Overpowered?

Recently, I had a heated discussion with Rix about his Space Wolves and how they absolutely destroyed my Thousands Sons in our last two games. I called them "overpowered" and Rix called me a whiner. That got me thinking about when is something overpowered and when is it just sour grapes.

Well, that's a good question and one that I've had a hard time quantifying. Well, obviously something is overpowered if it has an unfair advantage but what does that mean in 40k? When does something become unfair and is there any such thing as a fair advantage?

An army with 2 Land Raiders has an advantage against an army with little to no heavy weaponry but finds itself at a disadvantage against armies with lots of tank busting goodness. So, is the advantage fair because it's balanced out by other army compositions or is it situationally unfair depending on the opponent? What if the Land Raider were mis-costed at fraction of it's current points and simply led to a balanced game against heavy tank busting armies? Would it be unfair then, even though it still led to balanced games against certain armies?

Well, all of this leads to a lot of relational comparisons and leads to nothing more than opinion really. Whereas I might think my Thousand Sons are balanced considering that I've suffered both crushing defeats and stunning victories with them, that's not the way it appears to the poor mech space marine army I just tabled on turn 3 (and it wasn't amazing rolling either). It doesn't make a difference if I tabled them with my "balanced" Thousand Sons or my Army of Space Lazer Doom, he got tabled and it didn't feel like much of a fight. So, obviously the determination of something being "overpowered" is really just a perception that differs by person.

So back to the thing that started it all, my discussion with Rix about his Space Wolves and their trashing of my Thousand Sons. The first game we played was a 2 Land Raider list against my all infantry line up. I knew that the game was going to be a loss simply due to the compositions involved (I have a hard time with armor 14) and the fact that I am troops light. I lost by a good margin and accepted the loss for what it was, a learning experience.

The next game was something else entirely, enter Njal Stormcaller ("Nigel"). Ahriman and his cabal were single handedly shut down by Nigel and to add insult to injury Ahriman's impotence was answered by being inta-killed by Nigel's storm power. This game literally made me angry, I felt like not only my army was raped but so was the fluff behind it. After taking multiple showers I still couldn't get the feeling of violation off me or my plastic army men.

So, I cried foul and made what I thought was the shockingly obvious call that Nigel was "overpowered". Rix simply called me a whiner and told me to man up. This led to the heated debate with both of us trying to quantify why we were right and the other was wrong. Rix ended up agreeing to never play Nigel against me again and I grudgingly accepted the fact that he'd still play a rune priest (which has Nigel's abilities, but watered down a little).

So in the end, it didn't matter whether or not that Njal was overpowered (which he is, btw). It simply mattered that I did not enjoy playing against him and got nothing but frustration from my game against him. Rix, as a good opponent, has agreed to my request never to face him again with my Thousand Sons. However, the jury is still out on whether the rest of the wolves are overpowered as well. If I can't win a game against them with any of my armies, I don't think it will be too long before they too are shelved or Rix needs to find some new opponents.