Comp-Hammer

So apparently this is going to become a thing, so I might as well throw my hat into the death pit and make up some completely arbitrary and biased "balancing" rules for 40k, so that I can lay claim to any success later on.

The main complaints are that things like 2+ rerollable saves are OP, ignore cover is OP, allies are just silly in a variety of different ways. and that spam is OP and/or dull.

I don't agree with all of these. Not because they are incorrect or whiny noob gripes, but that these problems have been identified for the wrong reasons.
2+ rerollable saves are indeed op, but they rely on getting a couple of different combos and rolls to go your way. Straight up banning these combos and units isn't really the answer, a better idea is to limit how much can be stacked.
Ignore cover is kinda OP, especially for weapons which already have a good AP. A further problem is that the most of armies with ready access to ignore cover also have some way of increasing their own cover saves. If ignore cover gets nerfed, then the other buffs to cover also need nerfing just to keep all the armies on an even footing.
Allies are indeed silly. They are great fun to play with, allowing all sorts of combo's and gameplay options. But they are still silly. We've all had our fun, and it might be tome to put them away for a while.

Spam. Spam spam spam. Spam is not a problem. There I said it.
If we regularly turned up to events with a dozen copies or a terrible unit, then nobody would complain. Facing up against several good units is what people actually want to say when they complain about spam. The solution is to adjust the unit(s), not ban spam. A very popular list style is Highlander (only 1 of any type of unit, no duplicates allowed at all), which I do actually enjoy, but it does mean that the weaker armies now can't bring enough copies of the wargear/units/powers they need to fend off just a single good unit from the top tier armies.

There are two ways to approach comp:
Modify the lists, either through banning units or adjusting the game score based of the list.
Modify the rules, both in general and on a codex by codex or even unit by unit basis.

Nobody likes either of these approaches. You either get penalized or even blocked for bringing a list you want to, even if it's fluffy but spammy, or you feel hard done by because your army got hit with teh nerf bat of doom while your arch nemesis seemingly got away relatively unscathed.


I've compiled some rules based on feedback, speculation, and general unfounded hearsay.
So, with some of that in mind, have some comp.


RULES

General:

• Stealth and Shrouded no longer stack.
• Ignore Cover sets the cover save to 5+, unless it would be worse already.
• Maximum cover save is 3+, unless it comes better than that as standard
• Maximum invulnerable save is 3+, unless it comes better than that as standard (Dark Eldar Shadow Field and the Space Marines Special Armour of Indomitus are examples of this)
• Rerolls: All rerolled dice for to-hits rolls, to-wound rolls, saves of any sort suffer a -1 modifier.
• Note, this is not an exhaustive list, there are all sorts of wierd weapons out there that cause damage on a certain roll that will need to be covered.
• Snap Shots: Snap shots against Flyers and Flying Monstrous Creatures are made at -2 BS, instead of BS1. Maximum BS after further modifiers is 3
• FMCs gain the Jink special Rule, without needing to Dive.
• This is a bit of an awkward balancing act, as flyers are generally cheaper than FMCs. FMCs need some defense against the Skyfire adjustment.
• Grounding damage for FMC is now Str5
• Units which consist of a single model may not be joined at the point in the game by an IC. 
• Yes there are ways around this. The aim is just to make it less easy to pull off. And yes Mr Riptide, I'm looking at you.

Allies:

• Battle Brothers are now treated as Allies of Convenience
• Allies: In addition to fitting inside the allied force org chart, all allies must also fit inside the main force organization chart.
• Lords of War count as 2 Heavy Support choices. Choices over 500 Points count as 3 Heavy Support Choices.

This means there will at any time be a total of 2 HQ chocies, 3 Elites, etc. 

No more 4FA, 4 HS options.

Choices which don't take up a force org slot are not really bound by this, may be they need a more specific rule of their own

ARMY SELECTION

This assumes a 20-0 style scoring system.
All modifiers are applied AFTER calculating the 20-0 score as per the tournament pack

• +1/-1 in your favour if you did not bring allies, of any sort. (Lords of war, inquisition, dataslates, and Fortifications not the main rulebook count as allies)
• +1/-1 in your favour if you are Highlander. (No duplicates, including allies). A Single troops choice may be duplicated. Units which do not take up full force org slots (SW characters, heralds, priests, Royal Courts) still count as a full selection.
• +1/-1 in your favour if you have no special, named, or unique characters
• +1/-1 in your favour if you do not have any D-weapons

• -1/+1 against you if you brought 3 units of the same type, regardless if they come from different force org slots

Example: I smash the crap out of Nooby McNooberson using his favourite childhood army, a beautifully painted force of I-don't-give-a-shit. 18-2 to me at the end of the game.

He is highlander, has no allies, no special characters, no D-weapons, and has 2 tactical squads as his troops. What a terrible list.
I have a special character, some allies, 2 Units of Centurions, but no D-weapons.

Nooby gets +1 for highlander, +1 for no allies, +1 for no special characters, +! for no D-Weapons, and suffers no penalty for bringing 2 Tactical Squads. This is +4 in total, while I suffer -4.
I have a 2 squads of centurions, so no bonus and no penalties.
The final score is 14-6 to me. A very close hard-fought game, well played Nooby... jerk.



The aim of this is to outright block (notice I didn't say ban) the very nasty unpopular combos, and to discourage the other hard-hitting combos going around by taking lowering the power level slightly, and chipping away at the tournament score.

I haven't gone into codex-by-codex, as that should be a last resort. It gets very complicated and subjective trying to balance individual units from one book against others from another army, particularly if one book gets sweeping nerfs while another is in desperate need of buffs. There are also edge cases that don't see the mainstream  because they are very odd lists to play with or against, and are untested, but are still powerful on paper. Keeping the initial changes to the main rules should do for now.

So, does this solve anything? No, not really. But it helps a little bit.
The big problem with 40k is that the power creep has now escalated at such a fast rate to such a high level that everything is too tough, and too killy, with too many rules and too much firepower.
Everything just needs to be toned down, quite a bit. Reducing the number of shots available and the effectiveness of blasts, whilst also reducing the toughness will keep the playing field as it is, but make everything just slightly less extreme.
Lots of people want Screamer Council nerfed, but that leaves Tau free to roam around unopposed. Tau and Eldar need their shooting nerfed, but then Flyers come back to kill everything again. Nerf flyers, and were back to playing 3rd or 4th ed...


Things I immediately don't like about this are:

• Some deathstars still slip through the net, and end up being even more powerful as the opposition doesn't have the tools they need to deal with it (either spamming or bringing their own deathstar)
• Penalizing spammed units still doesn't feel right, but it's a quick fix. Not all spammed unit's are OP, but going into detail and naming specific ones is too granular a step for right now.
• It's very hard to keep all the implications of the rules in perspective when the same 2-3 armies keep coming up as examples of things that need nerfs, a much broader set of test cases is needed to make sure the changes are actually the right choice. I'm pretty sure by changing skyfire actually does more damage than good.
• Most special characters aren't actually that bad, in fact many are just terrible. It's only a select few per codex that are maybe a bit too good, and to be honest I don't think they are game-breaking at all. They add way more in terms of making an interesting list. Also, some armies just can't compete at all without their flagship special character, comp or no comp.
• Finally, there are obviously some items/units/combos that people just want outright banned, on a codex-by-codex basis. This can happen, but it has to happen to every army, not just for the sake of that one guy that you can never beat...

If anyone wants to try out these suggested Comp Rules, do let us know how terrible they are.

Hey kid, over here. You wanna do some math?

Ok folks, time for some math-hammer

I'm going to go over some of the dreaded power-lists that rely on getting combinations of psychic powers or abilities, and work out just how likely it is to get them all to work

First off, and old favourite: Psychic Shriek & Weaken Resolve.

The idea behind this is to use a Imperial Guard Psyker Battle Squad to reduce the leadership of a unit to as low as possible. Then make them take a leadership test on 3D6, suffering wounds equal to how much they fail by, with no armour or cover saves. It's a pretty nasty spell, able to wipe out entire squads of heavy infantry and tough creatures, only good psychic or invulnerable saves can protect you.

To demonstrate how totally OP this is, lets try and kill a small squad of mediocre troops; 5 Chosen Chaos Marines, at Ld10. 

After that, we'll try and cripple the heart of a tyranid army, killing off a Tervigon.

The steps involved are:

1. Cast Weaken Resolve
2. Cast Psychic Shriek
3. Roll to Hit with psychic shriek
4. Kill 5 or more rebel scum

Step 1:

The power is cast on Ld9, so that's a (30/36) chance of passing. Pretty good so far.

But then there's a Deny the Witch roll, but that's only a on a 6 right? Who 6's anyway...

So are running totol is now (30/36)*(5/6)

Step 2:

Psychic Shriek will generally be on Ld10, (33/36). Then there is a another Deny the Witch, so (33/36)*(5/6)

The total so far is (30/36)*(5/6)*(33/36)*(5/6), which is only about 53%. Ugh oh...

Step 3:

Rolling to hit. Most imperial Psykers are Bs4, some of the more exotic are Bs5 or higher. Let's assume it's an imperial psyker, as the are Imperial Guard around after all...

Bs4 has a (2/3) chance to hit.

Step 5:

Finally the chaos insurgents have to actually take some casualties. When reduced to Ld2, taking 5 or more casualties means rolling a 7 or higher on 3d6. Which is (196/216), close to 90%

The total success rate is (30/36)*(5/6)*(33/36)*(5/6)*(2/3)*(196/216); 

32.1% success rate. That seems pretty crap. Over a 6 turn game, this should only work twice.

Maybe a nice gimmick to wipe out a key unit at an opportune time, but not all that reliable.

To make matters worse, if the enemy has a better deny the witch roll (5+ instead of 6+), chances go down to 20.5%

Against Grey Knights, with -1 Ld to cast psychic powers against them and a 5+ deny the witch, chances drop to 16.2%

Going back to the example of killing off a Tyranid Tervigon with 6 wounds:

The additional defenses are Shadows in the Warp (-3 to Ld), and a 5+ deny the witch. Chances to deal 6 wounds in a single shot are a mighty 6%

Totally OP. GW need to fix this right now. Or like, whenever.