Before we begin, I'm going to be quite blunt in this following post. One of my biggest pet peeves about this hobby is when people call things "overpowered". To me, there's no such thing. The correct word to describe something that's not in line with the rest of the army is called "imbalanced". This is a word alien to most forumers in the gaming word and something that I strongly suggest looking up.
To make things easy, I have google defined it for everyone. For simplificty's sake, let's just take the first definition:
Imbalanced - unbalanced: being or thrown out of equilibrium.
When a certain unit is too powerful, it's imbalanced. In the same manner, if a unit sucks complete ass, it should also be classified as imbalanced. Balance is achieved when everything has a purpose; where everything has a use and is functioning as intended by design. Every unit, ability, map, scenario, mission type or any combination of those aforementioned is factored in (among many other things) and held in relation to other aspects of the same archetype (other factions, races, armies). As you can see, with a possible hundred or more various aspects to any given game, perfect balance is almost never achieved. Some companies do this better than others, but that's specifically proportioned to how many people play the game, and how many people can analyze this on a design level and make it "fair" for the rest of us. Statistically, you need hundreds if not thousands of people playing the game on casual, intermediate and competitive levels to even begin analyzing proper balance. That's just how the cookie crumbles.
Unfortunately for us, Games Workshop is not one of those companies that are particularly strong in the realm of balance design. They rock hard in terms of game design; creating games that captures the essence of the army on the table-top, but in terms of balance, they lack a few things here and there. I mean come on, you look at the SW book in comparison to the latest Nid book and you should have yourself a hearty long laugh. As the great MG said to me once: "There's more people working in the studio than just one guy." I forgot exactly what I was talking about.. but I'm sure it had something to do with Fantasy Daemons by Matt Ward. What he said is completely true. It's not just one author who writes an army book and then sends it off to publishing. During the writing process, everyone chips in ideas and thoughts and the book gets complete by the collective teamwork of the entire design team. It's not like they had 56 designers go into 56 separate rooms for a couple of months and come out saying "I bet my dude can beat your dude". Maybe in MvC2, but definitely not at GW. It still puzzles me what happened with the WHFB Daemons army book, but that's behind us now and I'm looking forward to 8th Ed. So with this in mind, we continue buying their stuff because they tickle the sections of our brain that scream hobby fun.
So back at the topic at hand: Overpowered is a term noobs use when they get their faces kicked in and have no idea why. Most of the time, the guy posting has <50 total posts and speaks in a internet lingo unrecognizable by most of the human species. They also don't sit down and analyze why they lost, nor do they replay the battle in their heads and realize any mistakes or battlefield failures. They immediately go on the forums and post some form of spam cleverly disguised as "X army is overpowered!!!1" and go on screaming things with the caps key broken from nerd rage. Now I'm not saying we should all be master game designers, but a part of me actually enjoys logic and common sense. The ability for man to learn from their mistakes is one of the keynotes of the human species and one of the reasons we're still here and not inside dinosaur fossils. Let's look at some cries about Blood Angels really quick. Now I'm not going to link to anyone's posts or mention any names because I'm nicer than that (lol), but for the most part, Blood Angels are imbalanced because their vehicles are Fast, they have DoA and Mephiston is a god given form in a 25mm miniature.
First thing's first. I can't remember the last time I actually paid for something in the Space Wolves codex. Grey Hunters are 15ppm and come with Counter-attack, Acute Senses, CCW/Pistol and Boltgun and a crapload of utility, special weapons and wolf specific awesomeness (MotW, Wolf Standard). Thunderwolf Cav are amazing for the price, Rune Priests are probably the best HQ in the game for points and WGT have more diversity than a candy store. But on the other hand, Blood Angels are overpowered because they pay for their Fast vehicles, even more for an Vindicator, has Tacticals and Devastators in comparison to the Grey Hunters and Long Fangs, and have a relatively lame HQ selection. Mephiston is good, but definitely not invincible. T6 and 5W and 2+ (maybe FNP with the bubble nearby) does not scream imbalanced in the face of melta and plasma fire. With Plasma Guns you wound Mephiston on 3s and Meltas own him on 2s. One solid IG shooting phase can bring him down as long as they draw LoS. With the way assaulting vehicles work in 5th, or assault in general rather, getting shot after a bloodbath is rather common place. If that wasn't enough, let's just call DoA imbalanced too because a Space Marine Legion who has specialized in jump pack warfare for 10 millenia, had a Primarch with actual freakin' Angel Wings and have the same fighting assault-based military doctrine for all this time is too far-fetched and is not fair for the other armies. If that's the case, we should all melt down our miniatures and build glorified chess pieces instead, because apparently, we live in the Dark Ages.
I could go on and on about the different army books as well, but I should really just leave it up to the player. He should learn simply learn from his mistakes and do better next time. No one starts out being exceptionally good at everything: You play games, obtain battlefield experiences through victories and defeats (more through defeats), readjust your thinking and try again. Don’t make posts complaining about things, don’t make posts that blame the game and not yourself, but do make posts asking for advice and critiques that’ll make you a better player. Before doing any of that, you should always try to figure things out for yourself. Analytical thinking makes you a better general. Period.
With that being said, don't use the word "overpowered". There's no such thing. It's a word developed by lesser players to better describe defeat. It's like calling Roger Federer overpowered because he owns you at Tennis. Suck it up, you got outplayed. To me, calling something overpowered automatically puts you into 2 categories: You're bad because you're new, or you're bad because you're bad.
Comments, questions, concerns, thoughts, editorials or death threats, leave 'em here.
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