Peregrine wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Oh? To me it seems that it is the same couple of soup haters insisting for pages that there is an inherit problem, yet being unable to really articulate what the problem actually is.

I've articulated the problem over and over again: soup is bad because it damages the concept of faction identity, each faction being balanced with strengths and weaknesses. If you play Tau you don't get good melee units. If you play space marines you don't get hordes of cannon fodder troops. Etc. Soup allows you to bypass the intended strengths and weaknesses of the various factions with a single super-faction that gets to take the best unit for every role.

This mostly, but not only this.

It's not only a matter of faction identiy, but also of balance. I mean I'm in total favor of allowing minor factions to soup since IMHO they shouldn't even be independent factions but SM and AM? They've got tons of options available, they don't need allies. For the same reason GK, cutodes, Ad mech, SoB together have tons of options availble and don't need allies from the other two major imperium factions.

With the soup any SM player can add a few allied units and be more competitive. At that point the majority of SM players starts to do that. That's a balance problem, if the soup is always better than the mono faction the monofaction is going to disappear. That's why I'd argue for the existence of soups but less competitive than mono faction lists.

Some people argue that a full AM list is better than a soup with SM and a few AM units, true, but switching from a SM army to a complete AM one is a big step, and lots of players are not willing to do it, don't forget than painting 2k+ points of stuff requires tons of time other than money. Adding a few needed units to an already existing army is easier. And it's not even a matter of selling more models because that player could buy other units from the same army he already owns, not necessarily the overpowered allied units he needs, and GW will make the same amount of money.

 Peregrine wrote:

I've articulated the problem over and over again: soup is bad because it damages the concept of faction identity, each faction being balanced with strengths and weaknesses. If you play Tau you don't get good melee units. If you play space marines you don't get hordes of cannon fodder troops. Etc. Soup allows you to bypass the intended strengths and weaknesses of the various factions with a single super-faction that gets to take the best unit for every role.

I already said that this sort of 'faction identity' is mostly imagination. For example, Space marines with hordes of cannon fodder troops exist, and have existed for several editions. They're called Chaos Space marines and cultists. Furthermore, Kroot were kinda supposed to be close combat capable Tau option (they really aren't, but that was the intent, and there is nothing wrong with CC oriented Tau subject race.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackie wrote:

With the soup any SM player can add a few allied units and be more competitive. At that point the majority of SM players starts to do that. That's a balance problem, if the soup is always better than the mono faction the monofaction is going to disappear.

If. But that's not the case.

That's why I'd argue for the existence of soups but less competitive than mono faction lists.

Why less, competitive? Certainly being equally competitive should be the goal?

Some people argue that a full AM list is better than a soup with SM and a few AM units, true, but switching from a SM army to a complete AM one is a big step, and lots of players are not willing to do it, don't forget than painting 2k+ points of stuff requires tons of time other than money. Adding a few needed units to an already existing army is easier. And it's not even a matter of selling more models because that player could buy other units from the same army he already owns, not necessarily the overpowered allied units he needs, and GW will make the same amount of money.

Yeah, and this is where it goes off the rails completely. Your solution just leads to everyone having to play guard.

And it's not even a matter of selling more models because that player could buy other units from the same army he already owns, not necessarily the overpowered allied units he needs, and GW will make the same amount of money.

No, because I want to buy and paint different models, not the same models over and over again!

 Crimson wrote:
For example, Space marines with hordes of cannon fodder troops exist, and have existed for several editions. They're called Chaos Space marines and cultists.

Sure. And CSM lose stuff that loyalist marines have, as the price of getting that horde of cannon fodder.

Furthermore, Kroot were kinda supposed to be close combat capable Tau option (they really aren't, but that was the intent, and there is nothing wrong with CC oriented Tau subject race.)

They really weren't. Kroot are a cheap screening unit, they might be better than the utterly pathetic Tau in melee but you sure as hell weren't ever going to take them with the intent to declare charges against anything but the weakest targets. They aren't melee gods like assault terminators, where you want to charge ASAP and once you get there you're going to wreck anything in your path. Tau have never had that kind of unit, and should never have it.

Why less, competitive? Certainly being equally competitive should be the goal?

Unless you believe that soup is bad design, and should be limited to grudgingly allowing fluff players to use whatever weird combination of stuff they come up with. If they're less competitive then you don't want to take them in a tournament, or if you don't have such an awesome fluff idea that you feel compelled to use it even if it doesn't win games as effectively.

 Blackie wrote:
That's why I'd argue for the existence of soups but less competitive than mono faction lists.

And here it is again - the 'guys I promise I don't want to ban soup - I just want to render it unusable!'

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
That's why I'd argue for the existence of soups but less competitive than mono faction lists.

And here it is again - the 'guys I promise I don't want to ban soup - I just want to render it unusable!'

Yeah, that would be terrible. Because no one enjoyed playing 40K 3rd -5th editions, when mono-faction was the only option.

There's actually a pretty popular school of thought that 5th edition was the best edition of 40K to date. Not sure I agree with it entirely, but it did have some things going for it. Not just the absence of mixed lists either - with only Troops able to score, players actually took solid amounts of them. These days, ehh. People mostly take them to unlock battalions and brigades. But that's another discussion.

I for one would love to see soup just go away and never come back. That said, I recognize the impracticality of it at this point. Classic Pandora's Box scenario - now that it's out of the box, putting it back in would be worlds of trouble. I'm willing to be mollified by mono-source being buffed so it can be competitive against soup.

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
That's why I'd argue for the existence of soups but less competitive than mono faction lists.

And here it is again - the 'guys I promise I don't want to ban soup - I just want to render it unusable!'

Yeah, that would be terrible. Because no one enjoyed playing 40K 3rd -5th editions, when mono-faction was the only option.

There's actually a pretty popular school of thought that 5th edition was the best edition of 40K to date. Not sure I agree with it entirely, but it did have some things going for it. Not just the absence of mixed lists either - with only Troops able to score, players actually took solid amounts of them. These days, ehh. People mostly take them to unlock battalions and brigades. But that's another discussion.

I for one would love to see soup just go away and never come back. That said, I recognize the impracticality of it at this point. Classic Pandora's Box scenario - now that it's out of the box, putting it back in would be worlds of trouble. I'm willing to be mollified by mono-source being buffed so it can be competitive against soup.

Yeah because playing Biker Nobz wound allocation and Paladin wound allocation was a blast! So was Space Wolves scoring from inside their Razorbacks! I'm not going to get further into the 'yeah well people liked this better' because there is no data on either side that can actually support that pre or post mixed lists is more popular. Anecdotally - its opened up the ability for me to run my chaos collection in a way that is more pleasing to me with demon and legions in the same composition as well as running Harlequins with various splashes of other Eldar.

 Peregrine wrote:

Sure. And CSM lose stuff that loyalist marines have, as the price of getting that horde of cannon fodder.

But the stuff they lose has very little ro do with this faction strength and weaknesses stuff. They're both marine armies with some slightly different units.

Oh and if I choose to bring IG along with my marines, I am already limiting my ability to bring marine units. There is this mechanic called points, you know...

Unless you believe that soup is bad design, and should be limited to grudgingly allowing fluff players to use whatever weird combination of stuff they come up with. If they're less competitive then you don't want to take them in a tournament, or if you don't have such an awesome fluff idea that you feel compelled to use it even if it doesn't win games as effectively.

So you want to punish fluff players. Got it!

Time and time again I have seen you argue that good game balance is good for everyone, competive and fluffy players alike.That a balanced game means that a fluffy player can bring their background inspired army and not be instantly crushed because they did not choose the most brokenly OP units. And I've always agreed with you on this. But now you're just basically saying that feth players that want to play armies you don't personally like. I guess you want to ban Tyranids next...

Both sides seem too extreme in this discussion.

The answer (for balance) is simply to buff mono-faction armies to make them a competitive choice along with soup. Essentially give you some benefit for forgoing the benefit of the options soup provides.

This balance issue cannot be determined by points costing very effectively because there is no cost at which something is better given fewer options, and it is unrealistic given the granularity involved that all units could be equally balanced against one another in such a way that soup would not always be the best option when available.

Breng77 wrote:
Both sides seem too extreme in this discussion.

The answer (for balance) is simply to buff mono-faction armies to make them a competitive choice along with soup. Essentially give you some benefit for forgoing the benefit of the options soup provides.

This balance issue cannot be determined by points costing very effectively because there is no cost at which something is better given fewer options, and it is unrealistic given the granularity involved that all units could be equally balanced against one another in such a way that soup would not always be the best option when available.

Which to be clear nearly everyone who's been pro-soup if you will has advocated for. I've stated several times I'm fine with intelligent limits to soups and buffs to mono factions, what I (and others) take issue with is both the disingenuous soup 'limits' that are effectively bans (by way of making soup entirely non-viable)on the concept.

Breng77 wrote:

The answer (for balance) is simply to buff mono-faction armies to make them a competitive choice along with soup. Essentially give you some benefit for forgoing the benefit of the options soup provides.

If we're talking about something like a few extra CPs for mono armies, then that is fine providing that faction balance is addressed otherwise too. At its current state IG doesn't really need any buffs!

I would look at it more as Chapter Tactics and stratagems than straight CP (though that could also be a thing). Things that would encourage different playstyles, maybe buff otherwise underused units etc. The ideal would be to make as many different types of armies viable as possible. Some of that would be re-balancing points, and some would be other buffs to units if taken in a particular faction.

SO if IG are too strong with their best build maybe some mono-faction options would buff lesser used units, or maybe would just allow for different styles of play. That said I cannot think of too many events getting dominated by pure IG lists right now, so I'm not sure that compared to Imperial soup that they could not use a buff, it might just be not as large as other factions. Which is part of the balance and why CP alone is not a great fix.

Saying "if you play mono-faction you get 4 extra CP." means all armies get buffed the exact same way regardless of their strengths.

Instead if playing mono-imperial fists got you say the ability for your vehicles with random number of shots to roll 2x the number of shots (so normal D6 shots becomes 2D6) or something similar it could lead to a different style of army where you are taking Whirlwinds and Vindicators as a viable option.

 Crimson wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

The answer (for balance) is simply to buff mono-faction armies to make them a competitive choice along with soup. Essentially give you some benefit for forgoing the benefit of the options soup provides.

If we're talking about something like a few extra CPs for mono armies, then that is fine providing that faction balance is addressed otherwise too. At its current state IG doesn't really need any buffs!

I don't disagree with you, but that's an entirely separate set of mechanics to monkey with, though doing so would tone down Imperial Soup a bit - souping in IG wouldn't be quite the CP-battery it is now, but it would still have all the other inherent advantages.

Given the way 8th plays with turn 1 and 2 being alpha strike fests I would prefer soup was toned down to mono codex levels not mono codex armies boosted to soup levels as its just another round of powercreep IMHO but I get that its probably a much easier sell. Hopefully its also simple and blanket, given the insistance of playing a 2k points as it's "the standard" placing more models or extending the pre game time even further doesn't improve the game it just takes more time away from playing.
Heck some armies take so long on T1 and T2, T3 is usually cut short T4 is rare and T5+ a hope and prayer for most games, not all of us get 4-5 hours+ for a game even outside of tournament.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
That's why I'd argue for the existence of soups but less competitive than mono faction lists.

And here it is again - the 'guys I promise I don't want to ban soup - I just want to render it unusable!'

Not unusable, just inferior to mono-factions lists.

I usually play with lots of vehicles with my orks, not with the green tides which are their best built. My lists are not the possible best ones but certainly not 100% unusable, and we're talking about orks, one of the current bottom tiers.

In a perfect world soups and mono-faction armies would be equal, but in the real life and especially 40k this is simply impossible, so arguing for having soups not as competitive as single faction armies seems the best compromise. Soups wouldn't go away, but they wouldn't be auto takes. At the current moment there's no pure SM list that is better than a SM one pluse some IG allied and this is insane.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:

Yeah, and this is where it goes off the rails completely. Your solution just leads to everyone having to play guard.

No because only a few crazy people in the world are willing to buy 2000-3000 points of an army they don't want to collect and play. Adding a few needed units is completely different.

No, it is not.

Adding units from another should never be necessary.

And IMHO, it will be in some form be necessary whilst soup is allowed unchecked in tournament enviroments.

 Earth127 wrote:
No, it is not.

Adding units from another should never be necessary.

And IMHO, it will be in some form be necessary whilst soup is allowed unchecked in tournament enviroments.

I agree with that, I was saying something else. That adding a few units is something viable, and people may be willing to do. Switching their army for a pure AM one is completely different, it's a huge step.

My, no it is not, was meant at your suggestion that adding a few needed units is completely different.

Whilst imperium as a key word exist one of the best answers too "how should I protect my valuable big hiiting stuff?" will always be GUARD and pure IG players wil pay the price of their cheap infantry being used to protect stuff it is not meant to protect. balance wise 50/50 soup lists aren't the problem. It's 75/25 or less. See the list of Incontrol I linked earlier in the thread.

 Blackie wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
That's why I'd argue for the existence of soups but less competitive than mono faction lists.

And here it is again - the 'guys I promise I don't want to ban soup - I just want to render it unusable!'

Not unusable, just inferior to mono-factions lists.

Right - unusable.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
That's why I'd argue for the existence of soups but less competitive than mono faction lists.

And here it is again - the 'guys I promise I don't want to ban soup - I just want to render it unusable!'

Not unusable, just inferior to mono-factions lists.

Right - unusable.

If it's that mixed though you should have issues.

Allies should be a compliment, not a crutch like GW made them because of mostly incompetent design. They get some things right this edition (moreso than last edition) but obviously some of us are unhappy with how some factions turned out competitively (Grey Knights and AdMech being the worst offenders in this regard), and internal balance wise (Chaos Space Marines and Space Marines once again being the worst offenders I feel in this category. Some might disagree but overall at least Grey Knights and AdMech have SLIGHTLY better internal balance).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

If it's that mixed though you should have issues.

Allies should be a compliment, not a crutch like GW made them because of mostly incompetent design. They get some things right this edition (moreso than last edition) but obviously some of us are unhappy with how some factions turned out competitively (Grey Knights and AdMech being the worst offenders in this regard), and internal balance wise (Chaos Space Marines and Space Marines once again being the worst offenders I feel in this category. Some might disagree but overall at least Grey Knights and AdMech have SLIGHTLY better internal balance).

Right I should have issues with playing my 50/50 Tzeentch Demons/TSons army - who cares about the money I've invested in it or that it makes sense fluff wise? Or maybe you could look at it from the other side that soup is an option in the game and has been for three editions now and understand why the general concept of 'make it worse than mono books (i.e. soft ban it)' doesn't garner great responses.

You get the advantage of having 2 codex's worth of units, strategums etc to pick from there is your advantage.
Mono codex armies can't patch GW's designed in weakness by just picking up the new hotness out of the latest faction codex.

You loosing 2 or 3 CP's for all the choice is balancing the advantage. The problem is some soups are way more broken as combos than others. So balancing out the OP combos punishes the fluffy soup. Don't balance it enough and its still the only competitive option.

Different people have different experience's of just how OP soup is.

Ice_can wrote:
You loosing 2 or 3 CP's for all the choice is balancing the advantage. .

No one is advocating for losing 2 or 3 CP though. They are either advocating for outright bans or such crippling changes that its untenable (no access to stratagems outside a 'main faction', no chapter tactics, etc).

Ice_can wrote:
You get the advantage of having 2 codex's worth of units, strategums etc to pick from there is your advantage.
Mono codex armies can't patch GW's designed in weakness by just picking up the new hotness out of the latest faction codex.

You loosing 2 or 3 CP's for all the choice is balancing the advantage. The problem is some soups are way more broken as combos than others. So balancing out the OP combos punishes the fluffy soup. Don't balance it enough and its still the only competitive option.

Different people have different experience's of just how OP soup is.

Can you tell me how many units is "A codex worth"?

Are we talking about an Eldar or Marine codex, with dozens of unit choices, or maybe something like a Harlequin codex, with what, 7?

On the unfairness scale, how does an allied Harlequin/Dark Eldar army with fewer unit choices than a mono-marine army stack up? Is it still unfair because the guy with the Harlequin/DE army gets to have 2 books and the poor marine player only gets 1?

the_scotsman wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
You get the advantage of having 2 codex's worth of units, strategums etc to pick from there is your advantage.
Mono codex armies can't patch GW's designed in weakness by just picking up the new hotness out of the latest faction codex.

You loosing 2 or 3 CP's for all the choice is balancing the advantage. The problem is some soups are way more broken as combos than others. So balancing out the OP combos punishes the fluffy soup. Don't balance it enough and its still the only competitive option.

Different people have different experience's of just how OP soup is.

Can you tell me how many units is "A codex worth"?

Are we talking about an Eldar or Marine codex, with dozens of unit choices, or maybe something like a Harlequin codex, with what, 7?

On the unfairness scale, how does an allied Harlequin/Dark Eldar army with fewer unit choices than a mono-marine army stack up? Is it still unfair because the guy with the Harlequin/DE army gets to have 2 books and the poor marine player only gets 1?

This. The Marines have 86(?) choices for units, while Admech + Imperial Guard combined I think have 50? If we're optimistic?

The problem is that 2-3 cp wouldn't balance out the top soup lists. GW needs to find a way to balance soup.
Also the no strategums outside of your warlords, was supposedly how 8th edition was playtested, why GW changed this for the real release I have no idea, I suspect marketing overruled rules department. Leading to the broken hordspam soupfest that 8th has become.

Ice_can wrote:
The problem is that 2-3 cp wouldn't balance out the top soup lists. GW needs to find a way to balance soup.
Also the no strategums outside of your warlords, was supposedly how 8th edition was playtested, why GW changed this for the real release I have no idea, I suspect marketing overruled rules department. Leading to the broken hordspam soupfest that 8th has become.

So, we're not addressing the "how much is a codex worth of units" question then, huh?

Ice_can wrote:
The problem is that 2-3 cp wouldn't balance out the top soup lists.

So what are these top lists and what exactly is the problem?

Ice_can wrote:
Also the no strategums outside of your warlords, was supposedly how 8th edition was playtested

Proof?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
You get the advantage of having 2 codex's worth of units, strategums etc to pick from there is your advantage.
Mono codex armies can't patch GW's designed in weakness by just picking up the new hotness out of the latest faction codex.

You loosing 2 or 3 CP's for all the choice is balancing the advantage. The problem is some soups are way more broken as combos than others. So balancing out the OP combos punishes the fluffy soup. Don't balance it enough and its still the only competitive option.

Different people have different experience's of just how OP soup is.

Can you tell me how many units is "A codex worth"?

Are we talking about an Eldar or Marine codex, with dozens of unit choices, or maybe something like a Harlequin codex, with what, 7?

On the unfairness scale, how does an allied Harlequin/Dark Eldar army with fewer unit choices than a mono-marine army stack up? Is it still unfair because the guy with the Harlequin/DE army gets to have 2 books and the poor marine player only gets 1?

This. The Marines have 86(?) choices for units, while Admech + Imperial Guard combined I think have 50? If we're optimistic?

I'm pretty sure the idea of 1 codex=1 army is no longer how GW envisions this edition. The Imperium is one faction and you get to use all of its armies however you like. Same with Chaos and Eldar.
I'm just disappointed that they didn't merge more codexes into one book. (marines + blood angels +dark angels or grey knights + deathwatch +inquisition). The indexes were great for peeking at another armies cool units which got me to buy a couple models. But buying a codex is the least fun part of this hobby imo.

So orks crons and tau should just take the beating from these new faction armies, so your possition is screw balance I want my soup.

Having 20 good units out of 50 is better than having 80 of which maybe 10 are good. So are you counting good units or just entry lists?

So your saying that the strategums, warlord traits etc don't matter only the units?

I'm not suggesting that GW bans soup just that it does need balancing and I'm not hearing anything as a reasoned counter.

Ice_can wrote:


I'm not suggesting that GW bans soup just that it does need balancing and I'm not hearing anything as a reasoned counter.

So you're just choosing to ignore the suggestions made in this thread? Things like CP bonuses for mono armies, limiting relics in soup armies, and the general suggestion that GW should make mono books stronger than they currently are?

Also admech and guard have acess to everything in every marine dex too in your soup over balance happy place.

I'm not suggesting that I have a golden answer over what the balcne mechanism needs to be that levels out soup with mono codex, but blindly defending soup as balanced is saying screw anyone else.

Ice_can wrote:
I'm not suggesting that I have a golden answer over what the balcne mechanism needs to be that levels out soup with mono codex, but blindly defending soup as balanced is saying screw anyone else.

This is a strawman - I've been one of the most strident defenders of the concept and even I haven't suggested that soup is fine as is.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

If it's that mixed though you should have issues.

Allies should be a compliment, not a crutch like GW made them because of mostly incompetent design. They get some things right this edition (moreso than last edition) but obviously some of us are unhappy with how some factions turned out competitively (Grey Knights and AdMech being the worst offenders in this regard), and internal balance wise (Chaos Space Marines and Space Marines once again being the worst offenders I feel in this category. Some might disagree but overall at least Grey Knights and AdMech have SLIGHTLY better internal balance).

Right I should have issues with playing my 50/50 Tzeentch Demons/TSons army - who cares about the money I've invested in it or that it makes sense fluff wise? Or maybe you could look at it from the other side that soup is an option in the game and has been for three editions now and understand why the general concept of 'make it worse than mono books (i.e. soft ban it)' doesn't garner great responses.

I haven't seen the Thousand Sons codex but I'd like to assume you have most of the daemon options available.

If not, that's the fault of the codex designers.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

If it's that mixed though you should have issues.

Allies should be a compliment, not a crutch like GW made them because of mostly incompetent design. They get some things right this edition (moreso than last edition) but obviously some of us are unhappy with how some factions turned out competitively (Grey Knights and AdMech being the worst offenders in this regard), and internal balance wise (Chaos Space Marines and Space Marines once again being the worst offenders I feel in this category. Some might disagree but overall at least Grey Knights and AdMech have SLIGHTLY better internal balance).

Right I should have issues with playing my 50/50 Tzeentch Demons/TSons army - who cares about the money I've invested in it or that it makes sense fluff wise? Or maybe you could look at it from the other side that soup is an option in the game and has been for three editions now and understand why the general concept of 'make it worse than mono books (i.e. soft ban it)' doesn't garner great responses.

I haven't seen the Thousand Sons codex but I'd like to assume you have most of the daemon options available.

If not, that's the fault of the codex designers.

Effectively no - if I take them rather than summoning them I lose access to stratagems, warlord traits, chapter tactics, etc. They're listed in the book but they don't have the TSons keyword which means they break the detachment. This is the same way Deathguard and most forms of chaos work.

My new argument, lets ban soup so we can stop disqualifying Adepticon players.

Credit me with this idea please.

(This is humor, still don't want to ban soup)

Yikes just checked my CSM dex it's true. Only CHAOS and GOD
on the , I forgot abou that. Means in my "CHAOS is disallowed as the only general faction keyword" scenario CSM can't take their entire dex. Might need to think about that.

 Earth127 wrote:
Yikes just checked my CSM dex it's true. Only CHAOS and GOD
on the , I forgot abou that. Means in my "CHAOS is disallowed as the only general faction keyword" scenario CSM can't take their entire dex. Might need to think about that.

It is same with Ad Mech and Knights. One codex, no shared keyword besides <IMPERIUM>.

You would have to change a few things to make my sugestion worable for the smaller/incomplete factions. Note guard and SM arenot on the mist. Tough knights are, at least untill we have full rules fopr armigers.

so is the forgebane box soup?

Racerguy180 wrote:
so is the forgebane box soup?

Yes, the Imperium side is. Which is a perfect example why the desire to ban or severely punish soup is idiotic. People buy these boxes and expect that they can use the models provided. That is how GW intended it to be played.

Sadly.

Reemule wrote:
My new argument, lets ban soup so we can stop disqualifying Adepticon players.

Credit me with this idea please.

(This is humor, still don't want to ban soup)

I know its humor but I have to point out that his mistake had nothing to do with him taking the soup. He would have still been disqualified if he had 100% flesh tearer army since successors can't take chapter relics.

Soup is a good thing.

I like to be able to ally different factions of the Imperium together to wage war. Just like in the fluff.

I should mention that I don't own Guilliman or Celestine. I just like to collect different warriors of the Imperium that take my fancy and combine them to an unified force.

 RedCommander wrote:
Soup is a good thing.

I like to be able to ally different factions of the Imperium together to wage war. Just like in the fluff.

I should mention that I don't own Guilliman or Celestine. I just like to collect different warriors of the Imperium that take my fancy and combine them to an unified force.

I agree. In narrative they should be able to do exactly that. It is pretty unfair that Xenos don't get to do that because Taudar was strong. Meanwhile Imperial/Chaos Soup is strong and isn't a problem because tiny little Hufflepuff factions like the Inquisition cannot field their own armies. Its kind of like saying well Ork/Necrons isn't too strong so we will allow Taudar.

 DominayTrix wrote:

 RedCommander wrote:
Soup is a good thing.

I like to be able to ally different factions of the Imperium together to wage war. Just like in the fluff.

I should mention that I don't own Guilliman or Celestine. I just like to collect different warriors of the Imperium that take my fancy and combine them to an unified force.

I agree. In narrative they should be able to do exactly that. It is pretty unfair that Xenos don't get to do that because Taudar was strong. Meanwhile Imperial/Chaos Soup is strong and isn't a problem because tiny little Hufflepuff factions like the Inquisition cannot field their own armies. Its kind of like saying well Ork/Necrons isn't too strong so we will allow Taudar.

See, different factions of imperium allying makes sense in terms of fluff: they fight for a common cause. And chaos have basically a same kind of thing: they fight for a common cause.

But the xenos? For example: even Tau and Eldar joining forces is stretching it because I'm pretty sure that the Eldar view the Tau as monkeys (at best) and the Tau can't ultimately accept the Eldar because they don't serve their "greater good". And what about pairings such as Orcs and Necrons? Or Tyranids and Dark Eldar? None of them fight for a common cause. The only case that can be made is the eldari soup: Ynnari. That makes sense when it comes to fluff.

Do note that the above is only about the fluff. Xenos don't fight for a common cause. If you were to forget the fluff, an argument could be made that the imperium could also add Tau and Eldar to its soup: "they'd just set their differences aside and fight for a common enemy, am I right*?"

*This should sound wrong.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
You loosing 2 or 3 CP's for all the choice is balancing the advantage. .

No one is advocating for losing 2 or 3 CP though. They are either advocating for outright bans or such crippling changes that its untenable (no access to stratagems outside a 'main faction', no chapter tactics, etc).

Hold up, are you seriously contending that the loss of Chapter Tactics would be so utterly devastating as to leave your entire army untenable?

So your army’s viability is so fragile that the loss of a conditional 6+++ will break it? Or being able to reroll one hit/wound per unit/phase? Or reroll morale or charges or 1s to hit?

Yes you’d lose something. That’s the idea of a tradeoff. You lose a small bonus ability to gain the ability to completely cover your weaknesses.

As I said about ten pages ago, there’s more to this hobby than the top tables at LVO.

What the hell is soup anyways? Stop using fancy buzzwords, what is the next thing going to be? Imperial Glue? Condom Detachments? Sausage characters?

 Brutallica wrote:
What the hell is soup anyways? Stop using fancy buzzwords, what is the next thing going to be? Imperial Glue? Condom Detachments? Sausage characters?

Yeah, the so called "soup" should just be called "the imperium". It is an unified thing. It's kind of their thing.

kombatwombat wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
You loosing 2 or 3 CP's for all the choice is balancing the advantage. .

No one is advocating for losing 2 or 3 CP though. They are either advocating for outright bans or such crippling changes that its untenable (no access to stratagems outside a 'main faction', no chapter tactics, etc).

Hold up, are you seriously contending that the loss of Chapter Tactics would be so utterly devastating as to leave your entire army untenable?

So your army’s viability is so fragile that the loss of a conditional 6+++ will break it? Or being able to reroll one hit/wound per unit/phase? Or reroll morale or charges or 1s to hit?

Yes you’d lose something. That’s the idea of a tradeoff. You lose a small bonus ability to gain the ability to completely cover your weaknesses.

As I said about ten pages ago, there’s more to this hobby than the top tables at LVO.

I know right, as much as I love my salamander re-rolls, i could totally understand losing them if I chose to add in another not salamander detachment.

but your army should be able to stand alone without any chapter tactics. maybe in competitive play everybody doesn't get access to them? it would kinda solve the problem? maybe?

Racerguy180 wrote:
]I know right, as much as I love my salamander re-rolls, i could totally understand losing them if I chose to add in another not salamander detachment.

but your army should be able to stand alone without any chapter tactics. maybe in competitive play everybody doesn't get access to them? it would kinda solve the problem? maybe?

I’ve been advocating that in order to get Chapter Tactics in Matched Play you should need to have your entire army be the same Chapter/Legion/Hive Fleet/Sept/etc. If you don’t have that, you lose Chapter Tactics and Chapter-specific Relics, Warlord Traits and Stratagems (note that this only refers to Chapter-Specific ones, so you lose exactly one each Relic/Warlord Trait/Stratagem, but still get access to 6-7 Relics, 6 Warlord Traits and 20-ish Stratagems in the Codex).

I say that and people look at me as if I’m asking them to go back to being an Index army.

For the overwhelming majority of books it’s a simple one-paragraph change in the next Chapter Approved, and for the gaggle of mini-factions they’d all be classified as Auxiliary Forces or something and get a rule that means they don’t mess up the main factions’ Chapter bonuses.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

If it's that mixed though you should have issues.

Allies should be a compliment, not a crutch like GW made them because of mostly incompetent design. They get some things right this edition (moreso than last edition) but obviously some of us are unhappy with how some factions turned out competitively (Grey Knights and AdMech being the worst offenders in this regard), and internal balance wise (Chaos Space Marines and Space Marines once again being the worst offenders I feel in this category. Some might disagree but overall at least Grey Knights and AdMech have SLIGHTLY better internal balance).

Right I should have issues with playing my 50/50 Tzeentch Demons/TSons army - who cares about the money I've invested in it or that it makes sense fluff wise? Or maybe you could look at it from the other side that soup is an option in the game and has been for three editions now and understand why the general concept of 'make it worse than mono books (i.e. soft ban it)' doesn't garner great responses.

I haven't seen the Thousand Sons codex but I'd like to assume you have most of the daemon options available.

If not, that's the fault of the codex designers.

Effectively no - if I take them rather than summoning them I lose access to stratagems, warlord traits, chapter tactics, etc. They're listed in the book but they don't have the TSons keyword which means they break the detachment. This is the same way Deathguard and most forms of chaos work.

Then give them the keyword. TS + Tzeentch daemons are not a soup, like deathguard + nurgle daemons. TS + death guard or khorne daemons are a soup and something that shouldn't exist. Maybe chaos should be divided into vanilla chaos, nurgle, khorne, tzeentch and slaanesh.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
I'm not suggesting that I have a golden answer over what the balcne mechanism needs to be that levels out soup with mono codex, but blindly defending soup as balanced is saying screw anyone else.

This is a strawman - I've been one of the most strident defenders of the concept and even I haven't suggested that soup is fine as is.

For sake of discussion, how would you resolve the soup vs mono-source balance issue?

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
I'm not suggesting that I have a golden answer over what the balcne mechanism needs to be that levels out soup with mono codex, but blindly defending soup as balanced is saying screw anyone else.

This is a strawman - I've been one of the most strident defenders of the concept and even I haven't suggested that soup is fine as is.

For sake of discussion, how would you resolve the soup vs mono-source balance issue?

You make sure mono armies are good, and then balance out allies as an afterward.

I think AoS, for all of my many issues with it, went about Allies pretty well. Only allowing X amount of points really does help solve some of the more ridiculous combinations.

Even then, for factions that pretty much exist only to be allied in (Inquisition, Assassins, etc) they could throw in a rule about them not counting towards the points limit on Allies or some such.

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
I'm not suggesting that I have a golden answer over what the balcne mechanism needs to be that levels out soup with mono codex, but blindly defending soup as balanced is saying screw anyone else.

This is a strawman - I've been one of the most strident defenders of the concept and even I haven't suggested that soup is fine as is.

For sake of discussion, how would you resolve the soup vs mono-source balance issue?

Make sure mono armies are good? Its pretty simple - provide tiers of bonuses based on how 'mono' your army is. 1 detachment of each? As it stands. 2 and 1? Provide additional benefits for the 2 mono detachments, provide an even greater level for 3.

 RedCommander wrote:

 DominayTrix wrote:

 RedCommander wrote:
Soup is a good thing.

I like to be able to ally different factions of the Imperium together to wage war. Just like in the fluff.

I should mention that I don't own Guilliman or Celestine. I just like to collect different warriors of the Imperium that take my fancy and combine them to an unified force.

I agree. In narrative they should be able to do exactly that. It is pretty unfair that Xenos don't get to do that because Taudar was strong. Meanwhile Imperial/Chaos Soup is strong and isn't a problem because tiny little Hufflepuff factions like the Inquisition cannot field their own armies. Its kind of like saying well Ork/Necrons isn't too strong so we will allow Taudar.

See, different factions of imperium allying makes sense in terms of fluff: they fight for a common cause. And chaos have basically a same kind of thing: they fight for a common cause.

But the xenos? For example: even Tau and Eldar joining forces is stretching it because I'm pretty sure that the Eldar view the Tau as monkeys (at best) and the Tau can't ultimately accept the Eldar because they don't serve their "greater good". And what about pairings such as Orcs and Necrons? Or Tyranids and Dark Eldar? None of them fight for a common cause. The only case that can be made is the eldari soup: Ynnari. That makes sense when it comes to fluff.

Do note that the above is only about the fluff. Xenos don't fight for a common cause. If you were to forget the fluff, an argument could be made that the imperium could also add Tau and Eldar to its soup: "they'd just set their differences aside and fight for a common enemy, am I right*?"

*This should sound wrong.

like necrons super hero teaming up with blood angels against the tyranids?

also I take issue with saying no xenos would work with other xenos, the imperium, or chaos. My orks are specifically free boota orks, they are per the fluff mercenaries and fight for whatever payment they can work out. maybe they get salvage rights to the battlefield, shipments of supplies and arms, or just following the prospect of a good scuffle.

I think the old allies matrix was pretty good, it gave options even if some were desperate allies. realistically would grey knights work with the Orks? probably not, but if a demon incursion happened on a world where orks and humans were both present and the orks were fighting demons pretty sure the greyknight would just also add to the orks firepower and negotiate if not a true alliance a armistice between the two factions to deal with the greater threat.

I don't need them to ban soup. I just need real incentives for single detachment and single faction.

The entire premise of a mixed force is to deal with a given target or enemy in the most efficient way.
You can read all kinds of instances of this both in 40k lore and in real life.
I at least like to see each "soup" element have at least it's own HQ units and Troops so it at least gives some illusion of a grouping of battle units under each Codex.

From a competitive viewpoint, whether you ban something or not it matters little: the players will find the most efficient combination of models and units to win a game.
You may get a fair bit of crying from anyone who lovingly built and painted the banned units in question.

For players that like to remain "true" to 40k lore or the theme of things, banning is the only solution to try to make the competitive players "play nice" or at least give some appearance to a traditional force organization.
A designed scenario you can add all the rules you like, the only reason a competition would enforce certain rules is to ensure no-one builds anything that looks ridiculous: it would not do to have a goofy looking winning army.

I am a fan of both methods: I may want a "soup" to best represent an Imperial task force of combined forces picked to deal with a specific threat BUT a plain old taking the rules to the max and cherry-picking the best units is a rather obvious choice.

I want soup to , in the name of balance, no longer be synonymous with imperium (or Chaos/Aeldari).

Or introduce a new faction key word, non-imperium. Then the divide is almost 50/50