Dead Scribe

It takes a lot of bad play for a person using a top end tournament list to lose to a bottom feeder list. Its possible sure, but not a common thing that I have seen.

I would agree, matched play rules are pretty much the only thing I have ever seen played. Even on the web, 99% of the discussion is on matched play games. To a competitive person, the two things are one and the same. Though I can see how someone could say you can play matched play without playing competitively (with top of the line lists). I suppose that is also true in regards to narrative and open. You could play those competitively as well (the only narrative games I have ever witnessed were in fact tournament style games with a story behind them calling them "narrative play")

Assuming that is correct, then they are intentionally doing a disservice to a lot of people who identify as a high / light elf player or a dark / shadow elf player or a wood / wanderer elf player or a slaves to darkness player or a duardin player or a kharadron overlords player or an iron jaws player or an ogor player or a human free guild player (or anything else I've missed) because no amount of collecting will see those factions viable on the table currently today or most of AOS's history.

I am doubtful that they are incompetent. I think how they are designing the game and building the imbalances is purposeful. It is also appealing to its target audience. I think that if someone does not like the list building emphasis or does not like how the armies change power every year forcing a rebuy of armies, that AOS is probably not for that person because that seems to be its target audience.

I think to a lot of people, playing competitively and playing matched play are the same thing, so you will see the language reflect that.

A lot of the AOS2 books are not that strong. Its not just Gitz that didn't get the oompf. Granted they are still more powerful than factions with no book or factions with only the older book.

I think thats a desired feature over an unintentional bug.

I think this is working as designed to get you to buy a newer army.

Generals Handbook is supposed to have more mercenary units in it. Frankly the tax of no CP turn 1 is easily offset if you can get some of the more powerful combos in other allegiances that you cannot now. It would make the balance issue better by giving everyone access to everything.

Tournament standard is pretty strict. Thats how we play.

I would agree with this. The community is very very barren in terms of detailed reports and and detailed blogs or youtubes discussing an actual game and what goes into an actual game and how to improve. Sports we have film we review. Age of Sigmar, we have "don't forget the objectives, use screens, and good luck".

Everyone is different. If you feel it is worthy of your time to do so, then you have deemed it a valuable expenditure of your time. To a lot of people, its not worthy of their expenditure of time.

Compromise works if you enjoy both formats. For me, and people like me, handicapping myself is not enjoyable. People don't like spending their free time doing things that are not enjoyable. They should not be made to. In those cases its good to recognize you want very different things and won't enjoy deviating, and then finding a group that enjoys those same things. Forcing people to "compromise" and play a game in a way that they find not enjoyable is how you get people to quit the game entirely.

If you are a competitive player, you will have a hard time handicapping yourself because it goes against everything a competitive player believes in (bringing the best list possible and doing your best in the game to win). It could very well be that you and your friend need to part ways in the realms of AOS or find something else to do together where you can both have fun.

This is true. However on the opposite end of the coin the same thing that gets often repeated at our store is "how many would want to play a game where you know you're going to lose before the game starts", and thats a hard argument to counter.

The question is then begged how do some of the things that exist with their current points tag exist?

This also leads to the metas and why a lot of our game goes unplayed as well in terms of things you never see and things you always see. I'd argue that that also does not make for a fun and interesting game.

Other games designed by guys that have been in the industry 30 odd years use something exactly like this. I don't really place those designers as beginners making beginner mistakes.

I am fully behind you on this. A lot of arguments and what not come down often to a word being used in a way the other either disagrees with or has a different definition for. In regards to nerf, I've always used it or had it used to mean to weaken something, but the to make it unusable part was never implied barring the discussion about binary optimization (that being its either optimal so take, or not fully optimal so never take or useless). ie: "that mechanic needs nerfed" is a common statement across our hobby but I don't think anyone who is reasonable is really saying "that mechanic needs to be weakened to the point of unusability" but rather "that mechanic needs weakened so that it is not so apparently over powered".

There's no doubt the latest SCE book was definitely very bad in terms of internal balance. It was on par with some of the latest Flesh Eaters or Skaven stuff (only those are bad externally as well). That may just be how we are using the word then. To me nerfing is not making it unusable / worthless. Nerfing is weakening it in a way, either by raising its points cost up to make it less optimal or by weakening its rules. To me, you can weaken a unit (nerf it) in a way that brings it down on par with everything around it. You can also over nerf it which would be to make it unusable.

Blades of Khorne, Gloomspite, and the new slaanesh I'd say are definitely not obviously competitive, but are a lot of fun otherwise.

I'm not a game dev. I was just stating my preference. If I was a game dev, that is the direction I would choose to go.

I was stating my preference given the choice between buffing everything around me, or nerfing the powerful stuff to bring it all down. I don't think that warranted the nasty response you gave.

My two cents. I buy models that are optimal. I spend money on them, and spend money to get them painted. If you nerf them (or are an event organizer trying to introduce houserules into your event that is equivalent to nerfing my choices), you have essentially invalidated my purchase. I would prefer them bring everything else up to my standard than to invalidate my purchase and the money I spend getting them painted by making them not optimal any longer by nerfing.

Precisely. They are just too cheap right now (I get it, they are one of my primary armies specifically because they are too cheap and highly optimal). Bumping some point costs up they would still be highly effective. I think that the binary thought of "its either highly optimal, or its worthless" is a little too extreme.