So whenever someone in my FLGS runs unbound armies, they get a lot of hate for it. I don't understand what is wrong about unbound...

Someone explain to me the stigma about running Unbound.

If you have a system that allows you to take whatever you want, logic says the best option is to take the best and most powerful options...

The traditional army building setup limited the way those overly powerful options could be fielded, which helped somewhat to give the game at least some semblance of balance.

Unbound removes those restrictions, and so is regarded with distrust by those who don't want to wind up facing a fluffless army of cherry picked power units.

The idea of Unbound isn't inherently bad.... But in a game as unbalanced as 40k, it's best kept for games with friends, IMO.

^ This is the stigma.

But the premise behind this reasoning is flawed.

If you have a system that allows you to take whatever you want, logic says the best option is to take the best and most powerful options...

Players don't take " the best and most powerful options" at all in all but the most competitive games. They try to build fun armies that are around the accepted power lv. Unbound doesn't change that, and you don't need Unbound to go off the scale crazy.

Simply put: If a player isnt playing a super friends army in a battle forged list he isn't going to suddeny play it in an unbound list.


The only thing unbound really does is give you the freedom to really build your dream army for the trade off of not getting all those unbalancing free detachment and formation bonuses. Some players might feel somewhat cheated by this dumping of the army building puzzle game aspect. I personally enjoy an opponent who created his unique dream army very much and don't see the added value of my opponent having to buy units that he doesn't want to just to sort of make it happen. For example If my opponent wanted to build a cool Rogue grader army with some Alien mercenaries. He could show up with an unbound list containing:

- inquisitor, techpriest, Librarian, canoness ( all modeled to be Rogue trader player characters)
- Some Storm troopers
- Inq henchmen.
- 1 kroot carnivore squad.
- 1 Dark eldar court of the archon -> Only taking the alien mercenaries
- 1 Squad of Flash gits
- A few of the imperial flyers he liked the look of it the most

I would love to play against that. Forcing my opponent to play with the following list doesn't make any sense to me at all.

-Inq detachment
1 Inq max 3 hencmen squads.
-Allied detachment.
1 command HQ squad.
1 tech priest
1 troop Vets unit
1 unit of Storm troopers
-Allied detachment SM
1 Librarian
1 unit of scouts
-Allied detachment Sisters of Battle
canoness
Battle sisters
-Allied detachment
1 Tau Commander, 1 kroot carnicore squad.
-Allied detachment
1 Dark eldar court of the argeon, 1 unit dark eldar warriors
-Allied detachment orks
1MEk
1unit of grots
1 unit of Flash gits
-Flywing formation

Or an other example

Ork speed freeks.
Unbound.
Ork warbozz on bike.
5 bike squads
10 Buggies
2 ork fliers

Looks cool right. now lets see how this has to be done in Battle forged
-CAD
Ork warbozz on bike
2 units of gretchin
3 Bikes.
-CAD
Mek
2 units of gretchin
2 Bikes.
1 Buggy
-CAD
Mek
2 units of gretchin
2 Bikes.
1 Buggy
-CAD
Mek
2 units of gretchin
3 Buggies
-CAD
Mek
2 units of gretchin
3 Buggies
-CAD
Mek
2 units of gretchin
3 Buggies
Flywing


This doesn't make the armies feel more like an army, doesn't make it any fluffier isn't what the player wanted to play and on top of that gives me a worse game due to him having all sorts of useless minimized excuse units while reducing the point allocated at the actual fun units, and there might even be the risk of it no longer fitting in max point value of the game.

The issue with unbound lists is that the decent ones could easily be made into bound lists. Its the odd ball or broken lists that cant be made bound and tend to be no fun to play against (like always there are execeptions to that). Playing against a army of just drop pods could be fun/silly once but would get old pretty fast, simply put gimicky lists tend to suck either you stomp or get stomped there is little middle ground. If you are going to spend the next 2 -4 hours you dont want to be wasting it on a boring game.
OP if you have a list in mind that you want to run unbound why dont you share it and we can try and help make it bound with out changing it hopfully.

The main objection to unbound is tradition. There was a strong objection back at the beginning of 7th when the FOC mattered, but all the stupidity with allies/formations/etc has made unbound irrelevant. You don't need to play unbound to spam nothing but the most powerful options, you can just take several copies of the appropriate formation(s) and get free bonuses for doing it. Unbound is pretty much irrelevant except for the occasional weird gimmick idea that finds some obscure rule interaction to exploit (spamming dozens of copies of a buff HQ and stacking buffs, for example) and, honestly, most of those are pretty bad anyway.

Personal view: Unbound is fine in theory and can be fine in practise. The exception to this is when people mix-and-match forces from different armies specifically for bonuses with disregard to any fluff or theme - where a single unit of an enemy faction is fulfilling a role that the main army could fill.

 Wulfmar wrote:
Personal view: Unbound is fine in theory and can be fine in practise. The exception to this is when people mix-and-match forces from different armies specifically for bonuses with disregard to any fluff or theme - where a single unit of an enemy faction is fulfilling a role that the main army could fill.

Cough you realise that you can just replace "unbound" with "40k" in that sentence right.
If a player isn't cheesing out a super friends list he isn't suddenly going to do make one when he goes unbound.

When you can take a CAD of Wraithguard, Wind Riders, Wraithlord, Wraithknight etc, unbound really doesn't seem like that big a deal.

Fair comments I suppose. I innately stick to one army plus allied detachment and go thematically when playing a bound force - which has coloured my perception a bit

A Thats cool and all but what if you want to play thematic a single faction army that doesnt have formations made for it. Such as a speed freak army, and do you really want to limit your opponent from playing his dream army just because you like to play a single faction ?

 oldzoggy wrote:
^ This is the stigma.

But the premise behind this reasoning is flawed.

If you have a system that allows you to take whatever you want, logic says the best option is to take the best and most powerful options...

Players don't take " the best and most powerful options" at all in all but the most competitive games. They try to build fun armies that are around the accepted power lv. Unbound doesn't change that, and you don't need Unbound to go off the scale crazy.

Simply put: If a player isnt playing a super friends army in a battle forged list he isn't going to suddeny play it in a unbound list.


The only thing unbound really does is give you the freedom to really build your dream army for the trade off of not getting all those unbalancing free detachment and formation bonuses. Some players might feel somewhat cheated by this dumping of the army building puzzle game aspect. I personally enjoy an opponent who created his unique dream army very much and don't see the added value of my opponent having to buy units that he doesn't want to just to sort of make it happen. For example If my opponent wanted to build a cool Rogue grader army with some Alien mercenaries. He could show up with an unbound list containing:

- inquisitor, techpriest, Librarian, canoness ( all modeled to be Rogue trader player characters)
- Some Storm troopers
- Inq henchmen.
- 1 kroot carnivore squad.
- 1 Dark eldar court of the archon -> Only taking the alien mercenaries
- 1 Squad of Flash gits
- A few of the imperial flyers he liked the look of it the most

I would love to play against that. Forcing my opponent to play with the following list doesn't make any sense to me at all.

-Inq detachment
1 Inq max 3 hencmen squads.
-Allied detachment.
1 command HQ squad.
1 tech priest
1 troop Vets unit
1 unit of Storm troopers
-Allied detachment SM
1 Librarian
1 unit of scouts
-Allied detachment Sisters of Battle
canoness
Battle sisters
-Allied detachment
1 Tau Commander, 1 kroot carnicore squad.
-Allied detachment
1 Dark eldar court of the argeon, 1 unit dark eldar warriors
-Allied detachment orks
1MEk
1unit of grots
1 unit of Flash gits
-Flywing formation

This doesn't make the army feel more like an army, doesn't make it any fluffier isn't what the player wanted to play and on top of that gives me a worse game due to him having all sorts of useless minimized excuse units while reducing the point allocated at the actual fun units, and there might even be the risk of it no longer fitting in max point value of the game.

Lol that was rather a large edit to what I responded too :/. You did bring up a good list for unbound and I think most people would be fine to play against. OP was asking why people dont like playing against unbound and the big issue is to many people have been burned by gimicky/broken lists and find it more fun to play against bound lists. Also one other thing I think people miss is for some they feel its crossing over into the point of playing toy soldier and its no longer a table top game (not my own opinion but can still see why some one might think that).

Unbound lists more often than not, completely contradict the lore in really ridiculous ways. I big part of 40k for my inner circle is creating battles that are actually occurring in the 40k universe. After all, why is someone playing 40k if they have no interest in the setting? There are dozens of other wargames out there that have a much more balanced/competitive ruleset with arguably just as aesthetically pleasing models if not more so at a fraction of the cost. The only plausible explanation outside of being TFG for an unbound list, is if said player only has (x) amount of points between 2 armies that share his/her interest. Outside of that its pure power gaming TFG behavior.

For me its basically on principle for pick up games. If I don't know you or maybe have played a game or two with you over the course of a few months then I don't know you very well. I don't really want to have to comb over a list every time I hear unbound to figure out what kind of game they are playing. Unbound tends to be one of the four types of lists
1. Pure cheese
2. Odd ball list (all Killa Kanz, only rattlings, 10 units of mek guns, etc)
3. Somebody being lazy and can't be bothered to figure out how to properly list build.
4. New player who has no idea what they are doing so their "army list" is probably unbound by default.

1-3 are not really something I want to play with against a random person in a pick up game. I've encountered the lazy type once and both their attitude and the point value of their army was highly questionable which made the game rather unfun. I do love an oddball game at times but generally with friends who I know as it makes it easier to just be relaxed and enjoy the absurdity of the type of game we are playing.

New players are their own type of thing and I don't mind playing against an unbound list of theirs (usually because they lack the models to make a proper list) but encourage them to learn list building as it is an important aspect of the game.

Let me tell you a story;

I once tried to make an Unbound army for my (severely underpowered) IG. I didn't want to have to take troops with my tanks, so I made a list of just Russ tanks.
I showed the list to my opponent, who began raging about how it is impossible to deal with pure tank armies, and how I needed to have troops in my list.
I had to make my army much less thematic by adding some troopers.
I played with that army, and lost heavily because most of my tanks got taken out before they could do anything.

I pointed this out to my opponent, who simply reiterated his point that I *had* to have troops or else it would not be fair.
Later on, he constructed a tanks-only unbound list and wouldn't stop harassing me about how that was fair.

This is why I don't like people.

zalak wrote:
OP was asking why people dont like playing against unbound and the big issue is to many people have been burned by gimicky/broken lists and find it more fun to play against bound lists. .

Yes we all have faced nightmarish list. But have all of us really been burned by an unfun unbound list?
I have never been burned by a Unbound list, I have been burned by players (who happened to play bound lists). Sure we all have faced that slow kid who just can't seem to get the rules and has an "unbound army" that is just a collection of random models, the tournament player with a social disorder and really enjoys beating the crap out of causal lists of 12 year olds or that one dude who is always trying to sneak in his titan. But that doesn't really matter does it. No sane person would expect a pick up game vs any of those guys to be any fun and playing battle forged or unbound isn't really going to change anything about it.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vankraken wrote:
Unbound tends to be one of the four types of lists
1. Pure cheese
2. Odd ball list (all Killa Kanz, only rattlings, 10 units of mek guns, etc)
3. Somebody being lazy and can't be bothered to figure out how to properly list build.

Same here, would you enjoy any battle forged game against one of these players ?
The cheese player would play cheese any way he doesn't need unbound for that.
While making a oddball list is simpler in an unbound army it doesn't really matter that much for any maniac actually owning this stuff and wanting to play it will most likely also be able to find a way to play it in battle forged.
All killa kanz is playable in battle forged, so is 10 mek guns, or the MSU nightmare of all lone Space wulf servitors + 2 HQ's. Granted all ratlings isn't possible in battle forged but do you really mind playing against that above the other oddball list he would otherwise have constructed.
And the lazy guy will just be too lazy to build a legal list any way. If he is off in points on unbound he will be off on points in battle forged. The only difference is that he will probably also violate some detachment restrictions without telling you so.

Basically as insaniak said, it's the CONCEPT that you can build whatever you want, with no rules. You COULD take three Wraithknights and 3 Imperial Knights. You COULD take 8 heavy support choices.

It's a fear, nothing else. I think the people who would get the most out of Unbound wouldn't do things like that anyways; unbound lets you, for example, play a very specifically themed army, without being "forced" to take filler choices. It's not always cheese, there are still a few concepts that can't easily be made at all with Battleforged, and a few that can but are better suited to Unbound so you don't have to have a "troop tax" to play what you want.

Even for a pick-up game, the issue with unbound is that it has potential to be abused, not that it's inherently bad. Even a couple minute chat while asking for a game could reveal if the person using Unbound has a fun, fluffy army or is a cheesemonger. I find the main issue is that it requires talking beyond "Hey want a game? Sure! How many points?".

The gist here is that Warhammer (all flavors) players in particular seem to want to game with a minimum of fuss, which I can totally understand as I argued for a long time how other games allowed that, but the key concept in 40k is that you should be having a quick chat to at least pretend that you're playing a fun narrative game and not just sitting down and setting up like in say Magic with barely a word spoken to your opponent outside of announcing game actions.

Lol, screw your unbound lists, this is all just an excuse so you can field whatever you want reguardless of fluff or fairness. People like you are the reason 40k is in the state that it is. There are reasons why there are restrictions in this game and if you want to be "that guy" and go field your 10 ork buggies or some other gak than your welcome to go elsewhere. Now, if you will excuse me, I will be taking my battleforged list of 5 wraithknights and going home. Good. Day.

The reason I ask this question is because my next project is a mechanised Imperial Army, made up of tanks.

Something like this:
Astra Militarum Tank Company/Artillery Company
Imperial Knight
Space Marines Tank Company (Predators, Whirlwinds, Vindicators)

This, without fielding any foot soldiers. The only models on foot would be the Techpriests and the Servitors.

zalak wrote:
The issue with unbound lists is that the decent ones could easily be made into bound lists.

Mostly. There are lore concepts (Daemonhunters-book-style integrated Inquisitorial detachments, Space Marine Chapter Serf armies, the Alpha Legion...) that can be frustrating to try and make work in small games without Unbound or homemade rules.

 Peregrine wrote:
The main objection to unbound is tradition. There was a strong objection back at the beginning of 7th when the FOC mattered, but all the stupidity with allies/formations/etc has made unbound irrelevant. You don't need to play unbound to spam nothing but the most powerful options, you can just take several copies of the appropriate formation(s) and get free bonuses for doing it. Unbound is pretty much irrelevant except for the occasional weird gimmick idea that finds some obscure rule interaction to exploit (spamming dozens of copies of a buff HQ and stacking buffs, for example) and, honestly, most of those are pretty bad anyway.

Exalted


And sadly true that formations are worse than unbound in many ways, if you're playing unbound you actually have to pay points for stuff.




Unbound shouldn't exist, in so much that, the rulebook tends to state early on paraphrasing: "break whatever rules you want" with the inference of being on the same page as one's opponent. Unbound shouldn't need to be written in the rules, apoc existed for a reason, it didn't need to suffocate 40k and really that's a microcosm of 7th ed's problem. One size fits all arms race to the bottom. 5th ed pre game talk seems like a chat with a neighbour in passing compared to 7th ed, which even amongst friends can at times resemble emergency talks at the united nations. Unbound has always been a thing since apoc, and formations like unbound should have remained in apoc, where they belong. If two like minded opponents want to get freaky with army comp, more power to them. My preference will remain playing with an foc, it's barely a factor in terms of balance anyway but it brings some semblance of sanity. Can't blame the foc for bad codex balance and terrible army construction rules.

It's funny because 90% of cheese lists aren't even unbound, because why would you take it unbound when you can take it in any of all those formations everyone has?

 d00mspire wrote:
The reason I ask this question is because my next project is a mechanised Imperial Army, made up of tanks.

Something like this:
Astra Militarum Tank Company/Artillery Company
Imperial Knight
Space Marines Tank Company (Predators, Whirlwinds, Vindicators)

This, without fielding any foot soldiers. The only models on foot would be the Techpriests and the Servitors.

I don't have the Guard tank company rules but there's a formation in the Space Marine book composed of Techmarines and tanks, and a meta-detachment in Angels of Death that uses it as a core formation (the formation gives Techmarines +1 to repair vehicles in it, the meta-detachment ignores Crew Shaken/Crew Stunned and lets you make a tank your Warlord with a unique Warlord Trait that lets another tank in the formation shoot twice)

 Peregrine wrote:
The main objection to unbound is tradition. There was a strong objection back at the beginning of 7th when the FOC mattered, but all the stupidity with allies/formations/etc has made unbound irrelevant. You don't need to play unbound to spam nothing but the most powerful options, you can just take several copies of the appropriate formation(s) and get free bonuses for doing it. Unbound is pretty much irrelevant except for the occasional weird gimmick idea that finds some obscure rule interaction to exploit (spamming dozens of copies of a buff HQ and stacking buffs, for example) and, honestly, most of those are pretty bad anyway.

What Peregrine said.

Unbound is a shaky concept for a tactical wargame, one that really should be there to portray specific forces for specific battles that may be out of the norm but very rate, but it's an option that's always been an there with willing opponents. It wasn't something that really needed to be codified in the rules. The bigger issue now is that for all the potential issues with Unbound, the game has taken the power levels of formations and detachments to such a point that they've got far more power than Unbound can possibly muster, and allow a very similar level of freedom in what one can bring. There's no reason to dislike it any more than anything else anymore, but that's just because everything else has reached and exceeded the abuse level possible with Unbound.

Pretty much already said, the stigma with Unbound is the potential for stupidity and abuse it allows, even more than what can currently be done by going battle forged.

But, not everybody is the kind of person who would go crazy with Unbound. For some, it is a chance to run themed armies without paying some of the usual taxes. For instance, there really isn't much of a difference between my all Genestealer horde with Deathleaper as my HQ tax, and without him as unbound, but with Unbound I can stick a little closer to theme.

Found the Guard version, it's in Damocles Mont'ka. You don't really get the meta-detachment benefits but you get a bound detachment consisting entirely of Enginseers and Venerable BS4 Russes. Enjoy.

Where I am it's a mix of the fact that it's bad game design, in theory it allows you to make stupidly strong lists without limit and in my area it only really gets used by TFG's.

We dont even play unbound in apoc games. Before this, my unit selection was among others: Ork Stompa, some Dreadknights and Imperial Knights, Baneblade, and some Ork and SM flyers. Can be pretty hard to deal with for a conventional army.

If the unbound list is limited to 1-2 armies, and has followed some kind of fluff for it, then I am down.

But really, with the amount of force options anymore is unbound really needed?

Most people that I chat with do not realize all the stuff available. Really the only armies that maybe need unbound are:
Inquisition, Sisters, Legion of the damned......I cannot think of alot of armies that lack formations along with varied FoC options.

Even the Harlequins, who lack an HQ, have multiple formations and FoC options to pick from now.

Again, I think Unbound can work if you have a fluffy idea that's not just blatantly abusing things. Similar to how AoS should-be default of "Open Play" works, it can be abused but all it requires is a little talk beforehand so your opponent knows that A) You're using Unbound and B) The general composition of your army so they can see it's not just min-maxing. I would imagine most opponent's wont have a problem with that if it's clear you want Unbound to do a fluffy/thematic army and not just cheese things out.

For example, Unbound would let me do an (IMHO) fluffy and thematic Iron Warriors siege army, a few daemon engines, a few helbrutes, some tanks, etc. which is fluffy and not overpowering. That's a far cry from taking Wraithguard backed up with Crisis Suits and an Imperial Knight and a Bloodthirster or three. Sometimes there are formations that let you do things that otherwise would need Unbound (e.g. all Terminator, all Wraith, all Jetbike) but sometimes it doesn't work.

 sfshilo wrote:
But really, with the amount of force options anymore is unbound really needed?

I challenge you to make one of the following armies while remaining Battle forged
-Speedcult army without spamming up on grots, boyz or using oop Forge world rules.
-A decent mek / scrap themed ork army that uses looted wagons as transports.
-Mono Inquisitor army with just 1 HQ instead of spamming inquisitors all over the place
-Kroot army.

Yes, but do you /need/ those?

Can someone really make an Unbound lIstanbul that's stronger than any bound list?

Reason Unbound lists are not fun.

Warhound titan 720
-Double barrel Laser Destroyer
-Double Barrel Laser Destroyer

Warhound Titan: 720
-Vulken Mega bolter
-Blasma Blast Canon

1440 pts list, and it total a legal unbound list.

sit in a corner and blast everything. Only thing thats gonna hurt it is if you get into melee with Str8+ weapons, which even then, they can stop and on a 6, anything under a blast template is just dead, on a 3-5, they take a S6 wound so.

Your not gonna have a good time.

I'm not familiar with the culture of Istanbul, so no, I cannot.

It isn't about cheese, its about a new rules that removes a huge portion of the game. Unbound armies remove the restriction on army building, which has existed since the beginning of the game. It's something that every player had in common. With formations and detachments things have changed, but for the majority of the games life span, we all played on the even playing field of a required 1HQ and 2 troops.

Then unbound came and said, "nah, you can do whatever you want now". The stigma is from people who feel like they follow the rules, that feel like unbound breaks the rules. Some people put a lot of work into their lists to make sure that it all stays bound, for some its an enjoying puzzle. Sure, I could easily go unbound and take this superheavy from another army, or I could "follow the rules" and make another detachment to bring it along.

Even though unbound is following the rules, to some people, it still is breaking them. It's the same difference in mentality of those who are adapting the FAQ draft and those who are rejecting it.

 gwarsh41 wrote:
It isn't about cheese, its about a new rules that removes a huge portion of the game. Unbound armies remove the restriction on army building, which has existed since the beginning of the game. It's something that every player had in common. With formations and detachments things have changed, but for the majority of the games life span, we all played on the even playing field of a required 1HQ and 2 troops.

Then unbound came and said, "nah, you can do whatever you want now". The stigma is from people who feel like they follow the rules, that feel like unbound breaks the rules. Some people put a lot of work into their lists to make sure that it all stays bound, for some its an enjoying puzzle. Sure, I could easily go unbound and take this superheavy from another army, or I could "follow the rules" and make another detachment to bring it along.

Even though unbound is following the rules, to some people, it still is breaking them. It's the same difference in mentality of those who are adapting the FAQ draft and those who are rejecting it.

This, again, see two titans in a 1500 point game lol

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Reason Unbound lists are not fun.

Warhound titan 720
-Double barrel Laser Destroyer
-Double Barrel Laser Destroyer

Warhound Titan: 720
-Vulken Mega bolter
-Blasma Blast Canon

1440 pts list, and it total a legal unbound list.

sit in a corner and blast everything. Only thing thats gonna hurt it is if you get into melee with Str8+ weapons, which even then, they can stop and on a 6, anything under a blast template is just dead, on a 3-5, they take a S6 wound so.

Your not gonna have a good time.

That's a player problem though, not an Unbound problem, you could always refuse to play that particular Unbound list. Is it really right to tell the guy with a fluffy Speed Freeks army that requires Unbound you refuse to play him because some TFG somewhere will field two Warhound Titans as Unbound? The problem here is people seem to be all or nothing. Either you allow Unbound and are "forced" to play the d-bag with 2x Titans, or you forbid Unbound and have some fluffy armies not able to be fielded, even though they aren't d-bag 2x Titan lists.

Why is it a binary thing? Why not allow Unbound and then if your opponent has a fluffy army, you play it, and if they have 2x Titans or some crap in a 1500 point game, you say no thanks I don't want to play against 2x Titans in a 1500 point game.

 d00mspire wrote:
The reason I ask this question is because my next project is a mechanised Imperial Army, made up of tanks.

Something like this:
Astra Militarum Tank Company/Artillery Company
Imperial Knight
Space Marines Tank Company (Predators, Whirlwinds, Vindicators)

This, without fielding any foot soldiers. The only models on foot would be the Techpriests and the Servitors.

You realize that both of those can be made with supplement material, right?

The Cadian unique detachment has the ability to run an all-tank list barring Techpriests(which are mandatory parts of the formations) and Angels of Death for Marines comes with a unique detachment called the "Anvil Strike Force" which is all tanks barring a few options for Techmarines(which also mandate you take a Rhino, unlike the Cadian one which have no transport options for the Techpriests).

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Reason Unbound lists are not fun.

Warhound titan 720
-Double barrel Laser Destroyer
-Double Barrel Laser Destroyer

Warhound Titan: 720
-Vulken Mega bolter
-Blasma Blast Canon

1440 pts list, and it total a legal unbound list.

sit in a corner and blast everything. Only thing thats gonna hurt it is if you get into melee with Str8+ weapons, which even then, they can stop and on a 6, anything under a blast template is just dead, on a 3-5, they take a S6 wound so.

Your not gonna have a good time.

And then you won't capture objectives and then Wraithknights start hitting you with D Cannons if they go first. If you can deal with Imperial Knights at 1500, you can deal with two Warhounds.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Reason Unbound lists are not fun.

Warhound titan 720
-Double barrel Laser Destroyer
-Double Barrel Laser Destroyer

Warhound Titan: 720
-Vulken Mega bolter
-Blasma Blast Canon

1440 pts list, and it total a legal unbound list.

sit in a corner and blast everything. Only thing thats gonna hurt it is if you get into melee with Str8+ weapons, which even then, they can stop and on a 6, anything under a blast template is just dead, on a 3-5, they take a S6 wound so.

Your not gonna have a good time.

Craftworld Warhost Detachment

Windrider Host:
115 Farseer jetbike
50 Warlock Conclave 1 model jetbike
81 3 scatterbikes
81 3 scatterbikes
81 3 scatterbikes
40 Vyper no upgrades

295 Wraithknight
295 Wraithknight
295 Wraithknight

1,335pts. Bound is better how, exactly?

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Reason Unbound lists are not fun.

Warhound titan 720
-Double barrel Laser Destroyer
-Double Barrel Laser Destroyer

Warhound Titan: 720
-Vulken Mega bolter
-Blasma Blast Canon

1440 pts list, and it total a legal unbound list.

I like your example lets go deeper into that.

++ Space Wolves: Codex (2014) (SW Company of the Great Wolf Detachment) ++
790 Points
+ HQ +
Wolf Guard Battle Leader
··Power Armour [Frag & Krak Grenades]
+ Elites +
Servitors
··Servitor [Carapace Armour, Servo-arm]
Servitors
··Servitor [Carapace Armour, Servo-arm]
+ Lords of War +
Warhound Titan [2x Double-barrelled Turbo-laser Destructor, 2x Void Shields]

The current tax for a generic Imperial Lord of war is only 70 points
If no one brought my battle forged list to a local game near you why would you expect them to do so in an Unbound list ?

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Reason Unbound lists are not fun.

Warhound titan 720
-Double barrel Laser Destroyer
-Double Barrel Laser Destroyer

Warhound Titan: 720
-Vulken Mega bolter
-Blasma Blast Canon

1440 pts list, and it total a legal unbound list.

sit in a corner and blast everything. Only thing thats gonna hurt it is if you get into melee with Str8+ weapons, which even then, they can stop and on a 6, anything under a blast template is just dead, on a 3-5, they take a S6 wound so.

Your not gonna have a good time.

That's a player problem though, not an Unbound problem, you could always refuse to play that particular Unbound list. Is it really right to tell the guy with a fluffy Speed Freeks army that requires Unbound you refuse to play him because some TFG somewhere will field two Warhound Titans as Unbound? The problem here is people seem to be all or nothing. Either you allow Unbound and are "forced" to play the d-bag with 2x Titans, or you forbid Unbound and have some fluffy armies not able to be fielded, even though they aren't d-bag 2x Titan lists.

Why is it a binary thing? Why not allow Unbound and then if your opponent has a fluffy army, you play it, and if they have 2x Titans or some crap in a 1500 point game, you say no thanks I don't want to play against 2x Titans in a 1500 point game.

No, its a problem with Unbound (not that Battleforged is really any better at this point between allies and formation freebies) but with Unbound, you cant say "bring anything" and then call people dbags when they do. People will do what the rules allow, if things arent intended to be done the rules should exclude that.

Besides, a pair of Warhounds can in theory be just as fluffy as anything else. Warhounds typically operate in pairs as scouting elements for Tital Legions, surely a scouing Warhound maniple encountering a Speed Freaks ork raiding force wouldnt be unfluffy would it? One sided and brutal, but not unfluffy.

This is why games typically have coherent army construction rules that dont allow things like this, which are inherently and fundamentally issues with Unbound.

 gwarsh41 wrote:
The stigma is from people who feel like they follow the rules, that feel like unbound breaks the rules.

Even though unbound is following the rules, to some people, it still is breaking them.

I wouldn't say so much that it's breaking the rules so much as simply tossing them out the window and playing in a sanbox jumble. Coherent and organized force construction is a crucial elements in war games both for theme and practical reasons, and real battlefield forces reflect this as well, its a resource management challenge. When this is removed, it feels like a crucial component of the wargaming experience goes out the window.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 d00mspire wrote:
The reason I ask this question is because my next project is a mechanised Imperial Army, made up of tanks.

Something like this:
Astra Militarum Tank Company/Artillery Company
Imperial Knight
Space Marines Tank Company (Predators, Whirlwinds, Vindicators)

This, without fielding any foot soldiers. The only models on foot would be the Techpriests and the Servitors.

You realize that both of those can be made with supplement material, right?

The Cadian unique detachment has the ability to run an all-tank list barring Techpriests(which are mandatory parts of the formations) and Angels of Death for Marines comes with a unique detachment called the "Anvil Strike Force" which is all tanks barring a few options for Techmarines(which also mandate you take a Rhino, unlike the Cadian one which have no transport options for the Techpriests).

Honestly if you want to use both at normal scale you're probably going to be skipping the meta-detachments and just taking Armoured Company (Tank Commander, 3 Russ squadrons, 1-3 Enginseers) and Armoured Task Force (Techmarine, 3-5 Predator/Vindicator/Whirlwind, 0-3 Thunderfire cannons, 0-1 Chronus) formations separately.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
No, its a problem with Unbound (not that Battleforged is really any better at this point between allies and formation freebies) but with Unbound, you cant say "bring anything" and then call people dbags when they do. People will do what the rules allow, if things arent intended to be done the rules should exclude that.

Besides, a pair of Warhounds can in theory be just as fluffy as anything else. Warhounds typically operate in pairs as scouting elements for Tital Legions, surely a scouing Warhound maniple encountering a Speed Freaks ork raiding force wouldnt be unfluffy would it? One sided and brutal, but not unfluffy.

This is why games typically have coherent army construction rules that dont allow things like this, which are inherently and fundamentally issues with Unbound.

So an army consisting of six scatterbikes and a Farseer (277pts) per Titan is somehow better or more sensible than one that just takes Titans?

 Vaktathi wrote:
but with Unbound, you cant say "bring anything" and then call people dbags when they do

This misunderstanding might be the actual reason why there is still a stigma. The social rule "bring a fun list" doesn't change into "bring anyting" when your army construction rules change into it. The "bring a fun list" social rule is and was never connected to the method of constructing an army. It doesn't matter if he is bringing a Bound tournament winning net list to a casual gaming night or a unbound variation of the same list. If it breaks the unwritten rules you can say something about that.

 Selym wrote:
Yes, but do you /need/ those?

Do I need the Codex Matt Ward decided needed to be nerfed to hell, chopped up, and scattered through four army books?

I'd like to think so.

What Vaktathi said, You cant say, oh run an unbound army, and then refuse to play it. Thats like saying play what ever you want so long as i think its fair, which is subjective.

Unbound let me do stupid stuff like this, so you cant say unbound is fine, then refuse to play my 2 titan army against your 1500 bound army.

Im not going to tactical objectives, im going for table at that point., each turn i am either going to be destroying a squad or blowing up a vehicle/building to waste you.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
What Vaktathi said, You cant say, oh run an unbound army, and then refuse to play it. Thats like saying play what ever you want so long as i think its fair, which is subjective.

Again the rule is and was always " Thats like saying play what ever you want so long as i think its fair ". This is exactly the argument you use when you choose not to play against a battle forged army.
If somebody showed up with the winning supper fiends Tournament list of last month to your casual gaming night you would say precisely that. Noting has changed from switching to Unbound.

 oldzoggy wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
but with Unbound, you cant say "bring anything" and then call people dbags when they do

This misunderstanding might be the actual reason why there is still a stigma. The social rule "bring a fun list" doesn't change to "bring anyting" when you allowed unbound it was still "bring a fun list". The only thing that changed was how his army would be allowed to be constructed. It doesn't matter if he is bringing a Bound tournament winning net list to a casual gaming night or a unbound variation of the same list. If it breaks the unwritten rules you can say something about that.

What constitutes "fun" varies greatly. Someone may think the two titan list is fun and fluffy.

Rules on army construction exist to help funnel that into a more managable range, in addition to limiting scale creep as well as to give some semblance of organization to the forces being fielded.

 AnomanderRake wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
No, its a problem with Unbound (not that Battleforged is really any better at this point between allies and formation freebies) but with Unbound, you cant say "bring anything" and then call people dbags when they do. People will do what the rules allow, if things arent intended to be done the rules should exclude that.

Besides, a pair of Warhounds can in theory be just as fluffy as anything else. Warhounds typically operate in pairs as scouting elements for Tital Legions, surely a scouing Warhound maniple encountering a Speed Freaks ork raiding force wouldnt be unfluffy would it? One sided and brutal, but not unfluffy.

This is why games typically have coherent army construction rules that dont allow things like this, which are inherently and fundamentally issues with Unbound.

So an army consisting of six scatterbikes and a Farseer (277pts) per Titan is somehow better or more sensible than one that just takes Titans?

I did point out that Battleforged isnt really any better at this point in practice. However that is largely a problem of execution, whereas Unbounds issues arise from its fundamental nature.

 oldzoggy wrote:

 sfshilo wrote:
But really, with the amount of force options anymore is unbound really needed?

I challenge you to make one of the following armies while remaining Battle forged
-Speedcult army without spamming up on grots, boyz or using oop Forge world rules.
-A decent mek / scrap themed ork army that uses looted wagons as transports.
-Mono Inquisitor army with just 1 HQ instead of spamming inquisitors all over the place
-Kroot army.

Inquisition was one of the armies I mentioned. I've made pretty decent lists however using codex assassin detachments despite this.

Speedfreaks also use vehicles, not just bikes, this sounds like the Dark Angle Deathwing player whine.... Blitz Brigade (which you should use anyway right?) with a CAD can be pretty effective. (CAD gets you any bikes or deffkopters you want, the boyz ride in the blitz brigade.

Kroot Army-This one is easy, Kroot are Troops last I checked....make a kroot army? There are also TWO formations with kroot in them. The Allied advance Cadre is really the "Kroot" formation however, and the bonuses are pretty nice.

IMO, when GW made unbound an official option it was the official death of any form of interest in game balance, or game play by GW plc.
Now they have gone fully after the 'collectors and children' who do not play the games or do not care about the rules.

So you may see why players who care bout game play and game balance treat unbound with the contempt it deserves ,(in their opinion. )

 sfshilo wrote:
[
Inquisition was one of the armies I mentioned. I've made pretty decent lists however using codex assassin detachments despite this.

Thats an assassim army not a mono inq army.

Speedfreaks also use vehicles, not just bikes, this sounds like the Dark Angle Deathwing player whine.... Blitz Brigade (which you should use anyway right?) with a CAD can be pretty effective. (CAD gets you any bikes or deffkopters you want, the boyz ride in the blitz brigade.

Have fun pooring buggies, bikes and deffkopta's into cads you soon notice that you only have 3 fast attack slots and that all things you really want to field in a speed cult are you guessed it fast attack.
There are no formations for bikes, buggies or deffkopta's

Kroot Army-This one is easy, Kroot are Troops last I checked....make a kroot army?

yeah some of the kroot are troops right. But what about HQ's sure you can make a CAD army and just leave it home but that would be a unbound army woudn't it ?

There are also TWO formations with kroot in them. The Allied advance Cadre is really the "Kroot" formation however, and the bonuses are pretty nice.

There is one really the Allied Advance Cadre. The other one is appoc only or has stinky fishes in them but even with this formation you are forced also to take vespids and it only has troop kroot. It doesn't have any other of the kroot options.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Reason Unbound lists are not fun.

Warhound titan 720
-Double barrel Laser Destroyer
-Double Barrel Laser Destroyer

Warhound Titan: 720
-Vulken Mega bolter
-Blasma Blast Canon

1440 pts list, and it total a legal unbound list.

sit in a corner and blast everything. Only thing thats gonna hurt it is if you get into melee with Str8+ weapons, which even then, they can stop and on a 6, anything under a blast template is just dead, on a 3-5, they take a S6 wound so.

Your not gonna have a good time.

Craftworld Warhost Detachment

Windrider Host:
115 Farseer jetbike
50 Warlock Conclave 1 model jetbike
81 3 scatterbikes
81 3 scatterbikes
81 3 scatterbikes
40 Vyper no upgrades

295 Wraithknight
295 Wraithknight
295 Wraithknight

1,335pts. Bound is better how, exactly?

Bam.
That Bound list is easily better.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
What Vaktathi said, You cant say, oh run an unbound army, and then refuse to play it. Thats like saying play what ever you want so long as i think its fair, which is subjective.

Unbound let me do stupid stuff like this, so you cant say unbound is fine, then refuse to play my 2 titan army against your 1500 bound army.

Im not going to tactical objectives, im going for table at that point., each turn i am either going to be destroying a squad or blowing up a vehicle/building to waste you.

Did you see oldzoggy's post? It costs an extra 70 points to be battleforged and bring a titan. Unbound is fine. It's 40k as a whole that's the problem, (being able to take gak like warhounds in a 1000 point game) not people being able to take what they want without being boxed into a corner.

This Warhound example is not helpful.

Titans and Unbound are two very different things: Force Organization and Unit Restrictions. A casual tournament format can allow Unbound and still disallow all Lords of War, for example. And I think any Imperial Combined Arms Detachment can take a Warhound without being Unbound.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Reason Unbound lists are not fun.

Warhound titan 720
-Double barrel Laser Destroyer
-Double Barrel Laser Destroyer

Warhound Titan: 720
-Vulken Mega bolter
-Blasma Blast Canon

1440 pts list, and it total a legal unbound list.

sit in a corner and blast everything. Only thing thats gonna hurt it is if you get into melee with Str8+ weapons, which even then, they can stop and on a 6, anything under a blast template is just dead, on a 3-5, they take a S6 wound so.

Your not gonna have a good time.

Craftworld Warhost Detachment

Windrider Host:
115 Farseer jetbike
50 Warlock Conclave 1 model jetbike
81 3 scatterbikes
81 3 scatterbikes
81 3 scatterbikes
40 Vyper no upgrades

295 Wraithknight
295 Wraithknight
295 Wraithknight

1,335pts. Bound is better how, exactly?

Bam.
That Bound list is easily better.

And I can make an even better unbound version by removing the warlock and vyper for more scatbikes.

When 7th Edition came out, I had the same reaction as everyone else. "Wow you could take an army of all Riptides. Can't have that."

But now look at the current state of the game. There's a formation of 3 Riptides AND they get formation bonuses AND all tournaments allow it BUT it's still not winning tournaments! So the question above is instructive: It's hard to make an Unbound list that's much better than a Battle-Forged list because units outside of a Formation in an Unbound army do not gain command benefits.

Of course, we'd still need something to prevent all-Wraithknight lists, which is why restrictions on Gargantuans and/or Lords of War are still important whether or not Unbound is allowed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:

And I can make an even better unbound version by removing the warlock and vyper for more scatbikes.

Would those Scatbikes be Objective Secured? If not, it's not better.

Why does that matter? You can't hold objectives when you're dead.

would depend if you are going for table or not

Let's have a more useful exercise: Create the best Unbound army that otherwise adheres to ITC or another big tournament army construction format. That means only one Super-heavy or Gargantuan Monstrous Creature, nothing larger than an Imperial Knight, and only some big Forgeworld units allowed.

(Also no Come the Apocalypse allies, no more than one duplicate Formation, only one Fortification, etc. here https://www.frontlinegaming.org/community/frontline-gamings-independent-tournament-circuit/itc-2015-season-40k-tournament-format/ )

Is this best Unbound army really better than Battle-Forged armies that win big tournaments?

My point is that these other restrictions are much more important than excluding Unbound.

Example: Take a Crisis Suit with 2x weapons. Repeat as many times as needed until you have your desired army. Use an Ethereal or Commander to be your Warlord if the rules require an HQ warlord. Its an MSU nightmare that can handle any threat via shooting and deathstars hate this kind of army as big units can't easily take out multiple units in a time efficient manner.

After looking at AoS I have some newfound respect for the concept of Unbound. I won't deny it can easily be abused, but it's there as a viable option for casual/narrative style play just like in AoS. I maintain that having some level of talk is all that is needed to fix the issues with Unbound and, perhaps, the entire game.

 oldzoggy wrote:

Stuff

Everyone of these complaints is based on what I call "Special Snowflake" whine.

Deathwing players especially suffer from this. Just because YOU do not want to adapt and require a super special unique snowflake codex to make your idea work perfectly in your brain, does not mean you are EVER going to get one from GW. Additionally, when pressed about "your" special snowflake army list the response is usually the same, "well i don't want to use X unit"; or "X army gets it why can't I?"

Usually this is followed by a discussion of how Space Marines get unique codex stuff, yadda yadda yadda....

The point is, I read a TON of 40k Fluff, some might call it an unhealthy amount. Those things (called books) black library publishes, GW then releases in codex form to (usually) sell a product and advance some narrative that will generate sales. An example, the BEAST series that has been on going, no one had any clue months ago that was going to turn into a Deathwatch origin stories novel, they used it to drum up an idea/support so people will go buy deathwatch TODAY.

So to your specific armies:
Inquisition: you would like an army codex, that ALREADY has many many many options, to have MORE options. In addition, you'd like a faction, that is KNOWN for it's use of other factions by brute force, black mail, and the like, to have the ability to field an ENTIRE ARMY? I'm sorry but that is not going to happen, ally in what you need, that is what the inquistion does. That market is hugely saturated with Imperial stuff, I doubt they create an entire army for them, especially since they have quite a bit already. (They COULD use some formations however.) Best case the codices get recombined, but that's up to GW and the sales it could generate.

Kroot: There is little to no fluff regarding Kroot, they are a subservient alien race to the Tau. Despite this, Tau players have the ability to field nearly 100% kroot army. IF you read the fluff, you would realize the rarity of an "all kroot" army in the universe of 40k, nearly every instance of Kroot I can think of occurs as Kroot serving some TAU HQ unit/leader. So again, if you don't like it fine but don't expect GW to make an entire Kroot army.

Speedfreaks: Ok this one, so this is EXACTLY the same whine as Deathwing. A bunch of players made bike lists in 4th and 5th edition that in no way match the fluff. (Ork speed freaks ALWAYS have vehicles in their armies, it's what they do, read some fluff man....) Here comes the new book, which is not the greatest admittedly, but GW has zero reason to make an entire codex of bikes when A. That isn't a thing in the fluff. and B. Per the fluff you CAN field speed freaks with the Codex provided.

So I will reiterate, unbound is unpopular because as far as editions go, 7th ed is VERY easy to field a themed list with a bound army. (Super easy, e

Wait so wanting a thematic army is "special snowflake"? No. Unbound helps that, just it has the stigma of being the bread and butter of the WAAC powergaming cheesemongering TFG (as though Battleforged is better). Same as how AoS can work fine if you talk, but people don't want that so it's now Matched Play or GTFO.

Lets be fair, having to negotiate every game is both a hassle and has the potential for social awkwardness when people have different visions of how they want to play. Model collections also play into that, as people can only run with what they brought.

Being able to show up with an army built to a predetermined and widely accepted standard, thats capable of engaging any other force built to the same standard, solves a lot of issues and avoids having to renegotiate the game with every new opponent.

There is nothing wrong with the Unbound army rules or playing a thematic Unbound army.

The problem is and always has been the players. Put simply... We don't trust one another.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Being able to show up with an army built to a predetermined and widely accepted standard, thats capable of engaging any other force built to the same standard, solves a lot of issues and avoids having to renegotiate the game with every new opponent.

Spoken like a true blue tournament player.

Let me toss some truth in your general direction. Warhammer 40,000 was never played like how you suggest until the advent of tournaments.

Army lists are meant to be created on the fly taking into account the faction you'll be battling. The designers / rules writes mean it to be this way - it's just simply not feasible for (gasp) tournament play.

There are several types of armies that the internet has decreed "overpowered" whatever that means.

All of those armies are fielded as Battle Forged, some of which MUST be Battle Forged (eg, Gladius doesn't exist in Unbound).

Unbound simply cannot allow for things more powerful than people already accept in Battle Forged.

There is no reason to stigmatize it.

I think you guys miss are still missing the large issue with unbound. Unbound is not exactly more OP then bound/formations (in fact its normally weaker) its the gimmicky lists that are frustrating for the other player to play against. Hell you could win the game and still not have fun. I personally have played a few unbound games and found them fun but that was due to me and my friend hashing out what style of armies we wanted to use. Its playing with new people that this can be a bit of a issue and really it adds nothing to the game but headaches. For most players to play unbound we require a bit of trust with the other player and at that rate you could setup a "unbound" game with out the rules to do so. I have to ask did no one play a unbound game in 6th ed with your friends just because it was not in the rules?? Also it can be a pain remembering the rules for just one/two armies by allowing all of them in a single game is just frustrating and slows down the game (yeah some people could pull it off but still need to think about your opponent in this situation).

On that tangent, I was under the impression that points as a whole exist to have something vaguely resembling a balance in army composition, not necessarily power level or even numbers. It's just a rough guide to say approximately this size game, so it's not completely up in the air what you will face.

I think part of the big issue is that 40k tends to espouse the "narrative" style of play, but does nothing to actually enable and empower that gameplay (in fact it actively works against it by such a gross power imbalance). Compare to say historical gaming where you are refighting a battle where the defenders were outnumbered, does the person playing that army complain that they are outgunned and outnumbered? Not likely because they come up with something for the narrative, to win the defender just has to hold out for X turns, things like that. That seems to be the overall style 40k (and AoS) encourage; coming up with a storyline/theme for the battle beyond "Bob is at the game shop and wants a 1500 point game"

I just wish they did more things to promote that style. Some set of guidelines or similar that were easy for groups to pick up on and expand.

Back on topic of Unbound, again the problem is that you are right. players don't trust each other, because of points and the idea that the game is just a straight throw-down with no context. It's just an exhibition that is meaningless.

I see reasons for using Unbound, and for not using Unbound. There are decent reasons on either side. It seems that most of the players are against it, but a few of you think that because it is in the rules, you can do it. Of course, there are other reasons.

This is interesting if I'm honest. I never thought so many people would be against it.

 d00mspire wrote:
I see reasons for using Unbound, and for not using Unbound. There are decent reasons on either side. It seems that most of the players are against it, but a few of you think that because it is in the rules, you can do it. Of course, there are other reasons.

This is interesting if I'm honest. I never thought so many people would be against it.

I think too many people feel points are what keeps things fair, when they don't (see: AoS and how many people trashed it until points were added, then hooray balance!). I've seen people say flat out they refuse to play without points, as though not having points is going to mean everyone fields nothing but the best units (not like that doesn't happen WITH points too). I honestly do not get the mentality. I could see it in a game where points actually are used to try and balance (Warmachine for example, likely Infinity or Malifaux too), but in 40k points don't do much to balance anyways, so there's really no point.

People seem to be arguing for the FoC, not necessarily in favor of points anyways (but the two seem to go hand in hand). The argument against Unbound seems to be that you aren't being forced to take things in HQ/Elite/Troops/Fast/Heavy slots, as though that adds balance where there was none.

 oni wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Being able to show up with an army built to a predetermined and widely accepted standard, thats capable of engaging any other force built to the same standard, solves a lot of issues and avoids having to renegotiate the game with every new opponent.

Spoken like a true blue tournament player.

Or...rather, it could just be the way every other tabletop wargame works....

This sort of play has been the norm everywhere I've ever gamed over multiple editions. Nevermind the fact that I havent played in a tournament in quite a while and have increasingly less interest in that sort of thing.

Let me toss some truth in your general direction. Warhammer 40,000 was never played like how you suggest until the advent of tournaments.

So...you mean the last 2 decades plus? Basically time after the first couple years of Rogue Trader?

Army lists are meant to be created on the fly taking into account the faction you'll be battling.

That seems to be contradictory to the way most people play Warhammer 40,000 or pretty much any other tabletop wargame like Infinity, X-Wing, Dropzone Commander, Heavy Gear, Flames of War, Warmahordes, Battletech, Firestorm Armada, etc.

The designers / rules writes mean it to be this way - it's just simply not feasible for (gasp) tournament play.

or pickup gaming or league play or really how most people generally play tabletop wargames unless they're playing in tight knit regular gaming groups.

WayneTheGame wrote:


I think part of the big issue is that 40k tends to espouse the "narrative" style of play, but does nothing to actually enable and empower that gameplay (in fact it actively works against it by such a gross power imbalance). Compare to say historical gaming where you are refighting a battle where the defenders were outnumbered, does the person playing that army complain that they are outgunned and outnumbered? Not likely because they come up with something for the narrative, to win the defender just has to hold out for X turns, things like that. That seems to be the overall style 40k (and AoS) encourage; coming up with a storyline/theme for the battle beyond "Bob is at the game shop and wants a 1500 point game"

This is a big part of the issue. GW really does nothing for narrative play despite ostensibly pushing that as their focus. Mostly this boils down to just adding randomness and extraneous chart rolling. Historical games and other games that really push narrative battles with set out the forces in whole or in part, they will set up terrain, in whole or in part, they will provide crafted victory conditions that take the imbalances into account.

They're usually something along the lines of "Faction A shows up with elements X, Y and Z of the 9th Division, while Faction B defends from points 1, 2, and 3 with units A and B from the 42nd Regiment, the Bridge over Point C will be the primary objective, if secured by turn 5 then Faction A wins".

40k does really none of this, or when they do, it's done exceedingly poorly, most of the time its a couple random tables or some huge bonus given to one side tacked onto what otherwise is a normal pickup game.

pm713 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Reason Unbound lists are not fun.

Warhound titan 720
-Double barrel Laser Destroyer
-Double Barrel Laser Destroyer

Warhound Titan: 720
-Vulken Mega bolter
-Blasma Blast Canon

1440 pts list, and it total a legal unbound list.

sit in a corner and blast everything. Only thing thats gonna hurt it is if you get into melee with Str8+ weapons, which even then, they can stop and on a 6, anything under a blast template is just dead, on a 3-5, they take a S6 wound so.

Your not gonna have a good time.

Craftworld Warhost Detachment

Windrider Host:
115 Farseer jetbike
50 Warlock Conclave 1 model jetbike
81 3 scatterbikes
81 3 scatterbikes
81 3 scatterbikes
40 Vyper no upgrades

295 Wraithknight
295 Wraithknight
295 Wraithknight

1,335pts. Bound is better how, exactly?

Bam.
That Bound list is easily better.

And I can make an even better unbound version by removing the warlock and vyper for more scatbikes.

Warhost formation tax. At that point you can get up to eight Wraithknights without anything else at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d00mspire wrote:
I see reasons for using Unbound, and for not using Unbound. There are decent reasons on either side. It seems that most of the players are against it, but a few of you think that because it is in the rules, you can do it. Of course, there are other reasons.

This is interesting if I'm honest. I never thought so many people would be against it.

Honestly, any game of 40k has enough negotiation and 'be reasonable' involved that whether you're playing Unbound or not doesn't really matter. People finally stopped whining about Forge World units when they realized GW breaks the game harder every two weeks than Forge World has ever, people will stop whining about Unbound when they realize you can take pretty much anything you feel like anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 oni wrote:
There is nothing wrong with the Unbound army rules or playing a thematic Unbound army.

The problem is and always has been the players. Put simply... We don't trust one another.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Being able to show up with an army built to a predetermined and widely accepted standard, thats capable of engaging any other force built to the same standard, solves a lot of issues and avoids having to renegotiate the game with every new opponent.

Spoken like a true blue tournament player.

Let me toss some truth in your general direction. Warhammer 40,000 was never played like how you suggest until the advent of tournaments.

Army lists are meant to be created on the fly taking into account the faction you'll be battling. The designers / rules writes mean it to be this way - it's just simply not feasible for (gasp) tournament play.

More to the point the ideal of any game is to be able to bring whatever you want and have a decent game against a complete stranger. Everyone else seems to manage, GW just really, really sucks at it.

My personal opinion is that unbound feels unnecessary. Before this existed, my friends and I would often make adjustments from the rules for a thematic game. GW telling us the freedom's in our hands to play the game how we want has always been the case.

Maybe the biggest problem with unbound is how it latches onto the bigger problem of OP units and OP codices?

 Norn Queen Yurei wrote:
My personal opinion is that unbound feels unnecessary. Before this existed, my friends and I would often make adjustments from the rules for a thematic game. GW telling us the freedom's in our hands to play the game how we want has always been the case.

Maybe the biggest problem with unbound is how it latches onto the bigger problem of OP units and OP codices?

The funny thing with this is that Unbound seems to be a response to the people who never adjusted the rules at all. So it's sort of ironic that GW tried to introduce a rule breaking the rules, because people never wanted to adjust the rules for thematic games, only for people to still not use said rule because they don't want to adjust the rules.

I'm a new gamer, have only played a few games, but honestly I would respond to someone using unbound the same way I would any list, I would look at it and decide if I wanted to play it. I can accept on a case to case basis, just like I can in any situation for anything. I don't have to eat pizza every night, and I don't have to never eat pizza again. If someone wants to play to win at any cost, then I probably wouldn't have fun with their army, bound or unbound, because I don't care about winning, just the game itself. Unless they wanted to win but were considerate and fun during the game, even if they kick my butt with some crazy bound eldar formation, or some unbound one.

Just for the fact of it, I think this negative reaction to unbound is unique to Dakkadakka, because I put a similar post up on another forum and only one person had an issue with it, as long as they had a rational conversation. If you don't want to take two minutes to go, "what is your list?"
"oh, I am glad you asked, it is 1500 points of unbound built from Militarum Tempestus, Inquisition, and Blood Angels"(IDK couldn't think of anything so I listed random armies)
"Why are you running it unbound, can I see the list?"
"Sure, I am running it unbound because these dudes represent a mercenary force, and the Inquisition is a Rogue Trader, and the Blood Angels are just savage techno barbarians in armor, and I felt it worked best with just this HQ and the BA only having Jump Packs with Chainswords."

Option A: "Oh, cool, that looks like a lot of fun to play, I really like your paint job on the BA"
Option B:" No thanks, that looks too unbalanced, it is a lot of melta and elites, but Jack wouldn't mind, I will introduce you guys."
Option C: "No, I don't like unbound, come back with a bound list and I might play you"

And you know what, any of those are cool, because if we aren't inclusive of people in our hobby who want to play unbound because they only like death company, but are okay with WAAC and TFGs because it is in the rules, we aren't going to keep growing our hobby.

 HCMistborn wrote:
I'm a new gamer, have only played a few games, but honestly I would respond to someone using unbound the same way I would any list, I would look at it and decide if I wanted to play it. I can accept on a case to case basis,

The fun thing is you might not be alone even if players don't accept it ; )
Just look at these awnsers on why they would refuse to play against a battle forged list.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/700274.page

WayneTheGame wrote:
I think too many people feel points are what keeps things fair, when they don't (see: AoS and how many people trashed it until points were added, then hooray balance!). I've seen people say flat out they refuse to play without points, as though not having points is going to mean everyone fields nothing but the best units (not like that doesn't happen WITH points too). I honestly do not get the mentality. I could see it in a game where points actually are used to try and balance (Warmachine for example, likely Infinity or Malifaux too), but in 40k points don't do much to balance anyways, so there's really no point.

Why are you assuming this weird black and white world where either points are balanced and accurate or completely useless? If you have points, even inaccurate points, you have at least rough parity between the two sides. If you build a 1500 point army with the most powerful units you might get up to 2000 points worth of power, maybe even 2500-3000. If you play a game without points at all the only limit to how powerful your army can be is how much money you're willing to spend. Want to show up with a dozen titans and enough chapter masters (or similar death star type characters) to literally fill every single square inch of your deployment zone, while I bring my HQ and 3-4 "normal" squads? You can do it.

(And no, people don't field nothing but the best units in no-points games because there's no reason to ever leave models at home. You bring the best units, and you also bring everything else you own until you've literally filled the table or run out of money.)

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Norn Queen Yurei wrote:
My personal opinion is that unbound feels unnecessary. Before this existed, my friends and I would often make adjustments from the rules for a thematic game. GW telling us the freedom's in our hands to play the game how we want has always been the case.

Maybe the biggest problem with unbound is how it latches onto the bigger problem of OP units and OP codices?

The funny thing with this is that Unbound seems to be a response to the people who never adjusted the rules at all. So it's sort of ironic that GW tried to introduce a rule breaking the rules, because people never wanted to adjust the rules for thematic games, only for people to still not use said rule because they don't want to adjust the rules.

The Unbound thing happened during the Kirby era, who detested the competitive scene. I'm guessing he saw it as a win-win situation; completely destroy any semblance of balance for the competitive scene while simultaneously milk them for money now that they can buy the most powerful units, which coincidentally were also the more expensive, newer kits. When Tournaments banned this "option" they started making formations and decurions that were, arguably, far more powerful than anything you could build with unbound. I am really hoping that if an 8th edition drops, they shove all of this "FoC shenanigans" and "Formations" crap back to Apocalypse where it belongs. 40k has always been a skirmish game and a lot of those formations and detachments are just not feasible at the lower points limit (this holds more true for those who have formations and stuff that have huge requirements, like Imperial Guard, Orks, and any Daemonic Incursion that actually wants to run a Tetrad within an incursion).

This actually leads me into another point; a lot of people believe that, in an idealized system, points are all you need for balance. This is actually untrue; prior to GW ditching the classic FoC as the only way to build armies and introducing allies, a unit's faction, role and points all played an important part in it's balance; A Kroot Carnivore squad is a comically inept "close combat specialist" choice when compared to that of other armies, but it was never suppose to be compared to another army; it's meant for an army that had far more powerful shooting. The Tau had a hard counter in the form of an entire phase. In exchange they were heinously powerful in the shooting phase. If you want to even this out, of course you're gonna pay out the nose for a sub-par "evening out", otherwise your army would have no weaknesses. This also extends to Troop Choices VS other ones; of course if you had the choice, you'd never buy a Tactical squad; the Devastator squad is superior in every way. Troops are there as a point sink, pure and simple. It's why they're troops; they're the most numerous fighters the army has. If every army could be fielding Commandos for their rank and file they would, but there simply isn't that many commandos to toss out like that. All of these combined, an army can be balanced not with just points, but also it's unit's role in the battlefield, it's army-wide weaknesses and so forth.

But stuff like Unbound or even Allies completely ruin this dynamic; Why bother allying in Kroot for that tau army when you can simply buy a ton of Death Company Space Marines? Who cares if they are not bros with your tau, they're gonna be in the enemy's face half the time while you hang back and shoot. Suddenly, there's no gaps in that army's composition. This also leads into another problem; units that are getting increasingly good at dealing with "everything". Specialist units are not very spammable because it's a hard balance to strike between "just enough to do the job" and "too many". But a unit that is decent at everything is far more valuable; they might not be better than the specialist, but if you can spam 4 times as much, their combined might is good enough to match, while not being totally useless once their intended target (if there is even one) is gone. The longterm effects of this is that the armies will slowly start becoming the same in terms of gameplay, with only minor variations between them that don't realistically affect much.

I don't understand why people are commenting on unbound being not as bad as formations when unbound armies can take formations.

I love unbound. I have a few unbound armies, a night lords raptor cult, an ork walker army, an assassin army. They win less frequently than battle forged lists, but I probably have more fun using them.

Commissar Benny wrote:
Unbound lists more often than not, completely contradict the lore in really ridiculous ways. I big part of 40k for my inner circle is creating battles that are actually occurring in the 40k universe. After all, why is someone playing 40k if they have no interest in the setting? There are dozens of other wargames out there that have a much more balanced/competitive ruleset with arguably just as aesthetically pleasing models if not more so at a fraction of the cost. The only plausible explanation outside of being TFG for an unbound list, is if said player only has (x) amount of points between 2 armies that share his/her interest. Outside of that its pure power gaming TFG behavior.

Thing is you can break the lore with ease in bound list as well.

Space marine, eldar, tyranid. Sounds like a likely combo? Don't need unbound to do that. Will even get more powerful list for boot!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reavas wrote:
Lol, screw your unbound lists, this is all just an excuse so you can field whatever you want reguardless of fluff or fairness. People like you are the reason 40k is in the state that it is. There are reasons why there are restrictions in this game and if you want to be "that guy" and go field your 10 ork buggies or some other gak than your welcome to go elsewhere. Now, if you will excuse me, I will be taking my battleforged list of 5 wraithknights and going home. Good. Day.

Sooooo you are angry about people shooting themselves to foot and LIMITING their power?

You DO realize these days bound lists create more broken armies than unbound right? Nobody is stupid enough to take unbound to break the game. Well okay some noob power gamer might but anybody with half a knowledge of 40k will simply take bound list that's even more broken.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
The Unbound thing happened during the Kirby era, who detested the competitive scene. I'm guessing he saw it as a win-win situation; completely destroy any semblance of balance for the competitive scene while simultaneously milk them for money now that they can buy the most powerful units, which coincidentally were also the more expensive, newer kits.

I don't think this is it at all. Even GW isn't stupid enough to deliberately drive people away from their products. What unbound was really about was selling the latest toys to kids (and their parents). The last thing GW wants to have is their employees saying "well, little Timmy can't use that shiny new space marine kit, he plays Tyranids". Unbound makes everything legal, so you have no reason not to buy the latest shiny thing you're looking at. Who cares if you play Tyranids, buy a Land Raider! Buy a knight! Buy some orks! JUST MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE BUYING AT ALL TIMES!

The idea behind it was definitely to sell more of the models that people could only spam a few of due to the FoC, but the way it was handled made it feel like Ol' Kirbs probably saw the consequences as a good thing. It didn't help that, if I remember, one of the examples given at the time was an army of Riptides; that's like telling a MTG player that he can now play 10 copies of Black Lotus.

 sfshilo wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:

Stuff

Everyone of these complaints is based on what I call "Special Snowflake" whine.

Deathwing players especially suffer from this. Just because YOU do not want to adapt and require a super special unique snowflake codex to make your idea work perfectly in your brain, does not mean you are EVER going to get one from GW. Additionally, when pressed about "your" special snowflake army list the response is usually the same, "well i don't want to use X unit"; or "X army gets it why can't I?"

Usually this is followed by a discussion of how Space Marines get unique codex stuff, yadda yadda yadda....

The point is, I read a TON of 40k Fluff, some might call it an unhealthy amount. Those things (called books) black library publishes, GW then releases in codex form to (usually) sell a product and advance some narrative that will generate sales. An example, the BEAST series that has been on going, no one had any clue months ago that was going to turn into a Deathwatch origin stories novel, they used it to drum up an idea/support so people will go buy deathwatch TODAY.

So to your specific armies:
Inquisition: you would like an army codex, that ALREADY has many many many options, to have MORE options. In addition, you'd like a faction, that is KNOWN for it's use of other factions by brute force, black mail, and the like, to have the ability to field an ENTIRE ARMY? I'm sorry but that is not going to happen, ally in what you need, that is what the inquistion does. That market is hugely saturated with Imperial stuff, I doubt they create an entire army for them, especially since they have quite a bit already. (They COULD use some formations however.) Best case the codices get recombined, but that's up to GW and the sales it could generate.

Kroot: There is little to no fluff regarding Kroot, they are a subservient alien race to the Tau. Despite this, Tau players have the ability to field nearly 100% kroot army. IF you read the fluff, you would realize the rarity of an "all kroot" army in the universe of 40k, nearly every instance of Kroot I can think of occurs as Kroot serving some TAU HQ unit/leader. So again, if you don't like it fine but don't expect GW to make an entire Kroot army.

Speedfreaks: Ok this one, so this is EXACTLY the same whine as Deathwing. A bunch of players made bike lists in 4th and 5th edition that in no way match the fluff. (Ork speed freaks ALWAYS have vehicles in their armies, it's what they do, read some fluff man....) Here comes the new book, which is not the greatest admittedly, but GW has zero reason to make an entire codex of bikes when A. That isn't a thing in the fluff. and B. Per the fluff you CAN field speed freaks with the Codex provided.

So I will reiterate, unbound is unpopular because as far as editions go, 7th ed is VERY easy to field a themed list with a bound army. (Super easy, e

Your entire counter argument is what I like to call "special snowflake opinion". You assume that people who have a different opinion of the game than you are wrong.

I don't think Deathwing players expect a new improved codex. They'd like one but they don't expect it. I'd like a codex for Vespid. Doesn't mean I'm going to moan about it and make a million posts demanding GW listen to my solitary cries. (I don't see how various space marine abilities and wargear have to do with unbound armies)

A vast majority of Black Library publications are based off codexes and existing models and background over a 30 year history. You are by no means the only person who reads BL books. As an example, no books were written to advertise/lead up to a new product prior to 2010. By your claim, plastic chaos terminators (2005) were released because there were publications that included them in the story. There is no evidence (or logic) for that line of reasoning. If BL novels were meant to be a foreshadowing of models and rules to come... where's my Khorne/Tzeentch/DA rose army of roses from the rose planet of the rose nebula? I need my time traveling DA, Khorne worshiping rose marines!

Inquisition: He wanted a specific collection to use in games, not a new rulebook with more options. Just access to a list that includes Xenos Mercenaries. For someone who reads 'too much' BL you have a limited view of the Inquisition. They do in fact have entire armies and fleets of ships at their command. GW could always add more btw. I've been playing long enough to remember the wishes to have Grey Knights as a playable faction instead of a single 500pt squad. Which Hunters! Daemons as their own faction! AD MECH!!!! Those were all considered pipe dreams once upon a time.

Kroot: They are not subservient to the Tau. They're mercenaries that work for anyone who will pay. They have their own worlds and tech. They just happen to be in the same area of the galaxy as the Tau. And Kroot actually did get a formal army a while ago.

Speedfeeks: People had biker armies back in 3rd. You know, when the Speedfreek army was released in a codex without any prior BL publications pushing the Speedfreek agenda. Biker tribes are indeed a part of the fluff. Considering ork Waaaghs can have billions of greenskins there is a very high probability that several thousand bikers could gather together and form a mini waaagh on the battlefield. Motorcycles are vehicles.

I think you have confused fluff for rules and codexes for BL novels.

I would like to chime in that a lot of people forget that Kroot are often called Mercenaries, and don't deal exclusively with Tau (although they do deal largely with Tau). In fact the Tau has to work out something akin to the Agreement between the Imperium and the AdMechs because they just can't reconcile the Kroot's cannibalism into part of the greater good without some head-scratching.


The Vespids, on the other hand, are implied to be completely subservient, since no other race can communicate with them and it's implied that the headgear their leaders wear have a mild form of mind control (or at least subliminal messaging). Plus they don't want much out of life.

The Tau and the Kroot are allied because the Tau showed up to a fight between the Kroot and some other race (I can't remember, may have been Orks). Because the Tau helped fend off the Orks, the Kroot that they helped joined them. The Tau wouldn't incorporate them for reasons above ^ - cannibalism.

There are, however, other Kroot in the galaxy - they are mercenaries to be paid and used by whoever wants to pay them and use them.

That's probably why they won't have an entire army made for them. If they did, I imagine it would be a small codex or supplement that could be used for all the races, as the Kroot are mercenaries which can be used by all.

If the Bound list you brought turns out to be invalid, and the only way to play is break it, go Unbound.
You get a game, but you get penalised for it, by not getting the benefits of being Bound.
Still, it's a game, and it's a legal army again.

For me, unbound brings the 'threat' of uncertainty - at least with Battle-Forged, you know what you can expect (especially if you like to watch battle reports, follow tournaments results, read army lists, visit forums, etc). Unbound, with almost no limits, everything could be done. Of course, it is limited by a player's collection, but in pick-up games you never know what the other guy/gal's collection is made of.

Still, Bound armies are so strong that only a person with an unchecked collection-driving would be able to really have a good match-up using Unbound. Also, you can simply say 'no' to a player using a bizarre list (that's why I'm a serious advocate of sharing army lists before playing).

tneva82 wrote:

Reavas wrote:
Lol, screw your unbound lists, this is all just an excuse so you can field whatever you want reguardless of fluff or fairness. People like you are the reason 40k is in the state that it is. There are reasons why there are restrictions in this game and if you want to be "that guy" and go field your 10 ork buggies or some other gak than your welcome to go elsewhere. Now, if you will excuse me, I will be taking my battleforged list of 5 wraithknights and going home. Good. Day.

Sooooo you are angry about people shooting themselves to foot and LIMITING their power?

You DO realize these days bound lists create more broken armies than unbound right? Nobody is stupid enough to take unbound to break the game. Well okay some noob power gamer might but anybody with half a knowledge of 40k will simply take bound list that's even more broken.

He was being sarcastic! And did it very well

axisofentropy wrote:Let's have a more useful exercise: Create the best Unbound army that otherwise adheres to ITC or another big tournament army construction format.
Is this best Unbound army really better than Battle-Forged armies that win big tournaments?

Vankraken wrote:Example: Take a Crisis Suit with 2x weapons. Repeat as many times as needed until you have your desired army. Use an Ethereal or Commander to be your Warlord if the rules require an HQ warlord. Its an MSU nightmare that can handle any threat via shooting and deathstars hate this kind of army as big units can't easily take out multiple units in a time efficient manner.

Good this is a good start! BUT would that army really be better than MSU Crisis Suits in Combined Arms Detachments that get Objective Secured? I'm not sure and it probably depends upon the matchup.

Anyone else want to try this?

 Peregrine wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
I think too many people feel points are what keeps things fair, when they don't (see: AoS and how many people trashed it until points were added, then hooray balance!). I've seen people say flat out they refuse to play without points, as though not having points is going to mean everyone fields nothing but the best units (not like that doesn't happen WITH points too). I honestly do not get the mentality. I could see it in a game where points actually are used to try and balance (Warmachine for example, likely Infinity or Malifaux too), but in 40k points don't do much to balance anyways, so there's really no point.

Why are you assuming this weird black and white world where either points are balanced and accurate or completely useless? If you have points, even inaccurate points, you have at least rough parity between the two sides. If you build a 1500 point army with the most powerful units you might get up to 2000 points worth of power, maybe even 2500-3000. If you play a game without points at all the only limit to how powerful your army can be is how much money you're willing to spend. Want to show up with a dozen titans and enough chapter masters (or similar death star type characters) to literally fill every single square inch of your deployment zone, while I bring my HQ and 3-4 "normal" squads? You can do it.

(And no, people don't field nothing but the best units in no-points games because there's no reason to ever leave models at home. You bring the best units, and you also bring everything else you own until you've literally filled the table or run out of money.)

I don't believe this. Maybe a competitive type of player, but there are/were plenty of games that don't necessarily use points where people don't just bring everything they have, because they have an idea for a force/battle/narrative and bring what feels appropriate. If you're playing a historical game you don't bring every regiment you own just because, you bring the regiments that would be at the battle (if refighting) or what would logically be sent (if not). I do not get where you get the idea that playing with no points means A) Bring only the most powerful stuff, because there's no reason not to and/or B) Bring everything you have. That's why games that don't have points usually have real narrative gaming, so you eyeball the things and come up with something approximately equal.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Norn Queen Yurei wrote:
My personal opinion is that unbound feels unnecessary. Before this existed, my friends and I would often make adjustments from the rules for a thematic game. GW telling us the freedom's in our hands to play the game how we want has always been the case.

Maybe the biggest problem with unbound is how it latches onto the bigger problem of OP units and OP codices?

The funny thing with this is that Unbound seems to be a response to the people who never adjusted the rules at all. So it's sort of ironic that GW tried to introduce a rule breaking the rules, because people never wanted to adjust the rules for thematic games, only for people to still not use said rule because they don't want to adjust the rules.

The Unbound thing happened during the Kirby era, who detested the competitive scene. I'm guessing he saw it as a win-win situation; completely destroy any semblance of balance for the competitive scene while simultaneously milk them for money now that they can buy the most powerful units, which coincidentally were also the more expensive, newer kits. When Tournaments banned this "option" they started making formations and decurions that were, arguably, far more powerful than anything you could build with unbound. I am really hoping that if an 8th edition drops, they shove all of this "FoC shenanigans" and "Formations" crap back to Apocalypse where it belongs. 40k has always been a skirmish game and a lot of those formations and detachments are just not feasible at the lower points limit (this holds more true for those who have formations and stuff that have huge requirements, like Imperial Guard, Orks, and any Daemonic Incursion that actually wants to run a Tetrad within an incursion).

This actually leads me into another point; a lot of people believe that, in an idealized system, points are all you need for balance. This is actually untrue; prior to GW ditching the classic FoC as the only way to build armies and introducing allies, a unit's faction, role and points all played an important part in it's balance; A Kroot Carnivore squad is a comically inept "close combat specialist" choice when compared to that of other armies, but it was never suppose to be compared to another army; it's meant for an army that had far more powerful shooting. The Tau had a hard counter in the form of an entire phase. In exchange they were heinously powerful in the shooting phase. If you want to even this out, of course you're gonna pay out the nose for a sub-par "evening out", otherwise your army would have no weaknesses. This also extends to Troop Choices VS other ones; of course if you had the choice, you'd never buy a Tactical squad; the Devastator squad is superior in every way. Troops are there as a point sink, pure and simple. It's why they're troops; they're the most numerous fighters the army has. If every army could be fielding Commandos for their rank and file they would, but there simply isn't that many commandos to toss out like that. All of these combined, an army can be balanced not with just points, but also it's unit's role in the battlefield, it's army-wide weaknesses and so forth.

But stuff like Unbound or even Allies completely ruin this dynamic; Why bother allying in Kroot for that tau army when you can simply buy a ton of Death Company Space Marines? Who cares if they are not bros with your tau, they're gonna be in the enemy's face half the time while you hang back and shoot. Suddenly, there's no gaps in that army's composition. This also leads into another problem; units that are getting increasingly good at dealing with "everything". Specialist units are not very spammable because it's a hard balance to strike between "just enough to do the job" and "too many". But a unit that is decent at everything is far more valuable; they might not be better than the specialist, but if you can spam 4 times as much, their combined might is good enough to match, while not being totally useless once their intended target (if there is even one) is gone. The longterm effects of this is that the armies will slowly start becoming the same in terms of gameplay, with only minor variations between them that don't realistically affect much.

This was my initial complaint with the allies matrix. An army is meant to have strengths and weaknesses. Aside from it giving a massive boost to armies like Grey Knights (already OP at the time), it meant the Imperial Family's options spiralled out of control whilst Tyranids or Orks were greatly stifled. Of course that makes sense from a narrative perspective, which is fine, but narrative only gets you so far. Then came the plan to sell more Daemons with Daemonology. Now the Eldar are big fans of it for some reason... Couple this with Unbound, something fun but woefully open to abuse, and formations (aka Plz buy these possessed edition), and I can't even fathom what 40Ks trying to do anymore.

I play a lot of Flames of War which is a 15mm World War 2 game, but I almost see this like them declaring "yep, the French Maginot Line can take M1 Abrams tanks from Team Yankee. Just forge a narrative about a time machine experiment gone wrong."

Of course this makes me a hypocrite. I also love unbound because I trust myself with it. Like having an assassin and inquisitor in my Sisters of Battle, or a Hydra in my Genestealer Cult army as something stolen, so I'm probably best ignoring.

As has been said, part of the game/hobby involves list building and working within the parameters of FOC/Detachments/Formations. Most see these restrictions/rules as a fundamental part of the game.

If you came to play people (who weren't close friends) with an unbound army, a reasonable perception could be that your unbound army is really for playing a different game because some rules are ommitted for sake of taking whatever you want.

For arguments sake, why stop at just going Unbound? Why even have points? Why not just make up what I want? Why not just homebrew some rules? Couldn't that be fun? I have no idea why no one wants to play me at the FLGS...

Why bother writing all those rules on how to build an army when the next rule is "Or, ignore everything there and just do what you want". If I'm paying ~$100 for someone to have crafted a ruleset for me to play with, I expect it to be a series of rules and restrictions and explanations. By default I have the option to do whatever the feth I want with the rules, so putting in an official rule stating "Do what you want, Forge That Narrative!" flies in the face of good game design.

I enjoy rulesets precisely because they're restrictive. Otherwise I could get absolutely fething hammered and go play green army men in the backyard.

So for me its more the principle of the matter. Unbound always existed. Enshrining it just cheapens the game and opens an already terribly balanced game to even more balance issues and further dividing an already divided player base.

WayneTheGame wrote:
I don't believe this. Maybe a competitive type of player, but there are/were plenty of games that don't necessarily use points where people don't just bring everything they have, because they have an idea for a force/battle/narrative and bring what feels appropriate. If you're playing a historical game you don't bring every regiment you own just because, you bring the regiments that would be at the battle (if refighting) or what would logically be sent (if not). I do not get where you get the idea that playing with no points means A) Bring only the most powerful stuff, because there's no reason not to and/or B) Bring everything you have. That's why games that don't have points usually have real narrative gaming, so you eyeball the things and come up with something approximately equal.

The difference here is that in a historical game you have real-world battles to copy. You know what forces were present (or would be present in a hypothetical fight) and, if the rules are doing their job, you can easily evaluate how powerful a unit is based on its real-world performance. And the power level between units is much closer to parity for real-world units. A squad of elite infantry and a squad of conscripts might not be exactly the same, but if you say "bring five squads of infantry for both sides" it's probably going to be at least close enough for the game to be enjoyable. But with 40k you have none of that. Saying "bring five squads of infantry" when one side is taking guardsmen and the other side is taking terminators is going to be a complete mismatch. Trying to figure out how many LRBTs need to match against a Warhound titan is impossible without doing a bunch of math with average firepower numbers. You need some kind of formal system for telling you how many {weak unit}s equal one {powerful unit}. IOW, you need points.

And no, none of this involves WAAC players trying to break the system. Balancing a game like 40k without points is a nightmare even if both players are sincerely intending to organize a game with balanced forces. And it's only possible at all because most people remember at least roughly what the point values of their models are supposed to be and how those point values compare to other units.

Am I a bad person for immediately planning an all Vindicator Tank army as soon as I read Unbound was a thing? Normally, I build my armies severely Troop heavy, as in four Troop slots before I touch anything else. But I'm in love with the Vindicator, and I wanted more than anything to show someone exactly why Unbound shouldn't have existed in the first place.

 Just Tony wrote:
Am I a bad person for immediately planning an all Vindicator Tank army as soon as I read Unbound was a thing? Normally, I build my armies severely Troop heavy, as in four Troop slots before I touch anything else. But I'm in love with the Vindicator, and I wanted more than anything to show someone exactly why Unbound shouldn't have existed in the first place.

I think you'd lose to Wraith Knights and Scatter bikes. Vindis are only armor 13 in the front, 11 and 10 on the side and rear. Couple Shuriken cannons to the rear and they'd be toast.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Am I a bad person for immediately planning an all Vindicator Tank army as soon as I read Unbound was a thing? Normally, I build my armies severely Troop heavy, as in four Troop slots before I touch anything else. But I'm in love with the Vindicator, and I wanted more than anything to show someone exactly why Unbound shouldn't have existed in the first place.

I think you'd lose to Wraith Knights and Scatter bikes. Vindis are only armor 13 in the front, 11 and 10 on the side and rear. Couple Shuriken cannons to the rear and they'd be toast.

Yeah that might be fun and I'd take that game but it's not gonna beat the average GT-winning army.

That's true, I'm also not up on current meta. I discovered Unbound when I popped back onto Warseer after a 6 year hiatus or so.

 Bach wrote:
As has been said, part of the game/hobby involves list building and working within the parameters of FOC/Detachments/Formations. Most see these restrictions/rules as a fundamental part of the game.

If you came to play people (who weren't close friends) with an unbound army, a reasonable perception could be that your unbound army is really for playing a different game because some rules are ommitted for sake of taking whatever you want.

For arguments sake, why stop at just going Unbound? Why even have points? Why not just make up what I want? Why not just homebrew some rules? Couldn't that be fun? I have no idea why no one wants to play me at the FLGS...

Uhh, just FYI, Unbound was created to cover highly unusual thematic armies. I'm pretty sure if you read up on them it'll even tell you so in the rulebook.

And if you saw any Unbound army I would field, your mind would not turn to powergaming as an explanation for why I chose Unbound. When I catch myself just including the best units from multiple Codexes in my Unbound lists, I put a stop to that myself before any of the models hit the tabletop.

Am I a bad person for immediately planning an all Vindicator Tank army as soon as I read Unbound was a thing? Normally, I build my armies severely Troop heavy, as in four Troop slots before I touch anything else. But I'm in love with the Vindicator, and I wanted more than anything to show someone exactly why Unbound shouldn't have existed in the first place.

Probably not the best example. That would be a fairly weak army IMO. Heavy firepower for sure, but issues with range, hull points and speed? Recipe for disaster in 7th. There are some Marine/Tau/Eldar builds that could potentially table this on turn 1 or 2 and still have dice left over.

I totally get the initial feeling most players have when they hear "unbound". I think most of us immediately conjure up some horrible all riptide/wraith knight scenario. At my LGS though, we've found that Battle Forged armies tend to have so many advantages that unbound isn't as scary as we initially thought it was. Plus, when you see some of the things Eldar/Tau/Marines can do, you just kind of shrug at unbound.

We've actually grown to like it as it allows armies like Orks and BA to stay more competitive than their current codexes would typically allow. For example, one Ork player simply uses a few more HQ slots and a few more heavy slots than he'd normally be allowed. Hardly game breaking, but he's a good enough player that those few extra bits really get him over the "hump" so to speak. When used like this, we've found unbound to actually be a pretty cool addition to the game.

Tycho wrote:

Am I a bad person for immediately planning an all Vindicator Tank army as soon as I read Unbound was a thing? Normally, I build my armies severely Troop heavy, as in four Troop slots before I touch anything else. But I'm in love with the Vindicator, and I wanted more than anything to show someone exactly why Unbound shouldn't have existed in the first place.

Probably not the best example. That would be a fairly weak army IMO. Heavy firepower for sure, but issues with range, hull points and speed? Recipe for disaster in 7th. There are some Marine/Tau/Eldar builds that could potentially table this on turn 1 or 2 and still have dice left over.

I totally get the initial feeling most players have when they hear "unbound". I think most of us immediately conjure up some horrible all riptide/wraith knight scenario. At my LGS though, we've found that Battle Forged armies tend to have so many advantages that unbound isn't as scary as we initially thought it was. Plus, when you see some of the things Eldar/Tau/Marines can do, you just kind of shrug at unbound.

We've actually grown to like it as it allows armies like Orks and BA to stay more competitive than their current codexes would typically allow. For example, one Ork player simply uses a few more HQ slots and a few more heavy slots than he'd normally be allowed. Hardly game breaking, but he's a good enough player that those few extra bits really get him over the "hump" so to speak. When used like this, we've found unbound to actually be a pretty cool addition to the game.

Uhh, what advantages do Battle Forged armies actually have over Unbound ones?

Can you not take formations in an Unbound army or something?

And I'm pretty sure you could, if you wanted to, recreate a Battle Forged army as an Unbound one and still have the list be totally legal.

Can you not take formations in an Unbound army or something?

No. You cannot. That is the whole point of Battle Forged vs Unbound.

And I'm pretty sure you could, if you wanted to, recreate a Battle Forged army as an Unbound one and still have the list be totally legal.

Huh? No. That makes no sense. Unbound is for things not covered by the normal list construction rules. Why on earth would you go to the trouble of creating a Battleforged list and then say it's "Unbound"? You would lose all of your command/formation benefits. Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly?

 Pouncey wrote:

Tycho wrote:

Am I a bad person for immediately planning an all Vindicator Tank army as soon as I read Unbound was a thing? Normally, I build my armies severely Troop heavy, as in four Troop slots before I touch anything else. But I'm in love with the Vindicator, and I wanted more than anything to show someone exactly why Unbound shouldn't have existed in the first place.

Probably not the best example. That would be a fairly weak army IMO. Heavy firepower for sure, but issues with range, hull points and speed? Recipe for disaster in 7th. There are some Marine/Tau/Eldar builds that could potentially table this on turn 1 or 2 and still have dice left over.

I totally get the initial feeling most players have when they hear "unbound". I think most of us immediately conjure up some horrible all riptide/wraith knight scenario. At my LGS though, we've found that Battle Forged armies tend to have so many advantages that unbound isn't as scary as we initially thought it was. Plus, when you see some of the things Eldar/Tau/Marines can do, you just kind of shrug at unbound.

We've actually grown to like it as it allows armies like Orks and BA to stay more competitive than their current codexes would typically allow. For example, one Ork player simply uses a few more HQ slots and a few more heavy slots than he'd normally be allowed. Hardly game breaking, but he's a good enough player that those few extra bits really get him over the "hump" so to speak. When used like this, we've found unbound to actually be a pretty cool addition to the game.

Uhh, what advantages do Battle Forged armies actually have over Unbound ones?

Can you not take formations in an Unbound army or something?

And I'm pretty sure you could, if you wanted to, recreate a Battle Forged army as an Unbound one and still have the list be totally legal.

Formations are the only type of detachment you can use in Unbound armies. Which means you can't use regular detachments like CADs (so no ObSec generally speaking) but also you can't use the Decurion style super detachments. Which means that you can't use the Gladius detachment to get 500+ point of free ObSec SM transports (which is actually a battleforged list you can't recreate as Unbound because now your list is illegal by being 500 pts over)

Tycho wrote:

Can you not take formations in an Unbound army or something?

No. You cannot. That is the whole point of Battle Forged vs Unbound.

Ah.

Well then. That explains that.

And I'm pretty sure you could, if you wanted to, recreate a Battle Forged army as an Unbound one and still have the list be totally legal.

Huh? No. That makes no sense. Unbound is for things not covered by the normal list construction rules. Why on earth would you go to the trouble of creating a Battleforged list and then say it's "Unbound"? You would lose all of your command/formation benefits. Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly?

You generally wouldn't. My point wasn't that Unbound lists were better.

Now I don't even remember what my point was though...


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 CrownAxe wrote:
Formations are the only type of detachment you can use in Unbound armies. Which means you can't use regular detachments like CADs (so no ObSec generally speaking) but also you can't use the Decurion style super detachments. Which means that if you use the Gladius detachment to get 500+ point of free SM transports (which is actually a battleforged list you can't recreate as Unbound because now your list is illegal by being 500 pts over)

Well, that explains that then.

Back in 6th detachments were a separate idea from formations, and I haven't really played much 7th.

Ugh ... terminology fail on my part. CrownAxe said it better. I tend to erroneously use formation and detachment interchangeably.

my first taste of unbound was playing against 14 farseers, while it wasn't what id call competitive, the psy rolling and psychic phase took so long that id never play it again, as it stands with unbound, if the army looks cool and is made for fluff, I'm ok with it, if its made for cheese and competition, play someone else.

 Formosa wrote:
my first taste of unbound was playing against 14 farseers, while it wasn't what id call competitive, the psy rolling and psychic phase took so long that id never play it again, as it stands with unbound, if the army looks cool and is made for fluff, I'm ok with it, if its made for cheese and competition, play someone else.

Personally, I'd use Unbound to mix IG, Sisters of Battle and Space Marines together in a 1,000 points list, with the latter two providing small enough numbers they wouldn't qualify for any formation on their own.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tycho wrote:
Ugh ... terminology fail on my part. CrownAxe said it better. I tend to erroneously use formation and detachment interchangeably.

And that's pretty much how they're used now in the actual rules. My misunderstanding is because in 6th they were different things. In 7th they're essentially different terms for the same thing.

 Pouncey wrote:

Tycho wrote:

Am I a bad person for immediately planning an all Vindicator Tank army as soon as I read Unbound was a thing? Normally, I build my armies severely Troop heavy, as in four Troop slots before I touch anything else. But I'm in love with the Vindicator, and I wanted more than anything to show someone exactly why Unbound shouldn't have existed in the first place.

Probably not the best example. That would be a fairly weak army IMO. Heavy firepower for sure, but issues with range, hull points and speed? Recipe for disaster in 7th. There are some Marine/Tau/Eldar builds that could potentially table this on turn 1 or 2 and still have dice left over.

I totally get the initial feeling most players have when they hear "unbound". I think most of us immediately conjure up some horrible all riptide/wraith knight scenario. At my LGS though, we've found that Battle Forged armies tend to have so many advantages that unbound isn't as scary as we initially thought it was. Plus, when you see some of the things Eldar/Tau/Marines can do, you just kind of shrug at unbound.

We've actually grown to like it as it allows armies like Orks and BA to stay more competitive than their current codexes would typically allow. For example, one Ork player simply uses a few more HQ slots and a few more heavy slots than he'd normally be allowed. Hardly game breaking, but he's a good enough player that those few extra bits really get him over the "hump" so to speak. When used like this, we've found unbound to actually be a pretty cool addition to the game.

Uhh, what advantages do Battle Forged armies actually have over Unbound ones?

Can you not take formations in an Unbound army or something?

And I'm pretty sure you could, if you wanted to, recreate a Battle Forged army as an Unbound one and still have the list be totally legal.

Unbound can take formations but not detachments. Furthermore formations in an unbound army can't use their command benefits.

To be fair Battle forged can be the exact same as unbound the restriction for battle forge is that it must be made up of detachments (which includes formations) apart from that you have free reign to pick the most powerful units / formations that you want even from multiple factions hardly any different than unbound in most regards except you get more benefits from battle forged. Besides even if you roll unbound and decide to have multiple factions you are still bound by the levels of alliance so any apocalypse or desperate allies will be affected the same as it was in a unbound army as it was in a battleforged army (so no land raiders for Ork, daemon prince leading crisis suit squads or other crazy combos which some people think unbound is all about)





You can still have restrictions on unbound armies as much as you do for normal armies at my club we usually have a limit on the number of Lords of war, formations etc you can field unbound isn't that hard (usually combo armies can work like allies
To be fair normal armies these days can flat out break the rules through formation, ally and other shenanigans anyway it all comes down to the player. You can field an army of nothing but Knights, crazy lists that give free units (at least unbound you still have to build to a set points limit)

Tycho wrote:

I totally get the initial feeling most players have when they hear "unbound". I think most of us immediately conjure up some horrible all riptide/wraith knight scenario. At my LGS though, we've found that Battle Forged armies tend to have so many advantages that unbound isn't as scary as we initially thought it was. Plus, when you see some of the things Eldar/Tau/Marines can do, you just kind of shrug at unbound.

We've actually grown to like it as it allows armies like Orks and BA to stay more competitive than their current codexes would typically allow. For example, one Ork player simply uses a few more HQ slots and a few more heavy slots than he'd normally be allowed. Hardly game breaking, but he's a good enough player that those few extra bits really get him over the "hump" so to speak. When used like this, we've found unbound to actually be a pretty cool addition to the game.

It's a good thing you can't have a bound army that's all riptides or mostly wraithknights. Wait...

Exactly, unbound armies are mostly worse (as in less good) than bound. Even most of the extreme spam examples are either buildable in bound or just not very good. There are a few outliers but I've never actually seen seem outside of hypotheticals.

 insaniak wrote:
If you have a system that allows you to take whatever you want, logic says the best option is to take the best and most powerful options...

The traditional army building setup limited the way those overly powerful options could be fielded, which helped somewhat to give the game at least some semblance of balance.

Unbound removes those restrictions, and so is regarded with distrust by those who don't want to wind up facing a fluffless army of cherry picked power units.

The idea of Unbound isn't inherently bad.... But in a game as unbalanced as 40k, it's best kept for games with friends, IMO.

This is actually rather spot on.

Unbound...is something that can be abused. And in a competitive scene it will be abused.

The original idea I suspect was to allow people to field themed armies - Flying Circus 'nids, Ork Kults of Speed, SM companies, Kroot Merc armies...that sort of thing. These are all things that really can't be done with the current detachments and systems, though 7th ed. is shifting a lot of that with the formations in the Decurion style detachments.

But the problem comes in with competition - as said, people will cherry pick and abuse the lack of constraint to build an all star list. Riptides and WKs running around without leashes? Oh my.

With a formation that lets you take 3-9 riptides with a nice little bonus they have no leashes in bound.

Is having to take a wind rider host in order to take 1-12 wraithknights really a leash?

I don't see how unbound makes riptides or wraithknights a bigger problem.

Unbound is only a problem with wierd cases. E.g. If the fireblade's ability is allowed to stack (I don't see why it would be since stuff generally does not stack in 40K) then you could have a 2K army with 33 of them in a single unit firing 1155 shots. These specific problem cases can be ruled against.


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 Backspacehacker wrote:
Reason Unbound lists are not fun.

Warhound titan 720
-Double barrel Laser Destroyer
-Double Barrel Laser Destroyer

Warhound Titan: 720
-Vulken Mega bolter
-Blasma Blast Canon

1440 pts list, and it total a legal unbound list.

sit in a corner and blast everything. Only thing thats gonna hurt it is if you get into melee with Str8+ weapons, which even then, they can stop and on a 6, anything under a blast template is just dead, on a 3-5, they take a S6 wound so.

Your not gonna have a good time.

It could be a bound list with 350 points of FOC tax.

So twin warhound is a problem at 1.5K but fine at 1.8K?

OP, in case you don't already have all the info you need to run your tank force as a bound army, here's a link that lists a bunch of formations, which include multiple choices for all-vehicle armies and of course give bonuses.

http://bloodofkittens.com/formation-compendium-2/