So I've seen people complaints about soup lists and I wanted peoples opinions.

I've been running an Ordo Hereticus list since 5th Ed comprised mainly of Sisters, Imperial Guard, Inquisitors, Assassins and Grey Knights. These days this takes the form of a 1500pts of either Sisters or IG then another 500pts detachment of whatever I fancy and I've added AdMech and Custodes since 8th started.



I don't min/max, don't use the most optimal units but if I said I played "Imperial soup" on here I'd likely get a lot if hate thrown my way. Sometimes soup lists are fluffy. Sometimes people playing soup lists because they want to build an army out of multiple aspects if the Imperial armies. Personally I love that I can run a soup list without my opponents permission now. If you accuse every soup list of being WAAC then you're soupaphobic.

#notallsoups

So, you run a very un-fluffy list that also isn't very good at winning games, and we're supposed to believe that this is a thing we should want to have in the game?

It's not unfluffy.

I really don’t understand your point.

It seems like your saying…

1. Soup is hated as people just pick the best stuff from 4-5 lists and win games and tournaments with it.
2. This makes soup bad.
3. I play with soup that is fluffy and I don’t win with it, and I love soup.
4. Soup should be considered good.

Did I miss something?

There is no need to defend soup.

The revenue results of soup entirely justifies its existence.

It is not going anywhere, it was the obvious evolution of their business model for the game.

This is the way of Warhammer going forward.

Enjoy!

I think the OP is saying that soup gets a bad name, or is painted with too broad a brush... that when an opponent sees an army with multiple Imperial factions built in, their cheese radar starts pinging. I'm also an unapologetic Imperial soup player who blends Sororitas, Ministorum, Militarum, and Inquisition into (IMO) a fun, fluffy, and somewhat-but-not-too competitive list. Lists like mine don't win tournaments and don't get a bad reputation at the local shops, but they hold up pretty well within the fluff and are fun to play and to play against. That can't always be said of some of the Guilliman/Gunline Guard armies out there.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
There is no need to defend soup.

The revenue results of soup entirely justifies its existence.

It is not going anywhere, it was the obvious evolution of their business model for the game.

This is the way of Warhammer going forward.

Enjoy!

If it didn't exist people would complain about not having allies.

Now tell me - where exactly is the profit motive in removing allies for the most popular team in 7th - Tau and Eldar?

 MacPhail wrote:
I think the OP is saying that soup gets a bad name, or is painted with too broad a brush... that when an opponent sees an army with multiple Imperial factions built in, their cheese radar starts pinging. I'm also an unapologetic Imperial soup player who blends Sororitas, Ministorum, Militarum, and Inquisition into (IMO) a fun, fluffy, and somewhat-but-not-too competitive list. Lists like mine don't win tournaments and don't get a bad reputation at the local shops, but they hold up pretty well within the fluff and are fun to play and to play against. That can't always be said of some of the Guilliman/Gunline Guard armies out there.

This, thank you.

Also when did I say I lose all the time? I said I don't play the optimal units. Like I din't spam Dominions and don't even own a repressor. Nor do I play Cawl and dakka bots. The fact that people translated that into "I don't win" speaks volumes about attitudes that people have on here. I think I've only lost once this edition.

I don't care as much about Imperium soup as Chaos and Eldar soup.

Eldar soup is ridiculous, oh look a ragtag force with a LEGENDARY HERO, some random dark eldar kabalites, and some Alaitoc guys all banded together with the common goal of dying so reapers don't have to.

Or chaos, "I, the mighty Mortarian, shall join this band of khorne alpha legion, along with some random tzeentch that's going to deep strike. feth the rest of Nurgle, these are my new bros."

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Now tell me - where exactly is the profit motive in removing allies for the most popular team in 7th - Tau and Eldar?

It's the exception that proves the rule, as they say.

Used to be CSM and Daemons shared a codex, then GW realized they could split them, expand the Daemons line and sell both to the same players.

Used to be Harlequins and Dark Eldar didn't exist, see above.

Used to be that GSC hadn't been anything other than FW specials, see above.

The list goes on.

"Soup" being hated entirely comes from people who just cherry-pick the "best" units without care for theme or background. If people were taking lists that made thematic sense and weren't just picking the most optimal choices from half a dozen armies, I don't think soup would be such a huge problem.

Wayniac wrote:
"Soup" being hated entirely comes from people who just cherry-pick the "best" units without care for theme or background. If people were taking lists that made thematic sense and weren't just picking the most optimal choices from half a dozen armies, I don't think soup would be such a huge problem.

This game would have to become an RPG instead of a competitive tabletop wargame.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
"Soup" being hated entirely comes from people who just cherry-pick the "best" units without care for theme or background. If people were taking lists that made thematic sense and weren't just picking the most optimal choices from half a dozen armies, I don't think soup would be such a huge problem.

This game would have to become an RPG instead of a competitive tabletop wargame.

Implying it actually is a "competitive tabletop wargame", which is up for debate as far as if it really fits that criteria, or if people are just adamant about shoving a round peg into a square hole.

 Marmatag wrote:
I don't care as much about Imperium soup as Chaos and Eldar soup.

Eldar soup is ridiculous, oh look a ragtag force with a LEGENDARY HERO, some random dark eldar kabalites, and some Alaitoc guys all banded together with the common goal of dying so reapers don't have to.

Or chaos, "I, the mighty Mortarian, shall join this band of khorne alpha legion, along with some random tzeentch that's going to deep strike. feth the rest of Nurgle, these are my new bros."

1) Any tournament list is going to be pretty much fluff-ridiculous. Look at Guilliman completely abandoning his marine brothers to lead guardsmen, or celestine showing up at pretty much every skirmish involving over 50 people to fling herself suicidally into the enemy lines.

2) Eldar soup is among the least fluff-ridiculous examples out there. The various types of eldar work together all the time. Outcasts, corsair warbands, kabalite mercenaries, and harlequin-brokered treaties are commonplace, even if you turn up your nose at the recent Ynnari fluff.

The current allied situation makes complete sense from a fluff standpoint, it just has to be fixed from a competitive one, with more penalties for players who want to create a mishmash of factions for their face-stomping tournament list.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:


Used to be CSM and Daemons shared a codex, then GW realized they could split them, expand the Daemons line and sell both to the same players.

So they never should have expanded daemons? And previously they were their own soup, but then making them be able to be soup - that's bad, too?

Used to be Harlequins and Dark Eldar didn't exist, see above.

Dark Eldar were an army before allies were a thing.

Used to be that GSC hadn't been anything other than FW specials, see above.

What exactly do they have to do with soup?

The list goes on.

By that do you mean it ends right there?

Soup is for fluff and storytelling as that is where it does it best.
The sooner soup is illegal in matched, the better for the game.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Soup is for fluff and storytelling as that is where it does it best.
The sooner soup is illegal in matched, the better for the game.

Yeah because Ynnari players, Inquisition, Sisters of Silence, etc. This is such a short sighted view point that ignores the fact that part of the game is constructed around soup being an element in list building. At this point people who whine about soup are the 40k equivalent of people shouting about how the kids are ruining everything.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Soup is for fluff and storytelling as that is where it does it best.
The sooner soup is illegal in matched, the better for the game.

Yeah let's destroy Assassins/Inquisition/any other "ally" army all together!

Or just... remove faction benefits if your army includes more than one <faction> and give any unit intended to be allied/mercenary (not just SOS, Inquisition whatever but also stuff like Scourges, basic Custodes infantry squads if you like, 1 Deatwatch kill team, commmonly fluff-based ally stuff) a rule that allows them to be added with no penalty.

the_scotsman wrote:
Or just... remove faction benefits if your army includes more than one <faction> and give any unit intended to be allied/mercenary (not just SOS, Inquisition whatever but also stuff like Scourges, basic Custodes infantry squads if you like, 1 Deatwatch kill team, commmonly fluff-based ally stuff) a rule that allows them to be added with no penalty.

Yea, I see no reason to take the list building away. Just give some penalty and we're good.

Wayniac wrote:
Implying it actually is a "competitive tabletop wargame", which is up for debate as far as if it really fits that criteria, or if people are just adamant about shoving a round peg into a square hole.

Subjective argument is subjective?

Objectively, GW and many players are attempting to treat it that way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
By that do you mean it ends right there?

No, I just had no interest in detailing all the Imperium faction expansion, creation of entirely new factions, re-purposing of fantasy models for 40k. Seriously, if you want a novel read a book.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
So they never should have expanded daemons? And previously they were their own soup, but then making them be able to be soup - that's bad, too?

I think you're well aware that's not what I said at all.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Or just... remove faction benefits if your army includes more than one <faction> and give any unit intended to be allied/mercenary (not just SOS, Inquisition whatever but also stuff like Scourges, basic Custodes infantry squads if you like, 1 Deatwatch kill team, commmonly fluff-based ally stuff) a rule that allows them to be added with no penalty.

Yea, I see no reason to take the list building away. Just give some penalty and we're good.

Doesn't even need to be a big penalty. Just enough to bump it from the first tier in competitive players' minds - "Broken OP game-shatteringly BS" to the second and only other tier - "unplayable trash garbage lower then dirt unviable"

I don't like soups but I don't want to erase them from 40k.

I mean soups should be legal but worse than ANY list made using a single book.

Otherwise imperium and chaos soups could be unstoppable, having the chance to choose units from several books without drawbacks.

I do think that some factions should be merged into a single one though, most of the factions that the OP bring into his list should be part of the same codex. Grey knight, SoB, inquisition, ad mech and custodes. There's no reason to split them up into different book, other than the possibility for GW to sell more books.

Three imperium books should be enough and they would prevent powerful soups. Because, let's be honest, no one is really against soups, we're all against bringing cheap and effective AM stuff in other lists. Or allying celestine to AM or SM armies.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
So they never should have expanded daemons? And previously they were their own soup, but then making them be able to be soup - that's bad, too?

I think you're well aware that's not what I said at all.

Yea. Let's put it in context.

I owned TS and Tz Daemons (of which most existed before CD). I was able to take them as a single army.
Then they split them and I was unable to do so.

According to you they did that to get more sales and "sell both to the same players". Well, they were already selling both to me.
So let's be clear - you effectively state removing soup was a way to get revenue.

And then they made allies so that I could combine them again.
And so then according to you adding soup was a way to get revenue.

Or maybe they just expanded on armies that had well established lore and had interesting model opportunities? And gave people an avenue to collect different armies and still play "legal" games without the need to wait for 2,000 points?

On the surface it sounds like we're saying the same things, but your statements come across as cynical ploys to trick customers instead of simple rules to let people use models in ways that make sense for the universe. The sales will follow without the need of some nefarious bean counter plot dictating "allies or you're fired".

 Blackie wrote:
I mean soups should be legal but worse than ANY list made using a single book.

So that's great for the soup haters, but it means that all those soup sales will dramatically reduced. Which is contrary to the business goals of GW.

 Blackie wrote:
I don't like soups but I don't want to erase them from 40k.

I mean soups should be legal but worse than ANY list made using a single book.

Right - because I should be punished for liking my Death Guard/NurgleDemon setup or TSons/Tzeentch Demons setup.

I don't have a problem with soup, just the way GW chooses to fix soup. By raising point values you hurt the pure lists to limit soup but it actually hurts pure lists more.

Soup is fine as a concept. It's just that balance is out of whack so people cherry pick the best from multiple codexes instead of just one. Fix balance and you should see fewer cheesy soup lists.

Besides, certain factions rely on soup to function as a faction: Inquisition for example is the epitome of soup by the fluff, and Ad mech use knights all the time but that's also soup.

Let's not forget another very important point: soup allows GW to market new models to more players (marine, ad mech and guard players could all want the new armiger for example), as such it is the best way to ensure max profits without making more space marines. And let's be honest, we don't need more marines.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
On the surface it sounds like we're saying the same things, but your statements come across as cynical ploys to trick customers instead of simple rules to let people use models in ways that make sense for the universe. The sales will follow without the need of some nefarious bean counter plot dictating "allies or you're fired".

I wouldn't say trick customers. I did not intend to imply that value was not created in the process.

Also, I tend to present business decisions in the most cynical light possible because, well, it's usually correct.

But you're right, it's not a trick, or a ploy, it's simply business. What annoys me is this argument that GW is somehow going to get rid of allies/detachments/soup (pick a term you like) because players think single codex armies should be dominant. That is stupid. Dumb. Idiotic. Incapable of doing basic math dumb. At the most basic level why would I settle for getting $40 from you for a single codex when I can get $200 for 5 (yes, I know you're a pirate, some of us aren't).

At the core of it, Soup is good for the game. It allows people to play the models they have, way more easily. This is a big step up from 7th, where you couldn't just bring a cool unit, you had to find a detachment that made it workable, or even allowed.

All of the problems with soup vanish if units are properly costed in the first place.

The thing is, units will just have to be costed with soup in mind. So units like Guardsmen should go up in price, and heavy mortar teams, etc. Because Imperium having the ability to staple on a battalion for basically nothing, while also getting the best screening units in the entire game, is a bit silly.

If we're looking at soup from a lore compliant standpoint, it does get silly, but that kind of thing is really up to the playerbase to moderate.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Soup is for fluff and storytelling as that is where it does it best.
The sooner soup is illegal in matched, the better for the game.

Yeah because Ynnari players, Inquisition, Sisters of Silence, etc. This is such a short sighted view point that ignores the fact that part of the game is constructed around soup being an element in list building. At this point people who whine about soup are the 40k equivalent of people shouting about how the kids are ruining everything.

If you have something that you can't even play as a army, can you really be considered to be playing that? Isn't it like saying I drive a ford, and he drives a porsche, and then proudly proclaiming you drive a hotwheels? How is that possible?

I don't think a fix to soup is a ban. A fix to soup is less CP if you decide to run soup. Or something else.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
On the surface it sounds like we're saying the same things, but your statements come across as cynical ploys to trick customers instead of simple rules to let people use models in ways that make sense for the universe. The sales will follow without the need of some nefarious bean counter plot dictating "allies or you're fired".

I wouldn't say trick customers. I did not intend to imply that value was not created in the process.

Also, I tend to present business decisions in the most cynical light possible because, well, it's usually correct.

But you're right, it's not a trick, or a ploy, it's simply business. What annoys me is this argument that GW is somehow going to get rid of allies/detachments/soup (pick a term you like) because players think single codex armies should be dominant. That is stupid. Dumb. Idiotic. Incapable of doing basic math dumb. At the most basic level why would I settle for getting $40 from you for a single codex when I can get $200 for 5 (yes, I know you're a pirate, some of us aren't).

Where did I say I pirate? I just said I didn't think it was criminal. Not that I thought it was moral.

The majority GW's sales come from "Ooh, shiny!". You can look at sales data for any miniature company and see the sales drop off precipitously after a few months. Allowing allies ADDS sales. There is no doubt, but it also adds value to the game and long-time collectors. Nevertheless allies are not even necessary to their business. I still want to run a killakan/grot army some day even with no ally option available to transition to it.

Reemule wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Soup is for fluff and storytelling as that is where it does it best.
The sooner soup is illegal in matched, the better for the game.

Yeah because Ynnari players, Inquisition, Sisters of Silence, etc. This is such a short sighted view point that ignores the fact that part of the game is constructed around soup being an element in list building. At this point people who whine about soup are the 40k equivalent of people shouting about how the kids are ruining everything.

If you have something that you can't even play as a army, can you really be considered to be playing that? Isn't it like saying I drive a ford, and he drives a porsche, and then proudly proclaiming you drive a hotwheels? How is that possible?

I don't think a fix to soup is a ban. A fix to soup is less CP if you decide to run soup. Or something else.

Ynnari are an army that is literally built around the concept of 'soup'.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Where did I say I pirate? I just said I didn't think it was criminal. Not that I thought it was moral.

It was an assumption based upon a statement, it was not an indictment of your morality or lack thereof.

In your case, allies are not necessarily driving sales of GW models to you.

In my case, unless a model is of use to my army, I'm not giving GW money for it.

GW would like to get money from both of us.

It's pretty straightforward.

So your point is that this can't be fixed... and much like the OP, we should stop whining about Soup and be happy to play it and against it?

Or did you have a suggestion?

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Where did I say I pirate? I just said I didn't think it was criminal. Not that I thought it was moral.

It was an assumption based upon a statement, it was not an indictment of your morality or lack thereof.

In your case, allies are not necessarily driving sales of GW models to you.

In my case, unless a model is of use to my army, I'm not giving GW money for it.

GW would like to get money from both of us.

It's pretty straightforward.

Right, but there distinction lies in whether or not there is policy from upper management governing rules development. We know there is for new models. Allies? I'm not so sure.

Reemule wrote:
So your point is that this can't be fixed... and much like the OP, we should stop whining about Soup and be happy to play it and against it?

Or did you have a suggestion?

My point is that it won't be fixed as it reduces revenue streams.

But the rest of your statement is correct.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

Reemule wrote:
So your point is that this can't be fixed... and much like the OP, we should stop whining about Soup and be happy to play it and against it?

Or did you have a suggestion?

My point is that it won't be fixed as it reduces revenue streams.

But the rest of your statement is correct.

Well this game does have a long history of people not changing the things they don't like about it to make it more fair and to run tournaments, and such.

Sorry for the snark, but really? I can't even read that with a straight face.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Right, but there distinction lies in whether or not there is policy from upper management governing rules development. We know there is for new models. Allies? I'm not so sure.

I doubt it's something that's been detailed in a company policy memo or anything like that. However, as someone who spent many years working in game development I promise you that designers were included in meetings with sales and marketing people wherein they were asked how they could get existing customers to buy more models. I guarantee you that allies/detachments/soup was brought up as a way of doing this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reemule wrote:
Sorry for the snark, but really? I can't even read that with a straight face.

Yeah, happy to play against it is probably asking a lot. But learning to live with it is probably a better option than trying to change it, because I highly doubt that's happening.

My experience with what sells models that is controlled by the company...

Codex release (Easily number one. New Dex is released, people want more stuff/Start new forces.)
New Players starting. (duh)
FAQ (Something got better, or fixed? Let’s buy it.)
Then Soup.

Ban soup and the OP has to buy more to play a force… as do all those depending on running soup.

Now if it stays banned… that is where you get some great conspiracy theory.

Soup is fine for narrative play where the story and imbalance of scenario. However the unveness of acces to said soup should make it restricted in matched play.

Out of the few things AoS did right, I think allies was one of them. They should adopt it for 40k, you can only take a single faction but then are limited on allies.

Reemule wrote:
My experience with what sells models that is controlled by the company...

Codex release (Easily number one. New Dex is released, people want more stuff/Start new forces.)
New Players starting. (duh)
FAQ (Something got better, or fixed? Let’s buy it.)
Then Soup.

So glad you have the sales data and metrics to back that up! That would answer so many questions on this thread, I mean, it would get us out of the realm of conjecture and moving towards fact.

Post that information, let's analyze!

Mostly because it directly contradicts my experience.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

Reemule wrote:
Ban soup and the OP has to buy more to play a force… as do all those depending on running soup.

Without soup GW's chances of selling me another model are absurdly small. I will not be starting a new army, I have so many CSM models that the list of models I'm actually interested in acquiring is literally less than 5 models and those are all situational. The only way GW is selling me new models is soup. What you're suggesting effectively abandons customers, it effectively says there are revenue streams I am not interested in pursuing, which is a failure of fiduciary responsibility.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

Reemule wrote:
My experience with what sells models that is controlled by the company...

Codex release (Easily number one. New Dex is released, people want more stuff/Start new forces.)
New Players starting. (duh)
FAQ (Something got better, or fixed? Let’s buy it.)
Then Soup.

So glad you have the sales data and metrics to back that up! That would answer so many questions on this thread, I mean, it would get us out of the realm of conjecture and moving towards fact.

Post that information, let's analyze!

Mostly because it directly contradicts my experience.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

Reemule wrote:
Ban soup and the OP has to buy more to play a force… as do all those depending on running soup.

Without soup GW's chances of selling me another model are absurdly small. I will not be starting a new army, I have so many CSM models that the list of models I'm actually interested in acquiring is literally less than 5 models and those are all situational. The only way GW is selling me new models is soup. What you're suggesting effectively abandons customers, it effectively says there are revenue streams I am not interested in pursuing, which is a failure of fiduciary responsibility.

Hey you first, you started down this road with assurances of your credentials. Put some details down supporting your anecdotal evidence.

I give it 75% chance that FLG does something about Soup in the next year. 40% chance on GW doing something. Nothing to back it, just a feel.

No reason for FLG to make a change - they're still a retailer who benefits from the added sales.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
No reason for FLG to make a change - they're still a retailer who benefits from the added sales.

I'm expecting them to do something about it in their tournaments, a place they have made clear they do make changes in.

Soup can be fun or it can be crap. It really depends on the soup to be honest. I would rather see incentive in the way of buffs when taking a single army than nerfing soup.

Something like a extra 3-6 command points (not sure what would be balanced, I would say 6 due to just how much you lose by not taking soup.

This also opens up a can of issues because not all armies benefit from soup as much as imperials do. So a flat bonus may not be the best answer.

But seeing as soup makes sales I would not expect to see any nerfs until hell freezes over. They have been pushing to this point for a while and now we are here. So I say lets give some bonus's to single army lists.

Reemule wrote:
Hey you first, you started down this road with assurances of your credentials. Put some details down supporting your anecdotal evidence.

I give it 75% chance that FLG does something about Soup in the next year. 40% chance on GW doing something. Nothing to back it, just a feel.

Sure, 15 years, over a dozen shipped titles, I have never made it through a development cycle without having that discussion with marketing and sales. While that is still technically anecdotal evidence, it's a lot more than a feeling. It also jibes with discussions I've had with every person I have ever worked with in the games industry (especially marketing and sales, who have jobs that depend on that sort of thing), which number in the hundreds, again, anecdotal, but very consistent, still going out on the "more than a feeling" limb.

FLG will address Ynnari if GW doesn't. GW has already indicated they intend to adjust Ynnari. This fatuous belief that somehow there is going to be some grand coming to Jesus moment when GW walks out tearfully offering mea culpas for their terrible sins and how they've been trying to make money off their customers, while telling everyone they can only use what's in their codex, is just as silly as it sounds.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I mean soups should be legal but worse than ANY list made using a single book.

So that's great for the soup haters, but it means that all those soup sales will dramatically reduced. Which is contrary to the business goals of GW.

Maybe people will start buying full armies instead. If they can get away with just a few boxes to add to their already existing collection, why should they buy something more?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I don't like soups but I don't want to erase them from 40k.

I mean soups should be legal but worse than ANY list made using a single book.

Right - because I should be punished for liking my Death Guard/NurgleDemon setup or TSons/Tzeentch Demons setup.

In competitive games yes, because chosing from more books is unfair since several factions can only choose from a single codex.

This whining about soup is tiresome. Soup is not the problem, some OP/undercosted units are the problem.

Banning soup would be a one thing which would make me seriously consider quitting the game. I want to collect variety of models and it is amazing that I can field them together.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackie wrote:


In competitive games yes, because chosing from more books is unfair since several factions can only choose from a single codex.

But not all books have the same amount of units anyway, so even if you could use only one book, it would still be similarly unfair.

 Blackie wrote:
In competitive games yes, because chosing from more books is unfair since several factions can only choose from a single codex.

Then GW should endeavor to make those books better, not take away options from other people.

 Blackie wrote:
Maybe people will start buying full armies instead. If they can get away with just a few boxes to add to their already existing collection, why should they buy something more?

Building a business plan on potentially abandoning customers that are generating revenue should probably be based on something more substantial than maybe.

KurtAngle2 wrote:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Soup is for fluff and storytelling as that is where it does it best.
The sooner soup is illegal in matched, the better for the game.

Yeah let's destroy Assassins/Inquisition/any other "ally" army all together!

Or, you know, allow for them to be taken irrespective and not count for/against. With limits of course to prevent bullgak like that all assassin army.

Soup is a problem not because it exists, but because powergamers and competitive gamers abuse it. So I think GW will address it in some way. I have heard potentially making it so for Battleforged, <Chaos> and <Imperium> do not count as keywords, which would kill soup dead. At the same time they'd have to give Inquisitors, maybe Sisters of Silence and Assassins a special "pass to allow them to be taken. This wouldn't affect themed daemon armies (could still do <Nurgle> or <Khorne&gt but would eliminate bs like taking Tzeentch Daemons in a Nurgle army because they are cheap.

You know what would have actually solved this mess in the first place? Ally rules like AOS has; a percentage of your points can be taken from specific subfactions (or even the global faction). So all but 20% of your army has to be mono-faction, but 20% could be something else.

Ynnari needs to have it be all or nothing, not per detachment (like I think it was originally?) and replace Craftworld (so no using a Saim-Hann stratagem on Ynnari Shining Spears or whatnot).

What also might fix it is making it so you only get the stratagems of the detachment which your warlord belongs to, so no more taking a Patrol with a cheap HQ/Troop to unlock stratagems for abuse.

Wayniac wrote:
Soup is a problem not because it exists, but because powergamers and competitive gamers abuse it. So I think GW will address it in some way. I have heard potentially making it so for Battleforged, <Chaos> and <Imperium> do not count as keywords, which would kill soup dead.

That would be amazing, I'm so glad you thought that through completely before posting it, because it completely breaks the CSM codex itself. So basically the only Legions that could use Daemons would be the big 4, the rest of them become garbage on a stick, brilliant, well thought out.

Wayniac wrote:
This wouldn't affect themed daemon armies (could still do <Nurgle> or <Khorne&gt but would eliminate bs like taking Tzeentch Daemons in a Nurgle army because they are cheap.

Hey, you know, Bel'akor is really terrible in the new rules already, but how about we make it so you can't actually take him in any list, at all, ever.

Wayniac wrote:
Ynnari needs to have it be all or nothing, not per detachment (like I think it was originally?) and replace Craftworld (so no using a Saim-Hann stratagem on Ynnari Shining Spears or whatnot).

Make Soulburst a 1 CP stratagem, problem solved.

Having more options is always more powerful than having fewer ones, so of course you can get better results by fielding a bunch of Imperium models of different flavours than you can by restricting yourself to only Space Marine ones. The extreme difference in number of options between, say, Imperium and Necrons makes any demblance of balance impossible unless you artificially cut down on the power of soup. Even if all models were equally good, more options will win because they can choose the perfect tool for the job rather than pick an adequate one.

So if you want to be able to play any Imperium models together in an army without penalties and still have a fair game against armies with far fewer options, you need to make the other armies' options more powerful than the Imperium's across the board. The again, that would make the Imperial sub-factions like Space Marines and Guard decidedly underpowered.

Soup has to be penalised (or pure armies encouraged) in some way if you want a fair game between soup and pure. And if you're fine with a pure Space Marine amry being worse than Imperial soup because you can play those marines in the soup army anyway, you should still be for Necrons, Tau and Orks being able to compete. So then they should be given an option to soup it up as well.

The main problem is that there's much more parity between the number of options in single codices than there is between faction keywords. "Imperium", "Chaos" and "Aeldari", in that order, are just too prevalent compared to others.

9th edition

One army codex. It has all the models in the game.

No more soup.

So...

How about gain 2CP for your army being battle forged

Or gain 5CP if it is battle forged and runs from a single codex?

I think this would be a decent incentive to build a mono build, while not penalising allied armies overly.

 DoomMouse wrote:
So...

How about gain 2CP for your army being battle forged

Or gain 5CP if it is battle forged and runs from a single codex?

I think this would be a decent incentive to build a mono build, while not penalising allied armies overly.

Keep it as it is, it works. I would suggest that you have to nominate a faction as your primary, and only that factions detachments grant you CP's. You're free to soup but you won't gain any CP's from it - hell, go one step further and -1 CP per non-primary detachment that you add, similar to auxiliary detachments.

My view though is to ultimately scrap the silliness of 7th Ed era detachments and have the old single force org chart. Remove soup and allies all together. Keep that stuff in for narrative games but remove it from Matched Play completely.

 NurglesR0T wrote:

Keep it as it is, it works. I would suggest that you have to nominate a faction as your primary, and only that factions detachments grant you CP's. You're free to soup but you won't gain any CP's from it - hell, go one step further and -1 CP per non-primary detachment that you add, similar to auxiliary detachments.

My view though is to ultimately scrap the silliness of 7th Ed era detachments and have the old single force org chart. Remove soup and allies all together. Keep that stuff in for narrative games but remove it from Matched Play completely.

I think this might work. If they just went back to a certain percentage of your list needs to be (X) in order to gain +cp's and penalize you with -cp's if it's not.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
In competitive games yes, because chosing from more books is unfair since several factions can only choose from a single codex.

Then GW should endeavor to make those books better, not take away options from other people.

I'd never said "take away options", but only to reward lists that are made by using a single codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:

But not all books have the same amount of units anyway, so even if you could use only one book, it would still be similarly unfair.

You're right, in fact factions that only have a few units should never had their codex. Inquisition, grey knights, custodes, SoB etc should be part of the same codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Maybe people will start buying full armies instead. If they can get away with just a few boxes to add to their already existing collection, why should they buy something more?

Building a business plan on potentially abandoning customers that are generating revenue should probably be based on something more substantial than maybe.

How many people want the soup? And how many of them are collecting soups only for fluff reasons? I bet most of them do so for being more competitive. Reward one book armies and the majority of those customers will not abandon the hobby, they'll just adjust their current lists.

Makes hordes armies very competitive and lots of people will buy them. If GW guys want to make money just promote units that have kits that are not extremely recent. Sell those boxes, then promote something else among the old kits. New stuff will always sell.

 Blackie wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
In competitive games yes, because chosing from more books is unfair since several factions can only choose from a single codex.

Then GW should endeavor to make those books better, not take away options from other people.

I'd never said "take away options", but only to reward lists that are made by using a single codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:

But not all books have the same amount of units anyway, so even if you could use only one book, it would still be similarly unfair.

You're right, in fact factions that only have a few units should never had their codex. Inquisition, grey knights, custodes, SoB etc should be part of the same codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Maybe people will start buying full armies instead. If they can get away with just a few boxes to add to their already existing collection, why should they buy something more?

Building a business plan on potentially abandoning customers that are generating revenue should probably be based on something more substantial than maybe.

How many people want the soup? And how many of them are collecting soups only for fluff reasons? I bet most of them do so for being more competitive. Reward one book armies and the majority of those customers will not abandon the hobby, they'll just adjust their current lists.

Makes hordes armies very competitive and lots of people will buy them. If GW guys want to make money just promote units that have kits that are not extremely recent. Sell those boxes, then promote something else among the old kits. New stuff will always sell.

It really is a crap shoot on what GW promotes. They have been buffing old units for a while but there seems to be no rhyme or reason on what they pick. But new models will always be promoted over old. Look at the recent drama with the Thousand Gors codex.

 Blackie wrote:


How many people want the soup? And how many of them are collecting soups only for fluff reasons? I bet most of them do so for being more competitive.

You'd probably lose that bet.
The WH4K community is more than just the sperglords you see online. If you think the Dakka community is an accurate representation of the playerbase you're very mistaken.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Blackie wrote:


How many people want the soup? And how many of them are collecting soups only for fluff reasons? I bet most of them do so for being more competitive.

You'd probably lose that bet.
The WH4K community is more than just the sperglords you see online. If you think the Dakka community is an accurate representation of the playerbase you're very mistaken.

I don't think that. In fact I've never met in my life a single dude that wanted to play a soup list for fluff reasons. Only on dakkadakka.

All those players that I've met or I've seen playing or even heard about them played soups only for being more competitive.

Well, I play "Soup" - DG + Nurgle Daemons + Nurgle Renegades. Nurgle renegades because those were DG units last edition and have been thrown out of the DG-Codex. And Nurgle Daemons because it's very fitting as a support for the marines. Most of them are even in the DG-Codex.
So, I use Soup only for fluff reasons, I don't care if it's competitive. Dakka tells me it's not, my opponents say otherwize, but none of their factions have a codex yet.

Soup actually makes sense from the inperium's POV. The imperium's. Military is broken up into a dozen paranoid pieces for fear of another 'warmaster' taking power. Inefficient, disorganized and crippled but necessarily so due to the imperium's fear of betrayal. So the fleet, the marines, the IG, etc are all separate and unintegrated.

But the IG is still the most numerous force in the imperium, and it is definitely a fodder force. The ability to add on, temporarily, small, professional, elite forces to stiffen it, serve as strike forces, tide turners, spearheads, etc, but remain under non IG control. This makes it hard for an IG commander to go rouge since other, more dedicated forces will be watching him.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

Reemule wrote:
Hey you first, you started down this road with assurances of your credentials. Put some details down supporting your anecdotal evidence.

I give it 75% chance that FLG does something about Soup in the next year. 40% chance on GW doing something. Nothing to back it, just a feel.

Sure, 15 years, over a dozen shipped titles, I have never made it through a development cycle without having that discussion with marketing and sales. While that is still technically anecdotal evidence, it's a lot more than a feeling. It also jibes with discussions I've had with every person I have ever worked with in the games industry (especially marketing and sales, who have jobs that depend on that sort of thing), which number in the hundreds, again, anecdotal, but very consistent, still going out on the "more than a feeling" limb.

FLG will address Ynnari if GW doesn't. GW has already indicated they intend to adjust Ynnari. This fatuous belief that somehow there is going to be some grand coming to Jesus moment when GW walks out tearfully offering mea culpas for their terrible sins and how they've been trying to make money off their customers, while telling everyone they can only use what's in their codex, is just as silly as it sounds.

And I've got lots of years in gaming, gaming stores, building metas, and playing GW games. As long as we agree we just have anecdotal evidence.

Twinpoletheory you have no consistency.

You say this: (in reference to soup and a GW fix)
My point is that it won't be fixed as it reduces revenue streams.

Then you say this:
GW has already indicated they intend to adjust Ynnari.

My position is pretty consistent. Soup is going to be adjusted. Most likely nerfed, and maybe something where stuff that isn't soup is augmented. I think its most likely that its nerfed in CP.

Once you pick a position, perhaps it can be argued.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
This makes it hard for an IG commander to go rouge since other

Not trying to be a jerk - just poking fun...




...sorry I couldn't help myself.

“Soup” is awesome. I love it, couldn’t care less about the nerd rage. Play how you want to play, no need to justify anything or get anyone’s approval unless it matters (tourney with rules for composition or whatever).

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
“Soup” is awesome. I love it, couldn’t care less about the nerd rage. Play how you want to play, no need to justify anything or get anyone’s approval unless it matters (tourney with rules for composition or whatever).

Playing a game is a social contract between 2 people. The contract we are going to do a mutually awarding activity, and it is ultimately self-governing.

You might say play what you want, but if you can’t find a way to fit into the bounds of reasonableness, quickly you will find you have changed from playing what you want to playing with yourself.

Don’t be the guy playing with yourself.

Is Ynnari really soup? I mean - in many cases its the exact same models with just a different army trait. In any case it is much less egregious than imperial soup lists which pull from 5 or more totally different codex and forgeworld.

Ynnari is a stupid half-realized idea that even GW don't know what to do with.

Personally I don't mind "soup", but that's because I don't do tournaments and I choose who I play games with. My games are aimed at being fun and narrative, so when a narrative player uses soup to make a nice fluffy army - all the better.

The fact that (at least early in the edition) "soup" means Roubote Guilliman and Celestine leading 200 guard conscripts around the board...doesn't impact me. I think it's stupid, but I don't have to encounter it, so it doesn't really impact me.

Reemule wrote:

Playing a game is a social contract between 2 people. The contract we are going to do a mutually awarding activity, and it is ultimately self-governing.

You might say play what you want, but if you can’t find a way to fit into the bounds of reasonableness, quickly you will find you have changed from playing what you want to playing with yourself.

Don’t be the guy playing with yourself.

Sure. I just think that the people who do not try to tell other people what sort of armies they should play are the reasonable ones.

I propose a new tournament setting. 3 Detachment max. Only 1 faction allowed. (Or in other words - 1 codex). If you wish to take allies - you can do so in an AUX support detachment for -1 CP (you can only use stratagems from your primary detachment).

This gets rid of the silly cross codex stratagem use. Also the silly min maxing with faction rules for different units. This would be a step in the right direction to improving the tournament setting for most people.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I propose a new tournament setting. 3 Detachment max. Only 1 faction allowed. (Or in other words - 1 codex). If you wish to take allies - you can do so in an AUX support detachment for -1 CP (you can only use stratagems from your primary detachment).

This gets rid of the silly cross codex stratagem use. Also the silly min maxing with faction rules for different units. This would be a step in the right direction to improving the tournament setting for most people.

Define most.

Reemule wrote:


You say this: (in reference to soup and a GW fix)
My point is that it won't be fixed as it reduces revenue streams.

Then you say this:
GW has already indicated they intend to adjust Ynnari.

My position is pretty consistent. Soup is going to be adjusted. Most likely nerfed, and maybe something where stuff that isn't soup is augmented. I think its most likely that its nerfed in CP.

Once you pick a position, perhaps it can be argued.

Seriously, you think these positions are mutually exclusive?

Please explain and show your work. Because they have almost nothing to do with one another.

The only thing Ynnari need to be adjusted is Soulburst, which should have never been triggered in it's current manner. Honestly, nothing else needs to change about Ynnari.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:
Sure. I just think that the people who do not try to tell other people what sort of armies they should play are the reasonable ones.

Sir, this type of reasonable discourse has no place on these boards.

Really hoping GW pulls the plug on Ynnari this month with the upcoming FAQ.

Soup - good things - you can build unique and fluffy armies... bad things - WAAC wet dream.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I propose a new tournament setting. 3 Detachment max. Only 1 faction allowed. (Or in other words - 1 codex). If you wish to take allies - you can do so in an AUX support detachment for -1 CP (you can only use stratagems from your primary detachment).

This gets rid of the silly cross codex stratagem use. Also the silly min maxing with faction rules for different units. This would be a step in the right direction to improving the tournament setting for most people.

I propose they nerf the Guard and Dark Reapers, and possibly place some restrictions on cross-codex stratagem use. Adjusting Ynnari rules so that they benefit a larger Ynnari army/detachment rather than just buffing one unit would be welcome too. And I also propose you stop trying to effectively get other people's armies banned and try learning to play instead. This would be a step in the right direction.

 Crimson wrote:

Reemule wrote:

Playing a game is a social contract between 2 people. The contract we are going to do a mutually awarding activity, and it is ultimately self-governing.

You might say play what you want, but if you can’t find a way to fit into the bounds of reasonableness, quickly you will find you have changed from playing what you want to playing with yourself.

Don’t be the guy playing with yourself.

Sure. I just think that the people who do not try to tell other people what sort of armies they should play are the reasonable ones.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. If someone can't handle playing against World Eaters, Daemons of Khorne, and Renegades & Heretics at the same time, I guess we'll just have to agree to find someone else to play.

 Crimson wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I propose a new tournament setting. 3 Detachment max. Only 1 faction allowed. (Or in other words - 1 codex). If you wish to take allies - you can do so in an AUX support detachment for -1 CP (you can only use stratagems from your primary detachment).

This gets rid of the silly cross codex stratagem use. Also the silly min maxing with faction rules for different units. This would be a step in the right direction to improving the tournament setting for most people.

I propose they nerf the Guard and Dark Reapers, and possibly place some restrictions on cross-codex stratagem use. Adjusting Ynnari rules so that they benefit a larger Ynnari army/detachment rather than just buffing one unit would be welcome too. And I also propose you stop trying to effectively get other people's armies banned and try learning to play instead. This would be a step in the right direction.

What about my proposal bans an army? It just restricts the number of allies you can bring. Much like the allied detachment in 7th.

 Crimson wrote:

Sure. I just think that the people who do not try to tell other people what sort of armies they should play are the reasonable ones.

Who is telling you what to play? Play what you want as long as the rules allow it.

Now do we all have a right to hope the rules on certain oversights get changed? That is going to keep happening.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I propose a new tournament setting. 3 Detachment max. Only 1 faction allowed. (Or in other words - 1 codex). If you wish to take allies - you can do so in an AUX support detachment for -1 CP (you can only use stratagems from your primary detachment).

This gets rid of the silly cross codex stratagem use. Also the silly min maxing with faction rules for different units. This would be a step in the right direction to improving the tournament setting for most people.

Define most.

Well - most people aren't running soup - not even at tournaments. That is the point I am driving here.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I propose a new tournament setting. 3 Detachment max. Only 1 faction allowed. (Or in other words - 1 codex). If you wish to take allies - you can do so in an AUX support detachment for -1 CP (you can only use stratagems from your primary detachment).

This gets rid of the silly cross codex stratagem use. Also the silly min maxing with faction rules for different units. This would be a step in the right direction to improving the tournament setting for most people.

I propose they nerf the Guard and Dark Reapers, and possibly place some restrictions on cross-codex stratagem use. Adjusting Ynnari rules so that they benefit a larger Ynnari army/detachment rather than just buffing one unit would be welcome too. And I also propose you stop trying to effectively get other people's armies banned and try learning to play instead. This would be a step in the right direction.

What about my proposal bans an army? It just restricts the number of allies you can bring. Much like the allied detachment in 7th.

Your proposal allows bringing two allied units max. That is basically banning the soup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Well - most people aren't running soup - not even at tournaments.

Why is the soup a problem then? Not everyone want's to construct their army same way as you do. Just deal with it.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I propose a new tournament setting. 3 Detachment max. Only 1 faction allowed. (Or in other words - 1 codex). If you wish to take allies - you can do so in an AUX support detachment for -1 CP (you can only use stratagems from your primary detachment).

This gets rid of the silly cross codex stratagem use. Also the silly min maxing with faction rules for different units. This would be a step in the right direction to improving the tournament setting for most people.

Define most.

Well - most people aren't running soup - not even at tournaments. That is the point I am driving here.

I'll go one further and say the vast majority of 40k players don't run soup, playing all over the country as I do quite often it's relatively rare to see proper soup armies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I propose a new tournament setting. 3 Detachment max. Only 1 faction allowed. (Or in other words - 1 codex). If you wish to take allies - you can do so in an AUX support detachment for -1 CP (you can only use stratagems from your primary detachment).

This gets rid of the silly cross codex stratagem use. Also the silly min maxing with faction rules for different units. This would be a step in the right direction to improving the tournament setting for most people.

I propose they nerf the Guard and Dark Reapers, and possibly place some restrictions on cross-codex stratagem use. Adjusting Ynnari rules so that they benefit a larger Ynnari army/detachment rather than just buffing one unit would be welcome too. And I also propose you stop trying to effectively get other people's armies banned and try learning to play instead. This would be a step in the right direction.

What about my proposal bans an army? It just restricts the number of allies you can bring. Much like the allied detachment in 7th.

Your proposal allows bringing two allied units max. That is basically banning the soup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Well - most people aren't running soup - not even at tournaments.

Why is the soup a problem then? Not everyone want's to construct their army same way as you do. Just deal with it.

So do you propose that the majority bow to the minority ?

Sure some people want to run soup, some don't, that's fine, things like inquisition, ynarri etc. Should just have their own books with a few units from several codexs in it, like they used to.

I stick by my original idea. If you’re not a single craftworld/dept/chapter/Clan, you don’t qualify as battleforged. This isn’t an insurmountable hardship. -3 CP isn’t going to break forces. But it does give a nice incentive to those that do qualify.

Note. This isn’t a Ban soup. This isn’t a don’t play X. If you want to run all allies, run all allies.

I do feel some of the rule on what strategems are available to allies forces needs to be examined. But I don’t have any suggestions in that area.

 Formosa wrote:

So do you propose that the majority bow to the minority ?

No, because I am not demanding that non-soup armies should be banned.

Sure some people want to run soup, some don't, that's fine, things like inquisition, ynarri etc. Should just have their own books with a few units from several codexs in it, like they used to.

There is no point in repeating units from other codices (yes, it already silly that some SM codices do it.) It is perfectly fine to have mini factions that are mainly intended to be used as allies.

Reemule wrote:
I stick by my original idea. If you’re not a single craftworld/dept/chapter/Clan, you don’t qualify as battleforged. This isn’t an insurmountable hardship. -3 CP isn’t going to break forces. But it does give a nice incentive to those that do qualify.

Note. This isn’t a Ban soup. This isn’t a don’t play X. If you want to run all allies, run all allies.

I do feel some of the rule on what strategems are available to allies forces needs to be examined. But I don’t have any suggestions in that area.

Well - a lot of times people are running soup just as a command point generator. So it's obvious where the push-back comes from there.

Reemule wrote:
I stick by my original idea. If you’re not a single craftworld/dept/chapter/Clan, you don’t qualify as battleforged. This isn’t an insurmountable hardship. -3 CP isn’t going to break forces. But it does give a nice incentive to those that do qualify.

Considering that matched requires army to be battle-forged, it is a ban. And of course not being battle-forged means losing all the army special rules as well.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Well - a lot of times people are running soup just as a command point generator. So it's obvious where the push-back comes from there.

That's not a soup problem, that's an IG problem. They can fill slots insanely cheaply.

 Crimson wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I propose a new tournament setting. 3 Detachment max. Only 1 faction allowed. (Or in other words - 1 codex). If you wish to take allies - you can do so in an AUX support detachment for -1 CP (you can only use stratagems from your primary detachment).

This gets rid of the silly cross codex stratagem use. Also the silly min maxing with faction rules for different units. This would be a step in the right direction to improving the tournament setting for most people.

I propose they nerf the Guard and Dark Reapers, and possibly place some restrictions on cross-codex stratagem use. Adjusting Ynnari rules so that they benefit a larger Ynnari army/detachment rather than just buffing one unit would be welcome too. And I also propose you stop trying to effectively get other people's armies banned and try learning to play instead. This would be a step in the right direction.

What about my proposal bans an army? It just restricts the number of allies you can bring. Much like the allied detachment in 7th.

Your proposal allows bringing two allied units max. That is basically banning the soup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Well - most people aren't running soup - not even at tournaments.

Why is the soup a problem then? Not everyone want's to construct their army same way as you do. Just deal with it.

Soup is a problem when a small minority of players abuse soup to gain advantage. Beit through command point generation/ stratagem abuse/ covering an armies weakness.

There is more than one way to fix the problem. The one I prefer has my own personal bias - I like to see mono armies taking each other on. If armies could only be mono though all of the abuses of soup would be gone.

Another way to fix the problem is to change the way command points work in regards to detachments (IE command points can't leave their detachment)/ stratagems not crossing between units of different codex/ ect.)

I would fully support ether change if people could decide to get behind one of them.

Reemule wrote:
I stick by my original idea. If you’re not a single craftworld/dept/chapter/Clan, you don’t qualify as battleforged. This isn’t an insurmountable hardship. -3 CP isn’t going to break forces. But it does give a nice incentive to those that do qualify.

Again, this is an idea whose ramifications have not been fully thought out.

Why don't you go and look at everything that is tied to being battle-forged and note what breaks?

But hey, CSM and Daemons don't work together, let's make it so they can't even be in the same army. Sorry, this is just dumb on several levels, fluff (since CSM have had daemonic units in their armies since 1st edition) and rules (since CSM kind of have Daemons in their own codex, that by your reasoning they couldn't use).

 Crimson wrote:

Reemule wrote:
I stick by my original idea. If you’re not a single craftworld/dept/chapter/Clan, you don’t qualify as battleforged. This isn’t an insurmountable hardship. -3 CP isn’t going to break forces. But it does give a nice incentive to those that do qualify.

Considering that matched requires army to be battle-forged, it is a ban. And of course not being battle-forged means losing all the army special rules as well.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Well - a lot of times people are running soup just as a command point generator. So it's obvious where the push-back comes from there.

That's not a soup problem, that's an IG problem. They can fill slots insanely cheaply.

Lets be honest here - when people mean soup - they are mostly talking about IG. That is 90% of soup.

Your acting like -3 CP breaks the army. Please stop that silliness.

Stratagems are the biggest offender to me. Forcing players to choose a primary detachment and only generating Stratagems from that detachment's faction that only work on other detachments with the same faction is a strong start. For example, I can play a DG and CSM force, but I can only choose to get DG or CSM stratagems, which in turn will only work on the faction I selected.

If I were going to go a step further, I would also add a limit to the amount of allies which could be used as a percentage of the total cost of points, such as 30% or 40%. This still allows for allies, but ensures your primary faction should be just that, primary.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Soup is a problem when a small minority of players abuse soup to gain advantage. Beit through command point generation/ stratagem abuse/ covering an armies weakness.

There is more than one way to fix the problem. The one I prefer has my own personal bias - I like to see mono armies taking each other on. If armies could only be mono though all of the abuses of soup would be gone.

Right. Good you realise your bias. I have to say I detest any sort of bans to fix a problem, was it about soup or FW. Just identify the actual problem areas and fix those.

Another way to fix the problem is to change the way command points work in regards to detachments (IE command points can't leave their detachment)/ stratagems not crossing between units of different codex/ ect.)

Some limitations of stratagem usage might make sense. However, as I said, the command point generation is not a soup problem, it is an IG problem. They're just too good at it. I've been playing my little Inquisitoiral task force consisting of Primaris marines, IG and some Inquisition stuff, sometimes assassins. And sure, the IG generates command points that can be used by the marines, but the fact is the marines do not really have many good stratagems, and the army would be more powerful if I'd just ditched the other elements and turned it into a pure IG force. And this is before considering any house rules about losing some CP or stratagem usage due the soup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Lets be honest here - when people mean soup - they are mostly talking about IG. That is 90% of soup.

Yes! So address the real problem, the IG!

Reemule wrote:
Your acting like -3 CP breaks the army. Please stop that silliness.

You're really not getting it are you. Maybe you should comment on rules you actually know.

Reemule wrote:
Your acting like -3 CP breaks the army. Please stop that silliness.

Most tournaments I've seen require you to play a battle forged army. Going to have to change your wording.

Reemule wrote:
I stick by my original idea. If you’re not a single craftworld/dept/chapter/Clan, you don’t qualify as battleforged. This isn’t an insurmountable hardship. -3 CP isn’t going to break forces. But it does give a nice incentive to those that do qualify.

Note. This isn’t a Ban soup. This isn’t a don’t play X. If you want to run all allies, run all allies.

I do feel some of the rule on what strategems are available to allies forces needs to be examined. But I don’t have any suggestions in that area.

This doesn't work/I don't think you understand what battle-forged means. You cannot play a non battle forged army in matched play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reemule wrote:
Your acting like -3 CP breaks the army. Please stop that silliness.

Again please read the rules. This effectively bans all soup from matched play. If I take a Ynnari Detachment and Craftworld detachment by your rules it is illegal for matched play.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
So that's great for the soup haters, but it means that all those soup sales will dramatically reduced. Which is contrary to the business goals of GW.

Not really. If you take that super cynical approach, the best thing is to add soup (people starting buying a little models from every army) then remove soup (people need to buy new models to make new armies now that they cannot use all the model they previously bought together) then add it back, then remove it back and so on.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Not really. If you take that super cynical approach, the best thing is to add soup (people starting buying a little models from every army) then remove soup (people need to buy new models to make new armies now that they cannot use all the model they previously bought together) then add it back, then remove it back and so on.

Or you do things like steadily increase the soup options for various armies. For example, Eldar soup, Tyranid soup (which is relatively new) and continue to expand single codex lists to cater to painters that want a consistent visual aesthetic.

Also, business is cynical, seriously, welcome to capitalism.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

Or you do things like steadily increase the soup options for various armies. For example, Eldar soup, Tyranid soup (which is relatively new) and continue to expand single codex lists to cater to painters that want a consistent visual aesthetic.

Indeed. I want more soup options, not less. Imperium and Chaos obviously have a good selection of soup ingredients, and the Eldar have it pretty good as well, and their family could easily be further expanded by Exodites and (properly supported) Corsairs. Tyranids have the Genestealer Cult and the Tau with all their allied races are obviously a good building ground for a new soup family (and there was already rumours about a separate Kroot codex, so perhaps this is indeed the direction we're heading.) This leaves only Orks and Necrons, completely without allies. Orks could be expanded by a stand alone Gretchin army or even Diggas (kinda Ork GS Cult equivalent) and Necrons... Well, I've got nothing for Necrons, but no one likes them anyway; screw those guys. (Perhaps someone can think of something for them.)

I know I come from the strange and quite literally dead world of Warhammer Fantasy, so I know what I am about to suggest is heresy to 99.5% of 40k players, but there is a super easy solution to soup that works for both sides of the isle on the topic... Comp. Fantasy had a bunch of different comp solutions, each one with its pluses and minuses, but the one thing all of them did was create diversity in army composition and quickly and efficiently compensate for GW's competitive failings in a way nothing else can do.

Whether that is the low comp solutions I see proposed in these forums a lot, like lowering a soup army's CP (that are still comp no matter how much of a dirty word it is). Or the more effective comp systems that effectively limit your ability to create OP Redundancies, or just take the 3 best units from 3 different imperial factions similar to how most fantasy comp systems used to do it. Look I know most in the 40k community hate this idea and have always hated it, so I am not even sure why I am posting this, but I have to, because from personal experience I can tell you if the community buys in and is proactive about it, it works really well.

The biggest complaint I hear about Comp is that it just creates a different set of OP builds, and while to a very limited extent this is true, what it does is encourage army diversity and as it tends to be much more proactive then GW Faqs ever are, it also creates a more fluid meta that rewards experimentation and doesn't feel stale, or like things are a foregone conclusion. It also makes it much more difficult for the power gamers to just buy their way into wins if the meta is constantly adapting.

Also when you get multiple comp systems going you can get some really diverse tournaments, where you can see a lot of different cool builds from one to another. I think its a great competitive play solution, and really wish the 40k community was more okay with it.

tripchimeras wrote:
I know I come from the strange and quite literally dead world of Warhammer Fantasy, so I know what I am about to suggest is heresy to 99.5% of 40k players, but there is a super easy solution to soup that works for both sides of the isle on the topic... Comp. Fantasy had a bunch of different comp solutions, each one with its pluses and minuses, but the one thing all of them did was create diversity in army composition and quickly and efficiently compensate for GW's competitive failings in a way nothing else can do.

Whether that is the low comp solutions I see proposed in these forums a lot, like lowering a soup army's CP (that are still comp no matter how much of a dirty word it is). Or the more effective comp systems that effectively limit your ability to create OP Redundancies, or just take the 3 best units from 3 different imperial factions similar to how most fantasy comp systems used to do it. Look I know most in the 40k community hate this idea and have always hated it, so I am not even sure why I am posting this, but I have to, because from personal experience I can tell you if the community buys in and is proactive about it, it works really well.

The biggest complaint I hear about Comp is that it just creates a different set of OP builds, and while to a very limited extent this is true, what it does is encourage army diversity and as it tends to be much more proactive then GW Faqs ever are, it also creates a more fluid meta that rewards experimentation and doesn't feel stale, or like things are a foregone conclusion. It also makes it much more difficult for the power gamers to just buy their way into wins if the meta is constantly adapting.

Also when you get multiple comp systems going you can get some really diverse tournaments, where you can see a lot of different cool builds from one to another. I think its a great competitive play solution, and really wish the 40k community was more okay with it.

I like this idea

I dont think you need to defend soup. I love my orks and have never played anything else. It is a matter of what you want in the game. Do you want to be competitive then play a competitve game. If not then dont I think it is pretty simple. I would love to play my ork army agianst your soup and then tell the tale of how the battle went down!

There are several major problems with soup armies.

1: Soup is more powerful than non-soup. Now, doubtless if you're not trying to build a list for power, you can make soup lists that aren't particularly more powerful than single-source lists, but you can also make much more powerful lists than single-source lists. 40K is designed around the idea of asymmetrical symmetry - that each individual army has unique strengths and weaknesses, but on a whole are balanced against each other. GW's implementation of this idea hasn't been what anyone would call perfect, or even historically very good, but that's the idea. Soup lists let a player cover one armies intended, in-built weaknesses by taking units from another army. For example, we'll pick on the new guys, Custodes. They are an army of very powerful individual models, and so they're expensive. They can't field a lot of bodies for board control and objective sitting. However, they can soup in some Imperial Guard for masses of cheap bodies. Weakness covered.

2: The game does not reward not playing soup. The rules contain no incentive to not play soup to balance out the above incentive to play soup. If there was some incentive to play single-source to balance out the incentive to play soup, I don't think people would mind soup so much. Their reward for playing single-source would counterbalance the advantages one reaps from playing soup.

3: Not all armies soup well. If you're an Imperium player, you've got a lot of potential ingredients for your soup, and Chaos and Eldar have a respectable amount of options as well. Nids, on the other hand, have very limited soup options, and Necrons, Orks, and Tau have none at all. That gives players who have good soup options an unfair advantage over players who don't.

4: Aesthetics. I've been arguing since the 6th ed allies rules broke that multi-source lists don't look nearly as good on the table as single-source lists. One thing GW does very well is model design, and all the units of a particular army are tied together with a common aesthetic, so they look like a cohesive whole on the table. Soup lists, by their very nature, lack that advantage, and as a result don't look anywhere near as good on the table as single-source lists.

What do you guys think of this?
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/02/40k-big-tourney-says-no-imperial-chaos-soup-for-you.html

 chimeara wrote:
What do you guys think of this?
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/02/40k-big-tourney-says-no-imperial-chaos-soup-for-you.html

I think Eldar will win.

This hurts Chaos a bit, but it really hoses all of the Imperial Splinter factions worse. If you're playing AM/SM you'll probably be ok, and if you're playing Eldar or Tyranids you must be absolutely thrilled.

Actually, re-read it, only prevents use of those faction keywords in the creation of battle-forged detachments, this would actually have no effect on my current tourney lists.

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
There are several major problems with soup armies.

1: Soup is more powerful than non-soup. Now, doubtless if you're not trying to build a list for power, you can make soup lists that aren't particularly more powerful than single-source lists, but you can also make much more powerful lists than single-source lists. 40K is designed around the idea of asymmetrical symmetry - that each individual army has unique strengths and weaknesses, but on a whole are balanced against each other. GW's implementation of this idea hasn't been what anyone would call perfect, or even historically very good, but that's the idea. Soup lists let a player cover one armies intended, in-built weaknesses by taking units from another army. For example, we'll pick on the new guys, Custodes. They are an army of very powerful individual models, and so they're expensive. They can't field a lot of bodies for board control and objective sitting. However, they can soup in some Imperial Guard for masses of cheap bodies. Weakness covered.

2: The game does not reward not playing soup. The rules contain no incentive to not play soup to balance out the above incentive to play soup. If there was some incentive to play single-source to balance out the incentive to play soup, I don't think people would mind soup so much. Their reward for playing single-source would counterbalance the advantages one reaps from playing soup.

I’ve been advocating for a while that there is a simple solution to this small enough to fit on a single page in the next Chapter Approved. It involves providing an incentive for playing a Pure army, to balance the Soup army’s ability to cherry pick and plug weaknesses. You could come up with all sorts of incentives, but that takes a lot of work and opens up a whole new avenue for imbalances. Better, instead, to use rules that already exist.

All Codexes have a paragraph that details (for example) an Imperial Fists Detachment as a Detachment containing only units with the Imperial Fists keyword, and allows that Detachment to make use of Imperial Fists Chapter Tactics, Stratagem, Relic and Warlord Trait. The change here is simply to amend that to ‘An Imperial Fists Army - that is, an army with all models containing the Imperial Fists keyword - may make use of Imperial Fists Chapter Tactics, Stratagem, Relic and Warlord Trait.’

A simple change with no new rules and straightaway there’s an incentive for playing a Pure army rather than a Soup one - you get your subfaction traits/Stratagem/Relic/Warlord Trait. Now I’ve had people bemoan the idea that ‘why should my Raven Guard stop being sneaky just because they brought some Imperial Guard along?’ Well, first of all, it’s a small abstraction to make the game function. Second, that already happens - if you include a single Imperial Guard model in your Raven Guard Detachment under the current rules, your Raven Guard stop being sneaky. Third, those bonuses do not solely define Raven Guard - unit selection and and general strategy do too. And fourth, you could sort of justify it by fluff anyway - it’s no stretch to imagine that working with another force will put a drag on any army’s usual tactics.

There would need to be a few armies with exceptions for mini-factions like Inquisition and Harlequins, but this just seems like the simplest solution.

 Crimson wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

Or you do things like steadily increase the soup options for various armies. For example, Eldar soup, Tyranid soup (which is relatively new) and continue to expand single codex lists to cater to painters that want a consistent visual aesthetic.

Indeed. I want more soup options, not less. Imperium and Chaos obviously have a good selection of soup ingredients, and the Eldar have it pretty good as well, and their family could easily be further expanded by Exodites and (properly supported) Corsairs. Tyranids have the Genestealer Cult and the Tau with all their allied races are obviously a good building ground for a new soup family (and there was already rumours about a separate Kroot codex, so perhaps this is indeed the direction we're heading.) This leaves only Orks and Necrons, completely without allies. Orks could be expanded by a stand alone Gretchin army or even Diggas (kinda Ork GS Cult equivalent) and Necrons... Well, I've got nothing for Necrons, but no one likes them anyway; screw those guys. (Perhaps someone can think of something for them.)

So you're basically hoping for splitting up xenos units that are already part of the same codex into different ones to justify the imperium and chaos soups I'd go for the opposite: merge multiple books into a single one in order to let the smaller factions to build a balanced list but banning the mix of the best units of the major factions. I'd say SM of all kinds, AM and scions, and anything else in a third codex. Chaos marines and daemons, just two books for chaos with some of the chaos daemons that would still be included into the chaos codex like horrors are already included in the TS codex. Simple.

Gretchins are part of the ork army, they're not allied.

I don't think any of the major faction needs the possibility of getting allies, the ork index is already full of units. I fear the chance to get allies is the excuse to let 90% of the units underpowered and/or overcosted because at the same time a new allied is promoted as the new "must buy".

PS: I definitely prefer necrons over 90% of the chaos or imperium factions, especially the disgusting new models

 Blackie wrote:


So you're basically hoping for splitting up xenos units that are already part of the same codex into different ones to justify the imperium and chaos soups I'd go for the opposite: merge multiple books into a single one in order to let the smaller factions to build a balanced list but banning the mix of the best units of the major factions. I'd say SM of all kinds, AM and scions, and anything else in a third codex. Chaos marines and daemons, just two books for chaos with some of the chaos daemons that would still be included into the chaos codex like horrors are already included in the TS codex. Simple.

Ultimately I don't care in how many books the stuff is, as long as I can use them together. (And rolling marines in one codex would be my preferred option.) Furthermore, it was not to 'justify' Imperial soup, I think such faction families would be a good thing itself. Of course this would require that the new factions would be expanded into full fledged forces.

Gretchins are part of the ork army, they're not allied.

I was not thinking about removing Gretchin from the Ork codex, but I think Gorkamorka Rebel Grots style force could work as a new army.

I don't think any of the major faction needs the possibility of getting allies, the ork index is already full of units. I fear the chance to get allies is the excuse to let 90% of the units underpowered and/or overcosted because at the same time a new allied is promoted as the new "must buy".

Well, we agree on something. Most soup problems are caused by bad unit balance, not by the soup by itself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

kombatwombat wrote:


I’ve been advocating for a while that there is a simple solution to this small enough to fit on a single page in the next Chapter Approved. It involves providing an incentive for playing a Pure army, to balance the Soup army’s ability to cherry pick and plug weaknesses. You could come up with all sorts of incentives, but that takes a lot of work and opens up a whole new avenue for imbalances. Better, instead, to use rules that already exist.

All Codexes have a paragraph that details (for example) an Imperial Fists Detachment as a Detachment containing only units with the Imperial Fists keyword, and allows that Detachment to make use of Imperial Fists Chapter Tactics, Stratagem, Relic and Warlord Trait. The change here is simply to amend that to ‘An Imperial Fists Army - that is, an army with all models containing the Imperial Fists keyword - may make use of Imperial Fists Chapter Tactics, Stratagem, Relic and Warlord Trait.’

A simple change with no new rules and straightaway there’s an incentive for playing a Pure army rather than a Soup one - you get your subfaction traits/Stratagem/Relic/Warlord Trait. Now I’ve had people bemoan the idea that ‘why should my Raven Guard stop being sneaky just because they brought some Imperial Guard along?’ Well, first of all, it’s a small abstraction to make the game function. Second, that already happens - if you include a single Imperial Guard model in your Raven Guard Detachment under the current rules, your Raven Guard stop being sneaky. Third, those bonuses do not solely define Raven Guard - unit selection and and general strategy do too. And fourth, you could sort of justify it by fluff anyway - it’s no stretch to imagine that working with another force will put a drag on any army’s usual tactics.

There would need to be a few armies with exceptions for mini-factions like Inquisition and Harlequins, but this just seems like the simplest solution.

Removing all the traits, and particularly stratagems is a death sentence.

 Crimson wrote:
Removing all the traits, and particularly stratagems is a death sentence.

Good. Soup needs to die. If you're the rare fluff-focused player who absolutely must have a soup army to represent their fluff idea then the fact that your army is bad at winning shouldn't matter.

Alternatively, require that each detachment in your army share a "codex" keyword (IOW, "Imperial Guard", not "Imperium"), ban the use of the patrol detachment unless it is the only detachment in your army, and do not allow buffs to apply to models outside of the detachment the buff source is in. If you want to take allies for your main army you can do so, but you have to take them as a legitimate additional force with a HQ and 3+ units. No taking single models/units in a "best of everything" detachment, and no taking powerful buff models out of every faction to stack up modifiers.

A pure IG army is usually is more powerful than most soup combos. It is pretty obvious when you start adding IG allies to the marines, if you want competitive, you're better off ditching the marines altogether, even without any soup nerfs. If we want to ban peoples armies, then just ban IG, most soup problems will be fixed and the game will be more balanced overall.

Reemule wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
No reason for FLG to make a change - they're still a retailer who benefits from the added sales.

I'm expecting them to do something about it in their tournaments, a place they have made clear they do make changes in.

That might solve the problem for anyone going to a Warhammer World event, but what about everywhere else?

 Blackie wrote:
I don't think that. In fact I've never met in my life a single dude that wanted to play a soup list for fluff reasons. Only on dakkadakka.

That's because you're in Italy and I'm not.

I think one or more of following changes might fix it:

1) Only the detachment that contains your warlord gets that faction's stratagems; this prevents taking for example a Death Guard detachment with an Alpha Legion detachment and getting access to the CSM stratagems. It does kind of hurt mono-god (I could not deepstrike 30 Plaguebearers anymore with this). Could potentially be stricter to include traits as well, so only 1 detachment gets the traits.

2) Remove Imperium and Chaos from counting as Battle-forged for an army (not per detachment). This would require that assassins, sisters of silence, inquisitors and maybe others have a special rule to let them not count against this, but would kill soup deader than a doornail. This might not fix all problems though as Chaos could still mix legions with <Heretic Astartes>, which can be a problem with extreme filth lists.

3) Change how command points work fundamentally to remove gaming soup lists to maximize command points. Not 100% sure how to do this, maybe everyone starts with X command points based on the game size. Maybe go so far as to limit/restrict detachments.

Maybe a combination of 1 and 2?

Personally, I like soup. I've never been in a tournament but I think it adds in a really good flexibility to how I have always liked to play and how my vast collection of models that i've built up over 20 years work together (I play Chaos). I want to take Abaddon at the head of a mixed force of Death Guard, Thousand Sons, World Eaters, Daemons etc; not just Black Legion and I don't think there should be any penalties for doing it. I would love an army with Magnus and Mortarion, both leading the 1Ksons and DG in an alliance. Soup isn't the issue, it's the way in which several things can be used in soup that's the problem.

What needs to be done is to bring the ability to create forces more in line with the fluff, as in the frequency of which Primarchs, Chapter Masters and perhaps even Greater Daemons/Daemon Lords are available. Someone has suggested removing the super heavy detachment and adding it into a Battalion. I agree with this and adding them to the larger version. I'd also say take the SH option from a Supreme Command detachment too (and instead replace it with Elites).

There used to be old rules that prevented certain characters from existing in certain sized armies (I recall Abaddon only being usable in 2K+ at one point) - this would also be a good alternative as a basis for another type of control. Say that Mortarion can only be included in a DG detachment of 1500 pts or more, same with Magnus. Knights can only be taken in games of 1500pts or more unless they're the only detachment. Chapters masters/Abby/GD's/Avatars 1k and so on and then at least you've also got decent grounds in buffing some of these units a little as they have a 1.5k 'tax' atop them. It's not as if Death Guard and Thousand Sons are NOT competitive and it's not as if this change would prevent soup or be a complicated rule to understand. In addition there is an existing detachment limiter (2 max up to 2k points and then 3 or more after isn't it? Something like that) Seems to me like it should just be 2 detachments and 1 more for each 1k points you're playing up to (so 3 for 2k points, 4 for 3k points and so on). This would be good ways of stopping Mortarion turning up with a load of Alpha Legion khorne berserkers or Helbrecht, the Emperor's Champion and another BT unit rocking up with an army of Grey Knights, Sisters of Battle, Blood Ravens and Ultramarines. Not all of these things are un-fluffy but both exaples are certainly unlikely.

Maybe on the other side of this, certain character traits can allow soup (Abaddon would be an excellent example, maybe Chaos undivided, Ynnari, Gulliman, SIlent King etc)

So ultimately it's not necessarily soup that's the problem as an idea, it's perhaps more just the freedom by which we have using it. I appreciate NO SOUP EVER is the easiest fix but it's also the least fun and the best way to grind the most people.

Crimson wrote:
Removing all the traits, and particularly stratagems is a death sentence.

I believe kombatwombat wasn't advocating for the loss of all strats, just the subfaction-specific ones. In his example, if you soup with Imperial Fists, you'd get access to the generic Space Marine strats, relics, warlord traits, etc. What you wouldn't have access to are the Imperial Fist specific strats/relics/warlord traits/etc. At least, that's how I understood it.

Crimson wrote:A pure IG army is usually is more powerful than most soup combos. It is pretty obvious when you start adding IG allies to the marines, if you want competitive, you're better off ditching the marines altogether, even without any soup nerfs. If we want to ban peoples armies, then just ban IG, most soup problems will be fixed and the game will be more balanced overall.

I think a lot of players are allying in Celestine with their IG armies.

Abusing ally rules is much harder in this edition thanks to the keyword system, but I do not deny that there still may be some issues. I would just prefer identifying the actual problem areas and addressing those, rather than blanket limitations that hurt already less competitive builds.

So, there appears to be a couple definitions of soup going on:

1) Mixed detachments, Space Marines filling out Battalions with IG (saving 75 points! we'll get back to that) or Chaos Space Marines filling out Battalions with Brims (saving a whopping 30 points!) or Chaos Undivided Daemons (a codex option...).

2) Detachment Mixing, pure detachments from multiple codices, allowing strats from multiple codices. Interestingly, the BSB tournament posted earlier, completely allows for this, while banning option 1.

Option 1 - So people are losing their gak over SM lists that have managed to recoup 75 points to fill a battalion or CSM lists that have managed to recoup 30 points to fill a battalion. I'm not even going to dignify the bitching about Chaos Undivided since it's a codex option and quite frankly, you can all take a long walk as they say. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page with what's being complained about, you are complaining that giving SM 75 more points to play with or CSM 30 more points to play with makes it overpowered.

Option 2 - Detachment mixing. So the concern is mixing stratagems. So most signature stratagems specify what they will work on, for example, I can't use Forward Operatives on World Eaters Berzerkers because FO specifies Alpha Legion infantry. One of the rare exceptions is Tide of Traitors, which can be used on any Chaos Cultists, ultimately, cultists are cultists in pretty much every list, recycling one is the same as recycling another. I can't use Daemon strats on anything other than Daemon codex units, so that's not the issue.

Single codices soup their different traits together, but apparently this doesn't count as soup, despite the fact that this 'soup' provides the option for significantly different playstyles and mechanics to be combo'd together, just like everyone else's soup. We won't mention there's absolutely no fluff to support Tyranid Hive Fleets teaming up for campaigns, "Shaolin shadow boxing and the Wu Tang sword style, if what you say is true, the Shaolin and the Wu Tang could be dangerous...".

So at this point, I understand everyone's gak is all emotional (hail President Camacho), but I'm curious, what are the strats that are really causing people to lose it? What strat pissed in your cheerios?

Or does this reaction all boil down to "but that guy has more"? I mean, as an American I can understand that, it's our national motto after all.

 chimeara wrote:
What do you guys think of this?
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/02/40k-big-tourney-says-no-imperial-chaos-soup-for-you.html

Yeah. I called this several posts ago. Its unfortunate that some people couldn't see this was coming and spent half the thread saying trying to deny this was going to be a reality.

Its also frustrating as its sure not the fix I wanted. While I can say that my idea of removing battleforged wasn't the best, the core idea that it wasn't a soup ban but a penalty/bonus for using soup/not using soup would have been a better fix.

Ahh well. Cya soup players. Should have been more reasonable.

Reemule wrote:

 chimeara wrote:
What do you guys think of this?
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/02/40k-big-tourney-says-no-imperial-chaos-soup-for-you.html

Yeah. I called this several posts ago. Its unfortunate that some people couldn't see this was coming and spent half the thread saying trying to deny this was going to be a reality.

Its also frustrating as its sure not the fix I wanted. While I can say that my idea of removing battleforged wasn't the best, the core idea that it wasn't a soup ban but a penalty/bonus for using soup/not using soup would have been a better fix.

Ahh well. Cya soup players. Should have been more reasonable.

Please, as if you had the slightest clue what you were talking about.

You realize that the rules they have in place for that tournament change absolutely nothing right? You realize that the rules in that tournament are precisely this, and this only, a 75 point tax on Space Marine players. Good job! That'll teach them!

Crimson wrote:[ution.
Removing all the traits, and particularly stratagems is a death sentence.

Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
I believe kombatwombat wasn't advocating for the loss of all strats, just the subfaction-specific ones. In his example, if you soup with Imperial Fists, you'd get access to the generic Space Marine strats, relics, warlord traits, etc. What you wouldn't have access to are the Imperial Fist specific strats/relics/warlord traits/etc. At least, that's how I understood it.

Crimson wrote:Abusing ally rules is much harder in this edition thanks to the keyword system, but I do not deny that there still may be some issues. I would just prefer identifying the actual problem areas and addressing those, rather than blanket limitations that hurt already less competitive builds.

Grand Master Raziel has the right of it. You’re losing access to exactly one bonus rule, one Stratagem, one Warlord Trait, and one Relic. Crimson, if you think an army that loses those but gains the ability to ally away their deliberate structural weaknesses immediately catastrophically collapses out of useability then... I simply don’t know how to help you.

Unfortunately you can’t balance units like Guard Infantry Squads to be equally useful to a Pure Guard army as they are to a Guilliman/Custodes/Guard Soup by fiddling with the unit itself. You must balance them by considering their interactions.

So are Custodes-Guilliman-Guard soups routinely beating pure Guard lists?

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

Reemule wrote:

 chimeara wrote:
What do you guys think of this?
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/02/40k-big-tourney-says-no-imperial-chaos-soup-for-you.html

Yeah. I called this several posts ago. Its unfortunate that some people couldn't see this was coming and spent half the thread saying trying to deny this was going to be a reality.

Its also frustrating as its sure not the fix I wanted. While I can say that my idea of removing battleforged wasn't the best, the core idea that it wasn't a soup ban but a penalty/bonus for using soup/not using soup would have been a better fix.

Ahh well. Cya soup players. Should have been more reasonable.

Please, as if you had the slightest clue what you were talking about.

You realize that the rules they have in place for that tournament change absolutely nothing right? You realize that the rules in that tournament are precisely this, and this only, a 75 point tax on Space Marine players. Good job! That'll teach them!

Still trying to justify your position huh? From the article...

Today I learned that BSB has officially banned Chaos and Imperial Soup… eldar is next and the old nerf bat it hurts if you like your cheese

So, pretty much all he things you kept saying wouldn't happen, are starting. Well I'm sure your right on something else. Somewhere...

Reemule wrote:
So, pretty much all he things you kept saying wouldn't happen, are starting. Well I'm sure your right on something else. Somewhere...

Again, reading would serve you well here.

They banned those keywords for the purposes of creating battle-forged detachments only.

What this means, is that I can still take detachments from different codices and get access to those stratagems. It is precisely a 75 point tax on Space Marine players, that's it.

But hey, maybe reading comprehension isn't your thing.

 Crimson wrote:
So are Custodes-Guilliman-Guard soups routinely beating pure Guard lists?

Option A being more overpowered than Option B does not mean Option B is not overpowered. If both my friend and I have SoB armies, and I choose to ally in Guilliman to give my SoB army access to things it’s not designed to have (beatstickery and auras), I should have to give up something in exchange so my Soup army doesn’t just become objectively more powerful than my friend’s Pure one.

Or, to put it another way, there is more to this hobby than the top 3 tables at LVO.

Soup is awesome. Rules and game play aside, it allows you to create the stuff in the fluff. Especially for Imperial players it allows you to buy (and GW to sell) units without having to purchase an entire army. Eventually you'll have enough though for a detachment and then move on to the new shiny unit that comes out. I have like one Admech figure but if not for the CMON Zombicide KS next month would almost certain have bought the new Forgebane box. GW just makes such cool stuff...

kombatwombat wrote:
If both my friend and I have SoB armies, and I choose to ally in Guilliman to give my SoB army access to things it’s not designed to have (beatstickery and auras

That makes the assumption that SoB wasn't designed with that possibility in mind. Objectively, this is something you could not know unless you are part of the design team or specifically informed by them.

kombatwombat wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
So are Custodes-Guilliman-Guard soups routinely beating pure Guard lists?

Option A being more overpowered than Option B does not mean Option B is not overpowered. If both my friend and I have SoB armies, and I choose to ally in Guilliman to give my SoB army access to things it’s not designed to have (beatstickery and auras), I should have to give up something in exchange so my Soup army doesn’t just become objectively more powerful than my friend’s Pure one.

Or, to put it another way, there is more to this hobby than the top 3 tables at LVO.

The army is literally designed with the possibility of having those things. And you're giving up points by taking Guilliman. If that does not address the balance, then the problem is not the ability to take Guilliman, it is him being too cheap.

Furthermore, you obviously need to start addressing the balance issues from the most OP stuff. Most of the soup complaints are Guard related, and completely miss the point of the Guard being OP outside the souo as well. Nerf the IG and most of the soup problems vanish as well.

Reemule wrote:

 chimeara wrote:
What do you guys think of this?
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/02/40k-big-tourney-says-no-imperial-chaos-soup-for-you.html

Yeah. I called this several posts ago. Its unfortunate that some people couldn't see this was coming and spent half the thread saying trying to deny this was going to be a reality.

Its also frustrating as its sure not the fix I wanted. While I can say that my idea of removing battleforged wasn't the best, the core idea that it wasn't a soup ban but a penalty/bonus for using soup/not using soup would have been a better fix.

Ahh well. Cya soup players. Should have been more reasonable.

Lol that's rich. You got called out for not knowing what in the nine hells you were talking about, then quote another poster (i.e you couldn't even try to find this yourself) about a 40 person tournament (that made this decision a month ago) as proof that tournament organizers are banning soup. And then you couldn't even be bothered to read the post to understand the only thing it bans is intra-detachment soup (which isn't the soup you've been whining and complaining about). This is the biggest joke of a gotcha moment I've ever seen. I strongly suggest reading the rules in question before you comment because so far its only made you look ill informed and someone who's prone to argue with emotion rather than with facts.

Hey, its okay to be bitter. I understand you guys just didn't want to believe that anyone would stop the precious soup.

Sorry it hurt you!

Reemule wrote:
Hey, its okay to be bitter. I understand you guys just didn't want to believe that anyone would stop the precious soup.

Sorry it hurt you!

It doesn't stop soup. You understand that right? I can 100% still play an army of Astra Militarum, Custodes, and Blood Angels in that set-up. Do you grasp that?

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
It doesn't stop soup. You understand that right? I can 100% still play an army of Astra Militarum, Custodes, and Blood Angels in that set-up. Do you grasp that?

He doesn't get it or is farming his post count, I think it's safe to put him on ignore at this point.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
It doesn't stop soup. You understand that right? I can 100% still play an army of Astra Militarum, Custodes, and Blood Angels in that set-up. Do you grasp that?

He doesn't get it or is farming his post count, I think it's safe to put him on ignore at this point.

Looks like he's done what he did yesterday where once he figured out he was wrong he's gone radio silent again.

I don't think you two get it. I never wanted it gone. I've said that repeatedly. Not sure why you strawman that I have.

I have said I want it limited and tossed a suggestion.

Then you two have roundly said why it would never be limited linking and discussing lots of ancedotal evidence.

And then wait a minute, here it is happening where its getting limited. With a penalty.

But hey, try to marginalize it away. Maybe even delete your posts so you can pretend this was what you supported the complete time. Put the guy who was right on ignore.

A fluffy list is a fluffy list. 'Soup' has a very specific connotation.

OP, you do not play Soup.

Reemule wrote:
I don't think you two get it. I never wanted it gone. I've said that repeatedly. Not sure why you strawman that I have.

I have said I want it limited and tossed a suggestion.

Then you two have roundly said why it would never be limited linking and discussing lots of ancedotal evidence.

And then wait a minute, here it is happening where its getting limited. With a penalty.

But hey, try to marginalize it away. Maybe even delete your posts so you can pretend this was what you supported the complete time. Put the guy who was right on ignore.

But you aren't right. The ONLY limit this places is that you can't run Astra Militarum and Blood Angels in the same detachment. You can still run them together in 2 separate detachments which still meets every definition of soup you've suggested - and there is no penalty, no CP, no strats, nothing. This only limits soup in name but never in function. You're crowing like its proof that its happening but its a minimal thing that basically hurts a few specific supreme command detachments and that's it. That's the part you seem to be missing is this is a tiny limitation that doesn't go anywhere near as far as you'd seem to like it to go. To be clear you literally typed "Ahh well. Cya soup players. Should have been more reasonable." as if this tournament is preventing soup from being played.

It would fix it if it was army wide, not detachment. Multiple detachments of different factions are part of the problem.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Reemule wrote:
I don't think you two get it. I never wanted it gone. I've said that repeatedly. Not sure why you strawman that I have.

I have said I want it limited and tossed a suggestion.

Then you two have roundly said why it would never be limited linking and discussing lots of ancedotal evidence.

And then wait a minute, here it is happening where its getting limited. With a penalty.

But hey, try to marginalize it away. Maybe even delete your posts so you can pretend this was what you supported the complete time. Put the guy who was right on ignore.

But you aren't right. The ONLY limit this places is that you can't run Astra Militarum and Blood Angels in the same detachment. You can still run them together in 2 separate detachments which still meets every definition of soup you've suggested - and there is no penalty, no CP, no strats, nothing. This only limits soup in name but never in function. You're crowing like its proof that its happening but its a minimal thing that basically hurts a few specific supreme command detachments and that's it. That's the part you seem to be missing is this is a tiny limitation that doesn't go anywhere near as far as you'd seem to like it to go. To be clear you literally typed "Ahh well. Cya soup players. Should have been more reasonable." as if this tournament is preventing soup from being played.

I don't think I've ever defined soup. Can you point out where I have?

So your post is null?

Reemule wrote:
I don't think you two get it. I never wanted it gone. I've said that repeatedly. Not sure why you strawman that I have.

I have said I want it limited and tossed a suggestion.

Then you two have roundly said why it would never be limited linking and discussing lots of ancedotal evidence.

And then wait a minute, here it is happening where its getting limited. With a penalty.

But hey, try to marginalize it away. Maybe even delete your posts so you can pretend this was what you supported the complete time. Put the guy who was right on ignore.

Yet, I didn't say it wouldn't be limited and specifically mentioned the Ynnari Soulburst, which we're all pretty sure is going to get changed. More than likely turned into a stratagem.

Also, one tournament does not represent any sort of official ruling, it just means the guys who run the tournament felt that an extra 75 points made Space Marines OP. Which is objectively idiotic, but hey, this is the cause you've chosen to champion.

So, congratulations, you successfully predicted a 75 point Space Marine tax in one tournament, buy yourself a cookie, from me.

But hey, let's pull a couple of your quotes:

"I stick by my original idea. If you’re not a single craftworld/dept/chapter/Clan, you don’t qualify as battleforged." - There's this winner, which is banning soup, I know comprehension isn't your thing.
"Ban soup and the OP has to buy more to play a force… as do all those depending on running soup." - Then there's this one, perhaps you didn't mean ban soup? Your point wasn't terribly consistent in your post, I think this was an example of a way to win customers over to buying more models? Brilliant.

No, you don't want to ban soup, you just want to cripple it so badly that it becomes the worst option available. It's such a subtle distinction, I can't imagine why some are opposed to it.

Wayniac wrote:
It would fix it if it was army wide, not detachment. Multiple detachments of different factions are part of the problem.

I think that your going to see this discussion continue. And even thought I'm beating Twinpole theory and Farseerduce over the head with their logical failures, this is a very small start. You have a tourney in a small part of the world making a very limited move that penalizes a few things.

Its a change and who knows where its going to end. But I think that the detachment issue is one that will see more light before this issue gets closed.

Reemule wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Reemule wrote:
I don't think you two get it. I never wanted it gone. I've said that repeatedly. Not sure why you strawman that I have.

I have said I want it limited and tossed a suggestion.

Then you two have roundly said why it would never be limited linking and discussing lots of ancedotal evidence.

And then wait a minute, here it is happening where its getting limited. With a penalty.

But hey, try to marginalize it away. Maybe even delete your posts so you can pretend this was what you supported the complete time. Put the guy who was right on ignore.

But you aren't right. The ONLY limit this places is that you can't run Astra Militarum and Blood Angels in the same detachment. You can still run them together in 2 separate detachments which still meets every definition of soup you've suggested - and there is no penalty, no CP, no strats, nothing. This only limits soup in name but never in function. You're crowing like its proof that its happening but its a minimal thing that basically hurts a few specific supreme command detachments and that's it. That's the part you seem to be missing is this is a tiny limitation that doesn't go anywhere near as far as you'd seem to like it to go. To be clear you literally typed "Ahh well. Cya soup players. Should have been more reasonable." as if this tournament is preventing soup from being played.

I don't think I've ever defined soup. Can you point out where I have?

So your post is null?

Here you go

"I stick by my original idea. If you’re not a single craftworld/dept/chapter/Clan, you don’t qualify as battleforged" - Reemule. So yeah I think you've pretty clearly laid out what you think is soup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reemule wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
It would fix it if it was army wide, not detachment. Multiple detachments of different factions are part of the problem.

I think that your going to see this discussion continue. And even thought I'm beating Twinpole theory and Farseerduce over the head with their logical failures, this is a very small start. You have a tourney in a small part of the world making a very limited move that penalizes a few things.

Its a change and who knows where its going to end. But I think that the detachment issue is one that will see more light before this issue gets closed.

Logical failures - said the guy who claimed he never defined soup and then was shown where he defined soup.

That tournament's limitation is completely pointless. It effectively only affects niche stuff like Inquisition, Ministorom and Assassins. No one puts IG, Marines or Ad Mech in mixed detachments anyway.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Reemule wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Reemule wrote:
I don't think you two get it. I never wanted it gone. I've said that repeatedly. Not sure why you strawman that I have.

I have said I want it limited and tossed a suggestion.

Then you two have roundly said why it would never be limited linking and discussing lots of ancedotal evidence.

And then wait a minute, here it is happening where its getting limited. With a penalty.

But hey, try to marginalize it away. Maybe even delete your posts so you can pretend this was what you supported the complete time. Put the guy who was right on ignore.

But you aren't right. The ONLY limit this places is that you can't run Astra Militarum and Blood Angels in the same detachment. You can still run them together in 2 separate detachments which still meets every definition of soup you've suggested - and there is no penalty, no CP, no strats, nothing. This only limits soup in name but never in function. You're crowing like its proof that its happening but its a minimal thing that basically hurts a few specific supreme command detachments and that's it. That's the part you seem to be missing is this is a tiny limitation that doesn't go anywhere near as far as you'd seem to like it to go. To be clear you literally typed "Ahh well. Cya soup players. Should have been more reasonable." as if this tournament is preventing soup from being played.

I don't think I've ever defined soup. Can you point out where I have?

So your post is null?

Here you go

"I stick by my original idea. If you’re not a single craftworld/dept/chapter/Clan, you don’t qualify as battleforged" - Reemule. So yeah I think you've pretty clearly laid out what you think is soup.

Your trying to extrapolate my definition of soup from a potential fix I laid out (A fix that won't work, as I've admitted)?

Lets try this, what is the definition of soup? After we all agree surely it can be fixed?

And I'm not being coy. My definition of soup is cherry picking options from multiple sources that might not be available to all players with no apparent downside.

Reemule wrote:
Lets try this, what is the definition of soup? After we all agree surely it can be fixed?

And I'm not being coy. My definition of soup is cherry picking options from multiple sources that might not be available to all players with no apparent downside.

So then you still have an issue with the tournament's system for fixing soup? To be clear your definition of soup is effectively any army that is pulling from multiple sources.

 Crimson wrote:
That tournament's limitation is completely pointless. It effectively only affects niche stuff like Inquisition, Ministorom and Assassins. No one puts IG, Marines or Ad Mech in mixed detachments anyway.

I do love this point of view. If you scroll back you will fine several people who have felt that it was really bad if any army building that affected assassins, Ministrorom, and inquisition was affected in any way.

Then someone puts out a tourney rule saying it will be affected in a few ways, and its being glossed over as pointless.

Reemule wrote:
Lets try this, what is the definition of soup? After we all agree surely it can be fixed?

And I'm not being coy. My definition of soup is cherry picking options from multiple sources that might not be available to all players with no apparent downside.

You're assuming it needs to be fixed outside of a few specific instances of problematic mechanics (see: Soulburst). This is a logical fallacy known as begging the question.

"Begging the question, sometimes known by its Latin name petitio principii (meaning assuming the initial point), is a logical fallacy in which the writer or speaker assumes the statement under examination to be true. In other words, begging the question involves using a premise to support itself."

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Reemule wrote:
Lets try this, what is the definition of soup? After we all agree surely it can be fixed?

And I'm not being coy. My definition of soup is cherry picking options from multiple sources that might not be available to all players with no apparent downside.

So then you still have an issue with the tournament's system for fixing soup? To be clear your definition of soup is effectively any army that is pulling from multiple sources.

I put in a few more points. Cherry picking. That is where your not taking just any option, but only options that might be considered a great benefit for the points they cost.

The argument as I see it in this thread.

Op, I like soup its not bad.
Me: its bad, and most likely going to get fixed.
Twinpoledtheory: Its never going to be fixed, against financial interest.
Farseer v2 Yeah. Its not going to be fixed. Infact your fix won't work.
Me I think it will be fixed.
Some random tournament make a small fix.
Twinpole and Farseerv2: OGM that is not a fix!
Me ... Okay.

Reemule wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
That tournament's limitation is completely pointless. It effectively only affects niche stuff like Inquisition, Ministorom and Assassins. No one puts IG, Marines or Ad Mech in mixed detachments anyway.

I do love this point of view. If you scroll back you will fine several people who have felt that it was really bad if any army building that affected assassins, Ministrorom, and inquisition was affected in any way.

Then someone puts out a tourney rule saying it will be affected in a few ways, and its being glossed over as pointless.

It is bad and stupid as it unnecessarily punishes people who want to bring sub-par fluffy stuff while in no way affecting actually competitive stuff. But as a fix it is pointless, as it doesn't fix any of the real problems. Or did anyone really have an issue with an Inquisitor sharing a detachment with some Death Cult Assassins?

Reemule wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Reemule wrote:
Lets try this, what is the definition of soup? After we all agree surely it can be fixed?

And I'm not being coy. My definition of soup is cherry picking options from multiple sources that might not be available to all players with no apparent downside.

So then you still have an issue with the tournament's system for fixing soup? To be clear your definition of soup is effectively any army that is pulling from multiple sources.

I put in a few more points. Cherry picking. That is where your not taking just any option, but only options that might be considered a great benefit for the points they cost.

The argument as I see it in this thread.

Op, I like soup its not bad.
Me: its bad, and most likely going to get fixed.
Twinpoledtheory: Its never going to be fixed, against financial interest.
Farseer v2 Yeah. Its not going to be fixed. Infact your fix won't work.
Me I think it will be fixed.
Some random tournament make a small fix.
Twinpole and Farseerv2: OGM that is not a fix!
Me ... Okay.

That's a fairly generous to yourself summation - here's my view.

OP - Soup isn't so bad, fluffy players use it too.
You - Soup is bad and I'd like to see it rendered unplayable (in the guise of making soup armies illegal for matched play)
Me - I don't think that fix will work (because it won't)
You - Crickets
Someone else - hey this relatively small tournament of no real consequence it limiting soup in name only
You - Aha! I got you! I told you soup would be banned, see here! Cya soup players, haha you were wrong and I was right!
Me - But that doesn't limit soup the way you think it should be limited
You - Wrong, its the start of a tidal wave of soup alterations
Me - But again it doesn't address the issue you have
You - *shuffles goal posts*

I don’t agree it’s bad or stupid. When someone gets into 40K competitively people complain about soup and slow play.

Fixes are like a pendulum. They either don’t swing far enough, or swing too far. As a first fix, do you want it to go to far or too short? This might be a little short, but it’s the main point is that it just started swinging.

Did it though? One 40 man tournament isn't really much of a start. None of the majors have even glanced at it (Adepticon, NOVA, BAO, SoCal Open, even Renegade ((who did drop points)).

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Reemule wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Reemule wrote:
Lets try this, what is the definition of soup? After we all agree surely it can be fixed?

And I'm not being coy. My definition of soup is cherry picking options from multiple sources that might not be available to all players with no apparent downside.

So then you still have an issue with the tournament's system for fixing soup? To be clear your definition of soup is effectively any army that is pulling from multiple sources.

I put in a few more points. Cherry picking. That is where your not taking just any option, but only options that might be considered a great benefit for the points they cost.

The argument as I see it in this thread.

Op, I like soup its not bad.
Me: its bad, and most likely going to get fixed.
Twinpoledtheory: Its never going to be fixed, against financial interest.
Farseer v2 Yeah. Its not going to be fixed. Infact your fix won't work.
Me I think it will be fixed.
Some random tournament make a small fix.
Twinpole and Farseerv2: OGM that is not a fix!
Me ... Okay.

That's a fairly generous to yourself summation - here's my view.

OP - Soup isn't so bad, fluffy players use it too.
You - Soup is bad and I'd like to see it rendered unplayable (in the guise of making soup armies illegal for matched play)
Me - I don't think that fix will work (because it won't)
You - Crickets
Someone else - hey this relatively small tournament of no real consequence it limiting soup in name only
You - Aha! I got you! I told you soup would be banned, see here! Cya soup players, haha you were wrong and I was right!
Me - But that doesn't limit soup the way you think it should be limited
You - Wrong, its the start of a tidal wave of soup alterations
Me - But again it doesn't address the issue you have
You - *shuffles goal posts*

I can see your the Hero of your own story also! So I'd guess the truth was inbetween. I'm self aware enough to see that... Are you?

There is a deep fix needed because of a basic truth of balance: choice is power.

Even if the choice is niche and doesn't come up in 99% of cases that 1% will win you a game and if it doesn't cost you anything to have?

The Imperium faction keyword covers half of all units in the game. How big is the chance that somewhere in that wealth of choices sits an OP combo? More over finding and balancing all these possibilities and combos is pratically impossible.

therefore the keyword imperium and to a lesser extent Chaos and Aeldari/ynnari cannot almost not exist in matched without compromising more niche Xenos armies. Unless they are made far more powerfull than any individual codex in the big soup(s).

A solution is putting limitations on soup lists but this is equally hard to balance since the advantage is impossible to quantify.

Best to just ban it in Matched and go whacky in narrative

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Did it though? One 40 man tournament isn't really much of a start. None of the majors have even glanced at it (Adepticon, NOVA, BAO, SoCal Open, even Renegade ((who did drop points)).

Do you feel this is the end? A one time thing from this one tourney and we will hear no more on Soup? All the fixes are done, no more attempt, clearly this limited one time thing is over?

As it seems you might be implying that?

 Earth127 wrote:
Best to just ban it in Matched and go whacky in narrative

OR! Let people play what they will and make slow adjustments to cut out the major issue instead of taking a hatchet to the thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reemule wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Did it though? One 40 man tournament isn't really much of a start. None of the majors have even glanced at it (Adepticon, NOVA, BAO, SoCal Open, even Renegade ((who did drop points)).

Do you feel this is the end? A one time thing from this one tourney and we will hear no more on Soup? All the fixes are done, no more attempt, clearly this limited one time thing is over?

As it seems you might be implying that?

Neither us knows - all I'm saying is this isn't a major. It is impossible to predict what other events will do because this event isn't big enough to be a trend setter.

And back to the start of the discussion. I think its going to be fixed. And I hope they don't just ban it but penalize it's play.

/thread

Ah, but does the great "soup" threaten game "balance"?
I see more an issue with models or units that are "auto-include" or "auto-exclude" to get a measure of the game.

I keep seeing this as some strange blend of winning matters and fitting in the fluff matters.
Only rules updates can hope to get those two elements to meet somewhere in the middle.

"In defense of soup" different elements of other armies may have more serviceable units than in others.
Much of the "fluff" has all kinds of different factions allying together for a common goal so "justifying" combinations would not take much.
Eldar and Slanesh as allies could possibly make my head explode but your results may vary.

Do the rules allow it?
What kind of game are you and your opponent trying to have?
Figure it out from there.

I guess rules wise the biggest problem with soup is that you either balance units to their individual codex or in regards to soup. As soup at its most competitive is just picking the strongest pieces from component and playing an army of those.

Which means that each codex component of the soup will either be weaker when compared to a non soup codex, or if they're equal the soup simply is at an advantage. In which case we'll need some drawbacks to even the playing field, which currently there don't seem to be enough.

Now I doubt anyone (including GW) currently has THE SOLUTION, but perhaps limiting passive bonuses or a small CP tax might be a good start. While factions designed around the ability to ally in other codices would obviously need a way around this tax.

Personally I enjoy playing fluffy and diverse armies/soups in a casual environment, forging a narrative etc. Yet believe the ability to ally in other factions without opportunity cost skews the playing field. (or would if the overall balance was established).

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Earth127 wrote:
Best to just ban it in Matched and go whacky in narrative

OR! Let people play what they will and make slow adjustments to cut out the major issue instead of taking a hatchet to the thing.

There is a game mode for that it's called OPEN play. They even recently added Apocalypse to it.

Joking aside there is a game mode called OPEN advertised as bring whatever you want, Narrative for well forging the narrative and story, and matched wich places restrictions in exchange for better balance.

 Earth127 wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Earth127 wrote:
Best to just ban it in Matched and go whacky in narrative

OR! Let people play what they will and make slow adjustments to cut out the major issue instead of taking a hatchet to the thing.

There is a game mode for that it's called OPEN play. They even recently added Apocalypse to it.

Joking aside there is a game mode called OPEN advertised as bring whatever you want, Narrative for well forging the narrative and story, and matched wich places restrictions in exchange for better balance.

Correct and those restrictions are in place - its called having to take a battle forged army. Don't condescend - your idea is a broad stroke that accomplishes nothing other than alienating people who enjoy/already are invested in soup armies. The idea that you ban all soup obviously doesn't work because any time its typed it comes with the caveat of 'just hand wave all these small factions that require soup to function' or more broadly read as 'some soup is OK, just not the soup I don't like'. The far more practical solution is to slowly move the needle until you reach a spot where multiple source armies are viable as well as single source armies.

Why dont we wait until some more codexs come out. Maybe the reason for the soup is that the orks are coming back strong and the only thing that will stop them is all of the soup! waaaaaagghh!

kombatwombat wrote:
Or, to put it another way, there is more to this hobby than the top 3 tables at LVO.

This is what everybody should remember.

 RiderOrk wrote:
Why dont we wait until some more codexs come out. Maybe the reason for the soup is that the orks are coming back strong and the only thing that will stop them is all of the soup! waaaaaagghh!

Exactly. Anything else is a hasty generalization of the state of the game (Reemule does love his logical fallacies).

 Sleep Spell wrote:
I guess rules wise the biggest problem with soup is that you either balance units to their individual codex or in regards to soup. As soup at its most competitive is just picking the strongest pieces from component and playing an army of those.

This is an either/or logical fallacy, it is also not true. Soup codices can be balanced according to their function within the soup paradigm, at the same time individual codices can be internally balanced to be competitive versus soup lists.

 Talizvar wrote:
Ah, but does the great "soup" threaten game "balance"?
I see more an issue with models or units that are "auto-include" or "auto-exclude" to get a measure of the game.

This is much closer to what we’re actually seeing in tournament settings. Specific units and combos are problematic. However, banning soup is a sledgehammer when what you need is a scalpel.

 Earth127 wrote:
There is a deep fix needed because of a basic truth of balance: choice is power.

Begging the question logical fallacy. It begins with an assumption that soup is inherently broken rather than deeply analyzing what is causing problems with it.

I don't mind soup existing I do think it should be more even or banned in matched.

More even as in introduce a XENOS faction keyword to balance out imperium. Tough Chaos really gets quite a shaft there.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
This is much closer to what we’re actually seeing in tournament settings. Specific units and combos are problematic. However, banning soup is a sledgehammer when what you need is a scalpel.

This is assuming that the reason for banning soup is to ban specific overpowered lists, rather than correcting GW's utter idiocy in allowing such a terrible design concept to exist in the first place. The sledgehammer is exactly what is needed.

Both specific OP and underpowered lists/units need adressing. the availabillity of soup is just a headache of consequences for this at top lvl.

 Peregrine wrote:
This is assuming that the reason for banning soup is to ban specific overpowered lists, rather than correcting GW's utter idiocy in allowing such a terrible design concept to exist in the first place. The sledgehammer is exactly what is needed.

Again, we have begging the question logical fallacy, it assumes that soup is fundamentally flawed because it is soup.

 Peregrine wrote:

This is assuming that the reason for banning soup is to ban specific overpowered lists, rather than correcting GW's utter idiocy in allowing such a terrible design concept to exist in the first place. The sledgehammer is exactly what is needed.

This is hilarious. This is exactly the sort of comment I've seen you fighting against countless times when it was directed at FW stuff.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
That makes the assumption that SoB wasn't designed with that possibility in mind. Objectively, this is something you could not know unless you are part of the design team or specifically informed by them.

On that specific example what you’re saying is true, but you’re missing the forest for the trees of what I’m trying to say here. Do you really think GW attempts to - or that it is even possible to - consider the effects of cross-Codex Soup effects when designing a unit? The permutations are mind-boggling.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
Soup codices can be balanced according to their function within the soup paradigm, at the same time individual codices can be internally balanced to be competitive versus soup lists.

This depends on the assumption that every unit is equally valuable as a stand-alone entity - that is, that 200pts of Space Marines is exactly as useful as 200pts of Custodes. i’d argue that assumption is false; armies appear to be designed in such a way as ‘Custodes may have better infantry, but Marines have better tanks’. With that philosophy you can internally balance a Custodes Codex and a Marine Codex, and a take all comers Custodes army against a take all comers Marine army by offsetting their internal strengths and weaknesses, but how could either of those armies compete with a take all comers army of Custodes infantry with Marine tanks?

If you’re going to have this ‘uneven but equal’ design philosophy you have to balance units based on a Pure army, and then have a downside to cherry-picking a Soup army.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
Again, we have begging the question logical fallacy, it assumes that soup is fundamentally flawed because it is soup.

Soup is flawed because it breaks an important principle of game design: consistent faction identity. If you play space marines you play space marines, with their various strengths and weaknesses. If you play IG you play IG, with their strengths and weaknesses. And the two armies are very different experiences. Soup breaks the strength of faction identity by homogenizing everything into a single "take the best of everything" faction.

 Crimson wrote:
This is hilarious. This is exactly the sort of comment I've seen you fighting against countless times when it was directed at FW stuff.

It's not at all the same. The anti-FW arguments were ridiculous complaints based on which piece of paper a particular set of rules was printed on, assuming that somehow FW rules weren't "real GW" or whatever. The anti-FW crowd would have been fine with the exact same rules (and, in many cases, was fine with them) if they were printed in a book with the magic "codex" word on the cover, or even in one of the non-codex sources they arbitrarily decided were ok. The argument against soup is based on entirely different reasons, related to fundamental game design principles.

kombatwombat wrote:
Do you really think GW attempts to - or that it is even possible to - consider the effects of cross-Codex Soup effects when designing a unit? The permutations are mind-boggling.

Considering that they were aware of this variable, and knew they were going to have these rules in place throughout the entire development process, yes, I think it's a fair assumption. I mean, if you weren't planning around this why even bother with a keyword system in the first place?

Yes, it's possible.

However, you're more than welcome to try to prove a negative and say that they did not, but then we get off into the question of whether you can prove that nerve gas farting dragons don't exist.

kombatwombat wrote:
This depends on the assumption that every unit is equally valuable as a stand-alone entity - that is, that 200pts of Space Marines is exactly as useful as 200pts of Custodes.

That's not what I'm saying at all, it's also a hasty generalization logical fallacy. Warhammer is not nearly so binary as to be able to take 200 points of this and say it's exactly equal to 200 points of something else, it has to be balanced on a number of factors, it's placement in force org, it's existence as part of a larger Imperial paradigm, not to mention it's existence within the context of the codex itself, and those are just the considerations off the top of my head. I would submit that more than likely a process like this inherently means that some units are point for point better because of the context they exist within.

kombatwombat wrote:
With that philosophy you can internally balance a Custodes Codex and a Marine Codex, and a take all comers Custodes army against a take all comers Marine army by offsetting their internal strengths and weaknesses, but how could either of those armies compete with a take all comers army of Custodes infantry with Marine tanks?

Again, this is an either/or logical fallacy that assumes the ability to prove a negative.

This assumes that Space Marines and Custodes standalone codex armies are equivalent to single codex armies. Custodes haven't been around long enough to really have much data on this. Space Marines standalone, well, if you went by the .001% of the community represented on these boards, the consensus is they don't. Regardless, it's not a valid logical argument

Where's xeno when I need him? I'm sure he has the long catalog of reasons why Space Marines don't work as a standalone army, it's his pet project, along with cosplaying as Chicken Little.

kombatwombat wrote:
If you’re going to have this ‘uneven but equal’ design philosophy you have to balance units based on a Pure army, and then have a downside to cherry-picking a Soup army.

This is again an either/or logical fallacy. You can absolutely have units that are balanced within a soup paradigm and a single codex paradigm.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
Soup is flawed because it breaks an important principle of game design: consistent faction identity. If you play space marines you play space marines, with their various strengths and weaknesses. If you play IG you play IG, with their strengths and weaknesses. And the two armies are very different experiences. Soup breaks the strength of faction identity by homogenizing everything into a single "take the best of everything" faction.

Who's principle of game design? A universal principle of game design? Are those detailed somewhere?

I'd identify the logical fallacy here, but I'm pretty sure you're just making up this "important principle of game design".

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
Who's principle of game design? A universal principle of game design? Are those detailed somewhere?

I'd identify the logical fallacy here, but I'm pretty sure you're just making up this "important principle of game design".

Your lack of understanding of game design does not make something a logical fallacy. Nor do you get to yell "FALLACY" unless I spend a bunch of time giving you a Game Design 101 lecture to save you from having to do your own work.

 Peregrine wrote:
Your lack of understanding of game design does not make something a logical fallacy. Nor do you get to yell "FALLACY" unless I spend a bunch of time giving you a Game Design 101 lecture to save you from having to do your own work.

Sorry, allow me to clarify. bs. There is no principle of game design that dictates some sort of faction identity as a core principle of game design. Graphic design, sure, art design, sure.

The questions were rhetorical, I kind of assumed that was obvious.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
There is no principle of game design that dictates some sort of faction identity as a core principle of game design.

Of course there is. If you're going to have different sides/units/etc in your game then those things should be different. If a king and a pawn have different rules then they should actually play differently. If IG and space marines are different armies with their own rules then they should play differently. That's the whole point of having different choices instead of just different colors for your pieces. Otherwise what's the point of having different rules for IG and space marines? Just give them the same rules and let people pick whichever aesthetic choices they prefer.

And I'll also point out that this faction identity principle is something that GW has benefited considerably from in the past. If I say "space marine army" you immediately have a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about rules-wise and how it will play on the table. If I say "ork army" you have an entirely different picture, but one that is just as clear. That's how you get iconic images/units/etc that stand out in a potential customer's mind, not an over-homogenized mess of generic stuff.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
Considering that they were aware of this variable, and knew they were going to have these rules in place throughout the entire development process, yes, I think it's a fair assumption. I mean, if you weren't planning around this why even bother with a keyword system in the first place?

Yes, it's possible.

However, you're more than welcome to try to prove a negative and say that they did not, but then we get off into the question of whether you can prove that nerve gas farting dragons don't exist.

Keywords have uses beyond Soup, but that’s beside the point. The point is that variable is simply too large to be reasonably considered. For example, if you’re considering how adding a new unit will affect the Codex it’s going in, you could consider different army builds with that Codex. If that Codex has 11 distinct unit entries and you’re going to pick 10 to make an army, you have to consider 11!/10! permutations - i.e. 11 possible combinations. Now if you want to consider how it will fit into the full Imperium Soup, say there’s 9 Imperium Codexes each with 11 distinct entries, and again you pick 10 to make an army, you’re looking at 99!/10!, which is something like 10^20 permutations - a hundred times the number of seconds since the Big Bang.

Now those numbers are pulled out of nowhere and the specifics of them are irrelevant - the point is that once you start to consider how a unit will fit into Soup the factors to consider become staggeringly large - way beyond what you could hope to design around - whereas staying within one Codex the job is far more manageable. So no, I do not think it is a fair assumption that GW considers the effect of Soup on a unit in a truly meaningful way. It simply isn’t a good use of limited resources. They may consider some obvious options, but I’m sure they missed 2+/3++ Bullgryns with the Custodes Vexilla, for example.

That's not what I'm saying at all, it's also a hasty generalization logical fallacy. Warhammer is not nearly so binary as to be able to take 200 points of this and say it's exactly equal to 200 points of something else, it has to be balanced on a number of factors, it's placement in force org, it's existence as part of a larger Imperial paradigm, not to mention it's existence within the context of the codex itself, and those are just the considerations off the top of my head. I would submit that more than likely a process like this inherently means that some units are point for point better because of the context they exist within.

As a personal request, please take a break from using the term ‘logical fallacy’. You’ve used it 7 times on this page alone and it doesn’t help your argument - if you want to convince someone of your point of view, you have to show them why their logic is false, not just tell them it is.

That’s exactly the point though - a Guardsman might be well balanced and worth 4 points within the context of a Pure Guard army. In the context of a Grey Knights army though, that Guardsman might be doing 6 points’ worth of work. So what cost do we give him? 4 points, so he’s crazy OP in Soup armies but balanced in Pure Guard armies? 6 points, so he’s balanced in Soup armies but overcosted in Pure ones? 5 points, so he’s OP in Soup and overcosted in Pure? Do we delve into the dizzying world of having two points costs for one model for Pure and Soup? Or do we just do as I’m suggesting, balance him for a Pure army, then depower his rules slightly when he’s being Souped?

Again, this is an either/or logical fallacy that assumes the ability to prove a negative.

This assumes that Space Marines and Custodes standalone codex armies are equivalent to single codex armies. Custodes haven't been around long enough to really have much data on this. Space Marines standalone, well, if you went by the .001% of the community represented on these boards, the consensus is they don't. Regardless, it's not a valid logical argument

Where's xeno when I need him? I'm sure he has the long catalog of reasons why Space Marines don't work as a standalone army, it's his pet project, along with cosplaying as Chicken Little..

Notice how I keep changing which army I’m using as an example - it’s because the specifics of the armies involved aren’t relevant. I’ll rephrase the point: Faction A has great tanks point-for-point but poor infantry, while Faction B has poor tanks but great infantry. A battle between a balanced army from each Faction leads to a good, balanced game where each player has to play to the strengths of their Faction and mitigate their natural weakness. How could either Faction A or Faction B hope to compete with Faction C, who can cherry-pick tanks from A and infantry from B?

This is again an either/or logical fallacy. You can absolutely have units that are balanced within a soup paradigm and a single codex paradigm.

This is what I’m saying - you can’t just tell me it’s a fallacy because you disagree and expect to convince anyone, least of all me. I have tried to show above an example of why a unit can’t be balanced both in a Pure context and a Soup once simultaneously if you are going to have armies with native strengths and weaknesses.

Imperium key word needs to be replaced with an imperium key word and a marine key word.

DA, BA, wolves, vanillas SM = marines

IG, AdMech, sisters = Imperium

GK, assassins, custodes, inquisition, knights both.

Seems like it would make it a little easier to balance. SM should play like SM (kick@$$ guys in power armor), imperium should play like imperium (lots of dudes and some big guns) and the others are proper soup elements like they should be.

Sucks if you went out and bought a bunch of IG to support your marines but the other option basically assumes all marine players will add some cheap IG chaff.

Being able to cherry pick the units I want theoretically has made imperium powerful so it seems like GW has compensated by making the other factions just more powerful. Hopefully by removing so much soup GW can focus on making marines play like marines and not this soupy mess (just ally guards to solve any and all problems...)

With spam and the detachment system it has just lead to power imbalances that can't be solved no matter how many options I have (since they all are worse than a handful of options available to xeno armies).

Chaos soup is a little different. That needs to be dealt with by not allowing cross god factions. Mono god/mark armies, feel free to combine codexes.

At least my 2c

Hmmm... What if you only get the Free 3 CPs for Battleforged in pure Armies? Its not crippling, but would change list building ideas right away. I'm used to running 7-9 CPs, but maxing out on 4? ouch.

Soup wouldn't be as much a problem if every faction was able to soup equally:

SM+IG+misc
Chaos+demons+IG
Eldar+DarkEldar+?
Orks+?+?
Tau+?+Kroot
Tyranids+GSC+IG

As it stands, Xenos get no benefits.

That said, my favorite idea I've seen presented is that each army gets an equal amount of CP to start, and additional detachments reduce CP, instead of adding it - it would cut down on soup quite a bit; that said, you're only really losing a re-roll+misc strategems... still, would be a good start.

Soup is a problem; but it's here to stay - units can either be balanced for an entire soup, or one codex. The funny part is that it doesn't really matter - GW couldn't balance one codex, let along multiple, even at the same time, so... shrug.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Sleep Spell wrote:
I guess rules wise the biggest problem with soup is that you either balance units to their individual codex or in regards to soup. As soup at its most competitive is just picking the strongest pieces from component and playing an army of those.

This is an either/or logical fallacy, it is also not true. Soup codices can be balanced according to their function within the soup paradigm, at the same time individual codices can be internally balanced to be competitive versus soup lists.

I tend to disagree, even if we disregard that there always have been and will be units that perform better than others for the same cost, there is a distinct advantage in having access to a wider variety of profiles or army passives to get the same job done. What I mean is that even if everything was balanced perfectly the ability to tailor your forces to a task just isn't the same. Guard can't deepstrike in a punchy character/squad with reliable charge to take care of units that are resilient to shooting, GK have a hard time creating a horde to tarpit an enemy etc.

Taking this into account along with the fact that the units are not perfectly balanced and there is a very real advantage in being able to pick top performers from different codices means some drawback to even the playing field would be nice. As others have suggested a CP reduction could make for a good starting point; siphoning some of the soup's power without reducing the number of flavor of the units people are already playing. Want different armies to work together? Well it might take a bit more administration and tax your chain of command so pulling the usual combat tricks becomes more difficult.

Actually the more I think about it the more I like what fe40k mentioned. Reducing CP for each battalion or allied force brought into the fight from a total and encouraging people to fill out/play full strength detachments instead of minimums. Of course there would have to be some major and minor reworks and the nerf to Tau Commanders (and maybe Demon Princes?) would become pretty harsh, but in general I think it's an interesting concept.

fe40k wrote:
Soup wouldn't be as much a problem if every faction was able to soup equally:

And that's impossible: imperium soups can pick up units form 10ish different books, chaos from 4 at least. Adding allies to those factions that currently lack that option means allowing them to pick units from 2 books.

Again, soups wouldn't be a problem at all if mono-codex armies were more optimized competitively speaking.

I think soups should be exceptions, not the normal. I'd hate a 40k meta in where the majority (if not all) of the lists are soups.

It boils down to the fact that soup make sense if you were building a fluffy Army. But the flexibility of the rules also allows you to just cherry pick the best units out of everything when you are able to. That is what is broken, but there is no real way to limit cherry picking without taking a sledgehammer to soup itself. It is absolutely bad game design to give factions distinct strengths and weaknesses, and then turn around and ignore those weaknesses by simply picking units from a different, Allied faction that removes them.

bananathug wrote:
DA, BA, wolves, vanillas SM = marines

Like Adeptus Astartes? Or Heretic Astartes?

bananathug wrote:
Chaos soup is a little different. That needs to be dealt with by not allowing cross god factions. Mono god/mark armies, feel free to combine codexes.

Cool, we'll tell the Black Legion, Word Bearers players to go ride the pine, see you when we see you.

bananathug wrote:
Chaos soup is a little different. That needs to be dealt with by not allowing cross god factions. Mono god/mark armies, feel free to combine codexes.

At least my 2c

What about the well known multi-god factions?

Yeah, the multi-god factions are a fluffy but being able to mix and match marks, strats, demons and psychic powers is a crunch problem which I'm not sure how to balance.

Limit the god parings in those armies to the gods that hate each other the least? Slaanesh + Tzeench okay, khorne + Tzeench/slaanesh a no go? I don't think this helps enough but it could be a fluffy justification.

Maybe some old school animosity rule? Failed LD check you shoot/move towards different marked/aligned ally w/in 18 inches? BL and WE get bonuses to these rules?

In this forum there have often been debates about balance, and often there has been a sentiment expressed that ultra competitive WAACs are just ruining the fun for everyone by their demands for changes to improve balance. I have always found that sentiment laughable, and defended the idea that balanced game is good fro everyone. However, for once I think that sentiment is justified, there are bunch of people here who basically want to ban people's armies for the sake (their perception) of balance.

kombatwombat wrote:
This is what I’m saying - you can’t just tell me it’s a fallacy because you disagree and expect to convince anyone, least of all me. I have tried to show above an example of why a unit can’t be balanced both in a Pure context and a Soup once simultaneously if you are going to have armies with native strengths and weaknesses.

I point out logical fallacies because you can't even begin a discussion objectively without starting from a functional logical basis, which quite frankly, you all fail to do horribly.

Furthermore, look up the idea of proving a negative.

Without getting into some math argument, you're only argument against this is, "It's too hard..."

Seriously? We put a man on the moon, we calculate the start of the universe, but balancing variables in 40k is too hard?

There are a few squishy variables in 40k that can't just be run against one another, those are the ones that will be ironed out through play and community feedback.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:


I point out logical fallacies because you can't even begin a discussion objectively without starting from a functional logical basis, which quite frankly, you all fail to do horribly.[i][u]

 Peregrine wrote:
Of course there is. If you're going to have different sides/units/etc in your game then those things should be different. If a king and a pawn have different rules then they should actually play differently. If IG and space marines are different armies with their own rules then they should play differently. That's the whole point of having different choices instead of just different colors for your pieces. Otherwise what's the point of having different rules for IG and space marines? Just give them the same rules and let people pick whichever aesthetic choices they prefer.

To clarify, the basis of your argument here is a false equivalency between chess and 40k? Because chess does it, it must be a universal principle? I just want to make sure I understand what your premise is on this, because this doesn't actually detail a principle in some scientific manner, it infers a principle based upon a false equivalency between two radically different games.

 Peregrine wrote:
And I'll also point out that this faction identity principle is something that GW has benefited considerably from in the past. If I say "space marine army" you immediately have a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about rules-wise and how it will play on the table. If I say "ork army" you have an entirely different picture, but one that is just as clear. That's how you get iconic images/units/etc that stand out in a potential customer's mind, not an over-homogenized mess of generic stuff.

This is a red herring logical fallacy that has nothing to do with the discussion.

 Crimson wrote:
So are Custodes-Guilliman-Guard soups routinely beating pure Guard lists?

Yes. Absolutely. All three major flavors of soup ("eldar soup" here being the """""""""Single""""""" faction Ynnari) are routinely outperforming all non-allied armies at major tournament events. And a lot of it is due to the very distinction being discussed here: Ynnari for example can take a single unit of Shining Spears from Saim-Hann to splash in and get the Saim-Hann stratagem, and a detachment of pure Alaitoc outside their Ynnari detachment to get the -1 to hit trait on the stuff they want.

You can either acccept the natural weaknesses of an army in order to get the strengths....oooor you can choose to play soup, which costs absolutely nothing!

the_scotsman wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
So are Custodes-Guilliman-Guard soups routinely beating pure Guard lists?

Yes. Absolutely. All three major flavors of soup ("eldar soup" here being the """""""""Single""""""" faction Ynnari) are routinely outperforming all non-allied armies at major tournament events. And a lot of it is due to the very distinction being discussed here: Ynnari for example can take a single unit of Shining Spears from Saim-Hann to splash in and get the Saim-Hann stratagem, and a detachment of pure Alaitoc outside their Ynnari detachment to get the -1 to hit trait on the stuff they want.

You can either acccept the natural weaknesses of an army in order to get the strengths....oooor you can choose to play soup, which costs absolutely nothing!

That's not how they gain access to the Saim-Hann stratagem. If they did not have the pure alatioc detachment they wouldn't get the saim-hann strat. I point this out because I see things like this pretty often where people don't fully understand how soup works other than they just have a gut feeling its bad. To be clear I'd be fine with some more limits on soup. Some things I think that might be appropriate:

-A CP bonus for taking a 'pure' army. Something like 'Battle Brothers - an army composed of detachments that are all composed of only units from the same codex gain 3 extra Command Points'.
-Place the Chaos Demons stratagem limit on all armies - effectively stratagems can only be used on that specific army. This would take care of the forewarned ynnari reapers, saim-hann ynnari spears, etc.
-Limit access to relics to your WL's faction, effectively remove access to the extra relic strat for any faction that isn't your WL.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
So are Custodes-Guilliman-Guard soups routinely beating pure Guard lists?

Yes. Absolutely. All three major flavors of soup ("eldar soup" here being the """""""""Single""""""" faction Ynnari) are routinely outperforming all non-allied armies at major tournament events. And a lot of it is due to the very distinction being discussed here: Ynnari for example can take a single unit of Shining Spears from Saim-Hann to splash in and get the Saim-Hann stratagem, and a detachment of pure Alaitoc outside their Ynnari detachment to get the -1 to hit trait on the stuff they want.

You can either acccept the natural weaknesses of an army in order to get the strengths....oooor you can choose to play soup, which costs absolutely nothing!

That's not how they gain access to the Saim-Hann stratagem. If they did not have the pure alatioc detachment they wouldn't get the saim-hann strat. I point this out because I see things like this pretty often where people don't fully understand how soup works other than they just have a gut feeling its bad.

I know how the rules work for unlocking stratagems. The fact remains that it's just goofy to have subfaction rules that are intended to allow your army to specialize in one particular area of strength but there's absolutely nothing in place stopping you from just taking another detachment to get all the strengths of another faction/subfaction.

I agree that banning Chaos/Imperium detachments does absolutely nothing to address the problem. Banning Ynnari detachments does somewhat, but also just totally bans a faction, which is always a subpar non-solution (but boy oh boy is it simple, clear cut, and easy for people to kneejerk off too. YEAH! BAN THE THING I DONT LIKE! BAN IT! JUST MAKE IT GONE RIGHT NOW!)

The idea of only giving out all subfaction benefits (Unique strat, warlord trait, subfaction trait and relic) if your whole army consists of only a single subfaction is somewhat a better starting point IMO. And I say starting point, because obviously along with stuff like Regimental Advisors, etc that already exists with rules that don't break your subfaction but don't give them the benefits of it, you need to have rules for the "dedicated ally" units. Inquisitors should be freely add-able. Same with assassins. I'd pick a liberal swathe of fluffy choices and give them a "Mercenary" style rule that allows them to be freely added in in limited quantities without breaking the benefits of some army or another.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:


-Limit access to relics to your WL's faction, effectively remove access to the extra relic strat for any faction that isn't your WL.

This only helps if you're not splashing in for the relic and the WL trait at the same time, like with the current most abusive iteration of that, the "super strategery" IG commander.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:


-Limit access to relics to your WL's faction, effectively remove access to the extra relic strat for any faction that isn't your WL.

This only helps if you're not splashing in for the relic and the WL trait at the same time, like with the current most abusive iteration of that, the "super strategery" IG commander.

Which is a fair point but it would still mean you don't have access to say the BA relic for no overwatch or the 3++ save from Custodes (two of the other most common ingredients in the Imperial soup). It isn't major but I think its a far limit.

 Peregrine wrote:

It's not at all the same. The anti-FW arguments were ridiculous complaints based on which piece of paper a particular set of rules was printed on, assuming that somehow FW rules weren't "real GW" or whatever. The anti-FW crowd would have been fine with the exact same rules (and, in many cases, was fine with them) if they were printed in a book with the magic "codex" word on the cover, or even in one of the non-codex sources they arbitrarily decided were ok. The argument against soup is based on entirely different reasons, related to fundamental game design principles.

It is based on exact same reason: being able to choose units from multiple books is an unfair benefit. Now you're the one who is bizarrely basing an argument on which piece of paper the set of rules is printed on: GW book & FW book = fine and dandy, two GW books = bad.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
So are Custodes-Guilliman-Guard soups routinely beating pure Guard lists?

Yes. Absolutely. All three major flavors of soup ("eldar soup" here being the """""""""Single""""""" faction Ynnari) are routinely outperforming all non-allied armies at major tournament events. And a lot of it is due to the very distinction being discussed here: Ynnari for example can take a single unit of Shining Spears from Saim-Hann to splash in and get the Saim-Hann stratagem, and a detachment of pure Alaitoc outside their Ynnari detachment to get the -1 to hit trait on the stuff they want.

You can either acccept the natural weaknesses of an army in order to get the strengths....oooor you can choose to play soup, which costs absolutely nothing!

That's not how they gain access to the Saim-Hann stratagem. If they did not have the pure alatioc detachment they wouldn't get the saim-hann strat. I point this out because I see things like this pretty often where people don't fully understand how soup works other than they just have a gut feeling its bad.

I know how the rules work for unlocking stratagems. The fact remains that it's just goofy to have subfaction rules that are intended to allow your army to specialize in one particular area of strength but there's absolutely nothing in place stopping you from just taking another detachment to get all the strengths of another faction/subfaction.

I agree that banning Chaos/Imperium detachments does absolutely nothing to address the problem. Banning Ynnari detachments does somewhat, but also just totally bans a faction, which is always a subpar non-solution (but boy oh boy is it simple, clear cut, and easy for people to kneejerk off too. YEAH! BAN THE THING I DONT LIKE! BAN IT! JUST MAKE IT GONE RIGHT NOW!)

The idea of only giving out all subfaction benefits (Unique strat, warlord trait, subfaction trait and relic) if your whole army consists of only a single subfaction is somewhat a better starting point IMO. And I say starting point, because obviously along with stuff like Regimental Advisors, etc that already exists with rules that don't break your subfaction but don't give them the benefits of it, you need to have rules for the "dedicated ally" units. Inquisitors should be freely add-able. Same with assassins. I'd pick a liberal swathe of fluffy choices and give them a "Mercenary" style rule that allows them to be freely added in in limited quantities without breaking the benefits of some army or another.

Interesting approach, what do you think of being forced to choose a 'main' detachment which grants WL traits, Relics and chapter/sept/dynasty etc. specific stratagems while additional detachments from outside factions do not have access to relics and traits as well as cost 1CP to ally in? Inquisition an co could have army traits that allow you to pick a second 'main' detachment or such?

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

kombatwombat wrote:
This is what I’m saying - you can’t just tell me it’s a fallacy because you disagree and expect to convince anyone, least of all me. I have tried to show above an example of why a unit can’t be balanced both in a Pure context and a Soup once simultaneously if you are going to have armies with native strengths and weaknesses.

I point out logical fallacies because you can't even begin a discussion objectively without starting from a functional logical basis, which quite frankly, you all fail to do horribly.

Hmm, lets see. Perhaps, 'appeal to the stone'? A logical fallacy that consists in dismissing a statement as absurd without giving proof of its absurdity.

The problem I see with the vast amount of solutions is they require this magical handwave towards 'allied' armies without actually discussing how it would work and I honestly don't think most people have thought out any potential ramifications from it (i.e. using is as a soup arm in a strong mono codex build).

I think instead of punishing soup you reward mono builds, ultimately it accomplishes the same goal without being purely punitive.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
The problem I see with the vast amount of solutions is they require this magical handwave towards 'allied' armies without actually discussing how it would work and I honestly don't think most people have thought out any potential ramifications from it (i.e. using is as a soup arm in a strong mono codex build).

I think instead of punishing soup you reward mono builds, ultimately it accomplishes the same goal without being purely punitive.

magical handwave? All I want to take the rule that we already have in many codexes, and add it to commonly allied factions (imperial knights, inquisition, sisters of silence, assassins, renegade knights, fallen, brood brothers with GSC and Dark Eldar mercenary units are probably already getting a rule like that with their codex). Give them a special "This unit does not count when determining your army's faction." rule, and make it so that your army's faction rather than the detachment's faction is what matters when determining what you unlock.

That seems like a concrete suggestion without any hand-waving at all. There's even a game system we have to look at that does this exact thing, and it works very well: Age of Sigmar. Providing a handful of bonus cp to monofaction armies is one possible solution but ultimately I doubt it'd matter much. The incentive to soup up at a competitive level is extremely high.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
The problem I see with the vast amount of solutions is they require this magical handwave towards 'allied' armies without actually discussing how it would work and I honestly don't think most people have thought out any potential ramifications from it (i.e. using is as a soup arm in a strong mono codex build).

I think instead of punishing soup you reward mono builds, ultimately it accomplishes the same goal without being purely punitive.

magical handwave? All I want to take the rule that we already have in many codexes, and add it to commonly allied factions (imperial knights, inquisition, sisters of silence, assassins, renegade knights, fallen, brood brothers with GSC and Dark Eldar mercenary units are probably already getting a rule like that with their codex). Give them a special "This unit does not count when determining your army's faction." rule, and make it so that your army's faction rather than the detachment's faction is what matters when determining what you unlock.

That seems like a concrete suggestion without any hand-waving at all. There's even a game system we have to look at that does this exact thing, and it works very well: Age of Sigmar. Providing a handful of bonus cp to monofaction armies is one possible solution but ultimately I doubt it'd matter much. The incentive to soup up at a competitive level is extremely high.

That still ignores armies like Harlequins (who by all rights should have some capacity to ally in to both Dark and Craftworld Eldar) and that's just the first off the top of my head. Ultimately soup isn't new - its actually tamer in a lot of regards in 8th than in 7th (Riptide Wing, people running Warp Spiders and Demons at the last ACon of 7th, and so on). I think once Games Workshop finishes all the books then maybe a conversation the thing can be had but at current we have no idea if Tau are going to get access to more soup options as time goes on. I think most attempts to punish soup either don't actually hurt soup (see 'no Imperium or Chaos for the army') or go so far as to render the concept entirely non-viable (locking out all stratagem and trait access). The normal point to attack is CP which is fine but still ultimately feels more of a punitive "I don't get to do this so I don't want you to" than it does an ACTUAL attempt to address the core issue (which is, theoretically soup is too much better than playing mono armies). If more people argued to find ways to improve or incentive mono faction action armies I'd probably be willing to accept that the 'soup is bad for the game' crowd doesn't just want to punish soup players for having more toys than them.

If you limit access to relics and warlord traits to the primary detachment and put a hard limit on cross faction stratagem use I think you'll already start to see some of the impact of soup drained. If you pair that with boosts to mono faction armies then I think the two concepts get close enough to parity that you'll see comparatively more mono faction armies as a result.

 Crimson wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

It's not at all the same. The anti-FW arguments were ridiculous complaints based on which piece of paper a particular set of rules was printed on, assuming that somehow FW rules weren't "real GW" or whatever. The anti-FW crowd would have been fine with the exact same rules (and, in many cases, was fine with them) if they were printed in a book with the magic "codex" word on the cover, or even in one of the non-codex sources they arbitrarily decided were ok. The argument against soup is based on entirely different reasons, related to fundamental game design principles.

It is based on exact same reason: being able to choose units from multiple books is an unfair benefit. Now you're the one who is bizarrely basing an argument on which piece of paper the set of rules is printed on: GW book & FW book = fine and dandy, two GW books = bad.

Not even remotely the same, FW adds things to a codex, soup is literally taking what you want from any of the soup codexs, adding a vindicator variant is nowhere near the same as replacing vindicators with leman Russ, or tacticals with guardsman.

 Formosa wrote:

Not even remotely the same, FW adds things to a codex, soup is literally taking what you want from any of the soup codexs, adding a vindicator variant is nowhere near the same as replacing vindicators with leman Russ, or tacticals with guardsman.

It is the same, FW adds all sort of superheavy vehicles and flyers that are not present in the GW codices. It is extra options, and you don't even need to arrange separate detachments for them unlike with allies from another GW codex.

It is completely crazy to think that adding a Onager Dunewrawler into my marine army (along with bunch of stuff I really didn't want, but needed to fill the detachment) somehow breaks the game but bringing a Deimos Laser Destroyer doesn't.

 Crimson wrote:
In this forum there have often been debates about balance, and often there has been a sentiment expressed that ultra competitive WAACs are just ruining the fun for everyone by their demands for changes to improve balance. I have always found that sentiment laughable.....

And so have I because a lot of them really don't care about balance, they just want to win, at all costs.....

To the OP. I say play with friends. Throw the gauntlet down and challenge everyone else to beat you on the tabletop! I , myself don’t give a hoot what anyone thinks about my army list. Play me or not. I do not like the “competitive “ aspect of the game. So soup it is. Bad sportsmanship and the gang saying you need to be as anal as they are is a real turn off. It is a game and win or loose I want to put my toys down on the table and play. Emphasize “ Play”. So I’m prepared for the hate for my thoughts. Have fun.

Farseer_V2 wrote: I think most attempts to punish soup either don't actually hurt soup (see 'no Imperium or Chaos for the army') or go so far as to render the concept entirely non-viable (locking out all stratagem and trait access). The normal point to attack is CP which is fine but still ultimately feels more of a punitive "I don't get to do this so I don't want you to" than it does an ACTUAL attempt to address the core issue (which is, theoretically soup is too much better than playing mono armies). If more people argued to find ways to improve or incentive mono faction action armies I'd probably be willing to accept that the 'soup is bad for the game' crowd doesn't just want to punish soup players for having more toys than them.

If you limit access to relics and warlord traits to the primary detachment and put a hard limit on cross faction stratagem use I think you'll already start to see some of the impact of soup drained. If you pair that with boosts to mono faction armies then I think the two concepts get close enough to parity that you'll see comparatively more mono faction armies as a result.

I think I should make this very clear here - my suggestion to only allow access to Subfaction-specific Traits, Warlord Traits, Stratagems and Relics for Pure armies does not lock out all Stratagem access, it only removes a single Stratagem. For example, a Black Templars player who Soups up would lose the Righteous Zeal Chapter Tactic (reroll charges), the Crusader Helm Relic, the Oathkeeper Warlord Trait and the Abhor the Witch Stratagem. They would still have access to 7 generic Relics, 6 generic Warlord Traits and 19 generic Space Marine Stratagems. If you really think having to stick to that in order to be allowed to cover Black Templars’ inherent weaknesses by adding Soup renders Black Templars Soup entirely non-viable, then... I suppose all I can do is reiterate: there is more to this hobby than the top 3 tables at LVO.

(Black Templars can be substituted with any other army subfaction - if any army goes from viable to completely non-viable because of what I’m suggesting, then that’s a Codex design problem.)

TwinPoleTheory wrote:I point out logical fallacies because you can't even begin a discussion objectively without starting from a functional logical basis, which quite frankly, you all fail to do horribly.

Furthermore, look up the idea of proving a negative.

The moment you say to a group of people ‘you’re all doing it wrong’ should be a trigger for you to think ‘hang on, maybe I’m doing it wrong...’

I’ll reiterate, telling somebody their argument has a logical fallacy will convince no one. I don’t share your apparent interest in the finer points of debating theory and nomenclature, but I do understand that showing that someone’s logic is flawed is the only way you might convince anyone. It’s similar to how good writing doesn’t tell you the character is awesome and cool and smart, but shows them doing awesome and cool and smart things.

Without getting into some math argument, you're only argument against this is, "It's too hard..."

Seriously? We put a man on the moon, we calculate the start of the universe, but balancing variables in 40k is too hard?

There are a few squishy variables in 40k that can't just be run against one another, those are the ones that will be ironed out through play and community feedback.

I think you’re missing a sense of scale here. Putting a man on the moon is child’s play next to trying to consider the possible permutations of an Imperium Soup army. Some things are just literally impossible, and some of those things seem very inane - for example, trying to individually name every atom in a bag of coal. We would likely see the heat death of the universe before you finished.

Play and community feedback generally seems to support the idea that GW hasn’t considered all the cross-pollination variables of Soup. Which is entirely fair, as they simply don’t have the resources to.

 Crimson wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

It's not at all the same. The anti-FW arguments were ridiculous complaints based on which piece of paper a particular set of rules was printed on, assuming that somehow FW rules weren't "real GW" or whatever. The anti-FW crowd would have been fine with the exact same rules (and, in many cases, was fine with them) if they were printed in a book with the magic "codex" word on the cover, or even in one of the non-codex sources they arbitrarily decided were ok. The argument against soup is based on entirely different reasons, related to fundamental game design principles.

It is based on exact same reason: being able to choose units from multiple books is an unfair benefit. Now you're the one who is bizarrely basing an argument on which piece of paper the set of rules is printed on: GW book & FW book = fine and dandy, two GW books = bad.

No, it isn't the same argument at all. Being able to choose units from multiple books is irrelevant, because it's still the same faction. The fact that GW splits a faction's content up across multiple pieces of paper doesn't make it any less of a single faction. The issue is getting to choose units from multiple factions, regardless of which books they are printed in. Taking Tau and Tyranid units out of IA:Xenos (a single FW book) is not ok.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

kombatwombat wrote:
Putting a man on the moon is child’s play next to trying to consider the possible permutations of an Imperium Soup army.

Uh, no. It really isn't. Yes, technically there is a huge number of possible armies, but most of them are irrelevant from a balancing point of view. A single 5-man tactical squad with no upgrades as your entire army in a 2000 point game is a legal list, and one that counts towards the 999999999999999999999999999999 potential armies that can be built, but nobody needs to spend time balancing something that stupid. Similarly, many units are interchangeable. If you know that a LR demolisher and LR executioner are balanced relative to each other then you can combine everything into a single "LRBT" entry and consider "space marine army that takes a LRBT" as a single list concept to evaluate rather than having to do balance testing on every possible combination of that LRBT's weapons. With smart playtesting you can evaluate this stuff, at least to a much higher level of balance than we have now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:
It is the same, FW adds all sort of superheavy vehicles and flyers that are not present in the GW codices.

You are drawing an arbitrary line of your own invention between codex and not-codex sources. GW does not recognize any difference between the two. You might as well complain that page 118 of the IG codex adds a superheavy vehicle that isn't present on page 93, and it's unfair that IG get to take options from multiple pages.

It is completely crazy to think that adding a Onager Dunewrawler into my marine army (along with bunch of stuff I really didn't want, but needed to fill the detachment) somehow breaks the game but bringing a Deimos Laser Destroyer doesn't.

The difference is that FW units obey the same design principles as the rest of the faction, maintaining faction identity. IG may get a different gun for their LRBTs, but they won't get power armored elite infantry. Space marines might get that laser destroyer as a substitute for a Predator Annhiliator, but won't get 4ppm meatshield troops.

 Peregrine wrote:
[
Uh, no. It really isn't. Yes, technically there is a huge number of possible armies, but most of them are irrelevant from a balancing point of view. A single 5-man tactical squad with no upgrades as your entire army in a 2000 point game is a legal list, and one that counts towards the 999999999999999999999999999999 potential armies that can be built, but nobody needs to spend time balancing something that stupid. Similarly, many units are interchangeable. If you know that a LR demolisher and LR executioner are balanced relative to each other then you can combine everything into a single "LRBT" entry and consider "space marine army that takes a LRBT" as a single list concept to evaluate rather than having to do balance testing on every possible combination of that LRBT's weapons. With smart playtesting you can evaluate this stuff, at least to a much higher level of balance than we have now.

My guesstimate didn’t even go to the level of detail of single-unit armies or wargear options or anything. I just thought of a random example where you’re going to pick 10 units to make an army. Now, those 10 units might add up to 500pts or 2500pts, but rather than adding the theoretically infinite variable of points limit, I considered a simpler estimation where I only look choosing 10 arbitrary units rather than having to run all sorts of permutations for total points limit. If that rankles with you, maybe rephrase the notion as ‘we’re going do a balance sample test to combine 10 units that will form a subset of a 5,000pt army and consider how those units affect one another’. It also assumed you can only consider each unit once, so we’re not even considering the effects of spam. You could end up with 10 single model HQ characters to compare; who knows, stacking their cumulative buffs onto one another might create an OP combo. This is what we’re trying to assess. You can make some assumptions and cut out huge swathes of combinations, but those assumptions are where you run into trouble. Something something you and me.

If you’re choosing 10 units to compare out of 11, the number of possible ways you can choose those 10 units is 11!/10! = 11, which makes intuitive sense. If youre choosing 10 units out of 12, you get 12!/10! = 132 (these numbers get big fast). If you’re choosing 10 units out of 20 - say, the number of units in a single Codex - your number of ways jumps to 700 billion. Now, that’s too large to consider, so you make some assumptions and just choose to ignore whole piles of options. That’s not ideal but let’s say it’s functional. If you consider 10 units out of 100 - a very conservative guess for the number of Imperium Soup units even if you ignore the difference between a Sicaran and a Sicaran Venator for example - you get a number in the order of 10^20. Sure, you can pile assumptions on assumptions on assumptions to try and cut out piles of units (introducing huge leeway for misses and errors in doing so), but the numbers you’re considering are just so hideously, catastrophically enormous that you simply can’t functionally get anywhere near meaningful analysis. It’s not a linear relationship where considering 5 Codexes is 5 times harder than considering 1 Codex, it’s a situation where the extra permutations are just so mind-bogglingly massive compared to the extra data that you just can’t apply the same thinking.

I happen to completely agree with you on the FW issue though.

Edit: I’ve made some mistakes in the maths there in trying to rush it through in my lunch break, but the conclusion stands.

Again, you're assuming complete ignorance on what makes a good list and having to blindly attempt every possible combination. That's not how playtesting works. For example, you might try a few different 10-character lists, but if they're consistently terrible you can probably stop there and assume that all 10-character lists are going to be bad without having to try every possible combination of 10 characters. You don't need to mathematically prove that every possible list that can be generated is balanced, "it is very unlikely that we missed anything" is good enough even if its theoretically possible that some obscure combination breaks the game.

And those assumptions you’ve just made are exactly how we get balance issues.

Look, ultimately the point is, there’s a limit to how much GW can cover with their limited resources, and Soup makes the job so much harder as to be functionally impossible for the GW team to be able to meaningfully balance Soup armies.

kombatwombat wrote:
And those assumptions you’ve just made are exactly how we get balance issues.

No they aren't. We get balance issues because GW doesn't care enough to try at all, and is often actively hostile to the idea of making high-quality rules (CAAC! FORGE A NARRATIVE! BEER AND PRETZELS!). Using skill at the game, assuming you have put the effort into learning the game at a high level and care about such things, to narrow down the playtesting space is just part of playtesting. Virtually any game has sufficiently many combinations to make playtesting "impossible" if you do X! calculations to get a huge number, yet playtesting still happens and still improves games.

Look, ultimately the point is, there’s a limit to how much GW can cover with their limited resources, and Soup makes the job so much harder as to be functionally impossible for the GW team to be able to meaningfully balance Soup armies.

The key point here is "limited resources", not the impossibility of the task. GW could get the resources for proper playtesting, and be able to cover soup armies, if they cared enough to do it. But they don't.

The real reason soup should be removed is that it's terrible game design in fundamental ways that can not be fixed by playtesting. Even it it's perfectly balanced it's still terrible design and still shouldn't be part of the game. So, don't think that I approve of having soup armies exist. I just reject the idea that playtesting is as impossible as you claim.

 Peregrine wrote:

No, it isn't the same argument at all. Being able to choose units from multiple books is irrelevant, because it's still the same faction. The fact that GW splits a faction's content up across multiple pieces of paper doesn't make it any less of a single faction. The issue is getting to choose units from multiple factions, regardless of which books they are printed in. Taking Tau and Tyranid units out of IA:Xenos (a single FW book) is not ok.

You are drawing an arbitrary line of your own invention between codex and not-codex sources. GW does not recognize any difference between the two. You might as well complain that page 118 of the IG codex adds a superheavy vehicle that isn't present on page 93, and it's unfair that IG get to take options from multiple pages.

You're fixating on the faction. And as I already think that 'Imperium' is a valid faction, this argument will not convince me. And Factions are arbitrary too. Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus uded to be separate factions, now they're one faction, Grey Knights and Inquisition used to belong to the same faction, now they're separate factions.

The difference is that FW units obey the same design principles as the rest of the faction, maintaining faction identity. IG may get a different gun for their LRBTs, but they won't get power armored elite infantry. Space marines might get that laser destroyer as a substitute for a Predator Annhiliator, but won't get 4ppm meatshield troops.

Well IG shouldn't get 4ppm meatshield troops either. Such thing just being brokenly good in this edition is the reason why everyone is allying them in their armies. And most of this 'faction identity' is illusory. There ultimately is not a huge difference between marine and IG tanks (except latter are better, but that is bad balancing) or even some tyranid monsters and mechanical walkers of some other races. Even in that other thread you said that Craftworld Eldar and Dark Eldar have basically the same strengths and weakness, so how the hell is being to able to ally them with each other a problem. And of course fundamentally being able to field cheap mooks along marines cannot really be a huge problem, Chaos Marines can do it from single codex. Why is that OK, but if loyalist want to do the same it is an abomination?

Furthermore, FW design team is different set of people than main GW team, and they have different design style. They write rules somewhat differently, add more little unnecessary permutations and exceptions, and often seem to be even more clueless about the game balance than the main team. And they also sometimes introduce untits that allow mitigating weaknesses of a certain armies, or units that are just flat out better versions of codex units. This is very much the same sort of issues people have with the allies, and I have never supported banning FW either.

 Crimson wrote:
You're fixating on the faction.

Yes, because that's the problem with soup. This is like saying that I'm "fixating" on the cost of guardsmen in an argument over whether guardsmen should be 5ppm or 4ppm.

And as I already think that 'Imperium' is a valid faction, this argument will not convince me.

You think wrong. A faction that contains half the content in the game, vastly more than any other faction and including multiple complete factions, is not valid. There is absolutely no legitimate reason to have that kind of disparity in options in a fair game.

And Factions are arbitrary too. Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus uded to be separate factions, now they're one faction, Grey Knights and Inquisition used to belong to the same faction, now they're separate factions.

The fact that GW reorganizes stuff sometimes doesn't change the fact that there are factions, and those factions have their own design identity. Orks and Tau are not the same army even if GW reorganizes the books a bit and puts them into a single "Xenos" book.

Well IG shouldn't get 4ppm meatshield troops either. Such thing just being brokenly good in this edition is the reason why everyone is allying them in their armies. And most of this 'faction identity' is illusory. There ultimately is not a huge difference between marine and IG tanks (except latter are better, but that is bad balancing) or even some tyranid monsters and mechanical walkers of some other races. Even in that other thread you said that Craftworld Eldar and Dark Eldar have basically the same strengths and weakness, so how the hell is being to able to ally them with each other a problem. And of course fundamentally being able to field cheap mooks along marines cannot really be a huge problem, Chaos Marines can do it from single codex. Why is that OK, but if loyalist want to do the same it is an abomination?

Ok, you're pointing out bad design by GW that undermines their own faction system. I'm not sure why you think "GW sucks" is a good response to an argument that GW sucks at something else.

Also, you seem to have a very shallow understanding of balance and how it relates to faction identity. IG have better tanks because tanks are supposed to be the strength of the IG faction, while space marines have mediocre tanks because tanks are supposed to have a supporting role at best in their faction. It's the same reason why Khorne space marines get powerful melee units (or should get them, at least) and Tau get very bad melee units if they get them at all. CSM get cheap meatshields, but presumably pay for it elsewhere in their army. Etc. You aren't supposed to be good at everything that every other army has.

Furthermore, FW design team is different set of people than main GW team, and they have different design style.

So what? Different codex authors are different people and have different design styles. Should we only allow codices written by a particular author and ban the others?

They write rules somewhat differently, add more little unnecessary permutations and exceptions, and often seem to be even more clueless about the game balance than the main team.

{citation needed}

FW is clueless about game balance, but so is everyone else at GW. After all, it wasn't FW that gave us D-weapon titans in normal games, scatter laser jetbikes, the 4ppm guardsmen you hate, etc.

And they also sometimes introduce untits that allow mitigating weaknesses of a certain armies, or units that are just flat out better versions of codex units. This is very much the same sort of issues people have with the allies, and I have never supported banning FW either.

Again, no, it isn't the same issue at all. Maybe that's the issue for some people, but my issue with soup is that it undermines faction identity. FW rules do not. Your comparison is absurd.

 Peregrine wrote:

Again, no, it isn't the same issue at all. Maybe that's the issue for some people, but my issue with soup is that it undermines faction identity. FW rules do not. Your comparison is absurd.

The main concern in this thread has been the game balance based one. Most of those complaints can apply to FW too. A major complaint has been that Imperium has disproportionately huge selection of units. Certainly true. Now guess does FW add options equally to all factions? Yep, it doesn't. So if some armies getting more options than others is a valid reason to ban allies, then it is a valid reason to ban FW as well.

As for the faction identity, as you define it, I don't care. I didn't like the crazy ally rules of the previous edition which produced blatantly unfluffy armies and marine characters were blocking incoming shots directed to IG blobs by their magically buffed stromshields, but almost all of that silliness is gone, and if there are some specific problem areas then address those. To me an Inquisitor leading an eclectic collection of Imperial units or Yvraine doing the same for Eldar is cool and perfectly valid expression of 'faction identity.'

 Peregrine wrote:


You think wrong. A faction that contains half the content in the game, vastly more than any other faction and including multiple complete factions, is not valid. There is absolutely no legitimate reason to have that kind of disparity in options in a fair game.

You assume 40k is meant to be a "fair game". I think after over 20 years of grossly imbalanced rules and relatively poor balance, GW is not trying to build a "fair game" at all. It's just that's what people want, so they keep trying to force 40k to be it.

Wayniac wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


You think wrong. A faction that contains half the content in the game, vastly more than any other faction and including multiple complete factions, is not valid. There is absolutely no legitimate reason to have that kind of disparity in options in a fair game.

You assume 40k is meant to be a "fair game". I think after over 20 years of grossly imbalanced rules and relatively poor balance, GW is not trying to build a "fair game" at all. It's just that's what people want, so they keep trying to force 40k to be it.

Then its fair to say that being poorly balanced makes it a bad game. People want a good game. Good games are balanced.

I don't think its unreasonable to criticize and hope GW makes the game better by actually balancing it.

 Blacksails wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


You think wrong. A faction that contains half the content in the game, vastly more than any other faction and including multiple complete factions, is not valid. There is absolutely no legitimate reason to have that kind of disparity in options in a fair game.

You assume 40k is meant to be a "fair game". I think after over 20 years of grossly imbalanced rules and relatively poor balance, GW is not trying to build a "fair game" at all. It's just that's what people want, so they keep trying to force 40k to be it.

Then its fair to say that being poorly balanced makes it a bad game. People want a good game. Good games are balanced.

I don't think its unreasonable to criticize and hope GW makes the game better by actually balancing it.

Well, yes, of course. GW games definitely falls into the "degenerate game" category as far as game design goes.