tripchimeras

That's totally fair. Since this is about meeting engagement, don't want to get too off topic, but I think the biggest issue has been the introduction of rules that are impossible to balance properly with points. FEC is the primary offender of this issue. Skaven and DoK are probably stronger tomes, but most of their issues I think can be fixed with simple point changes. FEC on the other hand the rules on certain things are just impossible to balance properly, they are going to be undercosted right up until the combinations are impossible to take, which is pretty dumb imo. They have pretty obvious hard counters (counters which hopefully start seeing consistent action at tourneys which should significantly reduce the number of FEC players going forward, bringing more diversity without any rule changes), but unless you have those hard counters you auto lose, its the worst kind of broken. They more then anyone desperately need a faq that just strait up changes their rules, I don't see GHB fixing them. Everyone else though DoK particularly given that skaven probably came out too recently, hopefully will get more or less fixed.

I think my disagreement is over whether we should be expecting GW to even try to improve it. I accept GW is never going to have the best balance, doesn't mean I don't expect them to fix the most glaring issues and continue to support a matched play system that works at a moderately competitive level. I do not prescribe to the "just accept your lot in life and be happy" or don't play. Edit: the balance is never going to be the best. But maybe I am parsing his wording too much, but I don't want to just accept the game we have in whatever state its in. Understanding what a GW game is, is different then not expecting them to attempt to make that game the best version of itself it can be. The best version of AoS is still never going to be the most balanced game out there, but it will have balance.

Why must it be all or nothing? No GW game has ever been great on balance, but they do offer a lot of other things that in my opinion make up for it. Pretty much the best and most diverse model range, great and detailed lore, diverse and very customizable army lists (something that is usually directly in opposition to balance in general), and most importantly massed battles with huge armies. That last point is something very few game systems offer, and only GW offers it in quite so epic a fashion. I think diversity in list development and balance are a tricky... for lack of a better term balancing act, where for the most part the more list diversity and army diversity you have the worse the balance is going to become. I think a prime example of this is KoW, which (while I am not familiar with how the current state is) has traditionally been an extremely balanced game, however it is not a game with very much flavor or list diversity. What this long winded post is building to is that imo GW doesn't NEED to have an extremely balanced game, What it does need to do is have enough balance that competitive play is still fairly diverse and skill intensive. I think since 2.0 that has mostly been true at 2k, though the recent books have definitely been stretching it. I don't think its balance is completely broken yet, but competitive play is definitely getting dangerously homogenized, which is why so many have huge hopes on this GHB to fix a lot of that. The increasing need for 2k balance fixes is also why I am not really concerned with balance in meeting engagement. GW has enough on its hands keeping balance strong at its "ideal" point level, to be trying to make a completely new tournament level work at the same time.

I might go a step further then that even on max pts per game, but yes I think this would help a lot. I generally dislike house rules, but then again my favourite WHFB edition was basically unplayable competitively without comp, which is little different then house rules, so I'm not really sure why I draw a distinction between them. I think hard exclusion lists are going to be the only way to truly balance 1k, short of rule rewrites. and a hard per unit pt cap is probably the most elegant way to do that. Not sure what the exact pt cap would best be, 400pt sounds reasonable as the models you mentioned are definitely some of the ones that immediately come to mind as still extremely problematic at the lower pt level, but like with everything a cap will have unintended consequences. Like you are essentially removing some of the counters for the fighty sub 400pt behemoth/heroes. So finding the right unit pt cap might take some testing. I am almost inclined to go extreme and say no singular unit can account for over a 25% of the army total in meeting engagement, but there very well may be some elite armies that are completely crippled by such an extreme, things like the under-costed Skaven heroes, which are unfortunate but still can be dealt with at 2k seem like the problems are much amplified at 1k, especially with a pt cap. That being said, and not to be a broken record, but if GW really wants this to be a viable tournament pt level (viable means competitive, not that it shouldn't exist at all) they are going to need additional rules, like this one. And they are in a much better position to do things like test point caps to find the appropriate balance point. But having said that and given that they are having difficulties retaining balance at 2k, I'd honestly just prefer for them to continue to focus the time they can devote to competitive play wholly on that pt level, and keep anything they do in 1k games surface and geared towards fun/semi-casual as it seems they did with this first rules release for meeting engagements. I just wish they would keep the advertising for it realistic...

Again I am specifically refering to "competitive" play. There is 1 competitive "way to play" matched. Within matched the game was balanced and tested at 2k. Just as in 8th edition fantasy it was 2500pts, and 6th edition fantasy it was 2000pts. That is always how GW has made there games. You can do whatever you want, but the balance is built around a specific level. To your point, there could be more rules to come that could make it more or less balanced at 1k, but what I am trying to say, and what you may very well may disagree with, which is fine, is that 1k will not be as balanced without either a wholesale change in approach by the company precipitating either a wholy new edition and/or rebalancing of the entire game, or a level of support requiring different point costing/ different rules for every unit at each point level. Competitively they did not design a game that is kind to scaling, for better or worse. Wholesale unit restrictions (and I admit I am surprised they went as far as they did in restricting units and unit size thus far, so this definitely may be speaking too soon as you suggest) are the only other way to go. And I just don't see GW wholesale banning any unit from use at any of their point levels, which baring individual unit and spell rule changes is really the only other option I see to make 1k and 2k simultaneously "balanced".

Maybe not in this topic, but I have absolutely seen people asking for it to become the standard. I am speaking from a competitive standpoint, 2k is the competitive standard and it is the standard to which point values and battle tomes are balanced. Play whatever you want, and organize whatever events you want. If you prefer 1k as a point level, play it. That is all great. But 1k is not as balanced as 2k and it cannot be without a significant rewrite of rules and either wholly changing the balance point of the game from 2k to 1k, or publishing seperate unit rules and points costs at each level. Doesn't mean you can't play a 1k tournament, but it does mean that I do not think people should be expecting a 1k tourney to be balanced or competitive. If you disagree, that's fine, but I think it is difficult to argue with that 2k is more balanced, and that these new rules do not change that. I certainly think they will make the 1k game vastly more entertaining then it currently is, and events for it more fun and enticing. But for all the balance issues 2k has, they are infinitely worse at 1k, and as a someone who has always loved competitive tabletop gaming I don't think 1k is a level you can successfully accomplish in the same manner you can at 2k. That is the point of my post. These rules are a great way to revitalize 1k as a fun casual play style, but I do not think they will work so well if people start trying to take the format seriously as a competitive mechanism. I am sure you can have a ton of fun at a 1k tourney, but competitive play is just going to be horrifically unbalanced, and I don't see much point in trying to make it less unbalanced when the game is literally built around 2k.

I am going to be honest, I was pretty worried when I saw the announcement that the GHB would be bringing focus to 1k pts as a more competitive pt level. 1k pts definitely was not balanced at all, and generally sucked to play unless you and your opponent were very careful to work together to create 2 lists that balanced and played off eachother well. So I had no issue with them giving a little love to make it easier to pick up and go without too much balance worry, but the mention of competitive made me worried they would spend A. too much time on an impossible task (1k is never going to be as balanced as 2k unless they completely rewrite the game) B. They would try to supplant 2k entirely. Neither appears to be happening. The rules are honestly quite bold for GW, and look a ton of fun, some of them even look like things they should consider scaling up to 2k in the future. They do a much better job of balancing out the worst aspects of 1k games (minus summoning, hopefully they do something about that as well at some point), without it dominating the entire handbook. It looks like a lot of fun, and it will not only be more balanced but give a different feel then 2k games for a nice change of pace. 1k is never going to be a real tourney option, and based on these rules, it doesn't look like GW really even tried for that. But what it can be now is a fun organized event at a smaller store, or in an escalation league. I love 2k games, and the massed feel of them is why I enjoy this hobby. I never wanted them replaced in the first place, and to boot, point levels and unit abilities are balanced around that higher army total. 1k still is going to experience the pain of units that are too powerful for the point level, or who's rules are wonky without the larger armies. There are still going to be endless spells that are fine at 2k but too powerful at 1k, and singular behemoths that have counters at 2k, but pretty much just roll through your army at 1k. But honestly, I am fine with that. These rules look fun, and most of the stuff that is still OP at 1k is pretty obviously now. What these rules do is provide a different experience, and make it far more difficult to accidentally roll your opponent. It should be much easier now to make a balanced, competent list without one person having no fun, then it was before. I think that was the only realistic goal to be had in a game where so much is balanced around a higher point total, and I think they achieved it. If someone wants to be "that guy" in their local shop, they can certainly do that, even easier then they can at 2k. But at least now it should make it harder to do accidentally. My friends and I are slowly getting back into the hobby after finally recovering from the sting of WHFB being disbanded, and I can't tell you the number of times we have accidentally rolled over eachother at 1k or 1.25k without having any idea it was about to happen, simply due to how unbalanced list building is at that point level. This should help a lot with that. I'm still going to struggle with my Deepkin at the lower point total though, but such is life with an elite army. It is very difficult to find balance at low points with them, it feels like I either take unoptomized ******, or I take god units that can't be handled at the low point spread. This is going to help, but Deepkin are def still going to have trouble bringing balanced lists at low point levels (maybe the pt changes coming will turn some of our garbage to middle of the road units, which would go a long way to fixing this problem. Deepkin are pretty much entirely feast or famine with very little in the middle). Anyways, I think as long as the community accepts it for what it is, and doesn't try to make it the tournament replacement some want it to be, it is going to be great. We just need to understand the limitations. At 2k I get miffed at people complaining about power gamers within reason. In general I always advocate reading the room, when not playing with friends before you bring out your list, but the game is meant to be balanced at 2k so in general 2 guys bringing what they believe to be good, shouldn't be an issue. But 1k is different, and power gaming at that point level shouldn't exist to begin with, because I don't believe competitive play to be possible at it, and I think that is pretty much still true, but I don't have any issue with that fact personally. Sorry for crazy long rant as first post on this forum, I just think the 1k changes can't be interpreted as anything other then making a casual experience more fun.