Recently saw the results of the poll where the majority of team members voted for the ban of Imperial Armor at the upcoming ETC. This started a new round of debates about balance in IA and the ability to use it. Well, we shall also discuss it.
Everyone knows that Games Workshop officially allowed to use the models and rules of Forge World at all tournaments and events. And this is always given as the first argument by the supporters of IA. But the organizers of a particular tournament still often disagree with it.
In fact, the ban on major tournaments is quite logical. Units are not always balanced and equivalent even inside a GW codex. Therefore, adding additional variables to the balance is not a good idea. And the matter is not even in the IA itself, because even extensions from GW, such as Death from the skies, or Stronghold assault, were not always used in tournaments. The tournament is pretty well-adjusted, mechanism and one of the main tasks of the organizers are to reduce the imbalance to a minimum.
On the other hand, IA can compensate the disadvantages of some armies that are weak at the level of the codex, and bring diversity to the already formed tournament metagame. At the recent LA Open IA was allowed, but even so, all the first places were occupied by classical Eldar with reapers. Obviously, even despite all the claims to its balance, IA could not a break the classic operating schemes. But, perhaps, it made this tournament more interesting for someone.
Why is everything so uneven with these rules? Forge World – are dreamers. They create beautiful models that you really want to build and paint, and that looks very cool on the table. But at the same time, they think little of the balance and create the rules, which, in their opinion, the units should have. Of course, the correlation with other units inside the book, and even more, with the GW codices is out of the question. As a result, we get Greater Daemons, who at a minimum price, are able to stand alone, an army equivalent to them at a cost. Even the designers themselves realized that something went wrong, judging by the prices corrected in Chapter Approved.
In addition to the overpowered units, of course, there are both logical and balanced ones - but almost identical to the units from a codex. In this case, they are a little better or worse, which makes useless someone of this pair. Compare the Decimator and Hellbrute. It would be logical to use such models as an alternative, codex units, but this is not always possible due to the difference in the wargear.
Well, it is necessary to mention the reverse side of the beautiful models - they are all made of resin. And this is fragility, difficulties in assembly, and all the other known shortcomings.
As a result, there’s still no possible answer about the use of IA. The books themselves are too unequal. Yes, if you let it into your games, you get a wonderful variety of interesting units and rules. But along with this, you risk getting a spam of overpowered units, which will turn the game into torture. The only way out, capable to bring order at least somehow - to allow only full-painted models. This, at least, will exclude those who simply got maximumly powerful miniatures in order to win fast. And what do you think? Share your opinion about Imperial Armor in the comments!
