lists should be a different theme or style than the parent list, that's not the same as bring a one trick pony.

Examples Codex SM/Imperial Fists where the fists gain several new units which allow several playstyles not possible with theme parent list but also lose options and styles. So a variant list not an upgraded list of the original which is what Vior'la is currently

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Yeah that is kind of established. Just taking the tau as an example their whole schtick originally was, and I'm really paraphrasing here, no war engines, poor in close combat and I guess very little macro weapons. So then you build in compensations for that either through special rules or making them particularly potent in the other stuff. If you then just add back in the missing parts you have a list which is simply better than the other one and both makes the original list redundant and potentially opens the way to really strong builds that weren't previously possible.

It's not always obvious until someone explicitly tells you but if you look back through some of the approved lists with that in mind you can start to see what decisions might have been made.

This feels more like material for the "EpiComms NetEA Rules Amendments" forum, but it is a good topic.

I also struggle with the concept of themed/restricted lists - just not what I'm used to after 40k and Epic 40,000. But I can see the point, especially when so many of us play the Grand Tournament scenario over and over again (it's name seems to suggest a sense of balance). For casual play, feel free to pick formations from across different lists belonging to the same race. Jimmyzimms has started to formalize that with his Kitchen Sink Space Marine list: http://www.taccmd.tacticalwargames.net/ ... 73&t=32146

Along with that list (or non-list) concept, we should probably spend more time playing scenarios other than the GT one. Like fan supplement missions. I think the lack of support for that in the formal rulebook has made it difficult for a lot of us to see that way of playing, but it's there.

Definitely good points - I meant to mention Jimmy's kitchen sink list. I guess the entire existence of that also suggests that that isn't the standard approach to list building.

Having just gone and looked through the thread for context, I think you've drastically misunderstood what was being said.

Going back to the Epic Armageddon book itself, one of the primary design goals for the army lists was that each list covers one force in one arena of war.

So instead of there being a generic IG list there's Steel Legion as they fought on Armageddon, rather than one generic Ork list there's Ghazkull's specific forces on Armageddon. Other wars and other forces got their own separate lists.

Obviously that's all loosened up by now and there are some much wider lists, but there's also a substantial design issue with any list that's a super-set of an existing list - it takes away the reason for the existing list to exist. By definition, for something to be a new list it needs to be new and not to simply replicate and expand an existing list.

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To be fair, the way that GW has modified the 40K multiverse hasn't helped either.
Remember that the E:A rule book presents lists that were intended to be balanced within point ranges for the tournament scenario - to allow friends to get a 'balanced' chess like game in with minimal preparation. The rest of the lists have all been developed against that yardstick begging the assumption that the individual units and formations would be 'balanced' for other scenarios and encounters. The E:A book actively encourages the development of different unis, stats and formations for other purposes - but that has got lost in the noise.

Would it be worth adding further data to each list to denote the times, locations, campaigns etc that the list is supposed to represent. This would giver list designers a little more direction and flexibility while also allowing TOS to restrict armies to specific time periods and / or locations etc
- only lists from the Horus Heracy
- only lists from races involved in the 'xxxx' campaign (insert name)
Etc

One thing that i really like with Epic is that different armies have very different tactics and play styles each army offers.
A distinct play style forces the player to learn theese tactics and prevents them from usung the same ones in every game.

I used to play orks alot, now I've switched to Dark Eldar. Theres a big difference in how i have to use my army to be succesfull. It would be very boring if i just continued to play the same with both armies.

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"You have a right to be offended" - Steve Hughes
"Your feelings are hurting my thoughts" - Aron Flam

We do go through this debate every now and again, but one of the things that really helps the confusion is if ACs include such details as mentioned above that a list is supposed to represent right at the beginning.

As a general note, let's all try not to torch straw men, it just polarises reactions and prevents reasoned debate. Respond to a point with a different perspective, by all means, but don't misrepresent what someone has said in order to tear it down. It's happened several times on that viorla thread.

On topic: IMO this is one of those cases where we are where we are and what's most important is to find a way through. Personally I preferred the epic 40k way but it's done and we're not going to change it now. What's more important is to be able to make progress with a list. In the case of marines and other approved lists it's simply not going to change. For tau there a history behind it that has been lost somehow but also is unlikely to fundamentally change, but so long as it is done right, it's no reason why a variant tau list cannot be approved.

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Picking up on what Kyrt is saying above, i have to agree that this approach to list design is actually having a negative effect on EA development - and if the AU guys split off then it is a nail in the coffin.

I get why UK has its own narrowly edited lists for tournaments - if you are running a WAAC league then yes you need strictly edited lists. But i think that tournament mentality is what is now driving NetEA development. imho NetEA needs a different goal - to keep epic up to date and moving forward as the player base is dwindling. If others then want their own "balanced" lists for tournaments in their own meta then great, but they should tie back to the core (much as UK tries to do it seems). Im not sure how to make this happen but i think there needs some discussion.

The obvious example is the Vior'la list development is getting shut down because the rule that adding new units *necessarily* makes the list OP. I have contested this previously and got basically shut out. Borka and ffolly have now reiterated - the tau army is now effectively 10 years out of date. It was a tiny army back then as the faction fluff was only about 5 years old. It needs to grow as the fluff has expanded.

I find this attitude odd at the same time that the eldar BT list - which is much more diverse with many more excellent unit options and list builds than any other - is being defended as balanced. (Which i agree - it is).

I also agree, a longer list will be harder to Balance due to increased moving parts - but so will balancing an ever increasing number of sub lists.

And this is not just a academic - As an example our local tau player originally got excited in EA, built an army with some well know proxies, then realised that the big stuff he was keen to use in a scale which made more sense than 28mm - mantas, orcas, rip tides, crisis suits, etc - were either a bit pants or in a list stuck in development hell. He them lost interest. Therefore no play tests or help from him. And this is the 3rd or 4th potential player who has found the current situation similarly off-putting.

And this is the crux, the fractured lists mean that recruiting people to test and write the new stuff is hard because the effort is being spread ever thinner.

Im not sure what the best solution is - perhaps the HH legion lists which have a core marine army with different legion-specific units and rules added over the top may be an option - but imho NetEA needs to keep moving forward to keep the game living.

Could not agree more. With steadily increasing available model ranges (and cheap 3d printing), it is becoming easier to lure new players into the game; They're typically drawn by the opportunity to play large-scale battles in the 40K universe, as it looks like now, not as it looked like in the 80's.

I would further argue that any list can be balanced through the application of proper pricing of the components - pricing that adequately captures the synergies the available units and formations presents. I'm not claiming it is easy, I'm just saying that "hard to balance" should not be a reason for failing to include current-canon 40K units into an E:A list.

This need not be an existing list, since existing lists are meant to represent forces at different theaters in different times (and some of us like to remember Armageddon, or the Heresy), but I see no reason why we couldn't have (eg) both a 3rd phase expansion Tau army, and a Farsight Enclave army list, with different unit and formation sets and different pricing to balance them against each other.

Think there's a risk of blurring together two things here - the viorla problem is, at least as I perceive, not a result of adding new units but of removing the tactical weaknesses. For example, marines have ATSKNF but they don't have large cheap formations. This contributes both to their balance AND their theme. That is completely orthogonal to the debate of whether to add new flyers to a marine list.

We seem to be talking about viorla as if it's already acknowledged that the 3rd phase list is one dimensional, but it's not. You can build some very differently constructed armies, but they share a strong common 'tauness'. That's a good thing, and is as much to do with how they cannot be played as how they can.

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I think you are right, there is some blurring of issues going on, and there are definitely good comments being made all round to try to balance the voir'la list. Its not something i know a huge amount about so I'm not going to get into detail there.

I'm just trying to say there is a tendency to fragment and parcel out every little sub-faction. In an ideal world, great, EA could end up like Flames of War or Bolt Action, with a sub list for every regiment in every theatre - but the human resource isn't there.

Perhaps a different approach, might concentrate efforts and get progress and bat reps more easily?

Of course jimmys "Kitchen sink" list may already be a step in this direction.

It's very difficult without a central authority dictating where resources ought be spent, yes. Being bottom-up is a double-edged sword!

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