On this site, I see a lot of "hate" for formations. I decided to give a defense for formations. I wish to note the following about 40K:
Within any given codex, there is a disparity in the utility of any given unit or set of units. You know what I mean when I say this. When you open up a codex, assuming that you either have the models already or enough money to buy them, the competitive player's eyes are going to be led to one set of units and away from another set of units. Thus the 40k tendency for WAAC competitive TFGs to cheese/spam OP, broken units.
Granted, of course, this could be mitigated somewhat by actually rewriting the rules for some of these models. If wraithknights were 400 points, if grav were somewhat nerfed, if scatter lasers were nerfed, etc., then these things wouldn't be auto-takes. They might approach being roughly equal to other options.
The fact is, though, that even re-balancing the rules and points costs won't fix everything. The more variety/diversity you introduce, the greater the inherent risk of imbalance, even if the rules and points costs are perfectly fair. Some combination of things will simply be more useful than some other combinations of things. Here, Dark Souls comes to mind. I would recommend Havels armor with a sword and tower shield, if you are playing a character with high endurance and strength. I would not recommend Havel's armor with a spell catalyst and a shortbow if you are playing a character with high endurance and strength, but low magic stats and dexterity.
Heavy bolters just are not worth taking in most cases as an upgrade in a space marines army, and even with reasonable points and rules adjustments, they just cannot and shouldn't be. They are a heavy machine gun in an army which is already full of pretty decent assault rifles.
Why should I take the heavy machine gun over the anti-tank weapon when my basic infantry already have assault rifles that rapid fire rocket propelled grenades? There is practically nothing a heavy bolter can do that a plasma cannon cannot or should not do better.
I read a video game article a while back, and basically what it said is this: paradoxically, the more variety you introduce, the less variety actually becomes viable. Think about vintage Magic the Gathering.
Formations force variety.
If I am playing a Gladius Strike Force with two battle companies, I can use two, and no more than two, sets of grav centurions. I MUST take two, and no more or less than two, squads of assault marines, bikes, assault centurions or landspeeders. I MUST take 6 squads of tactical marines. I may have no more than 2 venerable dreadnoughts. I MUST have a chaplain and a captain. I MAY NOT spam bikes.
Formations force variety.They prohibit spamming/cheesing the single most broken unit in the codex.
In and of itself, formations forces the player to do what he should be doing anyway: bringing a variety of units with different roles to create a complete, balanced army.
The problems, of course, are the following:
1. Formations are optional. Contra the person in the other thread who thinks that formations should cost extra, I think that formations should be mandatory. Having a complete, balanced army which fits with the "fluff" of the army that you are playing should not be an upgrade. It should be a rules requirement. What's bad for the game is not formations. If every model in a given army MUST belong to a formation, you would see much greater game balance in warhammer 40k.
Fact is, it's because formations are optional that you stand a chance at seeing multiple wraithknights on the table.
Unbound and the CAD (as well as alternative force organization charts) should be eliminated. Formations should be a mandatory rules imposition.
Here, I wish to note that even in a 500 points game, it's perfectly possible to run a Space Marine demi-company.
2. Not all codices have formations. I think that this is where a lot of complaining is coming into play, to be honest.
3. Not all formations are made equal. Getting free rhinos and drop pods for minimum 5 man tactical squads in a Gladius Strike Force is fine and probably roughly equivalent to the +1 Reanimation Protocols that Necrons get (if you disagree about drop pods and talk about how dangerous they are, I'll tell you that you have a problem with current drop pods rules, not with the free drop pod as such; as it stands, drop pods and rhinos cost the same in terms of points).
Getting free razorbacks for minimum 5 man tactical squads is not.
4. Current formations are not restrictive enough. The riptide wing should not be a thing. It should never have been a thing. It should never be a thing. Again, windrider host, I'm looking at you. Ravenwing formation, I'm looking at you.
Yes, even if formations were mandatory, there would still be massive imbalance in 40k. but it wouldn't be because of the formations as such. Because of the formations, the massive imbalance in 40k would actually be less massive than it would be otherwise.
The wraith host isnt even that bad. You eat up a lot of points having to take a wraithlord and a spiritseer with all those wraithguard and a single wraithknight. Its the Wraith Construct that is the bad one. It allows you to take a single wraithlord, wraithknight, or wraithfighter. That's the one that lets you have 5 wraithknights in an 1850 list.
Xerics wrote: The wraith host isnt even that bad. You eat up a lot of points having to take a wraithlord and a spiritseer with all those wraithguard and a single wraithknight.
You have to take a wraithlord and a spiritseer?
Actually, I take back my comment.
I don't think that the wraithhost, as such, is that bad.
It would be better if the actual models in the formation were better balanced. If wraithknights were 400 points, wraithlords a bit more expensive and if wraithguard were nerfed a bit, everything would be fine.
Its the Wraith Construct that is the bad one. It allows you to take a single wraithlord, wraithknight, or wraithfighter. That's the one that lets you have 5 wraithknights in an 1850 list.
Yeah. That shouldn't exist.
Do you agree with my general argument, though?
I.e., that, in principle, formations are good because they (at least ideally) force variety?
You hit it pretty much on the nail.
The only flaws in formations is that not everyone has them (and some who do have them for the wrong scale, aka cadian and ghaz) , and a select few are broken (mostly the ones revolving multiple copies of a single unit)
I do agree for the most part. I think the Wraith Construct wouldnt be so bad if they took the wraithknight out of it and made it 1 per core detachment like the Avatar is. The wraithlord is overpriced for what it does when you can just take 2 warwalkers for about the same price that get battle focus and a slew of other vehicle upgrades. My wife is starting Khorne Daemonkin and I like how varied the formations are. There are still some very strong formations (Gorepack) but it doesnt let you spam a GMC. They limited their Bloodthirsters but their superheavys are able to be spammed in the same way with their "War Machine" Formation. In the codex it says Lord of Skulls but a Kytan Daemon Engine of Khorne can be taken in place of a Lord of skulls so its just as bad as the wraith construct in terms of being able to spam SHV. Then of course they made the imperial knight codex which is an army of just superheavys... Some codexes can't compete but its not just Eldar and Tau that have these ridiculous crap.
Xerics wrote: I do agree for the most part. I think the Wraith Construct wouldnt be so bad if they took the wraithknight out of it and made it 1 per core detachment like the Avatar is. The wraithlord is overpriced for what it does when you can just take 2 warwalkers for about the same price that get battle focus and a slew of other vehicle upgrades. My wife is starting Khorne Daemonkin and I like how varied the formations are. There are still some very strong formations (Gorepack) but it doesnt let you spam a GMC. They limited their Bloodthirsters but their superheavys are able to be spammed in the same way with their "War Machine" Formation. In the codex it says Lord of Skulls but a Kytan Daemon Engine of Khorne can be taken in place of a Lord of skulls so its just as bad as the wraith construct in terms of being able to spam SHV. Then of course they made the imperial knight codex which is an army of just superheavys... Some codexes can't compete but its not just Eldar and Tau that have these ridiculous crap.
I don't wish to quibble over the details about the individual models for basically the reason I cited in the OP: at that point, we've stopped talking about the formation as such, and more about the rules balance of the individual models in that formation. It would be like arguing against the GSF because of free drop pods...
...but drop pods are equal in points value to rhinos.
Should they cost more than rhinos? Maybe. But that's not a problem with the formation.
At any rate, I think we are basically in agreement:
Formations as a means of forcing variety is good.
Formations that allow spam/cheese is bad.
There used to be a way that 40K balanced powerful units...it was called "0-1". There was another way that the generally powerful stuff was limited...it was called the force organization chart. Unfortunately when stuff started getting undercosted there became more ways to spam the "powerful" units. Between allies and yes, formations the tax units went away.
I understand the OP's point, but how do you believe that balancing a bunch of formations is going to be any easier than balancing a bunch of units? Quite frankly it would be harder, and you would have taken away the creativity in list building that a lot of people value while STILL having to solve the issue of overpowered/underpowered units. While I agree with the premise that it should be all or nothing (cause unequal access to formations with free benefits is really bad), I think a better fix is to balance the units themselves and take away the extreme synergy/buffing that is currently possible so that you can arrive at a fair point cost for them. Once that happens, players can build the lists THEY think are fluffy/competitive and be at least somewhat equally matched against another player.
greyknight12 wrote:I understand the OP's point, but how do you believe that balancing a bunch of formations is going to be any easier than balancing a bunch of units?
Simply speaking? Because whereas formations force model variety, they reduce army variety. Less variety is easier to balance than more variety.
At any rate, I simply disagree with the majority of your posting.
As I said, even if points costs/rules were perfectly fair, and even if there were restrictions on how many of certain units you could take, it still be much more difficult to balance because of the sheer variety of models/units.
greyknight12 wrote: There used to be a way that 40K balanced powerful units...it was called "0-1". There was another way that the generally powerful stuff was limited...it was called the force organization chart. Unfortunately when stuff started getting undercosted there became more ways to spam the "powerful" units. Between allies and yes, formations the tax units went away.
I understand the OP's point, but how do you believe that balancing a bunch of formations is going to be any easier than balancing a bunch of units? Quite frankly it would be harder, and you would have taken away the creativity in list building that a lot of people value while STILL having to solve the issue of overpowered/underpowered units. While I agree with the premise that it should be all or nothing (cause unequal access to formations with free benefits is really bad), I think a better fix is to balance the units themselves and take away the extreme synergy/buffing that is currently possible so that you can arrive at a fair point cost for them. Once that happens, players can build the lists THEY think are fluffy/competitive and be at least somewhat equally matched against another player.
Because the most unbalanced list are, and always were, to find one overpowered unit and spam it as much as possible and nothing else. Formations, when properly written, make that option at least nonexistent.
Look at the faulty formations that exist right now, each and every one of them is a formation that allows single unit spam. Every proper mixed formation, even if very powerful, is manageable at create good game experience. Even the bloody Gladius and decurion - at the very least you got a veriaty of enemy units across the table so you got options at the very least.
greyknight12 wrote: I understand the OP's point, but how do you believe that balancing a bunch of formations is going to be any easier than balancing a bunch of units? Quite frankly it would be harder, and you would have taken away the creativity in list building that a lot of people value while STILL having to solve the issue of overpowered/underpowered units. While I agree with the premise that it should be all or nothing (cause unequal access to formations with free benefits is really bad), I think a better fix is to balance the units themselves and take away the extreme synergy/buffing that is currently possible so that you can arrive at a fair point cost for them. Once that happens, players can build the lists THEY think are fluffy/competitive and be at least somewhat equally matched against another player.
I'm inclined to agree. No matter how you look at it, the core issue with 40k right now is that a plethora of units/rules from all codex's need massive revision. Until that is resolved, no amount of formation shenanigans is going to provide a solution. Perfect example:
Ogryn/Bullgryn
Point cost 30-45pts base with no upgrades. That is almost 33% more expensive than Wolfen, with no awesome special rules.
What is their role? To provide counter assault utility for the guard. Do they fulfill this niche? Hardly. Ripper guns offer nothing in close combat, despite doing so in previous editions and being specifically designed as a close combat melee weapon in the lore. Bullgryn with slab shields must take grenade launchers, which once again negate their close combat utility. If you take Bullgryn with power maul, the concussive bonus does nothing for you when their #1 weakness is S10 power weapons that are already hitting at initiative 1 & can one shot Ogryn/Bullgryn despite their 3 wounds. That is not even taking into account their high armor save, low leadership requiring a babysitter to make them usable bloating their cost even more.
This is just one example. There are numerous things like this in every single codex that need revision. Which is exactly why half the units in every codex never make it to the tabletop.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BoomWolf wrote: Because the most unbalanced list are, and always were, to find one overpowered unit and spam it as much as possible and nothing else. Formations, when properly written, make that option at least nonexistent.
Look at the faulty formations that exist right now, each and every one of them is a formation that allows single unit spam. Every proper mixed formation, even if very powerful, is manageable at create good game experience. Even the bloody Gladius and decurion - at the very least you got a veriaty of enemy units across the table so you got options at the very least.
I'm not opposed to formations but lets pretend for a moment that tomorrow GW does go this route. No changes are made to any codex. Instead everything is formation based. What will happen is optimal formation lists will be made overnight & you would see something similar to what you see now. A top tier formation that is spammed by numerous players.
Right now the reason you see units like Riptide spam is because of how poorly unit/codex rules are written. If GW took the time to go through each individual codex & balance units point cost & rules to make everything competitive all the sudden now you have hundreds of models that have utility which would create a much more interesting/diverse gaming experience.
Commissar Benny wrote:I'm not opposed to formations but lets pretend for a moment that tomorrow GW does go this route. No changes are made to any codex. Instead everything is formation based. What will happen is optimal formation lists will be made overnight & you would see something similar to what you see now. A top tier formation that is spammed by numerous players.
Right now the reason you see units like Riptide spam is because of how poorly unit/codex rules are written. If GW took the time to go through each individual codex & balance units point cost & rules to make everything competitive all the sudden now you have hundreds of models that have utility which would create a much more interesting/diverse gaming experience.
I don't disagree with any of this. I do, however, wish to pause for a moment on the bolded:
An optimal formation list is only optimal relatively speaking, i.e., relatively to a list built according to a given formation or set of formations.
An optimal wraith host formation, no matter how optimized, only includes 1 wraithknight.
I did not claim in the OP that enforced formations would automatically balance everything. I said explicitly that they would not.
I only said that it would be more balanced than what we have now.
Let's assume, as you said, that GW enforces formations with real variety in them for all armies and makes no other changes. Yes, optimized formation lists will crop up overnight. But they will be more balanced than what we have now. Why? Because of the fact that variety was forced/imposed on the players.
Automatically Appended Next Post: To be perfectly clear, I am not making the claim that imposed formations alone would balance the game.
GW needs to do at least two things:
1. Provide fair/balanced rules for individual models, upgrades, etc.
2. Impose formations which force real variety and balanced army compositions.
To my mind, the great example of 2 is the Gladius Strike Force Battle Company.
To show 1 and 2 in their mutual interrelations: again, a wraith host would be more or less fine, if the individual models in that formation had fair/balanced rules/points costs.
Tradito you argument is soley based from you biased view of SMs only. Of course you'd think that formations are fully of variety because you playing the army who has formations full of variety. A lot of armies have plenty of formations that serve to just spam the same unit over and over (such as daemons, tau, orks, KDK, CSM, and Eldar).
In fact I think your army is the only army that can't spam units through formations.
CrownAxe wrote: Tradito you argument is soley based from you biased view of SMs only. Of course you'd think that formations are fully of variety because you playing the army who has formations full of variety. A lot of armies have plenty of formations that serve to just spam the same unit over and over (such as daemons, tau, orks, KDK, CSM, and Eldar).
In fact I think your army is the only army that can't spam units through formations.
This isn't entirely fair. The Necron decurion forces variety; the Aspect host formation, I think, forces variety. The wraith host formation, I think, forces variety.
I do agree with your gist, though. In point of fact, not all formations are like the SM GSF. Some formations actually assist in spam.
Ultimately, what I am saying is that GW needs to force players to use formations like the GSF or the Decurion.
The decurion hasn't forced variety, I haven't seen a necron player use more then Reclamation Legion+Canoptyk Harvest spam ever since their codex dropped. And except for tomb blades, these were already the units people were running before. Everyone is using the same army for a year straight.
Aspect Host the worst culprit of a spam formation. It lets you take 3 units of one of the best units in the game, Warp Spiders, and let you take ONLY WARP SPIDERS and then give them BS5 for free. The apsect Host is the reason the winner of LVO was 45 Warp Spiders (9 units of them). It did the exact opposite of variety.
If you think Aspect Host forces variety you cleary don't understand how formations work.
CrownAxe wrote: The decurion hasn't forced variety, I haven't seen a necron player use more then Reclamation Legion+Canoptyk Harvest spam ever since their codex dropped. And except for tomb blades, these were already the units people were running before. Everyone is using the same army for a year straight.
In spite of your protests to the contrary, simply count the number of different kinds of units in what you've just described. I'm counting at least 7.
Again, this is not to argue that there's no room for improvement.
Aspect Host the worst culprit of a spam formation. It lets you take 3 units of one of the best units in the game, Warp Spiders, and let you take ONLY WARP SPIDERS and then give them BS5 for free. The apsect Host is the reason the winner of LVO was 45 Warp Spiders (9 units of them). It did the exact opposite of variety.
If you think Aspect Host forces variety you cleary don't understand how formations work.
I may simply be ill-informed when it comes to Eldar formations. Ignore my comments on the aspect host.
At any rate, I still stand by my basic point:
All armies should have, essentially, a version of the SM GSF (insofar as a formation imposing forced variety). The use of that version of the GSF should be MANDATORY.
Traditio wrote: To be perfectly clear, I am not making the claim that imposed formations alone would balance the game.
GW needs to do at least two things:
1. Provide fair/balanced rules for individual models, upgrades, etc.
2. Impose formations which force real variety and balanced army compositions.
To my mind, the great example of 2 is the Gladius Strike Force Battle Company.
To show 1 and 2 in their mutual interrelations: again, a wraith host would be more or less fine, if the individual models in that formation had fair/balanced rules/points costs.
After reading the responses in the thread so far, I think we all want the same outcome - variety/balance. While our approaches differ (formations vs. no formations) we both want the same result.
We both agree that priority #1 is a revision of all the codex's/balanced ruleset. This alone is a monumental task, one that I personally feel GW should hire an outside gaming company to do. If done correctly, point costs/rules game wide would/should reflect the power/utility of each model. By creating this baseline, everything has balance & becomes viable. Meaning we would actually see vespids/kroot/rough riders/ork warbuggies/ogryn etc etc etc actually fielded on the table as a competitive choice again for the first time in years. Riptides/wraithknights point cost/rules would actually reflect their power, meaning you would no longer see them spammed because everything in the Tau/Eldar armies would be viable and just as a competitive choice. Monstrous creatures would be adjusted to not be so game breaking. Vehicles would be adjusted to not be horrible etc.
Now as I mentioned above, I am not necessarily opposed to formations. I think if done correctly, they could very well be a good thing. I however, am also for choice & variety. I like unlimited freedom & creating my own lists. I think that is half the fun of the hobby. I truly believe that if GW was to reign in the power creep that we are seeing today & was able to create a ruleset that balanced each of the codices you would see much less spam, more variety, and a community that would explode with interest.
Forcing formations removes a lot of creativity in list building. There's codices that don't even have formations still. Sure maybe in a tournament this could be a thing, but for casual games you're really limiting how people can set up armies. Even then..again..there are codices without formations that likely wouldn't be updated with such a silly rule change.
Modern formations are the worst thing for balance that has ever happened.They give free bonuses making the models in the formation too cheap or the same models outside the formation too expensive. This is really bad.
Formations should cost points for the bonuses they give, and they NEVER should give you free units or upgrades.
Necrons have 29 different units (not counting their special characters). Everyone only using 7 of them isn't variety. Thats 3/4 of the book never seeing play.
Like I said, SMs are the special snowflake that don't get to spam with their formation detachment GSF. Everyone else's does let them spam hard (KDK can take 8 Soul Grinders, Eldar cna fit 5 Wriathknights in a signle list, Daemons lets them only take 2 differe units if that want too, etc.). Why would I think that should be mandatory.
If you don't want spamming, don't bead around the bush and go for the roots and just directly ban spamming.
You are overthinking man. Formations are just a way to sell more models not balance the game or what ever.
GW always releases a new model and unde costs it or gives it an over powered rule. If the model is not new then it becomes a tax to unlock a bunch of formation bonuses.
Formations can be a key to fine balancing. But they are definitely not right now.
And yep, they are just for selling packs of stuff. There are formations that give "free" transports. Spend a buck and get a 0pt wonder! There are formations that don't give anything worthwhile and also formations that give free nerfs (ghazcurion). Spend a ton on extra boyz and get a need to buy Ghaz + retinue or they won't function at all. It's hardly a good balancing attempt.
The game would be far more balanced if everyone was restricted to a single Combined Arms Detachment. At least then some armies don't get ridiculously good Formation Bonuses for taking units they were going to take anyway.
GoonBandito wrote: The game would be far more balanced if everyone was restricted to a single Combined Arms Detachment. At least then some armies don't get ridiculously good Formation Bonuses for taking units they were going to take anyway.
If that was the case for competitive play then Eldar, Tau, and maybe Daemons would be the only armies being played. Formations might give crazy bonuses but at least it tends to help a lot of armies with lackluster codexes bring something viable to the table and allows for more diversity in army builds than the predictable net lists of 6th edition.
Formations can be extremely unbalanced. I made an Eldar list at 2000 points with 91 models. 1 Bike Autarch, 3 squads of 5 Warp Spiders and 15 Sqauds of 5 BS5 warp spiders. Completely Legal list too... I wonder how this army would actually do?
Have you missed the fact that we all Saud the NON SINGLE UNIT FORMATIONS
Aspect shrine is exactly that! And it's part of the reason it's plague.
Had it been three different aspects, or at least if you play by our local "no duplicate formations" it suddenly isn't an issue.
Well if we were to do no duplicate formations then it would only be 6 squads of 10 warp spiders and id have to fill the rest of it with something else. 3 From aspect Shrine Formation and 3 squads in the pale court core formation.
1) Formations reduce list variety. Reclamation legion, canoptek harvest, destroyer cult. How many necron games with this list have you played since January 2015? How many times have you seen the bad units, conveniently stuck into one optional formation nobody takes?
2) formations encourage spam above and beyond what was possible before. I want to spam the best units in the Eldar codex, right? I wanna spam wraithknights. Before, I could take 2 Scatbike squads, 1 far seer, then a single wraithknight, and repeat. Now with formations if i add one more Scatbike squad and a vyper, then I can take 12. Heaven forbid I decide warp spiders are the strongest unit in the codex - formations let me take an unlimited number of JUST THEM.
1) Formations reduce list variety. Reclamation legion, canoptek harvest, destroyer cult. How many necron games with this list have you played since January 2015? How many times have you seen the bad units, conveniently stuck into one optional formation nobody takes?
2) formations encourage spam above and beyond what was possible before. I want to spam the best units in the Eldar codex, right? I wanna spam wraithknights. Before, I could take 2 Scatbike squads, 1 far seer, then a single wraithknight, and repeat. Now with formations if i add one more Scatbike squad and a vyper, then I can take 12. Heaven forbid I decide warp spiders are the strongest unit in the codex - formations let me take an unlimited number of JUST THEM.
Wraithknights used to be heavy support so it was 1 Farseer, 2 squads of 5 dire avengers and 3 wraithknights. Also Scatbikes weren't a thing back then. It was shuriken cannon and only 1 per 3 bikes.
Yes but before the current codex there were no wraithknights with D weaponry and they werent GMC's either. Eldar got all their formations, GMC's, S: D, and scatbikes all at the same time.
I prefer the CAD for traditional reasons and the limits it imposes on tournament play. Formations often get messy and a bit odd with even more minor rules to remember, even ones as basic as higher BS. I don't mind the rules per say, but I prefer the Age of Darkness CADs combined with Rites of War.
The entire game needs a quick-fix in the form of adding points to certain units and abolishing three very specific Formations.
CrownAxe wrote: The decurion hasn't forced variety, I haven't seen a necron player use more then Reclamation Legion+Canoptyk Harvest spam ever since their codex dropped. And except for tomb blades, these were already the units people were running before. Everyone is using the same army for a year straight.
Aspect Host the worst culprit of a spam formation. It lets you take 3 units of one of the best units in the game, Warp Spiders, and let you take ONLY WARP SPIDERS and then give them BS5 for free. The apsect Host is the reason the winner of LVO was 45 Warp Spiders (9 units of them). It did the exact opposite of variety.
If you think Aspect Host forces variety you cleary don't understand how formations work.
Well, sucks to be you. I personally use every formation I have available as well as different builds, such as a slightly weaker CronAir. There's also the Destroyer Cult and Judicator Battalion which are good, as well as things like Orikanstar. As far as viable Necron formations go, most of them (barring the Annihilation Nexus) are good. Need I bring up the list with an Obelisk that made it into the top lists at the LVO?
Aspect Host, I agree, is garbage. That is the least restrictive and BS formation out of all of them.
Honestly, most of the "Decurion" style formations have only one or two big offenders in the list of possible choices. Sure, aspect host is dumb, but a CraftWorld Warhost with a Guardian Battlehost and a 2x Striking Scorpion 1x Banshee list is not over powered in any way, and would probably be quite fun to play.
Swampmist wrote: Honestly, most of the "Decurion" style formations have only one or two big offenders in the list of possible choices. Sure, aspect host is dumb, but a CraftWorld Warhost with a Guardian Battlehost and a 2x Striking Scorpion 1x Banshee list is not over powered in any way, and would probably be quite fun to play.
Which is the weird thing. The basic formations are all terrible and are hardly worth taking, as far as Eldar are concerned.
The windrider host is solid, but only because Scatbikes are broke, though they get gak-all out of it. With detachment only, I'd expect to see Shuriken Bikes actually make a comeback tbh.
Swampmist wrote: The windrider host is solid, but only because Scatbikes are broke, though they get gak-all out of it. With detachment only, I'd expect to see Shuriken Bikes actually make a comeback tbh.
The Windrider Host literally hinders the bikes. They gain no benefit, and lose ObjSec.
Except this isn't trolling because He's kinda right. Bar the largest offenders (looking at you aspect host) formations help create balanced lists as people stop spamming the same thing over and over. Now, there are obvious ways to help this (no wraith constructs, no repeat auxillaries and only one repeat core, ect.) but the point stands that, as of right now, formations are GENERALLY more balanced than an optimized CAD, and certainly in all but a few cases help increase the diversoty of units in a list.
oldzoggy wrote: Modern formations are the worst thing for balance that has ever happened.They give free bonuses making the models in the formation too cheap or the same models outside the formation too expensive. This is really bad.
If formations were mandatory, this objection would be a non-issue. Then the formation bonuses would essentially be factored into the cost of those models.
Formations should cost points for the bonuses they give, and they NEVER should give you free units or upgrades.
Again, if all formations were roughly of equal value, why should they cost points if the use of formations was mandatory?
And why shouldn't they give you free units or upgrades?
I assume, OldZoggy, that you'll tell me that formations should cost points because the rules bonuses that they give have a points value. Do units and upgrades have a points value?
Let us assume that a +1 reanimation protocols is worth roughly 35 points to a group of necron immortals. Is that equal to the points value of a rhino?
Formations do nothing to enhance game balance. They do not allow crappy armies to competw with powerful ones except at the most extreme margins, nor do they reduce spam, nor really enhance fluff. They're a web bundle sales mechanism.
They are not clever game design or balance mechanisms. This is justification of power bloat, nothing more. People are trying to justify one poor game design mechanic to, in theory, fix another. This does not work, and event resulta have borne this out repeatedly. This is trying to fix a problem by breaking the mechanism even more.
Fundamentally, formations allow you "cheat" in a condoned manner, getting free special rules, wargear, abilitiez, and units that are not paid for. The idea that this will balance out over and undercosted units is absurd, and is avoiding the *real* issues, which is fundamentally poor unit design and rules support on GW's end, and a dramatic bloating of the scale of the game making it impossible to reconcile granular differences between things like basic infantry in any meaningful manner when theyre essentially all chaff.
Ultimately, this sounds like more "my gladius spam is fine" justification than anything else.
greyknight12 wrote: There used to be a way that 40K balanced powerful units...it was called "0-1". There was another way that the generally powerful stuff was limited...it was called the force organization chart. Unfortunately when stuff started getting undercosted there became more ways to spam the "powerful" units. Between allies and yes, formations the tax units went away.
I understand the OP's point, but how do you believe that balancing a bunch of formations is going to be any easier than balancing a bunch of units? Quite frankly it would be harder, and you would have taken away the creativity in list building that a lot of people value while STILL having to solve the issue of overpowered/underpowered units. While I agree with the premise that it should be all or nothing (cause unequal access to formations with free benefits is really bad), I think a better fix is to balance the units themselves and take away the extreme synergy/buffing that is currently possible so that you can arrive at a fair point cost for them. Once that happens, players can build the lists THEY think are fluffy/competitive and be at least somewhat equally matched against another player.
Because the most unbalanced list are, and always were, to find one overpowered unit and spam it as much as possible and nothing else. Formations, when properly written, make that option at least nonexistent.
except...as we've seen at every major event since their inception, this is not the case. Formations enable and enhance spam, they do nothing to put brakes on it.
I
Look at the faulty formations that exist right now, each and every one of them is a formation that allows single unit spam. Every proper mixed formation, even if very powerful, is manageable at create good game experience. Even the bloody Gladius and decurion - at the very least you got a veriaty of enemy units across the table so you got options at the very least.
Ah yes...gobs of core units given absurd abilities until they break the game as hard as anything else...sounds like spam to me, just if a different flavor.
oldzoggy wrote: Modern formations are the worst thing for balance that has ever happened.They give free bonuses making the models in the formation too cheap or the same models outside the formation too expensive. This is really bad.
If formations were mandatory, this objection would be a non-issue. Then the formation bonuses would essentially be factored into the cost of those models.
Formations should cost points for the bonuses they give, and they NEVER should give you free units or upgrades.
Again, if all formations were roughly of equal value, why should they cost points if the use of formations was mandatory?
And why shouldn't they give you free units or upgrades?
I assume, OldZoggy, that you'll tell me that formations should cost points because the rules bonuses that they give have a points value. Do units and upgrades have a points value?
Let us assume that a +1 reanimation protocols is worth roughly 35 points to a group of necron immortals. Is that equal to the points value of a rhino?
Except your making the wild assumption all formations are roughly equal which is definitely not the case and never will unless GW does a lot more play testing and errata. As it stands you have a hand full of formations that are very strong and many that are meh or bad. The problem with the free upgrades is it allows me to have units be amplified far more than is reflected in there point value just by taking a combination of them. That distorts power balance even more.
I... What? Spam by definition is taking a ton of the same thing because its powerful. Mist core choices are a mix of a ton of units that become good together. It's, like, the antithesis of spam. The Pale Court, sadly, is the only one thatreally breaks this trwnd, and that's why you see it played. When was the last time you saw a Warhost do well competitively?
Except this isn't trolling because He's kinda right. Bar the largest offenders (looking at you aspect host) formations help create balanced lists as people stop spamming the same thing over and over. Now, there are obvious ways to help this (no wraith constructs, no repeat auxillaries and only one repeat core, ect.) but the point stands that, as of right now, formations are GENERALLY more balanced than an optimized CAD, and certainly in all but a few cases help increase the diversoty of units in a list.
Stopped clocks and all that.
It isn't the content so much as the intent.
Besides, the premise is fundamentally flawed. The strongest possibility of army balance is to throw the whole game out the window and rewrite the whole game from scratch with a team of talented rules designers.
Even if you agree that formations can help balance the game, it isn't the strongest, merely the most likely/easiest.
Tactical_Spam wrote: If everyone had a Decurian, would we still be having this argument?
probably, because its still fundamentally bad game design.
do formation really need a point cost?
Yes, even if everyone had a decurion, since you can still take the formations independently and repeatedly, and they give abilities/units/rule/etc that all factor into the balance, they absolutely should. They also have dramatically different power scales which should be reflected as well.
HoundsofDemos wrote:Except your making the wild assumption all formations are roughly equal which is definitely not the case and never will unless GW does a lot more play testing and errata. As it stands you have a hand full of formations that are very strong and many that are meh or bad.
This is true, but I said as much in the OP.
Essentially, what I'm arguing for is the following:
"If every codex had something like the Gladius Strike Force and the player HAD to use it, things would be more balanced."
What is my argument for this?
The GSF forces model variety and limits army variety.
The greater possible army variety, the greater the inherent risk of imbalance (and inversely).
Therefore, etc.
The problem with the free upgrades is it allows me to have units be amplified far more than is reflected in there point value just by taking a combination of them. That distorts power balance even more.
Explain to me how this applies to free rhinos.
Furthermore, this objection stands whether or not the upgrades and models have to be paid for. Regardless of what a scatter laser should cost and regardless of what an eldar bike should cost, the true value of that scatter bike model is simply not accounted for by adding bike + scatter laser.
Not to mention force multiplying units in general. If we grant your argument, then most psychic powers shouldn't exist, or else, all psykers should have a massive points cost increase. [In point of fact, this is probably true.]
My point in saying this? Your objection isn't solely an objection to formations.
If formations were mandatory, this objection would be a non-issue. Then the formation bonuses would essentially be factored into the cost of those models.
This is a horrible idea.
If you can only take units in formations then those formations become the new building blocks of the army. The problem with this is that these new building blocks are huge in comparison to units ( our old building blocks of an army), resulting in less options to build an army.
Again, if all formations were roughly of equal value, why should they cost points if the use of formations was mandatory?
So all formations should be of the same point cost / power lv. This just changed if from a horrible idea to being worse then Age of Sigmar.You are essentially suggesting to throw away point costs and all customisation possibilities. Building an army would just be a collection of x formations who are a prefab collection of models with fixed weapons and unit sizes. This makes building an army just as personal as ordering a subway sandwich.
while formations in theory increase variety, in practice I find the opposite to happen. Look at how the GSF is taken in a competitive game. I'll use the list from this years LVO as a partial example.
Khan for scout (if not it's usually barebones or smashfether)
Chaplain with minimum upgrades
Command Squads to spam special weapons and get another free Razor back
Six 5 man tac squads with minimal upgrades and more free razobacks with either Las Plas or Assault cannon.
Two 5 man squads of assault and devastators for, you guessed it, more free razorbacks
Then usually either the scout formation or the air defense both which are just spamming either more tanks or getting some speeders in. So little variety compared to what I can bring in a CAD
If you can only take units in formations then those formations become the new building blocks of the army. The problem with this is that these new building blocks are huge in comparison to units ( our old building blocks of an army), resulting in less options to build an army.
Since this is a recurring objection in this thread, I am going to answer all objections of this kind here:
The fact is, OldZoggy, the warhammer 40k community collectively, at least on dakka forums, brings to mind a person with split personality disorder.
You people apparently want completely conflicting/contradictory things and apparently are completely oblivious to the fact that these things are conflicting, or else, if not oblivious, at least, not particularly phased by it.
40k community: "Tactical marines are terrible. They are a troop tax and should be kept to a bare minimum in army construction." "Tactical marines are fairly priced for what they do!" "YOU WANT TO GIVE TACTICAL MARINES FREE RHINOS? UNFAIR!"
Me: "But just a minute ago, you were telling me that tactical marines and rhinos are terrible..."
Do you really not see how this is just utter madness?
It's the same with the way that you are objecting to me.
You CANNOT in the same breath insist both on a large scale of variety AND demand perfect in-game balance. You have to take your pick. Variety and balance are inherently in conflict.
It's not just warhammer 40k. Think about Magic the Gathering. Think about Dungeons and Dragons. Think about Pathfinder.
Fact is, the more variety you introduce, the greater the probability that some elements in that variety will be inordinately effective, and, in actual fact, actual variety will die out anyway for competitive purposes.
You should already know this, OZ. You play orks.
Do you want variety or do you want balance?
And fact is, even if you vote "variety," in actual fact, for all competitive purposes, you are still casting your vote AGAINST variety.
So all formations should be of the same point cost / power lv.
I never said that. Again, the GSF is a great example of this. You can take devastators or devastator centurions, and you can give them whatever load out you want.
There have to be both balanced mandatory formations and reasonable points costs for the game to be balanced and maintain a reasonable level of variety/customization.
I'm not arguing for the abolition of customization. I'm only arguing that it should be constrained to reasonable limits.
This just changed if from a horrible idea to being worse then Age of Sigmar.You are essentially suggesting to throw away point costs and all customisation possibilities. Building an army would just be a collection of x formations who are a prefab collection of models with fixed weapons and unit sizes. This makes building an army just as personal as ordering a subway sandwich.
That goes beyond what I'm arguing for. Again, consider the GSF. You can take 5 man tactical squads or you can take 10 man tactical squads. You can take assault marines or you can take bikes. You can take scouts or you can take sternguard.
But yes, I am essentially arguing in favor of making the formation the new building block for 40k armies.
Id argue that formations and detachments, as they are now, would be MUCH easier to balance. Most of them reaquire only small tweaks (Aspect host requires 2 or 3 different aspects, take the Wraithknight out of the Wraith Constructs option, male the GSF only rhinoes and pods, ect.) if any at all, and generally they leave you with a fun army with more than 3 units and actual choice for what to bring to be competative. Now, would it be nice if the formations and detachments had more options? Sure! But those are fairly easy to implement later and would be just like adding new units to a codex.
HoundsofDemos wrote: while formations in theory increase variety, in practice I find the opposite to happen.
Then we are basically in agreement. Ultimately, my conclusions are:
1. Formations provide the best possibility for in-game balance.
2. In fact, formations have been poorly implemented in many or most cases.
Look at how the GSF is taken in a competitive game. I'll use the list from this years LVO as a partial example.
Khan for scout (if not it's usually barebones or smashfether)
Chaplain with minimum upgrades
Command Squads to spam special weapons and get another free Razor back
Six 5 man tac squads with minimal upgrades and more free razobacks with either Las Plas or Assault cannon.
Two 5 man squads of assault and devastators for, you guessed it, more free razorbacks
Then usually either the scout formation or the air defense both which are just spamming either more tanks or getting some speeders in. So little variety compared to what I can bring in a CAD
The problem isn't the GSF. The problem is the razorbacks being free for minimum 5 man squads. If razorbacks were only free for full 10 men squads, this wouldn't be an issue.
And, again, if you want to insist on talking about optimized, min-maxed GSFs...
...why don't we talk about 6th edition wave serpent spam?
You CANNOT in the same breath insist both on a large scale of variety AND demand perfect in-game balance. You have to take your pick. Variety and balance are inherently in conflict.
Well here's your problem. Nobody reasonable anywhere expects or demands perfect balance. What people want are games that aren't a lopsided mess where player skill is the prime determinant. In other words, they just want balance to be good enough. Where that line is varies from person to person, but with specific regards to 40k, that line almost universally is somewhere better than where it currently is.
When we start working the idea of better balance rather than perfect balance, you can have as much variety as you want.
All of your examples are perfect examples of this. Of course they're not perfect, but they're a hell of a lot better than 40k and generally considered to be quite excellent examples of game design and balance done right, especially given the insane amount of content and variety.
So yes, one can insist on having the variety of 40k with balance equal to many other games on the market.
I'm also going to echo Vaktathi and say that this sounds like more of you justifying the GSF as being fine.
My point is that formations won't balance the game with out major tweaks, just like how the Force Org Chart doesn't balance the game due to individual units being out of whack. All formations do is force people into a rigid structure and limits what I can bring to the table while forcing me to take things I don't want. They don't solve spam or people taking only powerful choices.
Additionally this structure doesn't work for small games, which is why you'll always need some for the CAD. none of the decurian style formations work at lower point level because I need to take to much stuff.
Personally, I plan to leave the CAD for my homebrew stuff, though limiting the amount of allies/secondary detachments to one or two, and give the big Detachments the requirement that they must be your entire army if you bring one. So, if you take a GSF then the entire army must be the GSF.
Zero cost formations are a terrible thing in the game. Thankfully, our local TO realized this and our events are "no formations." Very fun events where any book could win. I've won with BA a couple times, and the last one was taken by some Horus heresy ultramarines.
Eldar may be pretty good in a CAD, but they still tend to have hard times against alpha strikes and drop lists, even from low tier books. The balance chasm from the bottom of BACSM and IG to the top of eldar is a much smaller one than if you throw in formations and turn several of the high tier books into 11/10 crazy.
Xerics wrote: Its the Wraith Construct that is the bad one. It allows you to take a single wraithlord, wraithknight, or wraithfighter. That's the one that lets you have 5 wraithknights in an 1850 list.
Wraith-Construct is an Auxiliary choice for a Warhost. NOT a Formation. At best (or worst depending on your pov) you can only fit 4 WKs into 1850, because you have to field the 400+pts for either a Gaurdian Host or WindRider Host core Fornation to unlock Auxiliaty choices that do not have Formation dataslates (the ones with the 3 skulls in a circle icon on their page). WKs, WLs and the Hemlock do not have the formation icon, thus are not Formations.
GW has actually done a good job with the Formations overall. 95% of them create a fluffy way to play the models that encourages the use of "sub-par tax units". It is the other 5% that gets spammed and causes all the issues and rage. The "Deluxe Formations" like the Decurion, Warhost, etc are just a bit too over the top.
Hmmmm. 95%/5%? I'm curious how true that actually is (not saying it's false, just asking the question)
What is the actual, current mix between ridiculous, OP formations, formations in a good spot, and formations that nobody ever uses?
How do you count stuff like "tax formations" people take just to create certain lists (do you look at Rec Legion in a vacuum? Or do you factor in the obviously at least a bit OP buffed up Canoptek Harvest when evaluating it?)
There's detailed analysis for practically every unit in the game. But ATM, formations are all over the place in supplements, WDs, combo-packs, start collecting boxes...etc... it doesn't seem like many people have done a full comprehensive look at them.
the_scotsman wrote: Hmmmm. 95%/5%? I'm curious how true that actually is (not saying it's false, just asking the question)
What is the actual, current mix between ridiculous, OP formations, formations in a good spot, and formations that nobody ever uses?
How do you count stuff like "tax formations" people take just to create certain lists (do you look at Rec Legion in a vacuum? Or do you factor in the obviously at least a bit OP buffed up Canoptek Harvest when evaluating it?)
There's detailed analysis for practically every unit in the game. But ATM, formations are all over the place in supplements, WDs, combo-packs, start collecting boxes...etc... it doesn't seem like many people have done a full comprehensive look at them.
I agree, that would be an interesting "study". The 95% I am referring to is Formations that have "tax units" or consist of average units. The Harvest has 2 tax units: Scarabs & Spiders. The Eldar Windrider host has a Vyper & Warlock unit. Skyhammer consists of Assault Marines & Devastators, neither of which have been in any "competitive" list for years. All the Daemon formations require a ton of units or points (or both)
Really the only "broken" formation & can think of is the Eldar Aspect Host, and that is only if you spam multiple Hosts with Spiders, Reapers or Dragons. Maybe the Crimson Death, but that still just AV10 flyers.
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Formations aren't the issue. The issue is that there is no consistent "core" that all armies must field before spending points on the cool stuff. This "core" used to be the Force Org chart (now called the CAD). Unlimited detachments is another issue
Ultimately, theres still the issue of free bonuses for no additonal investment. Without having such a cost attached, formations still are effectively condoned cheating, allowing you to take a more capable force than the points limit of the games reflects.
"Tax" units dont absolve formations of this. These are still units that serve a functional tabletop purpose, and still benefit from the formation bonuses, theyre just not getting *as much* benefit as the stuff you might want to really want to spam more.
And "tax" varies from person to person. If a 55pt T6 3+svMC is a tax, holy crap my IG and CSM's want in on that gravy train, because quite frankly they're one of the most aggressively costed MC's in the game.
So you're basically saying that a formation is not broken if the models inside it are not?
Even something like the skyhammer, which takes those 2 admittedly not terribly powerful units and blows their power level sky high with a million free special rules, and then allows you to construct a whole army of turn 1 or turn 2 charging from deep strike ignoring overwatch guys with relentless heavy weapon/grav support?
I've seen skyhammer formations destroy 90% of a 2000pt list in a single turn, without the opponent having a chance to do anything but deploy.
How is that a healthy means to balance a game? To me, that seems more egregious than an out-of-line unit like the wraithknight...especially considering that with the previous structure of dual-cad you would be limited to only two. You still have an army consisting of only 3 different armies that makes things no fun for any opponent, but now the rules are even more over the top than they were before.
Old school 6th ed serpent spam would have nothing on modern formation spam armies. Sure, someone is at least fielding some kind of variety in models, but they're not balanced.
Do I advocate removing formations from the game? no. Do I think formations are the easiest way to get things balanced? Oh heck no.
You wanna balance 40k, you NEED inter-codex rules updates. You need points adjustments when things are out of line. Otherwise the game is just going to continue to be the way its always been - an imbalanced mess with 3-5 super OP top tier armies that dominate everything.
The codexes are paper. We have pencil technology. GW just needs to step up and take the minor effort it would take to inject a little bit of investment.
They recently created a table with 12 results for bonuses for tanks. In the time it took to type those 12 results for their competitive play, they could have increased the points cost on the 12 most problematic units in the game today.
Galef wrote: ---------------------
Formations aren't the issue. The issue is that there is no consistent "core" that all armies must field before spending points on the cool stuff. This "core" used to be the Force Org chart (now called the CAD). Unlimited detachments is another issue
I think you hit in on the head here. The honest problem with CADs currently is that they are too free. with everything in an army scoring, it's very easy to get the prerequisite 1HQ\2Troops needed to run one, and then you can just input whatever else you want to fit. there is no longer a reason to even take a troops choice unless their stupidly powerful (See scatbikes) because you can just park a Heavy Support tank or a LoW on an objective and hold it past anything. that's why helping balance the, as we have just realized, small amount of super strong, easily spammable options in the Decurions could go a long way to helping the balance of the game. Seriously, the only ones i can't think of a fix for off the top of my head are Aspect Host (other than maybe limiting you to only one repeat aux formation, or maybe have that be an Aspect Host only thing?) and the Necrons (Don't know them well enough to know what tweaks need to be\could be made.) Marines are probably the easiest fix (Take razorbacks out of the list of free transports and it's instantly balanced, especially if we make a change to make vehicles non-scoring [which is the only sweeping change that I would for sure want to see with the formation list-building style]. Also, nerf Grav because without the CADMC\GMC spam becomes a lot harder to achieve.) And Eldar aren't hard to fix either (No Wraithknights outside of the really expensive Wraithhost, fix Aspect shrines, nerf scatbikes minorly [Simply because being taken in the formation and not a CAD actually nerfs the bikes pretty heavily if they take scatter lasers as they get no benefit without shuriken weapons]) Daemons seem fine, tbh. Big, expensive cores that even now can make it hard to fit a good list into 1850. ect.
Then, give those armies without a Decurion (CSM, Nids, DE, BA, GK, SoB, Harlies, and some of the smaller Imperium codexes like Inquisition and Admech I think are all we have left at this point) and you'll have yourself a basis that is atleast playable at a competitive level. That way, GW (or some third party if they let a third party write the rules) can take the time to balance all of the individual units, and once that has been done may be able to bring back the CAD. but, while the balance is in the mess that it is, going Formation-Only could be a good way to keep things somewhat stable while playtesting of the more specific changes takes place.
Apparently taking a tac company and getting free drop pods on everything is balanced.
Sorry, there may be issues with infantry in 40k, but adding those sorts of capabilities, not to mention that much board presence and scoring ability, at zero cost, isnt balanced, and even if it is, its a band aid on a deeper problem of scale and individual unit issues, not a solid balance mechanism.
Likewise, just because Scatbikes arent getting shuriken bonuses, doesnt suddenly make them fine and balanced in the formation, thats still a single unit putting out as much firepower as some IG gunlines, except in the formations its supporting elements just become more capable.
Actually, yeah, I'm not worried about the Drop Pods. Now, again, I suggested making vehicles non-scoring again because of this, as really that is one of the biggest issues with drop pods anyway. also, yes, it IS a band-aid, as it's meant to help stop the wound from growing bigger while actual steps are taken to fix it. Again, I suggest this not as the final measure, but as a hold-over while a host of balance changes are figured out and play-tested. It would certainly be better than the mess we have now, at the very least.
Honestly, the scatbikes stop being as scary without OBsec. Yeah, they still have crazy shooting, but their ability to actual score is greatly reduced. That, and with only 3 units, MSUing them is a lot harder and makes playing them a good bit trickier . Scatbikes currently tend to run in mass MSU squads. Making them group up means that their fire has to be focused onto a max of three targets, meaning that target saturation becomes an actual tactic against them. That, and you can just out score them.
This is all dancing around the greater core issue of the fundamental rules being bad and scale being out of focus. Making vehicles non scoring just so spammed drop pods arent an issue is an exercise in circular logic. There's no reason vehicles should be non scoring really aside from that, which means the issue is with the spammed drop pods. We're gonna make Land Raiders and Devilfish nonscoring just because of drop pods? Likewise, if youre not worried about an army with a dozen drop pods, I must ask if youve ever played Dark Eldar, IG, Orks, or CSM's, etc, lots of armies have no reasonable way to deal with that sort of thing.
As for Scatterbikes, all we are really talking about is what squad sizes we'd see. The fundamental problem is that they simply have far too much firepower on tap. Making them nonscoring, loading them with "tax" units, etc is all dancing around this central point, and all these fixes are as much or more effort than just liniting that firepower tap. Nobody thought Jetbikes were undergunned or underutilized in their previous incarnation, revert them to that and you fix all the other issues associated with them without needing formations or mucking with what units can score and whatnot.
Formations arent making anything better bere, and again, tournament resultes clearly bear this out.
I think another point we are trying to get across is that the idea of Formation is great and can easily be used as a balancing tool. And yes, free bonuses NEED to be part of formations.
The problem is the execution. GW is adding rules to these formations that are too good, or requiring too few units to get those bonuses. The Windrider Host, the WraithHost, the Demi-Company (not Gladius) and all the Daemon Core Formations are excellent examples of what Formations should be. Lots of units required from a variety of units, minimal bonuses.
But as soon as you put those into their "Super stackable Formations" they get too many crazy bonuses, like free transports or 6" runs or re-roll Instability & Daemonic Corruption.
Formation bonuses should be like Chapter Tactics that require you to field 5+ specific units.
Wait, IG can't deal with a bunch of open-topped, immobile, av12 vehicles? I feel like they have the firepower, but k. I do understand the sentiment though, it could be hard to deal with, though those you listed all have options to deal with it as far as i know (DE has mass Haywire, IG has mass shooting, Orks melee the pods and whatever comes out of them, CSMs probably have the hardest time, though I still think with enough plasma and melta they should be fine.) Like, the Gladius can't give drop-pods to any unit that can actually use them to alpha strike effectively (Assault squads get shot, Devs have to snap-fire, Tac marines can't take the firepower to be useful.) And honestly, I don't understand why vehicles are scoring, ESPECIALLY drop pods. does the driver get out and grab the thing? IDK, just never got why that part exists to be honest.
On the Scatbike thing, I still think forcing them to not MSU goes a long way to stopping them from doing their job. Currently, they can a ton of firepower that is easy to split up and dole out as necessary. When all that fire power has to go on one target, the ability to use it effectively goes down a lot. Especially with 0 access to split-fire.
Yes, formations are not making anything better currently. But honestly? That's more because of how easily they can be taken alongside a spammy CAD of good stuff, and the few formations that are amazing being super broken when spammed. which is, again, why i suggest nerfing the biggest offenders.
EDIT: Yeah, Galef, I kinda Agree. Though I think those large bonuses are easy to fix, a majority of the time it is not the formations within those set-ups that require the balancing (again, Aspect Host aside,) but those of the larger formation. again though, it is much easier to fix a Handful of formation rules than 5+ units per codex, at least to begin with.
Free bonuses for taking X or Y units is never going to balance properly. Its just not.
Even if you tone down the bonuses, we are still talking free stuff, and stuff that will often stack with things like chapter tactics and whatnot resulting in powerful synergies that the game is just not equipped to handle. Even the Chapter Tactics stuff and the gobs of rerolls they can get only looks balanced because of how car off the deeep end we've gone and would have been loudly decried in earlier editions.
More to the point, with unlimited detachments, they still allow armies to spam more effectively than they could under the old FOC, and allow for lopsided armies that can far too easily overmatch a more balanced armies' ability to engage them.
Customized versions of the old FOC were one thing, but even with no bonuses at all, formations can still be highly abusable simply through the unit combos they allow, much like Unbound
Again, why we would be making it limited to only decurions, so only stuff within the larger detachments would be allowed. Would also nerf SuperFriends pretty well, now that i think about it. Maybe let a single allied detachment (or equivelent for armies like harlies, inquisition and skitarii) be taken still, but nothing else?
The best way to start balancing 40k (notice I said "start") is to go back to the way 6th ed bought detahcments..kinda. Require allall Battle Forged lists to stat with a CAD or codex equivalent. This is where your WL has to be from and your primary Faction. now you may buy 1 Allied detachment. No double CAD, no double Allied Detahcment. Now you may buy 1 Formation (or 2 if no Allied detachment was taken). This formation MUST be the same faction as you Primary or Allied detachment.
So max 3 Detahcments, max 2 Factions. The only Factions that should have an exception to this is Assassins and the Inquisition, maybe, MAYBE Harlequins since they always show up to aid Eldar & Dark Eldar.
Galef wrote: The best way to start balancing 40k (notice I said "start") is to go back to the way 6th ed bought detahcments..kinda. Require allall Battle Forged lists to stat with a CAD or codex equivalent. This is where your WL has to be from and your primary Faction. now you may buy 1 Allied detachment. No double CAD, no double Allied Detahcment. Now you may buy 1 Formation (or 2 if no Allied detachment was taken). This formation MUST be the same faction as you Primary or Allied detachment.
So max 3 Detahcments, max 2 Factions. The only Factions that should have an exception to this is Assassins and the Inquisition, maybe, MAYBE Harlequins since they always show up to aid Eldar & Dark Eldar.
that would certainly be another way to do it, yeah. Though, this still means that those armies that spam a bunch of a single thing (looking at you Eldar) would be entirely too powerful. I do like the idea combined with my (if you take a decurion that's all you get) idea. either you take CAD+Ally+formation, or a single large Detachment. would mean your trading versatility for more powerful rules, which means there is some actual consideration to make during list building. also, maybe limit the number of duplicate formations in a detachment army? will also help turn down the spam somewhat.
Swampmist wrote: Wait, IG can't deal with a bunch of open-topped, immobile, av12 vehicles? I feel like they have the firepower, but k. I do understand the sentiment though, it could be hard to deal with, though those you listed all have options to deal with it as far as i know (DE has mass Haywire, IG has mass shooting, Orks melee the pods and whatever comes out of them, CSMs probably have the hardest time, though I still think with enough plasma and melta they should be fine.)
its not a matter of killing the pods, its dealing with the alpha strike and the dozens of infantry getting the first shooter advantage without having to risk anything and already being at optimal engagement range.
With something like an IG or DE army, you can very easily call the game after a turn 1 alpha strike like that, same with the Skyhammer formation
Like, the Gladius can't give drop-pods to any unit that can actually use them to alpha strike effectively (Assault squads get shot, Devs have to snap-fire, Tac marines can't take the firepower to be useful.)
Not everything needa to be a Grav Cent to get utility out of drop pods. Coming in amongst an enemies lines, often behind cover and in side/rear vehicle arcs works magically against many armies. Getting that ability for free on gobs of units is not a small thing...at all. You get very stilted games as a result.
And honestly, I don't understand why vehicles are scoring, ESPECIALLY drop pods. does the driver get out and grab the thing? IDK, just never got why that part exists to be honest.
Why are MC's scoring? Why are mindless automatons scoring? Within the structure of the rules there is no good reason for vehicles as a whole category to be nonscoring.
That said, Pods really should be somewhat changed. They're not really vehicles so much, theyre an empty shell with a storm bolter, they should just be a big terrain piece more than anything else.
On the Scatbike thing, I still think forcing them to not MSU goes a long way to stopping them from doing their job. Currently, they can a ton of firepower that is easy to split up and dole out as necessary. When all that fire power has to go on one target, the ability to use it effectively goes down a lot. Especially with 0 access to split-fire.
that depends on what youre brining them for. In squads of 10 they work very well indeed to simply burn high priority targets down, stuff like full tac squads in cover or AV12 tanks and flyers or T6 MC's, they are marvelous as a heavy fire support unit.
I...guess? Like, the skyhammer works because it lets all the Devs have relentless the turn they get out (meaning they can actually fire at stuff) and it lets the Assault squads fight out of DS. The gladius does not give those bonuses, meaning that the alpha strike is a lot weaker than it could be. Bolters don't tend to do many wounds without serious weight of fire, which tends to mean putting more squads into a single target than you need. even then, it doesn't always work out. Either way, isn't thge current GSF almost always played with pure Razorback spam? If the drop pod strat is that good, why is it never used?
Just because one thing is better doesnt mean something else cant also be abused, particularly against non-top 4 armies. And again, for many armies, you dont necessarily need Relentless devs and the like to get the job done, especially if you can get behind cover and into side/rear arcs, and position onesself for assaults on the next turn.
Theres a reason pods have a points cost in the first place and arent just free in general, they provide a good deal of deployment utility and board control. Issues with pods and the problems with tacs and devs are issues to be taken up with the individual unit entries or the core rules, formations are an extremely poor band aid. If marines for some reason need an extra 400pts to play with because they didnt just spam grav cents and librarians, that fix should be elsewhere (more probably toning down the other units) rather than in free stuff that their opponent may not also be getting.
Because Razorbacks are better. They have better shooting and can actually move whereas Drop Pods are stuck where they land so if they don't land on an objective they don't do much whereas Razorbacks can move if they need to.
Formations ruin army creation. You are forced to take so much many things in the new formation there are very few points left for other things. Also, why should taking a certain set of models give bonus rules? Its silly. They should be toned down, if not gotten rid of entirely.
I don't mind most of the mini formations, although I much preferred the earlier 7th edition codex's alternate CADs. What Is problematic is the decurion style for the most part because the bonuses are to good and are often giver you things for free for taking units you were going to take any way.
I think formations have the power to be really good for the game... if GW put any effort in to designing them. But then again if GW put effort in to the rest of the rules there wouldn't be the need for formations to fix stuff.
Formations (potentially) allow GW to do a few great things:
- step in and buff underperforming units without re-writing a whole codex
- step in an bump sales of underperforming kits
- allow 'fluffy' versions of armies to be fielded competitively.
- limit selection of otherwise powerful units.
We can see places where GW has done this very well.
-IMO the space marine battle companies are great examples (although perhaps a little too far in terms of free points). It lets players put the 'traditional' army of tactical marines in rhinos on the table and go toe-to-toe with more traditionally powerful forces. It singlehandedly ticks all four of the above boxes, and gets the space marine army away from Hero-/Monster-/Deathstar-hammer in to what it really should be about; infantry boots on the ground.
- The Daemonkin Slaughtercult is cool. It gives a few nice abilities, but at the tax of taking a unit of Possessed. Every time I run a KDK force I need to think 'is it worth taking the Possessed? I get bonuses, but its essentially impossible to take heldrakes...'
- The various Tau formations make it quite difficult to access Skyrays.
But we can see places where GW does this incredibly badly:
Eg. Riptide wing. Take a powerful unit that many players were already fielding 3 of, and give them bonus abilities, for absolutely no cost.
Eg. Aspect host. Again, allowing players to spam the best units for essentially no cost.
Eg. Realspace raiders. (I think thats the one). Restrictive formation that gives out a paltry benefit that is literally useless in half or more of the games you play.
If there were any pattern to GW's rules writing abilities I might be inclined to think that all formations all the time was good. But the rules I see from GW may as well be written can costed using a dart board.
The practice of giving 'free' bonuses to units when run in certain configurations is used in other games too.
Take Warmachine, for example, which is regarded as having pretty good balance in top-tier play (every faction won at least one major tournament last year). When a unit is identified as under-performing, PP adds in a way to buff that unit.
It might be a unit attachment - adding a champion/standard to an existing unit for a small cost that gives the unit benefits worth far in excess of the cost. Small tax, big special rules.
It might be a new caster - adding in a new option that takes advantage of rules of existing models. (eg, Bearka with Winter Trolls)
It might be another new unit that synergises well - eg Dozer & Smigg added to Trolls to buff Gunnbjorn and Bomber/Blitzer Dire Trolls.
Or in X-Wing. There its even a little insidious as the cards required to buff your Tie Advanced are hidden in Imperial Raider boxes. But FF still identifies underperforming ships and adds in cards to upgrade them - the TIE/x1 upgrade card essentially reads 'Your TIE advance gets a 4pt upgrade for free!'.
Imagine if GW came in with changes like that. Ogryns are underperforming? Add in a dataslate +formation for Nork Deddog and 1+ units of Ogryns that gives them all Eternal Warrior or something. The tools are there, they just need to be used correctly.
The strongest possibility for army balance would be a set of living rules available for free online. Rules can be tweaked and units changed or added on an individual basis as is necessary.
Or in X-Wing. There its even a little insidious as the cards required to buff your Tie Advanced are hidden in Imperial Raider boxes. But FF still identifies underperforming ships and adds in cards to upgrade them - the TIE/x1 upgrade card essentially reads 'Your TIE advance gets a 4pt upgrade for free!'.
Imagine if GW came in with changes like that. Ogryns are underperforming? Add in a dataslate +formation for Nork Deddog and 1+ units of Ogryns that gives them all Eternal Warrior or something. The tools are there, they just need to be used correctly.
Very well said. Granted, I dislike the idea of "pay to win", which is sort of the way they went with the TIE Advanced (You had to buy a $100 model that you rarely use since it's Epic scale, just to get the awesome goodies within). But the idea is still good. The Advanced did not have a niche that it filled. It was among the first ships created, so didn't have a defined identity within the game. Now it's pretty devastating.
There is another downside, though. Fantasy Flight is at least consistent with their releases. Schedule, amount released, balanced rules that add a bit more flavor to the game as a whole. GW releases stuff for the same armies when other armies get left out. For example, I play Necrons. Necrons have yet to get a true supplement or updated campaign. Yet, Tau get here with not only an unneeded codex update, but more models and then an update to their campaign supplement, plus the Kauyon (spelling?) and the Mont'ka books. Those releases only benefit the armies within them, and with an inconsistent schedule as far as which armies get updated.
Plus, GW could release new rules for a unit, and it could still be complete poop, or nerf something that didn't really need the nerf. GW will most likely never get this right, and therefor 40k will suffer for it.
Rosebuddy wrote: The strongest possibility for army balance would be a set of living rules available for free online. Rules can be tweaked and units changed or added on an individual basis as is necessary.
While this would be cool at first, it would also mean that you would have to re-study the rules before EVERY game just to make sure they didn't change on you. I spend a lot of time making lists to play and I'd be super pissed if I finally made a list I liked, just to find out the points costs or rules changed for the units I put in the list.
It is hard enough to keep up with all the new Codices, supplements, etc to also have to keep checking your own army and the army you are going up against. No thank you.
Rosebuddy wrote: The strongest possibility for army balance would be a set of living rules available for free online. Rules can be tweaked and units changed or added on an individual basis as is necessary.
While this would be cool at first, it would also mean that you would have to re-study the rules before EVERY game just to make sure they didn't change on you. I spend a lot of time making lists to play and I'd be super pissed if I finally made a list I liked, just to find out the points costs or rules changed for the units I put in the list.
It is hard enough to keep up with all the new Codices, supplements, etc to also have to keep checking your own army and the army you are going up against. No thank you.
This could be mitigated if GW used an app like Battlescribe that would auto-update with the most recent version of the rules. Hell, they could just subsidize Battlescribe and/or other similar apps and half the work is done for them!
Rosebuddy wrote: The strongest possibility for army balance would be a set of living rules available for free online. Rules can be tweaked and units changed or added on an individual basis as is necessary.
While this would be cool at first, it would also mean that you would have to re-study the rules before EVERY game just to make sure they didn't change on you. I spend a lot of time making lists to play and I'd be super pissed if I finally made a list I liked, just to find out the points costs or rules changed for the units I put in the list.
It is hard enough to keep up with all the new Codices, supplements, etc to also have to keep checking your own army and the army you are going up against. No thank you.
Most places that do this don't just stealth update, they do them on a set schedule or make a big notice about an update, and they're not every week or the like but like 1-3 times a year.
Rosebuddy wrote: The strongest possibility for army balance would be a set of living rules available for free online. Rules can be tweaked and units changed or added on an individual basis as is necessary.
While this would be cool at first, it would also mean that you would have to re-study the rules before EVERY game just to make sure they didn't change on you. I spend a lot of time making lists to play and I'd be super pissed if I finally made a list I liked, just to find out the points costs or rules changed for the units I put in the list.
It is hard enough to keep up with all the new Codices, supplements, etc to also have to keep checking your own army and the army you are going up against. No thank you.
Most places that do this don't just stealth update, they do them on a set schedule or make a big notice about an update, and they're not every week or the like but like 1-3 times a year.
Exactly. At first you'd need shorter intervals between updates because there'd be so much more feedback but soon enough you'd only need to do major work after codex releases. Once those were done with you could have a year of simple maintenance before you start thinking of adding supplements or new units.
No more need to print codexes, no more need to lug around heavy books, FAQs and errata. If shooting ends up too good you can slowly fix that. If a few armies are vastly better than others you can slowly fix that. You can deal with problems piecemeal and actually solve them instead of hope that you don't mess something up in five years when you print the next edition.
Vaktathi wrote: Free bonuses for taking X or Y units is never going to balance properly. Its just not.
No, it isn't. But it gives an incentive (or alternative) for a codex to make it on its own instead of going with whatever flavour of the month allies are patching up any weakness your army might have.
I think you hit the issue pretty squarely in the face when you said
its a band aid on a deeper problem of scale and individual unit issues, not a solid balance mechanism.
But the problem is an artificially introduced one. The problem started when everyone could ally with everyone, and suddenly there was (obviously) going to be an end-all alliance that simply works better than anything.
Then we start introducing things like Decurion, and it allows an army to be just as (if not more) OP on its own. In theory, that would allow two paths. Ally up and get the OP from there, or go with your formation, and get the OP from there. Either way, you've gotten the OP and you're now able to compete.
Except, like you said, all codex are not created equal.
A lot of people will point to things like the free drop pods, or Skitarii formation that gives every upgrade for free (although people have stopped mentioning that one, so I guess it wasn't as end-all broken as everyone claimed) but will defend others because they only give you new special rules or buffs your current ones. I don't think Vaktathi is one of those, but I would just like to mention that these things are exactly the same. Those upgrades are worth more points no matter what they are, even if they don't have a point value in your book. Getting a 3+ regeneration protocol on everything is worth a hell of a lot of points. it's a ~16.5% jump in survivability, ignoring armour, for most of your army. {edit: sorry, it's a ~33.3% jump in survivability. It goes from 50% to a ~66.5%, and I just didn't think before I posted so I just subtracted.} You could just as well have gotten that many more models dropped down on the table, and the value outcome would change very little.
CrownAxe wrote: The decurion hasn't forced variety, I haven't seen a necron player use more then Reclamation Legion+Canoptyk Harvest spam ever since their codex dropped. And except for tomb blades, these were already the units people were running before. Everyone is using the same army for a year straight.
Aspect Host the worst culprit of a spam formation. It lets you take 3 units of one of the best units in the game, Warp Spiders, and let you take ONLY WARP SPIDERS and then give them BS5 for free. The apsect Host is the reason the winner of LVO was 45 Warp Spiders (9 units of them). It did the exact opposite of variety.
If you think Aspect Host forces variety you cleary don't understand how formations work.
In other words, gamers gonna game
I'm sure when GW came up with the idea of formations, it was to encourage (ie, force) a more robust unit selection (and increase sales). But then they heard the early complaints of no flexibility, every army looked the same, prohibitive unit taxes, etc., so they tried the Eldar approach, which, unfortunately, opened it up to being severely abused. While I'm not certain about the newer formations (Tau and Wulfen), it seems like they went back to the more prohibitive set up with Codex: SM, as their auxiliary formations are often far too expensive to field, which is why you only ever see Gladius Battle Companies.
More consistent design rules for these formations would be a significant improvement. For example, EVERY army should get a single unit formation option for at least some of their non-SH tanks, MC, and flyers. No army should be able to take more than a single SH (with the exception of Knights) per detachment. When making these formations, there should be a minimum points cap taken into consideration, ie, the min points for a single auxiliary formation (non-SH) should never exceed 200 points.
Blacksails wrote:Well here's your problem. Nobody reasonable anywhere expects or demands perfect balance. What people want are games that aren't a lopsided mess where player skill is the prime determinant. In other words, they just want balance to be good enough. Where that line is varies from person to person, but with specific regards to 40k, that line almost universally is somewhere better than where it currently is.
Very fair points. Nonetheless...
When we start working the idea of better balance rather than perfect balance, you can have as much variety as you want.
...I think that this is just wrong. Regardless of your standard for how much balance is right, more variety = more imbalance. It's an intrinsic risk of variety, if that variety is anything more than cosmetic (presupposing that cosmetic differences are tactically irrelevant). Yes, I fully agree with you that 40k could maintain the same variety and still have more balance. The game could be more balanced than it is now even without formations.
That doesn't change, however, the basic fact that greater variety nonetheless yields greater imbalance simply in virtue of that variety.
To the extent that "rigid" formations like the Decurion and the Gladius Strike Force limit variety, it thereby reduces the risk of imbalance.
All of your examples are perfect examples of this. Of course they're not perfect, but they're a hell of a lot better than 40k and generally considered to be quite excellent examples of game design and balance done right, especially given the insane amount of content and variety.
Is it better than 40k? Maybe. That said, the only reason that people don't complain as much about Pathfinder, D&D and and MTG is because of two basic reasons:
1. Pathfinder and D&D are cooperative games.
2. MTG doesn't require as great a commitment of time and effort as 40k does. You don't have to assemble and hand-paint your own magic cards, and games generally don't last 2-3 hours.
But again, consider these simple facts:
1. Even though MTG is practically constantly updating,revising, etc., coming out with new editions, "standard" and "modern" blocks, etc., net-listing remains a thing. Experienced players regularly figure out certain combinations which are simply superior to other combinations, and a "mono-build" tendency inevitably arises.
2. There actually are two different, opposite kinds of players in D&D and Pathfinder. There is a conflict between min-maxers (i.e., power gamers) and the more story-oriented players. Take min-maxers from 40k and put them all together in a pathfinder game, and you can bet your bottom that they are going to break that game. Two words for you: 1. Guns. 2. Magic.
And even apart from gunslingers and high level magic users, when's the last time you've seen a fighter without cleave and power attack?
Even D&D and Pathfinder have an intrinsic tendency to promote "mono-builds" among min-maxers.
All of the problems that 40k players regularly complain about are present in the games that I've mentioned, to some degree or other. We just don't notice them as much because of the difference in format.
If Pathfinder were solely a PvP game, people would probably complain as much as 40k players.
If MTG took 3 hours to play, people would probably complain as much as 40k players.
More variety brings more imbalance.
You even see this in fighting video games where there's relatively little variety.
Regardless of your standard for how much balance is right, more variety = more imbalance. It's an intrinsic risk of variety,
Risk =\= reality.
This is (not unusually) a flawed assumption on your part.
There is absolutely no reason why a game with near infinite variety can still offer a reasonable stab at being balanced enough to offer a fair contest.
The only limiting factor is the greater number of options, the more hours need to be invested into testing. So there's a limitation to how many hours a commercial enterprise can invest into development and still retain viability, but there's absolutely nothing inherent to variety which dictates imbalance.
Besides, most other names you'll hear bandied around as examples of how to do it right have feedback mechanisms and correction methods if something does slip through the net, and take steps to fix the problem, removing the pressure to get things perfectly correct 100% of the time. GW doesn't do this and this hurts 40K badly.
I can even recall a Dakka poster reporting on a conversation had at an open day with a studio member who basically said "we know the Tau and Eldar books have screwed the pooch, but we're not going to do anything about it."
With the advent of the FAQ requests, we may be seeing an attitude adjustment more towards how the other major gaming names approach this, but it's too early to say yet.
While I think this is a very valid point as people have less problems with things they aren't on the receiving end of, bad imbalances are still spotted. Certain characters in Zombicide are stupid strong and the game isn't considered well balanced. Slippery is by far the strongest talent in the vanilla game, and combining it with the "move two squares for the price of one" makes the rollerblading bitch an essential pick unless you want to try to win scenarios with both hands tied behind your back.
The strongest possibility for 40k army balance is for GW to give a crap about army balance. Formations aren't necessary for balance, they might be one of several possible ways, but it doesn't really matter until GW starts caring enough to change things.
Vaktathi wrote: Apparently taking a tac company and getting free drop pods on everything is balanced.
I never said that. "Balanced" is a relative term. "Balanced" indicates relative equality in terms of chances for victory independent of player skill. "Balanced" against what? The Gladius Strike Force may or may not be balanced against the Decurion. It's not balanced against Tau or Eldar: Tau and Eldar are better. It's not balanced against Chaos Space Marines. It's vastly better than Chaos Space Marines.
In principle, there is no reason why 5 tactical marines and a "free" drop pod could not be balanced against Chaos Space Marines, if Chaos Space Marines received rules updates and formations which rendered units which were roughly "balanced" against those 5 tactical marines and free drop pod for the same points value.
Currently if you get 70 points of chaos space marines, and I get 70 points of space marines with all sorts of cool rules AND a free rhino, that's horribly unbalanced in my favor. However: if you get 5 chaos space marines (with rules roughly equivalent to what vanilla marines get, or else, if you get them more cheaply) and...say...I don't know....a free veterans of the long war upgrade, a free icon of despair and a free mark of nurgle...well, that's a different story, isn't it?
Sorry, there may be issues with infantry in 40k, but adding those sorts of capabilities, not to mention that much board presence and scoring ability, at zero cost, isnt balanced, and even if it is, its a band aid on a deeper problem of scale and individual unit issues, not a solid balance mechanism.
Again, balanced against what?
Balance simply signifies a kind of equality or fairness. There's no reason that my free rhino couldn't be roughly "equal" to something that you could get.
Yes, currently, the Battle Company is unbalanced against oudated codices. There's no question.
What I'm arguing in favor of essentially is everyone getting their equivalent of the battle company.
Likewise, just because Scatbikes arent getting shuriken bonuses, doesnt suddenly make them fine and balanced in the formation, thats still a single unit putting out as much firepower as some IG gunlines, except in the formations its supporting elements just become more capable.
That's a problem with scatbikes, not with formations.
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Galef wrote:Formations aren't the issue. The issue is that there is no consistent "core" that all armies must field before spending points on the cool stuff. This "core" used to be the Force Org chart (now called the CAD). Unlimited detachments is another issue
I completely agree. That's why I like the Decurion and the GSF. They force you to field a core before you can buy cool stuff.
And frankly, if formations like that were MANDATORY for all codices, it would take the sting out of allies.
Sure, you can take as many allies as you want...
...
But you're going to have a lot of core troops on the field and pretty much NO cool toys.
If I could rewrite the rules, I'd do the following:
1. Remove all formations which allow you to take only 1 unit or model (I include with this the four demon prince formation). [That said, the ability to spam a unit in a formation isn't in and of itself bad. Is anybody really afraid of the 1st company, where you can field 3-5 terminators, sternguard or vanguard veteran units (without free drop pods, may I add)?]
2. Make a rule that all units in your army MUST belong to a formation.
3. Make relatively expensive "core" components for all formations (like the Decurion and GSF).
4. Make a rule so that you can't have more than one of the same component (apart from the core) of a formation in that formation.
[You want an extra 1st company? Ok. Then you'd better bring another demi-company to go with it.]
5. Make a rule that if any component other than the core of a formation is fielded in a formation, the core of that formation must be fielded as well as well (no librarius conclaves without a demi-company).
6. For all codices, grant totally awesome bonuses if at least two of the core of a formation are taken (think how two demi-companies become a battle company with free rhinos), but which the army forfeits if they don't [no free rhinos for one demicompany and a bunch of cool toys].
All of a sudden, a whole lot of shenanigans just got shut down, didn't they?
It's more complicated because instead of the building blocks of your army being units you have batches of units with their own additional special rules. I'd rather have units X, Y and Z than unit combinations XY, XZ and YZ each with their own formation rules and with their own formation combination rules.
If it's more balanced than the current state of the game it's only because you suggest that work be put in to make it more balanced. The same can be done for the FOC system or any other simple system.
Instead of stipulating that overly powerful units be batched with worthless units, let's just not have overly powerful or worthless units.
Rosebuddy wrote: It's more complicated because instead of the building blocks of your army being units you have batches of units with their own additional special rules. I'd rather have units X, Y and Z than unit combinations XY, XZ and YZ each with their own formation rules and with their own formation combination rules.
If it's more balanced than the current state of the game it's only because you suggest that work be put in to make it more balanced. The same can be done for the FOC system or any other simple system.
Instead of stipulating that overly powerful units be batched with worthless units, let's just not have overly powerful or worthless units.
Well, batching does prevent single unit spam. And that does do something to curve some problems.
Thinking you can make everything perfectly balanced is naive. But of course it could be much much better than it is, if there was *any* kind of playtesting.
Personally, I'd like a CAD system with balanced codexes.
Purifier wrote: Well, batching does prevent single unit spam. And that does do something to curve some problems.
Only if GW are paying enough attention to make sure they batch weak units with strong units. Of course they don't know what they're doing so they're just as likely to batch a bunch of overpowered units together and destroy any chance of the formation system balancing anything. As it is, you could batch a whole bunch of Eldar units together and still get something a hell of a lot more powerful than if you'd batched a bunch of Ork units together.
Really?! Ban the 4x Daemon Prince formation?!! You do realise that it's easily in the running for the title of 'Worst Formation in 40k', right? I mean, you only need to sink 1000+pts into it, and the actual bonuses are pretty 'meh', and begin disappearing the second you kill a single Prince...
And no, forcing everyone into only ever playing "Decurionhammer" would be pants on head awful.
Not all armies have equal Decurion style detachments. Codex Marines, Dark Angels, Eldar, Tau, Necron, Daemonkin all get theirs at very reasonable pts costs. On the other hand, Orks & Guard are hilariously atrocious in just their basic requirements, making their Detachments almost unplayable until you're hitting closer to 2000pts!
Daemons meanwhile lose out on the main appeal of what makes Chaos so unique - playing mono God lists. Khorne & Slaanesh can do it pretty well, but there's no way you're going to make a Tzeenchian Daemonic Incursion work, since the individual formations are all based around Sacred Numbers. (meaning the auxiliary requires 9 units of Screamers and/or Burning Chariots, and the formation's bonus rules laughably nerf the hell out of Screamers!) So basically you end up forcing Tzeentch into filling out with Furies and/or Soul Grinders... (oh wait, your rules ban both of those Formations, since it's just spamming a single unit - BRILLIANT! )
40k is far from perfect, but overly restricting the way people can build their armies is not the way to go...
Another big problem with 'Decurion style only' is that some armies end up missing out on what makes them strong in the first place. Daemons for example are built around the supports offered by their Heralds, hence why they can take 4 per HQ slot.
In the Incursion detachment however, you only get a single Herald per individual formation. Depending on which God you pick, this can be annoying, to a downright kick in the teeth. (again, poor, poor Tzeentch - so unloved...)
Armies like Marines don't need lots of HQ's to boost what are otherwise overall mediocre units. Armies like Eldar & IG at least can build a decent number of their support HQ's into the army as basic squad upgrades. (though the Guardcurion is hilarious in that it no longer allows for the likes of Priests!)
Then you have armies like Daemons & Tyranids which are designed entirely around their HQ's buffing their otherwise average to below average units... Imagine if for example Tyranids got a Bugcurion that only allowed for a single Hive Tyrant + 1 unit of Warriors per swarm? There's no way the army would function properly with so little synapse. (especially since your rules would ban the idea of taking a single Trygon Prime a couple times as auxiliaries!)
Sure, the Decurions are fluffy, and can be fun depending on what you face. But overall, they're no more balanced than non-formation 40k, nor are they combating spam in any way shape or form. (your precious little GSF is hugely guilty of mass spamming Obsec Razorbacks/Drop Pods for example!)
1. Remove all formations which allow you to take only 1 unit or model (I include with this the four demon prince formation). [That said, the ability to spam a unit in a formation isn't in and of itself bad. Is anybody really afraid of the 1st company, where you can field 3-5 terminators, sternguard or vanguard veteran units (without free drop pods, may I add)?]
I'd just go ahead and remove all formations. That said, there are plenty of fluff reasons and good army building reasons for single unit formations to exist. With the current state of the game, I'd leave them, as it makes sense for someone doing the 1st company for their Salamanders to field nothing but terminators for their firedrake cadre.
2. Make a rule that all units in your army MUST belong to a formation.
The only way this could work is with so many formations (and many of which would be single unit type formations for the player's sake) that it'd be a nightmare to design, balance, and have the players sift through. The issue becomes that balancing becomes even harder than it currently is. You were arguing earlier that more variety = less balance, well in this case, you're adding a larger variety of rules to the game. If every unit has their own rules, and then when those units are put in a formation that require more rules, which can then belong in a larger super formation with more rules, you've essentially tripled your balancing workload. Not only does every unit still theoretically have to be balanced in the traditional way before formations, you also have to balance them within the formation they're a part of, against the formations within the same book to not invalidate anything, and then externally among all the other codices.
On top of that, its also limiting options for the player. If my building blocks become larger and have prescribed units, I'm going to be more frustrated trying to make army lists at smaller point levels and trying to get my theme just right. Its also annoying in that it essentially forces units I may not like if they happen to be bundled with a unit I do like. Further, it may run counter to the fluff my force has.
One of the big selling points of 40k is its near unlimited options and fluff, allowing you to build an army for just about any type of force your heart desires. That's achieved by letting players pick exactly which units they want in exactly the quantity they want with the specific wargear they want. Forcing them to take X amount of Y doesn't fix anything, it just frustrates some players without providing any real benefits by excluding the classic CAD.
3. Make relatively expensive "core" components for all formations (like the Decurion and GSF).
In the current system, sure, if some armies have them, every army should have them. Personally, I'd go the opposite and get rid of all them, but I imagine that's pretty clear from where I stand. I still see the merits of at least offering the super formation to everyone.
4. Make a rule so that you can't have more than one of the same component (apart from the core) of a formation in that formation.
[You want an extra 1st company? Ok. Then you'd better bring another demi-company to go with it.]
Why? This limits player options. If I want to field a 1st company task force deep behind enemy lines, I only want 1st company. If I'm playing a ~2000pts game with my Salamander Firedrakes, I want to represent that the chapter has committed a large portion of its most precious resources to secure whatever relic we're fighting for. Don't force a demi-company where it doesn't make sense in my army's fluff.
In other words, don't force things on players. Let them be creative and have more options. This is a selling point of 40k.
5. Make a rule that if any component other than the core of a formation is fielded in a formation, the core of that formation must be fielded as well as well (no librarius conclaves without a demi-company).
You're limiting player options in an attempt to limit powerful options by making them take more stuff they don't want to. This doesn't help anyone. Fix the core issue, not the symptom. If the conclave is too powerful, you fix the conclave. You don't just add a tax people may not want.
6. For all codices, grant totally awesome bonuses if at least two of the core of a formation are taken (think how two demi-companies become a battle company with free rhinos), but which the army forfeits if they don't [no free rhinos for one demicompany and a bunch of cool toys].
All of a sudden, a whole lot of shenanigans just got shut down, didn't they?
Disagree. This only aggravates power creep, pushes the game to higher point levels, makes the barrier to entry higher for any sort of competitive gaming (being more expensive, especially with free transports) and again limits list building.
I thought you were all about variety? If so, you should be supporting the traditional CAD. If every army had a huge awesome buff for bringing two of their large formations (GSF), then we'd be seeing nothing but lists built around those formations. Every army would only be different in a handful of minor changes in wargear and whatever auxiliary formation they could squeeze in.
No, the current solutions, as far as I'm concerned are either to keep the nonsense we have but make the CAD more appealing (and nerf some of the overperforming formations), or just nuke formations altogether. Nobody in 5th was clamoring for free transports if they took a battle company, nor were Necrons out on their luck because they didn't have a +1RP bonus for taking a specific set of units. Maybe its my rose tinted glasses, but I can't help but think that 5th was a much better game without all this formation nonsense handing out free stuff everywhere. Wargear and units have points costs for a reason; it stands to reason a formation offering those things would come with a relatively close pricetag. Likewise, adding buffs like +1RP or +1BS to a bunch of units also costs points. Harder to determine certainly, but something you'd test out.
Point is, formations only add complexity to a game overburdened by it. Formations don't add any additional fluffiness as the CAD covered that perfectly well. If anything, formations limit fluff options if the CAD didn't exist as a fallback. Formations as they currently stand add another layer of poor balance and bad design to a game riddled with them, and even in a perfect world where they were all balanced, it would take significantly more effort to get there than without them.
I don't see the advantage to formations as a player. As a company, GW is laughing all the way to the bank by making you buy 6 sentinels to make them workable through a series of free buffs, instead of just fixing the sentinel so I could field the 1-3 I actually want.
Arguably the last remaining bastion of anything worthwhile about 40K is the depth of background and the supporting depth of models that allows the player/collector to express themselves in a way that not many of the other systems do, if only because they're further behind in the development curve. Painting and modeling is certainly the only thing that's keeping me in touch with the game right now.
So the answer to balancing 40K is to essentially remove that (arguably) last positive element?
Emphatically not.
If GW are going to start prescribing what models I have to buy and paint in order to put an army on the table and play the game, then they can feth off.
Put an effort into making the two fundamental play styles (assault and shooting) on par with each other, at least give making most units viable a college try and give up on giving long lists of options which either are essentially redundant or so efficient they're an auto take.
Of course, all this would be much easier if the design studio weren't either afraid or banned from using negatives to balance out positives. I suspect they think drawbacks will frighten off all the Little Timmys, but they're key to offering a good, balanced ruleset.
Perhaps if GW plc sales department allowed the devs to let the F.O.C work how it should.
Maybe balance would not be as bad as it currently is?
And if GW plc sales department let the game devs re-write the rules for 40k focused on the new battle game size, scale and scope.
They could cover more with the core rules, use less special rules and find the whole game easier to balance.
Tactical Marines are garbage, simply put. In a CAD I'm only ever taking Scouts or Bikers. When they end up with a free transport though, it helps with one issue (cost), and they still gain the benefit of OS.
What exactly is the middle ground here? There isn't really one. You could always go back to the core codex and fix some issues (I'm very vocal on that allowing two Specials in a Tactical Squad instead of a Special and Heavy would fix many issues), but I'd still have little reason to take specific units over other ones.
7.5 codices are fine against each other, and when the other codices catch up everything will be fine. The question, though, is if that's really the way we want it to be balanced. I'm fine with it as I have no say in regards of how to balance units against units, but if I had a say we would balance everything according to a CAD and then work on formations.
Tactical Marines are garbage, simply put. In a CAD I'm only ever taking Scouts or Bikers. When they end up with a free transport though, it helps with one issue (cost), and they still gain the benefit of OS.
This is an odd position to take, as you're comparing something in the current environment to a theoretical environment that doesn't exist (the one where GW are trying to make everything in game work in a given role.)
Currently, Tac Marines are only garbage because of relativism. They're not an inherently bad unit, they're not bad against most other comparable units in most other Codexes. The issue is they're bad because of all the special snowflake units people are free to deploy in their lists that are just better.
Troops in general need to be more prominent, IMO, and I think there needs to be a drawback for using non-troop choices in that role. For instance, no OS. This would need to be balanced with making objective based play one of most viable routes to victory. If SM biker lists were still allowed at an organizational level, but lacked OS, and most, if not all, victory conditions revolved around objectives, then they'd be relying on tabling or other limited scope options to win.
That then begins to level the playing field. You're free to field your tougher, faster, shootier option, but at the end of the day a string of 6s and one Guardsman in a crater on an objective could cost you the game.
Scouts are probably best as an alternative troops choice to Tac Squads, but if an environment is created where troops become more intrinsically important to victory, the reduced durability may force a player to consider selecting Tac Squads as a means of keeping game winning units around for longer, or perhaps Scouts as troops means your army is a vanguard and has an impact on what other choices you can take?
Equally, a greater number of squishier bodies could be a valid choice, but it needs to be a choice not a mathematical no-brainer.
But trying to fix one thing in isolation would be a fruitless task anyway, a holistic view needs to be taken and nothing matters until player agency is prioritized over random d6 rolls on tables.
1. Remove all formations which allow you to take only 1 unit or model (I include with this the four demon prince formation). [That said, the ability to spam a unit in a formation isn't in and of itself bad. Is anybody really afraid of the 1st company, where you can field 3-5 terminators, sternguard or vanguard veteran units (without free drop pods, may I add)?]
I'd just go ahead and remove all formations. That said, there are plenty of fluff reasons and good army building reasons for single unit formations to exist. With the current state of the game, I'd leave them, as it makes sense for someone doing the 1st company for their Salamanders to field nothing but terminators for their firedrake cadre.
2. Make a rule that all units in your army MUST belong to a formation.
The only way this could work is with so many formations (and many of which would be single unit type formations for the player's sake) that it'd be a nightmare to design, balance, and have the players sift through. The issue becomes that balancing becomes even harder than it currently is. You were arguing earlier that more variety = less balance, well in this case, you're adding a larger variety of rules to the game. If every unit has their own rules, and then when those units are put in a formation that require more rules, which can then belong in a larger super formation with more rules, you've essentially tripled your balancing workload. Not only does every unit still theoretically have to be balanced in the traditional way before formations, you also have to balance them within the formation they're a part of, against the formations within the same book to not invalidate anything, and then externally among all the other codices.
On top of that, its also limiting options for the player. If my building blocks become larger and have prescribed units, I'm going to be more frustrated trying to make army lists at smaller point levels and trying to get my theme just right. Its also annoying in that it essentially forces units I may not like if they happen to be bundled with a unit I do like. Further, it may run counter to the fluff my force has.
One of the big selling points of 40k is its near unlimited options and fluff, allowing you to build an army for just about any type of force your heart desires. That's achieved by letting players pick exactly which units they want in exactly the quantity they want with the specific wargear they want. Forcing them to take X amount of Y doesn't fix anything, it just frustrates some players without providing any real benefits by excluding the classic CAD.
3. Make relatively expensive "core" components for all formations (like the Decurion and GSF).
In the current system, sure, if some armies have them, every army should have them. Personally, I'd go the opposite and get rid of all them, but I imagine that's pretty clear from where I stand. I still see the merits of at least offering the super formation to everyone.
4. Make a rule so that you can't have more than one of the same component (apart from the core) of a formation in that formation.
[You want an extra 1st company? Ok. Then you'd better bring another demi-company to go with it.]
Why? This limits player options. If I want to field a 1st company task force deep behind enemy lines, I only want 1st company. If I'm playing a ~2000pts game with my Salamander Firedrakes, I want to represent that the chapter has committed a large portion of its most precious resources to secure whatever relic we're fighting for. Don't force a demi-company where it doesn't make sense in my army's fluff.
In other words, don't force things on players. Let them be creative and have more options. This is a selling point of 40k.
5. Make a rule that if any component other than the core of a formation is fielded in a formation, the core of that formation must be fielded as well as well (no librarius conclaves without a demi-company).
You're limiting player options in an attempt to limit powerful options by making them take more stuff they don't want to. This doesn't help anyone. Fix the core issue, not the symptom. If the conclave is too powerful, you fix the conclave. You don't just add a tax people may not want.
6. For all codices, grant totally awesome bonuses if at least two of the core of a formation are taken (think how two demi-companies become a battle company with free rhinos), but which the army forfeits if they don't [no free rhinos for one demicompany and a bunch of cool toys].
All of a sudden, a whole lot of shenanigans just got shut down, didn't they?
Disagree. This only aggravates power creep, pushes the game to higher point levels, makes the barrier to entry higher for any sort of competitive gaming (being more expensive, especially with free transports) and again limits list building.
I thought you were all about variety? If so, you should be supporting the traditional CAD. If every army had a huge awesome buff for bringing two of their large formations (GSF), then we'd be seeing nothing but lists built around those formations. Every army would only be different in a handful of minor changes in wargear and whatever auxiliary formation they could squeeze in.
No, the current solutions, as far as I'm concerned are either to keep the nonsense we have but make the CAD more appealing (and nerf some of the overperforming formations), or just nuke formations altogether. Nobody in 5th was clamoring for free transports if they took a battle company, nor were Necrons out on their luck because they didn't have a +1RP bonus for taking a specific set of units. Maybe its my rose tinted glasses, but I can't help but think that 5th was a much better game without all this formation nonsense handing out free stuff everywhere. Wargear and units have points costs for a reason; it stands to reason a formation offering those things would come with a relatively close pricetag. Likewise, adding buffs like +1RP or +1BS to a bunch of units also costs points. Harder to determine certainly, but something you'd test out.
Point is, formations only add complexity to a game overburdened by it. Formations don't add any additional fluffiness as the CAD covered that perfectly well. If anything, formations limit fluff options if the CAD didn't exist as a fallback. Formations as they currently stand add another layer of poor balance and bad design to a game riddled with them, and even in a perfect world where they were all balanced, it would take significantly more effort to get there than without them.
I don't see the advantage to formations as a player. As a company, GW is laughing all the way to the bank by making you buy 6 sentinels to make them workable through a series of free buffs, instead of just fixing the sentinel so I could field the 1-3 I actually want.
oldzoggy wrote: Modern formations are the worst thing for balance that has ever happened.They give free bonuses making the models in the formation too cheap or the same models outside the formation too expensive. This is really bad.
Formations should cost points for the bonuses they give, and they NEVER should give you free units or upgrades.
If thatt were the case every one would just run CAD's unless there is a formation that lets you spam something OP.
I think that everyone here agrees that our game is currently "Unbalanced" and everyone wants to find a way to do this. However, and this is just my two cents, we are over thinking it. In any game a level of unbalance will exist, either by mistake, design or poor quality control. In the case of GW I personally believe that the old adage "Don't attribute to malice that which can be easily explained by stupidity" is true. GW didn't intentionally unbalance the game with the recent Eldar, Tau, SM, Necron and DA codexs. They just didn't bother to play test them enough to realize that other codexs like DE, IG, Orks, Chaos don't have any sort of chance against these on average.
Basically the way to balance the game is to try and get GW to balance the codexs BEFORE they get released. Honestly the best way to do this would be to release ALL codexs at the same time, and then make amendments with that long forgotten FAQ website for any problems that arise.
Formations are inherently unbalanced, because at the moment they aren't equal. If you really believe they are balanced then you may take my Orkurion or my friends IG Decurion and I will play your Eldar Warhost (not sure what it is called) Necron Decurion, SM battle Company/Demi Company and so on.
I think formations add flavor to the game and should be allowed, however at this point in the game they are ruining it. Some codex's get powerful formations with bonuses (SM getting FREE Razorbacks/droppods/Rhinos.) while other formations get nerfs (My Orks getting an even worse version of Mob Rule) so again, it becomes a balance issue and I just don't believe GW did it on purpose, I just believe they have sub-par rules writers.
Tactical Marines are garbage, simply put. In a CAD I'm only ever taking Scouts or Bikers. When they end up with a free transport though, it helps with one issue (cost), and they still gain the benefit of OS.
This is an odd position to take, as you're comparing something in the current environment to a theoretical environment that doesn't exist (the one where GW are trying to make everything in game work in a given role.)
Currently, Tac Marines are only garbage because of relativism. They're not an inherently bad unit, they're not bad against most other comparable units in most other Codexes. The issue is they're bad because of all the special snowflake units people are free to deploy in their lists that are just better.
Troops in general need to be more prominent, IMO, and I think there needs to be a drawback for using non-troop choices in that role. For instance, no OS. This would need to be balanced with making objective based play one of most viable routes to victory. If SM biker lists were still allowed at an organizational level, but lacked OS, and most, if not all, victory conditions revolved around objectives, then they'd be relying on tabling or other limited scope options to win.
That then begins to level the playing field. You're free to field your tougher, faster, shootier option, but at the end of the day a string of 6s and one Guardsman in a crater on an objective could cost you the game.
Scouts are probably best as an alternative troops choice to Tac Squads, but if an environment is created where troops become more intrinsically important to victory, the reduced durability may force a player to consider selecting Tac Squads as a means of keeping game winning units around for longer, or perhaps Scouts as troops means your army is a vanguard and has an impact on what other choices you can take?
Equally, a greater number of squishier bodies could be a valid choice, but it needs to be a choice not a mathematical no-brainer.
But trying to fix one thing in isolation would be a fruitless task anyway, a holistic view needs to be taken and nothing matters until player agency is prioritized over random d6 rolls on tables.
They are bad because they are terrible at everything they try to do. And they pay a fair number of points to be good at absolutely nothing.
Eh, I think if the game were refocused onto a smaller scale, they'd be just fine. When compared with most other basic troops, they have enough flexibility and hitting power to function well as generalists, and, in the context of troop vs troop combat, generally fare rather well and have a grip of tricks to use.
The problem is that when games are played with superheavies, troop units that can toss out 40 S6 shots across the board, CC units like TWC's and Wraiths that no basic troops can function against, formations that allow absurd abilities, and the like increasingly make classic troops rather pointless, be they Space Marines, Guardsmen, Foot Guardians, Ork Boyz, DE Warriors, etc except in cases where they get ridiculous abilities and formation bonuses (e.g. Decurion Warriors)
If you think wraithknights are scary you need to re-evaluate how you are playing the game and building armies because honestly they are nothing but point sinks that punish bad players. They slay noobs, are bullet magnets against medium generals and suck against anyone that knows how to deal with them. Every time I see them I just think "thanks for putting 20% of your army in one spot."
I'll give you guys a hint on how to play the game these days.
1) Have the ability to kill 1 or more wraithknights or imperial knights a turn. Half my armies can kill 3 of either in one turn.
2) Counter, contain or avoid invisibility/ 2++ rerolls. Not hard
3) Bring ignore cover
4) Rapid objective taking
Seriously, if you can do these things you're fine. Now shut your pie holes, quit your belly aching, fix your busted ass dented in armies and turn down the god damn suck.
Tactical Marines are garbage, simply put. In a CAD I'm only ever taking Scouts or Bikers. When they end up with a free transport though, it helps with one issue (cost), and they still gain the benefit of OS.
This is an odd position to take, as you're comparing something in the current environment to a theoretical environment that doesn't exist (the one where GW are trying to make everything in game work in a given role.)
Currently, Tac Marines are only garbage because of relativism. They're not an inherently bad unit, they're not bad against most other comparable units in most other Codexes. The issue is they're bad because of all the special snowflake units people are free to deploy in their lists that are just better.
Troops in general need to be more prominent, IMO, and I think there needs to be a drawback for using non-troop choices in that role. For instance, no OS. This would need to be balanced with making objective based play one of most viable routes to victory. If SM biker lists were still allowed at an organizational level, but lacked OS, and most, if not all, victory conditions revolved around objectives, then they'd be relying on tabling or other limited scope options to win.
That then begins to level the playing field. You're free to field your tougher, faster, shootier option, but at the end of the day a string of 6s and one Guardsman in a crater on an objective could cost you the game.
Scouts are probably best as an alternative troops choice to Tac Squads, but if an environment is created where troops become more intrinsically important to victory, the reduced durability may force a player to consider selecting Tac Squads as a means of keeping game winning units around for longer, or perhaps Scouts as troops means your army is a vanguard and has an impact on what other choices you can take?
Equally, a greater number of squishier bodies could be a valid choice, but it needs to be a choice not a mathematical no-brainer.
But trying to fix one thing in isolation would be a fruitless task anyway, a holistic view needs to be taken and nothing matters until player agency is prioritized over random d6 rolls on tables.
They are bad because they are terrible at everything they try to do. And they pay a fair number of points to be good at absolutely nothing.
Again, discussing actual Tac Squads in the context of the hypothetical version of the game where an effort had been made to make as many units and unit types worth taking as possible is a total waste of time.
If you think wraithknights are scary you need to re-evaluate how you are playing the game and building armies because honestly they are nothing but point sinks that punish bad players. They slay noobs, are bullet magnets against medium generals and suck against anyone that knows how to deal with them. Every time I see them I just think "thanks for putting 20% of your army in one spot."
The spot that has stellar speed, solid resiliency, hits like a truck in CC and is able to engage multiple different targets with D weapons from across the board?
I'll give you guys a hint on how to play the game these days.
1) Have the ability to kill 1 or more wraithknights or imperial knights a turn. Half my armies can kill 3 of either in one turn.
Yeah, if it's another Eldar army probably. For many/most other armies, being able to kill 3 Wraithknights a turn at range is simply not possible. If we're talking something like Lascannons, you're gonna need 20/21 BS4 Lascannons to kill a single Wraithknight on average (assuming no cover/invul). That's generally more than the typical firepower output of an entire Imperial gunline army doing nothing but shooting at one target and hoping they all have LoS/Range/No cover, etc.
Space Marines can make do with drop pod grav spam, but that requires being close, and is largely delivered through expensive means and that often are destroyed themselves quickly after.
Maybe if the WK has gotten in amongst your lines you could bring more things like plasma guns and the like to bear easier, but at that point either the Eldar player has made a mistake in not keeping to longer range, or they've already broken your line.
2) Counter, contain or avoid invisibility/ 2++ rerolls. Not hard
Not every army has access to that (or if they do, not all can utilize it effectively), nor do they usually have an adequate counter. There's a reason that armies that can bring it win tournaments and why it often gets explicitly nerfed.
3) Bring ignore cover
Most Ignores cover weapons can't harm a wraithknight, and of those that can, they're either very rare and limited in quantity or their functionality is highly unreliable (e.g. IG lascannons with orders).
4) Rapid objective taking
Again, not spectacularly easy with many armies, especially if they also want to do some or all of the above. Some armies, like Eldar, can do all of the above at the same time. Others can't really do any of them.
Seriously, if you can do these things you're fine. Now shut your pie holes, quit your belly aching, fix your busted ass dented in armies and turn down the god damn suck.
So, in other words, this applies only if you're playing Eldar vs Eldar.
This smacks a lot of "my broken toy is just fine, L2P".
If you think wraithknights are scary you need to re-evaluate how you are playing the game and building armies because honestly they are nothing but point sinks that punish bad players. They slay noobs, are bullet magnets against medium generals and suck against anyone that knows how to deal with them. Every time I see them I just think "thanks for putting 20% of your army in one spot."
The spot that has stellar speed, solid resiliency, hits like a truck in CC and is able to engage multiple different targets with D weapons from across the board?
I'll give you guys a hint on how to play the game these days.
1) Have the ability to kill 1 or more wraithknights or imperial knights a turn. Half my armies can kill 3 of either in one turn.
Yeah, if it's another Eldar army probably. For many/most other armies, being able to kill 3 Wraithknights a turn at range is simply not possible. If we're talking something like Lascannons, you're gonna need 20/21 BS4 Lascannons to kill a single Wraithknight on average (assuming no cover/invul). That's generally more than the typical firepower output of an entire Imperial gunline army doing nothing but shooting at one target and hoping they all have LoS/Range/No cover, etc.
Space Marines can make do with drop pod grav spam, but that requires being close, and is largely delivered through expensive means and that often are destroyed themselves quickly after.
Maybe if the WK has gotten in amongst your lines you could bring more things like plasma guns and the like to bear easier, but at that point either the Eldar player has made a mistake in not keeping to longer range, or they've already broken your line.
2) Counter, contain or avoid invisibility/ 2++ rerolls. Not hard
Not every army has access to that (or if they do, not all can utilize it effectively), nor do they usually have an adequate counter. There's a reason that armies that can bring it win tournaments and why it often gets explicitly nerfed.
3) Bring ignore cover
Most Ignores cover weapons can't harm a wraithknight, and of those that can, they're either very rare and limited in quantity or their functionality is highly unreliable (e.g. IG lascannons with orders).
4) Rapid objective taking
Again, not spectacularly easy with many armies, especially if they also want to do some or all of the above. Some armies, like Eldar, can do all of the above at the same time. Others can't really do any of them.
Seriously, if you can do these things you're fine. Now shut your pie holes, quit your belly aching, fix your busted ass dented in armies and turn down the god damn suck.
So, in other words, this applies only if you're playing Eldar vs Eldar.
This smacks a lot of "my broken toy is just fine, L2P".
If you think wraithknights are scary you need to re-evaluate how you are playing the game and building armies because honestly they are nothing but point sinks that punish bad players. They slay noobs, are bullet magnets against medium generals and suck against anyone that knows how to deal with them. Every time I see them I just think "thanks for putting 20% of your army in one spot."
I'll give you guys a hint on how to play the game these days.
1) Have the ability to kill 1 or more wraithknights or imperial knights a turn. Half my armies can kill 3 of either in one turn.
2) Counter, contain or avoid invisibility/ 2++ rerolls. Not hard
3) Bring ignore cover
4) Rapid objective taking
Seriously, if you can do these things you're fine. Now shut your pie holes, quit your belly aching, fix your busted ass dented in armies and turn down the god damn suck.
I don't want to sound rude so please don't take this as me attacking you, with that said I really dislike comments like yours. It is not constructive and smacks of "Learn to Play", or "Learn to pay to play".
1: Nothing in my Ork codex can go toe to toe with a wraithknight and there is very little I can do to remove a Knight (Eldar or Imperial) in a single turn, even focus firing at it.
T8 means I have literally nothing in the ranged arsenal that can hurt this except Lootas which wound on 5s and maybe Tank Bustas which wound on a 4. Of course for my tank bustas to actually hit this thing they have to get within 24inches of it. 10 Tank Bustas are 130pts, put them in a trukk and its 160pts thats roughly 3 hits and 1-2 wounds, Of course the wraithknight gets either cover, invul and will get his 5+ FNP. So realistically if its positioned with its big toe in cover I have a 50/50 of inflicting 1 wound on this thing with a full unit of Tank Bustas. Lootas on the other hand, a unit of 15 = 30 shots on average, 10 hits on average and 3 wounds. Against its 3+ 5+ this works out to about 1 wound, and those 15 lootas cost 210 points. So according to you, I have to spend all my shooting phase from everything I have available to possibly inflict 3-4 wounds on this 6wound monster. So your 1st advice is useless, if you want to talk about CC? then I have to close the distance while getting blown off the board by the rest of the Eldar army and on average I need about 5-6 PK wielding nobs to kill this thing in 1 turn. 8 Nobz on the charge with Powerklaws will lose 2 instantly to the Wraithknights attacks before they get to swing. Bringing them down to 6 Nobz/PK that equals 24 attacks on the charge, 12 hits, 6-7 wounds, Of which the Wraithknight will save 1-2 with its 5+ FNP or possibly invul if it has one. If they don't manage this then they die instantly to the Stomps that happen afterwards, GG. Ohh and btw 8 MA Nob (Cheaper then regular Nobz with PKs) cost 320pts, or another way to look at that, MORE then the Wraithknight. So #1 is useless advice, unless you can tell me how to kill a Wraithknight on turn 1 with the Ork Codex.
2: I can't counter, I can't contain (except maybe by throwing boyz at it for a few turns) and I certainly can't avoid (Orks are a reasonably fast codex, but most good options are slow, with the exception of bikes)
3: The only Ignore cover in my entire codex is Burnas and Skorchas. I can bring these, but unfortunately there are no good platforms for them. As far as ranged Ignores cover? Orks don't have any besides the Burna Bomber, which is considered by most to be the worst Ork Flyer.
4: The one thing Orks can do, and are good at. I can transport hordes of orks onto objectives and I can take them quickly by bikes.
- You can't kill a Wraithknight per turn? L2P(lay) noob!
- Well I really can't. Would you mind telling me how my CSM can deal with a Wraithknight?
- Eeeeeeeeerm you did it wrong when choosing your army! L2P(ay) noob!
SemperMortis wrote:Formations are inherently unbalanced, because at the moment they aren't equal.
This is just a bad argument.
"Apple pies are inherently gross: at the moment, everyone uses nutmeg, and I don't like nutmeg."
To which I'd answer: "But if they didn't have nutmeg, you wouldn't find apple pies gross. Apple pies aren't inherently gross; you just don't like nutmeg."
At the moment, formations aren't equal. But there's no inherent imbalance to formations as such.
It's basically what I said earlier: formations in principle, i.e., as an idea are extremely good for this game; that said, as to be expected with GW, the execution has been gak.
At the moment, formations aren't equal. But there's no inherent imbalance to formations as such.
Free bonuses for no points cost is inherent unbalanced. Full stop. Fundamentally, that's where the problem lies when points values are used as the balancing mechanism for army construction.
My apologies for not answering this earlier! It's just that this deserves a relatively extended treatment, and I've been putting it off until I was "up to" giving these points the treatment that they really do deserve.
BlackSails wrote:]The only way this could work is with so many formations (and many of which would be single unit type formations for the player's sake) that it'd be a nightmare to design, balance, and have the players sift through.
I disagree with this. You are operating under the assumption that "use whatever you want" is an inherent good that GW should keep. If we abandon this assumption, the vast plurality of formations that you are demanding cease to be a requirement.
I do wish to concede a point to Experiment 626, i.e., that I may have been hasty in demanding the removal of single model formations. In point of fact, I actually use one (I use the Reclusiam Command Squad to field Pedro Kantor...either by himself or with an honor guard unit).
That said, I still say that these things should be the exception, not the rule (to accommodate HQ choices and other unique models, either with or without their retinues).
At any rate, once again, I wish to hold up the Gladius Strike Force as something that I think that GW has done relatively well, although there were obvious problems in executing it. If you field a GSF, you have plenty of options.
The issue becomes that balancing becomes even harder than it currently is. You were arguing earlier that more variety = less balance, well in this case, you're adding a larger variety of rules to the game. If every unit has their own rules, and then when those units are put in a formation that require more rules, which can then belong in a larger super formation with more rules, you've essentially tripled your balancing workload. Not only does every unit still theoretically have to be balanced in the traditional way before formations, you also have to balance them within the formation they're a part of, against the formations within the same book to not invalidate anything, and then externally among all the other codices.
The formation combinations do add rules that have to be balanced against each other, but it still reduces the overall range of possibilities that have to be balanced against each other.
Running an army of just devastator marines is a possibility if formations aren't required (if you are willing to go unbound). With formations, it isn't.
On top of that, its also limiting options for the player.
I wish to note two things:
1. You've just contradicted your previous assertion. You cannot in the same breath maintain that it increases the range of possibilities for balancing purposes, but nonetheless insist that it reduces options for the player.
2. I don't think that this is problematic. Even without formations, the actual range of possibilities for a viable build are often limited anyway. Consider Tyrranids. When's the last time you played against a Tyrranids list without a flyrant (at least, a game in which the Tyrranids player wasn't completely smashed off the table)?
In point of fact, enforcing formations might actually increase the number of viable options for any given codex, presupposing appropriate balancing of those formations.
Even more so for the following reason: If playing against an army of just wraithknights or flyrants isn't a possibility, then I am more "free" in my own army construction. Yes, absolutely speaking, I have fewer options to choose from. But more of those options are actually viable.
If my building blocks become larger and have prescribed units, I'm going to be more frustrated trying to make army lists at smaller point levels and trying to get my theme just right. Its also annoying in that it essentially forces units I may not like if they happen to be bundled with a unit I do like. Further, it may run counter to the fluff my force has.
Two points:
1. Again, if you consider the GSF, there's sufficient variety even within the formations. You don't want to take assault marines? You can take bikes. You don't want to take bikes? Then you can take a land-speeder.
2. You opted to buy the codex that you bought. If you wanted to play Codex: Space Marines, then you should be pretty darned excited about running tactical marines, devastators (or equivalents) and assault marines (or equivalents).
If you wanted to play an army which is very different from the prescribed fluffy formation, then why are you playing that codex?
One of the big selling points of 40k is its near unlimited options and fluff, allowing you to build an army for just about any type of force your heart desires. That's achieved by letting players pick exactly which units they want in exactly the quantity they want with the specific wargear they want. Forcing them to take X amount of Y doesn't fix anything, it just frustrates some players without providing any real benefits by excluding the classic CAD.
There's already player frustration. Just like in D&D and Pathfinder, there's a conflict between min-maxers and the more "story" influenced players. Yes, in 40k, a major selling point is that you can take whatever you want. In point of fact, you cannot take whatever you want and have an actual chance of winning a game.
At any rate, again, I don't see the "take WHATEVER you want" aspect of the game as an untouchable golden calf. If you are playing with the Codex: Space Marines, then your army should play like a space marines army. Yes, fluff-wise, there are variations of how that works out.
But you should have to play one of those variations.
]Why?
It prevents spam.
This limits player options.
I'm cool with that.
You're limiting player options in an attempt to limit powerful options by making them take more stuff they don't want to. This doesn't help anyone. Fix the core issue, not the symptom. If the conclave is too powerful, you fix the conclave. You don't just add a tax people may not want.
I think that both are necessary. Even if Wraithknights were balanced points and ruleswise, they would still be inherently unbalanced against certain kinds of armies (e.g., an army of sternguard without upgrades).
Disagree. This only aggravates power creep, pushes the game to higher point levels, makes the barrier to entry higher for any sort of competitive gaming (being more expensive, especially with free transports) and again limits list building.
2 points:
1. A demi-company without upgrades is only 440 points. Upgrade your devastators to have missile launchers, and you've got yourself a 500 points game.
2. I fail to see any significant sense in which it aggravates power creep. Yes, it buffs basic troops. But it seriously limits spammable "win buttons."
I thought you were all about variety?
I'm in favor of constrainted variety.
Besides, there's already variety. There's more than one codex.
At the moment, formations aren't equal. But there's no inherent imbalance to formations as such.
Free bonuses for no points cost is inherent unbalanced. Full stop. Fundamentally, that's where the problem lies when points values are used as the balancing mechanism for army construction.
I've already addressed that. It's not.
If my formation gives me 200 points worth of free units, upgrades, rules, etc., and your formation gives you 200 points worth of free units, upgrades, rules, etc., there's no imbalance.
If my formation gives me 200 points worth of free units, upgrades, rules, etc., and your formation gives you 200 points worth of free units, upgrades, rules, etc., there's no imbalance.
In a perfect universe, maybe, but that also varies wildly by points level, bonus specifications, what free units get chosen (e.g. free razorbacks are worth more than free rhinos), and the fact that detachment numbers are unlimited (I take 3 detachments and get 600pts of free stuff to your 200pts), and that some formations (e.g. Decurion style ones) stack capabilities with their constituent formations.
There fundamentally really is no way to balance this.
Vaktathi wrote:In a perfect universe, maybe, but that also varies wildly by points level, bonus specifications, what free units get chosen (e.g. free razorbacks are worth more than free rhinos), and the fact that detachment numbers are unlimited (I take 3 detachments and get 600pts of free stuff to your 200pts), and that some formations (e.g. Decurion style ones) stack capabilities with their constituent formations.
There fundamentally really is no way to balance this.
I agree with you in this respect: the actual execution of formations has not been good or balanced. There are, in fact, wild imbalances. Free razorbacks should not be a thing for 5 man tactical squads. [I don't, however, see free rhinos as inherently game breaking.]
That said, I simply need to ask the question: is it possible to make it balanced?
You say "no." I say "yes."
You complain about the worth of the bonus? I say that all formations should have roughly equal bonuses.
You complain about the ability to take unlimited detachments? I say make formations mandatory.
Then the number of detachments would be irrelevant. You are running 4 detachments? Then you enjoy that army full of basic core infantry.
Have you read my previous posts in this thread? Blacksails and Experiment626 responded to a posting of mine (disagreeing with it, of course).
But I don't think that you can deny that it would increase balance.
SemperMortis wrote:Formations are inherently unbalanced, because at the moment they aren't equal.
This is just a bad argument.
"Apple pies are inherently gross: at the moment, everyone uses nutmeg, and I don't like nutmeg."
To which I'd answer: "But if they didn't have nutmeg, you wouldn't find apple pies gross. Apple pies aren't inherently gross; you just don't like nutmeg."
At the moment, formations aren't equal. But there's no inherent imbalance to formations as such.
It's basically what I said earlier: formations in principle, i.e., as an idea are extremely good for this game; that said, as to be expected with GW, the execution has been gak.
That is a horrible argument. Apple pies are delicious no matter what, how dare you insult apple pies, there is a special circle of hell reserved for people who don't like apple pie.
And serious. Formations are AS BALANCED as the current codex system. So by saying "As an idea are extremely good for this game" you could also say that the points based system and Codex system is the exact same. At the moment the formations add MORE to unbalancing the game and do nothing to take away from it. The BEST formations at the moment are the Eldar Warhost, the Necron Decurion, the SM Gladius and the Tau formations that allow you to bring multiple riptides and other MC GMCs.
So what GW did was take the TOP tier armies and give them even more power by giving them hugely beneficial formations. The bottom Tier armies, Orks, IG, BA were given formations, some are fun to play but none are even remotely on the same level as those given to the top tier codexs. This is because of two things, 1: The Top tier codexs are just better and 2: The top tier formations give actual benefits the bottom tier ones don't really give bonuses.
At the moment, the Orkurion formation gives 1 BIG bonus and that is fearless to all units. However to gain that bonus you have to pay about 800-1000 pts depending on how you optimize the Council of Waaagh formation that has to be taken as a core. So in smaller 1k games all the way to 1500 and maybe even 1850 your gimping your army because you have so much invested in a single unit. This would be ok if the formation gave other bonuses to other units and auxillaries, but it doesn't. So you get a deathstar that only has 1 model with an Invul save and then you have anywhere between 500-700 points left over for the rest of your army, in a 1,500pt game.
My point is that Formations don't balance the game anymore then codex's do. What needs to happen is for GW to stop being lazy, take a few weeks/months to play test, god forbid they utilize there rabid fan base for help, and to come out with some codex's that aren't inherently unbalanced against one another.
Vaktathi wrote:In a perfect universe, maybe, but that also varies wildly by points level, bonus specifications, what free units get chosen (e.g. free razorbacks are worth more than free rhinos), and the fact that detachment numbers are unlimited (I take 3 detachments and get 600pts of free stuff to your 200pts), and that some formations (e.g. Decurion style ones) stack capabilities with their constituent formations.
There fundamentally really is no way to balance this.
I agree with you in this respect: the actual execution of formations has not been good or balanced. There are, in fact, wild imbalances. Free razorbacks should not be a thing for 5 man tactical squads.
That said, I simply need to ask the question: is it possible to make it balanced?
You'd basically have to take it on a list by list basis, which is the problem.
You say "no." I say "yes."
Well lets look at the details then.
You complain about the worth of the bonus? I say that all formations should have roughly equal bonuses.
How do you define this? Free transports at 500pts is very different than free transports at 2000pts. Free special weapons is one thing if everyone is taking flamers, it's another if everyone is taking Plasma Fusil's.
You complain about the ability to take unlimited detachments? I say make formations mandatory.
How many? Do they all have the same bonuses? Do they vary by points level? If I take 3 and my opponent takes 1 then I've got 600pts of free stuff to their 200pts.
Then the number of detachments would be irrelevant. You are running 4 detachments? Then you enjoy that army full of basic core infantry.
Are all formations going to consist of core infantry? Because very few currently do. How do you address stacking bonuses? Even if they are all just basic infantry, they've now got a bazillion upgrades and special rules, and your 2000pt army has the numbers of a 2000pt army but the gear of a 2800pt army and your opponent is playing with 2200pts.
Ultimately, if everyone's going to be getting free bonuses like this, why not just get rid of the free bonuses or increase the points level being played at to get the same effect rather than trying to juggle how formations scale and the numbers of detachments and whatnot?
Have you read my previous posts in this thread? Blacksails and Experiment626 responded to a posting of mine (disagreeing with it, of course).
But I don't think that you can deny that it would increase balance.
In light of the above issues, I think we can. They certainly haven't done anything to do so thus far.
Vaktathi wrote: You'd basically have to take it on a list by list basis, which is the problem.
That's true without codices. How do you truly know whether or not a wraithknight is "balanced" against other units?
How do you know whether or not a given psyker ability truly is "balanced" or not?
How do you define this?
If I can take a free rhino at a given points level, and you can take roughly 35 points of free chaos marks/icons, then it's basically balanced (at least pointswise).
Free transports at 500pts is very different than free transports at 2000pts.
You understand that this is a non-issue in the C:SM?
In order to get free transports, I have to run a full battle-company with at least one auxillary. The "free transports" thing doesn't really come into play until roughly 1000 points or more.
If we're playing a 500 points game, and I'm running a demi-company (with my devs upgraded to missile launchers, let's say), the only thing I get is a single use of the tactical doctrine.
Free special weapons is one thing if everyone is taking flamers, it's another if everyone is taking Plasma Fusil's.
Balancing should be based on the best possible upgrade. If I can take either flamers or plasma guns for free, then, for balancing purposes, your formation bonuses should assume I took plasma guns.
Either that, or the possible upgrades within a given formation should be roughly points equivalent. "Take a free flamer or a free plasma gun" shouldn't really be an option, perhaps.
How many? Do they all have the same bonuses? Do they vary by points level? If I take 3 and my opponent takes 1 then I've got 600pts of free stuff to their 200pts...
...
Are all formations going to consist of core infantry? Because very few currently do. How do you address stacking bonuses? Even if they are all just basic infantry, they've now got a bazillion upgrades and special rules, and your 2000pt army has the numbers of a 2000pt army but the gear of a 2800pt army and your opponent is playing with 2200pts.
Again, I'm thinking in terms of the C:SM. Basically, ideally, everything you put in a given detachment should have to be either a demi-company, or else, fall within the Gladius Strike Force formation (or equivalent).
I disagree with this. You are operating under the assumption that "use whatever you want" is an inherent good that GW should keep. If we abandon this assumption, the vast plurality of formations that you are demanding cease to be a requirement.
I do wish to concede a point to Experiment 626, i.e., that I may have been hasty in demanding the removal of single model formations. In point of fact, I actually use one (I use the Reclusiam Command Squad to field Pedro Kantor...either by himself or with an honor guard unit).
That said, I still say that these things should be the exception, not the rule (to accommodate HQ choices and other unique models, either with or without their retinues).
At any rate, once again, I wish to hold up the Gladius Strike Force as something that I think that GW has done relatively well, although there were obvious problems in executing it. If you field a GSF, you have plenty of options.
40k is not a good game. It doesn't do anything particularly well, with one exception. It has the most freedom in list building of almost any game I've played (definitely all the common/popular ones anyways). Outside of that positive, there isn't much 40k does well. When you remove that, you're stuck with a game with is still poorly balanced, has mismatched mechanics, is riddled with errors and vague rules, and incredibly expensive to boot. With the amazing amount of lore we have to work with, it also makes sense to give players as much freedom as can conceivably be written and balanced, which I'd argue the game has in quantity just not in balance quality.
Limiting or restricting that freedom just shuts out one of the only things 40k does with any amount of success.
The formation combinations do add rules that have to be balanced against each other, but it still reduces the overall range of possibilities that have to be balanced against each other.
Running an army of just devastator marines is a possibility if formations aren't required (if you are willing to go unbound). With formations, it isn't.
No it doesn't because the game still operates on a unit by unit basis, which means you're still dealing with units on the table, not formations. Therefore, units are still designed as stand alone elements with their own rules and wargear, and then formations add an additional layer.
Its quite simple really. Take a game with units and no formations, and then a game with units and formations. One has an additional elements to balance and consider. The other does not. Fundamentally, all units have to be useful and therefore balanced among eachother. This holds true whether or not they're in a formation. Adding formation buffs is quite literally an extra layer of complexity that has to be balanced in addition to the units. Remembering as well that the same unit can appear in multiple formations with wildly different functionalities, further complicating the issue.
Also, I think we can all agree that Unbound is a bad joke and not worth the ink or paper its written on.
I wish to note two things:
1. You've just contradicted your previous assertion. You cannot in the same breath maintain that it increases the range of possibilities for balancing purposes, but nonetheless insist that it reduces options for the player.
2. I don't think that this is problematic. Even without formations, the actual range of possibilities for a viable build are often limited anyway. Consider Tyrranids. When's the last time you played against a Tyrranids list without a flyrant (at least, a game in which the Tyrranids player wasn't completely smashed off the table)?
In point of fact, enforcing formations might actually increase the number of viable options for any given codex, presupposing appropriate balancing of those formations.
Even more so for the following reason: If playing against an army of just wraithknights or flyrants isn't a possibility, then I am more "free" in my own army construction. Yes, absolutely speaking, I have fewer options to choose from. But more of those options are actually viable.
As for the first point, there is no contradiction. You're confusing the work of balancing units/formations with the options available to a player. The work involved when dealing with a game that has units as a core with formations as a mandatory minimum building block consisting of units is more than the work involved when dealing with a game that has units and no formations. Both systems have to design, balance, and test the units against one another to ensure they're useful, fill a role, and offer some sort of unique tool to the table. The one with formations then also has to design the formations, balance the buffs, and ensure no one formation is better than the others, either based on a combination of the units within it being too good or bad, or the buffs being out of whack. The system without formations doesn't even have to think about that entire process, only the first process of unit design.
Then, in the game with formations as a minimum building block, players are stuck dealing with bundles of units they may not want. If I want to take a pair of scout squads and nothing more, but a theoretical scout formation would be a minimum of 3 scout squads and a land speeder or a scout bike squad, I'd be annoyed. The system without formations gives the player the freedom to take exactly what they want, nothing more, nothing less.
No contradiction. If you're still confused, I'm happy to elaborate.
As for point two, the issue then is that the units are poorly balanced. Forcing formations doesn't fix anything, especially if you're making the assumption they're balanced. Why not make the same assumption, but without formations? As in, Tyranids could be fixed by simply balancing the units. You know, the easier way than balancing the units, writing formations, and balancing those formations.
Two points:
1. Again, if you consider the GSF, there's sufficient variety even within the formations. You don't want to take assault marines? You can take bikes. You don't want to take bikes? Then you can take a land-speeder.
2. You opted to buy the codex that you bought. If you wanted to play Codex: Space Marines, then you should be pretty darned excited about running tactical marines, devastators (or equivalents) and assault marines (or equivalents).
If you wanted to play an army which is very different from the prescribed fluffy formation, then why are you playing that codex?
The GSF does a few things right in that there's a respectable amount of variety in the choices you get. It was pretty obvious they'd go that way, seeing as the codex astartes lays out exactly how a line company is built with reasonable variations.
However, we have plenty of other super formations that fail spectacularly at either being fluffy or being balanced. We can sit here all day with you saying the solution is to just balance formations, and me saying to balance the units, but we can all agree that even formations are the minimum building block, every unit within a formation needs to be useful and perform their role adequately. With that being established, we can then agree that the solution to balance formations also includes at least some amount of unit balancing, while the unit balancing solution consists exclusively of balancing units.
You also don't seem to grasp just how varied the 40k universe is. Going with the marine example, there are at least dozens of non, partial, and mostly codex compliant chapters that don't quite fit in a GSF. There are plenty of unit combinations or army themes that are perfectly fluffy that can be built using the CAD but not with the existing formations.
If I'm buying a codex its to use it to build my army how I want to, not have someone tell how to build it within a narrow, blinkered vision. Again, one of the only things 40k does well is have as much variety and options as it does to go with the vast amount of fluff. It'd be a shame to ditch that fluff and the options for DIY factions just because it makes more money to sell units exclusively in formation bundles.
There's already player frustration. Just like in D&D and Pathfinder, there's a conflict between min-maxers and the more "story" influenced players. Yes, in 40k, a major selling point is that you can take whatever you want. In point of fact, you cannot take whatever you want and have an actual chance of winning a game.
At any rate, again, I don't see the "take WHATEVER you want" aspect of the game as an untouchable golden calf. If you are playing with the Codex: Space Marines, then your army should play like a space marines army. Yes, fluff-wise, there are variations of how that works out.
But you should have to play one of those variations.
There's going to be conflict, frustrations, whining, bitching, moaning, complaining, criticizing, and also joy, love, and a sense of community in any game. What's your point?
Its becoming very clear your position is to ditch the idea of player options and force bundles on them. Limiting options takes away one of the few things 40k does well.
Remember there are players other than you who play with custom chapters or factions who can use the CAD to make specific armies. And lets make this clear; there is no downside to balancing the units and doing away with formations. Formations are simply band-aids to fix the units within them by tacking on more and more rules to give them the functionality they should have had all along. Remove the formation, pass down the appropriate USR to the unit itself, and now you get the best of both worlds. Let the players figure out the synergy themselves.
It prevents spam.
Why does this matter? Why is spam bad?
Replace spam with redundancy, or synergy, or symmetry and you get a better idea of why having multiples of something is not bad. Its also perfectly (arguably more so) fluffy.
I'm cool with that.
Good for you.
I (and many others) are not.
I think that both are necessary. Even if Wraithknights were balanced points and ruleswise, they would still be inherently unbalanced against certain kinds of armies (e.g., an army of sternguard without upgrades).
By that same logic, a land raider would be inherently unbalanced against anyone who didn't bring a lascannon (or equivalent) or melta gun (or equivalent). Which obviously is not the problem of the unit but with the player not taking into consideration during list building of asking themselves, "how to I deal with high AV vehicles, which are not uncommon".
2 points:
1. A demi-company without upgrades is only 440 points. Upgrade your devastators to have missile launchers, and you've got yourself a 500 points game.
2. I fail to see any significant sense in which it aggravates power creep. Yes, it buffs basic troops. But it seriously limits spammable "win buttons."
The GSF is literally the paragon of spamming win buttons. Between a combination of free drop pods and/or razorbacks, you can flood the table with scoring vehicles, all of which are *gasp* the same.
That 500pts game with free drop pods is roughly equivalent to 200pts of extra stuff, and about ~$250CAD of extra vehicles you wouldn't have in a 500pts game.
I'm in favor of constrainted variety.
Besides, there's already variety. There's more than one codex.
I'm in favour of the current variety we have, balanced, which effectively opens up the variety even more.
Really though, to simplify the whole thing:
Balance the units. Even in a formation system, units still have to balanced. Skipping formations is less work, simpler for all involved, and doesn't constrict player freedom.
Formations are just more work and bad band-aid on the core issue of a flawed game and poorly balanced units. Don't keep adding band-aids to the symptom, cure the problem. Balance the units, fix the core rules, dump formations.
Blacksails wrote:That 500pts game with free drop pods is roughly equivalent to 200pts of extra stuff, and about ~$250CAD of extra vehicles you wouldn't have in a 500pts game.
Before I return to the rest of your posting, I wish to take a moment to express my amazement that this seems to be a common sentiment among non C:SM players (Vaktathi has said the same thing).
What space marine players have you been playing against? Whoever they are, they are cheating!
A demi-company doesn't give you free transports.
A gladius strike force, as such, doesn't give you free transports.
Two demi-companies (a full battlecompany) within the greater context of a gladius strike force gives you free dedicated rhinos, drop pods and razorbacks for the units in the battle company who can take them (upgrades to those transports cost extra).
You are well over 900 points before you can get a single free transport (2 demi-companies plus auxillary).
Blacksails wrote:That 500pts game with free drop pods is roughly equivalent to 200pts of extra stuff, and about ~$250CAD of extra vehicles you wouldn't have in a 500pts game.
Before I return to the rest of your posting, I wish to take a moment to express my amazement that this seems to be a common sentiment among non C:SM players (Vaktathi has said the same thing).
What space marine players have you been playing against? Whoever they are, they are cheating!
A demi-company doesn't give you free transports.
A gladius strike force, as such, doesn't give you free transports.
Two demi-companies (a full battlecompany) within the greater context of a gladius strike force gives you free dedicated rhinos, drop pods and razorbacks for the units in the battle company who can take them (upgrades to those transports cost extra).
You are well over 900 points before you can get a single free transport (2 demi-companies plus auxillary).
Point remains though doesn't it, in a 1k point game you can take 1,200 points with your free vehicle shenanigans. Can my Ork army then take 250pts of free vehicles as well? thats 2 battlewagonz with 3 rokkitz each
SemperMortis wrote:Point remains though doesn't it, in a 1k point game you can take 1,200 points with your free vehicle shenanigans. Can my Ork army then take 250pts of free vehicles as well? thats 2 battlewagonz with 3 rokkitz each
Actually, it's more than 1,200 points.
At 1,000 points, if I actually had the models, I could bring at least 10 razorbacks (55 points each) for free.
SemperMortis wrote:Point remains though doesn't it, in a 1k point game you can take 1,200 points with your free vehicle shenanigans. Can my Ork army then take 250pts of free vehicles as well? thats 2 battlewagonz with 3 rokkitz each
Actually, it's more than 1,200 points.
At 1,000 points, if I actually had the models, I could bring at least 10 razorbacks (55 points each) for free.
So you could literally take 50% more points then our opponent...yes very balanced indeed
People on dakka forums tend to say this a lot. I generally disagree with this sentiment. 40k, even gamewise, has a lot going for it. The basic rules are fairly intuitive and provide for generally fun and intuitive gameplay, even though there are some complicated and possibly counterintuitive bits. There are vague rules, there are serious codex imbalances, model points cost imbalances, etc.
I fully agree that there are a lot of problems with Warhammer 40k. That said, I think that there are a lot of fixable problems with Warhammer 40k which would leave a very awesome game if they were fixed.
I disagree with the "start from scratch" mentality of a lot of Warhammer 40k players.
It doesn't do anything particularly well, with one exception. It has the most freedom in list building of almost any game I've played (definitely all the common/popular ones anyways).
And most of them simply aren't viable. Even if the points costs were balanced, many of them probably still wouldn't be viable.
An entire army of just drop pods? Nobody in the drop pods. Just drop pods.
With the amazing amount of lore we have to work with, it also makes sense to give players as much freedom as can conceivably be written and balanced, which I'd argue the game has in quantity just not in balance quality.
It's the "...as can...be...balanced" bit that I take issue with. If the game doesn't tell me that I can't take an army of empty drop pods, and the points system tells me that there's supposed to be an even match-up regardless of what I take based on the points number, then I have every right to complain if/when I consistently lose with my unbound empty drop pod army.
The cool thing about a formation is that it tells you the kinds of things that you have to bring. "Bring 2 squads of devastators." If you read the fluff for devastators and fail to upgrade those devastators with heavy weapons, then that's your own stupidity.
Limiting or restricting that freedom just shuts out one of the only things 40k does with any amount of success.
There should be as much freedom as can result in viable game play. That's where you and I differ, I think. Either that, or else, we agree, and you are estimating the amount of variety that can result in viable game play much more highly than I am.
No it doesn't because the game still operates on a unit by unit basis, which means you're still dealing with units on the table, not formations. Therefore, units are still designed as stand alone elements with their own rules and wargear, and then formations add an additional layer.
Yes, but the number of those units is restricted. You can take 2 squads of devastators in a GSF and no more. If I can play unbound, then I can take as many devastators as I want, and the burden is on the game designer to ensure that we have a balanced game.
I think I am making a fairly non-controversial claim.
Write out a list of all of the different army lists that I could write, with all of their variations, if I am playing unbound with allies.
Write out a list of all of the different army lists that I could write, with all of their variations, if I am playing unbound without allies.
Write out a list of all of the different army lists that I could write, with all all of their variations, if I am playing a CAD with allies.
Write out a list of all of the different army lists that I could write, with all all of their variations, if I am playing a CAD without allies.
Write out a list of all of the different army lists that I could write, with all all of their variations, if I am playing a formation with allies.
Write out a list of all of the different army lists that I could write, with all all of their variations, if I am playing a formation without allies.
Which lists are going to be longer, which shorter?
Presumably, you'll tell me that, assuming allies, the lists will be as follows:
Unbound will have the longest list
A CAD will have a shorter list.
A formation will have the shortest list.
Likewise without allies.
The shorter the list is, the easier to balance.
Its quite simple really. Take a game with units and no formations, and then a game with units and formations. One has an additional elements to balance and consider. The other does not. Fundamentally, all units have to be useful and therefore balanced among each other. This holds true whether or not they're in a formation. Adding formation buffs is quite literally an extra layer of complexity that has to be balanced in addition to the units. Remembering as well that the same unit can appear in multiple formations with wildly different functionalities, further complicating the issue.
I agree that formations add an extra layer of complexity. I only think that it results in overall greater simplicity in terms of balance issues.
Also, I think we can all agree that Unbound is a bad joke and not worth the ink or paper its written on.
Hey, you're the one who likes variety and the ability to do whatever you want, right?
IAs for the first point, there is no contradiction. You're confusing the work of balancing units/formations with the options available to a player. The work involved when dealing with a game that has units as a core with formations as a mandatory minimum building block consisting of units is more than the work involved when dealing with a game that has units and no formations. Both systems have to design, balance, and test the units against one another to ensure they're useful, fill a role, and offer some sort of unique tool to the table. The one with formations then also has to design the formations, balance the buffs, and ensure no one formation is better than the others, either based on a combination of the units within it being too good or bad, or the buffs being out of whack. The system without formations doesn't even have to think about that entire process, only the first process of unit design.
It doesn't have to think about the entire process, but it does have to take into account all of the different possible ways in which each unit might appear in the game. What if the player actually runs an all empty drop pod army?
As for point two, the issue then is that the units are poorly balanced. Forcing formations doesn't fix anything, especially if you're making the assumption they're balanced. Why not make the same assumption, but without formations? As in, Tyranids could be fixed by simply balancing the units. You know, the easier way than balancing the units, writing formations, and balancing those formations.
Two points:
1. I fully agree that the units should be balanced.
2. Granted that they aren't, the overall armies can still be balanced. "You have to bring 10 of these sucky things, and you can bring no more than 2 of this awesome thing." If all of the armies had similar mandatory builds, the units would still be imbalanced, but the game would be more balanced.
However, we have plenty of other super formations that fail spectacularly at either being fluffy or being balanced. We can sit here all day with you saying the solution is to just balance formations, and me saying to balance the units,
Actually, I don't disagree with you. Personally, I think that the optimal solution is balanced units + balanced unit upgrades + mandatory balanced formations.
That would result in the greatest game balance, in my view.
but we can all agree that even formations are the minimum building block, every unit within a formation needs to be useful and perform their role adequately. With that being established, we can then agree that the solution to balance formations also includes at least some amount of unit balancing, while the unit balancing solution consists exclusively of balancing units.
I fully agree with you. That said, even if units weren't balanced, the game could still achieve greater balance solely through formations. If the Eldar player can take only 1 wraithknight, but he MUST take 50 guardians...
You also don't seem to grasp just how varied the 40k universe is. Going with the marine example, there are at least dozens of non, partial, and mostly codex compliant chapters that don't quite fit in a GSF. There are plenty of unit combinations or army themes that are perfectly fluffy that can be built using the CAD but not with the existing formations.
This can be accounted for with more formations, namely, ones which account for the most general kinds of army composition. There should be a formation, for example, for white scars bike armies (though it should probably not include drop pods or dreadnoughts or, for that matter, anything not fast or on a bike; furthermore, it shouldn't include many, if any, buffs, unless bikes are seriously nerfed in general).
If I'm buying a codex its to use it to build my army how I want to, not have someone tell how to build it within a narrow, blinkered vision.
I simply disagree with this. If you're buying a codex, it's to use it to build an army of the kind contained in that codex. The codex is supposed to tell you how to build, for example, an army of Tyrranids.
Its becoming very clear your position is to ditch the idea of player options and force bundles on them. Limiting options takes away one of the few things 40k does well.
My position is to ditch the idea of unlimited player options. My position is "Mandatory Gladius Strike Force formations for everyone."
Remember there are players other than you who play with custom chapters or factions who can use the CAD to make specific armies. And lets make this clear; there is no downside to balancing the units and doing away with formations.
There absolutely is a downside to doing away with formations, even if the units are balanced.
Under a standard CAD, I can't bring more than 3 units of sternguard, for example. Even the CAD isn't a "take whatever you want" kind of thing.
Let's be clear on this, BlackSails, if you are against Unbound and are in favor of the traditional CAD, then you ALREADY are in favor of limiting player options. Just not to the same degree that I am.
Why does this matter? Why is spam bad?
It results in game imbalance. If I bring a TAC army, I won't be able to deal with that army composed entirely of Leeman Russ tanks. I won't have enough anti-tank weapons to deal with them all.
Formations like the GSF ideally force everyone to bring TAC armies. That results in greater game balance.
By that same logic, a land raider would be inherently unbalanced against anyone who didn't bring a lascannon (or equivalent) or melta gun (or equivalent).
Yes. They are.
And if formations aren't a thing, I am perfectly entitled to complain about the imbalance between that landraider and the points equivalency of these imperial guardsmen without upgrades.
The GSF is literally the paragon of spamming win buttons. Between a combination of free drop pods and/or razorbacks, you can flood the table with scoring vehicles, all of which are *gasp* the same.
They're dedicated transports for core troop choices. Does anybody really complain about "spamming" core infantry units and their dedicated transports? The wave serpent might be the exceptional case, and that was only in 6th edition.
I would hardly call that spamming "the win button." Yes, I think that minimum 5 man squads shouldn't be able to get a free razorback. That said, razorbacks are hardly overpowered, in and of themselves.
Do you really want to compare 7th edition razorbacks to 6th edition wave serpents?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
SemperMortis wrote:So you could literally take 50% more points then our opponent...yes very balanced indeed
Currently, it's not balanced at all. Again, you have no argument from me that the way that GW has actually executed the formations idea is particularly good or balanced.
I'm just pointing out that the idea of formations, in general, could in principle contribute to greater game balance.
I believe in a perfect world yes. If all formations were like the Wraith host or Canoptec Harvests, and there was a formation for each unit it would be. This would prevent spamming by forcing you to take this you originally wouldn't. Formations shouldn't be too big like decurion or the different Eldar starters though, possible 3-1 different units depending on the size of the buff and kind of models and what makes sense fluff wize. I like taking CADs for Eldar and would prefer them for necrons too because then I can take what I want ( 6 Vauls Wrath support batteries and some aspect hosts). I can deal with formations like the harvests and battlions as I don't mind having to take those units, though the decurion is such a point sink and I would never take ot, though the bonus is too good to pass up. Thankfully eldars bonus is not worth it. What is nice about the small formations is they prevent spam- if you want a WK you still need 500 more points in other models, in which if you like the WK you wouldn't mind taking WL or Gaurd as it makes sense visually and fluff wise, or if you want canoptec wraiths you need some 120 points more, though it also makes sense. Though some formations are too big and too restrictive- like decurions you need an overlord(not a Lord or cryptic or destroyer Lord) 2 warrior squads, an immortal squad, and a tomb blades squad. As if you like warriors doesn't mean you like tomb blades or immortals.... Like a bike formation could be 2 bike squads and a vyper.
Also wriath lords and gaurds arnt op. It costs 210 pts for a squad of 5 dskyth WG, who will also need a wave serpent, so 310 pts sink hole. WL are 120 pts and move super slow. Even though they're T8 they're still 3+ armor not amazing in CC, and an aweful lot of points if you just wanted a bright Lance
marcman wrote:Also wriath lords and gaurds arnt op. It costs 210 pts for a squad of 5 dskyth WG, who will also need a wave serpent, so 310 pts sink hole. WL are 120 pts and move super slow. Even though they're T8 they're still 3+ armor not amazing in CC, and an aweful lot of points if you just wanted a bright Lance
Do you play Orks? Imperial Guard? A space marine army that doesn't rely on bikes?
Small formations like canoptec harvests or judiscar would be ideal. This prevents spam of a single unit, yet doesn't force the player to use too much stuff they would hate and makes sense fluff wise. It also prevents trash like decurion or gladious from existing. Ideally they should then also toss CADs, perhaps have the CAD be an HQ and 2 troops and give the troops ObSec
Automatically Appended Next Post: I play GKSW Skitarii Cult Eldar DE and Necrons.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Why does it matter?
The people who are quick to point out that Achilles is not OP because he has a weak heel and that neither is Superman, since indeed, Superman is allergic to kryptonite and requires exposure to a yellow sun in order to derive his power...
slip wrote: Yeah,I guess in theory formations could balance the game, but in practice you get gak like this:
(This year's Adepticon champion)
Eeerm.
I count 5 forces in that list, and only one of them is a formation, the rest are force organization charts.
I don't think it proves the point you think it's proving.
The people who are quick to point out that Achilles is not OP because he has a weak heel and that neither is Superman, since indeed, Superman is allergic to kryptonite and requires exposure to a yellow sun in order to derive his power...
The people who are quick to complain when the kool aid they chose tastes a little worse than everyone else's?
People on dakka forums tend to say this a lot. I generally disagree with this sentiment. 40k, even gamewise, has a lot going for it. The basic rules are fairly intuitive and provide for generally fun and intuitive gameplay, even though there are some complicated and possibly counterintuitive bits. There are vague rules, there are serious codex imbalances, model points cost imbalances, etc.
I fully agree that there are a lot of problems with Warhammer 40k. That said, I think that there are a lot of fixable problems with Warhammer 40k which would leave a very awesome game if they were fixed.
I disagree with the "start from scratch" mentality of a lot of Warhammer 40k players.
While this is only tangentially related, I'll cover the basics.
40k's basic rules are not intuitive at all. Rolling to hit, then wound, then a save doesn't make sense and involves a whole step most games have done away with (with good reason). Cover saves being an either/or save and not a modifier is poor game design and counter intuitive. Armor saves being all or nothing is equally counter intuitive and poor design. The mismatch of individual unit rules (closest model, random wound allocation, challenges) with much larger game sizes and giant constructs (and their lack of granularity) is equally counter intuitive, and results in a bizarre game scale. The army sizes coupled with the game scale coupled with the table size, and weapon ranges easily reaching half way across the table for basic infantry, and the lack of strict terrain rules means movement isn't particularly important outside of grabbing as many objectives as possible in the equally ridiculous and schizophrenic Maelstrom missions (also counter intuitive and excessively random).
This isn't even touching on the constant removal of player decision making and replacing it with tables, random dice rolls, and sheer luck. Good, intuitive game design wouldn't have developed Maelstrom. Maelstrom is random piled on top of random with a touch of random added on top. Same goes for psychic powers, warlord traits, mysterious terrain and a dozen other faction specific tables.
Point is, the core is a jumbled mess of platoon level skirmish gaming mixed with battalion level 15/6mm mass battle gaming that uses archaic rules from the 80s and replaces player impact with random rolling. On top of all that, the faction books are terribly balanced, both internally and externally.
Not to say 40k isn't fundamentally fun, but as a game, it kind of has to be, otherwise its just work. Really though, many players are getting frustrated by an increasingly poorly maintained game that keeps costing more. The primary emotion behind this for people in my mind set is disappointment. Its something we've heavily invested into, both emotionally and monetarily, and watching it just become more of a mess is kind of sad really.
Anyways, enough about that, I'm happy to discuss that specific topic elsewhere or via PM.
It doesn't do anything particularly well, with one exception. It has the most freedom in list building of almost any game I've played (definitely all the common/popular ones anyways).
And most of them simply aren't viable. Even if the points costs were balanced, many of them probably still wouldn't be viable.
An entire army of just drop pods? Nobody in the drop pods. Just drop pods.
Well with examples like that, there's not much sense debating the point. What about an army of nothing? I have that option too. I also have the freedom to cheat, or ignore the rules I don't like.
But we both know those are ridiculous examples and not worth discussing.
Most sensible armies (ones built with something, like, say a CAD) would be perfectly viable if the player ensures they cover the basics.
With the amazing amount of lore we have to work with, it also makes sense to give players as much freedom as can conceivably be written and balanced, which I'd argue the game has in quantity just not in balance quality.
It's the "...as can...be...balanced" bit that I take issue with. If the game doesn't tell me that I can't take an army of empty drop pods, and the points system tells me that there's supposed to be an even match-up regardless of what I take based on the points number, then I have every right to complain if/when I consistently lose with my unbound empty drop pod army.
The cool thing about a formation is that it tells you the kinds of things that you have to bring. "Bring 2 squads of devastators." If you read the fluff for devastators and fail to upgrade those devastators with heavy weapons, then that's your own stupidity.
Again, you and I both know this example of empty drop pods is ridiculous.
I'm not arguing total abject freedom where the player can do anything. I'm arguing that the basic building block of the army should be at the unit level vice the formation level and that some structure is needed for balancing purposes. Within that structure, as much player options as possible can be reasonably included, like the old 5th ed force org swaps, which allowed for nearly any type of army you wanted by shifting units around. It was fluffy, fun, and mostly balanced, depending on the units involved.
Point is, you still need to build an army that can, you know, do something.
Limiting or restricting that freedom just shuts out one of the only things 40k does with any amount of success.
There should be as much freedom as can result in viable game play. That's where you and I differ, I think. Either that, or else, we agree, and you are estimating the amount of variety that can result in viable game play much more highly than I am.
I think the current amount of shtuff in the game is good. I'd want a little more in the specifics within each book (really just better representation of the minor factions within the codices), but I think we have enough army books (I'd roll a few together, no sense in storm troopers having their own book) and enough units within those books to stop releasing new stuff for a while and fix what's available.
I don't think its an insurmountable task to balance what 40k has, even within the flawed core rules. It wouldn't be pretty, and short of fixing a few troublesome core rules (vehicle/MC disparity comes to mind), it wouldn't come as close as I'd personally like to my idea of good balance, but its doable.
Consider that GW has the resources to hire and invest in the best talent in the industry, and has the experience to learn from all their mistakes, plus having the largest online presence through forums like these, it only stands to reason they could do it if they wanted to. Even just collecting tournament results, and battle reports, and feedback threads is just free data for them to munch on and use. Its kind of frustrating really, but I'm wandering off a tangent here.
No it doesn't because the game still operates on a unit by unit basis, which means you're still dealing with units on the table, not formations. Therefore, units are still designed as stand alone elements with their own rules and wargear, and then formations add an additional layer.
Yes, but the number of those units is restricted. You can take 2 squads of devastators in a GSF and no more. If I can play unbound, then I can take as many devastators as I want, and the burden is on the game designer to ensure that we have a balanced game.
I think I am making a fairly non-controversial claim.
Write out a list of all of the different army lists that I could write, with all of their variations, if I am playing unbound with allies.
Write out a list of all of the different army lists that I could write, with all of their variations, if I am playing unbound without allies.
Write out a list of all of the different army lists that I could write, with all all of their variations, if I am playing a CAD with allies.
Write out a list of all of the different army lists that I could write, with all all of their variations, if I am playing a CAD without allies.
Write out a list of all of the different army lists that I could write, with all all of their variations, if I am playing a formation with allies.
Write out a list of all of the different army lists that I could write, with all all of their variations, if I am playing a formation without allies.
Which lists are going to be longer, which shorter?
Presumably, you'll tell me that, assuming allies, the lists will be as follows:
Unbound will have the longest list
A CAD will have a shorter list.
A formation will have the shortest list.
Likewise without allies.
The shorter the list is, the easier to balance.
We can ignore Unbound, because it shouldn't exist as a rule, but I'll cover that below.
In theory, yes, at the army list level, formations will have less combinations. However, when writing/balancing the factions, you still have to spend the same time balancing the individual units in both a formation system and a non formation system. With formations though, you have the extra work of writing the formations, assigning a relevant bonus, and balancing those bonuses and the formation composition.
Now, even if the total number of army list combinations is less in a formation system, and therefore theoretically requires less balancing/testing at the army level, it still requires more balancing/testing at the unit and formation level. The end result is that even I take your premise that it takes less effort to balance whole armies, I'm working under the premise that it takes more effort at the formation level to balance, therefore (at best) negating eachother.
Which then means that if both systems are roughly equal in terms of balance effort, why go with the more complex one and restrictive option?
You'll find that in most real world examples, games took the simpler option that opens up more player choice and don't have formations (or similar). Remember why 40k has formations. Its all about the money.
Its quite simple really. Take a game with units and no formations, and then a game with units and formations. One has an additional elements to balance and consider. The other does not. Fundamentally, all units have to be useful and therefore balanced among each other. This holds true whether or not they're in a formation. Adding formation buffs is quite literally an extra layer of complexity that has to be balanced in addition to the units. Remembering as well that the same unit can appear in multiple formations with wildly different functionalities, further complicating the issue.
I agree that formations add an extra layer of complexity. I only think that it results in overall greater simplicity in terms of balance issues.
Which is where we disagree. The work involved in coming up with formations that are a combination of fluffy, effective, have the right amount of openness and restrictions, assign relevant bonuses that are properly worded and don't contradict any of the units involved, then balance those bonuses against the formation within the same book, then as a force against other books, just sounds like way more work then testing individual units within the context of an army.
Also, I think we can all agree that Unbound is a bad joke and not worth the ink or paper its written on.
Hey, you're the one who likes variety and the ability to do whatever you want, right?
Unbound always existed. As a person, you always have the ability to ignore a rule, house rule it, modify it, add to it, or fix it. Likewise, you always had the option to ask someone to play against your army list of 5 chapter masters from your favourite chapters in a badass brawl of the brawniest and baldest badasses. You didn't need a rule telling you you can ignore the army construction rules and do whatever you want. You always had that ability.
Remember that I'm not advocating for total free for all freedom here. Structure is good. Its why we play wargames and not green army men in the sandbox.
My stance is that the right structure was the CAD and modifcations within it. It worked, its similar to how other games work because its a good system.
IAs for the first point, there is no contradiction. You're confusing the work of balancing units/formations with the options available to a player. The work involved when dealing with a game that has units as a core with formations as a mandatory minimum building block consisting of units is more than the work involved when dealing with a game that has units and no formations. Both systems have to design, balance, and test the units against one another to ensure they're useful, fill a role, and offer some sort of unique tool to the table. The one with formations then also has to design the formations, balance the buffs, and ensure no one formation is better than the others, either based on a combination of the units within it being too good or bad, or the buffs being out of whack. The system without formations doesn't even have to think about that entire process, only the first process of unit design.
It doesn't have to think about the entire process, but it does have to take into account all of the different possible ways in which each unit might appear in the game. What if the player actually runs an all empty drop pod army?
Again, ridiculous example not worth discussing.
As for point two, the issue then is that the units are poorly balanced. Forcing formations doesn't fix anything, especially if you're making the assumption they're balanced. Why not make the same assumption, but without formations? As in, Tyranids could be fixed by simply balancing the units. You know, the easier way than balancing the units, writing formations, and balancing those formations.
Two points:
1. I fully agree that the units should be balanced.
2. Granted that they aren't, the overall armies can still be balanced. "You have to bring 10 of these sucky things, and you can bring no more than 2 of this awesome thing." If all of the armies had similar mandatory builds, the units would still be imbalanced, but the game would be more balanced.
It may be balanced, but it wouldn't be enjoyable. No one wants to be stuck with the unit equivalent of their lame kid brother.
However, we have plenty of other super formations that fail spectacularly at either being fluffy or being balanced. We can sit here all day with you saying the solution is to just balance formations, and me saying to balance the units,
Actually, I don't disagree with you. Personally, I think that the optimal solution is balanced units + balanced unit upgrades + mandatory balanced formations.
That would result in the greatest game balance, in my view.
If you cut out formations, you get the same balance, but with less overhead.
but we can all agree that even formations are the minimum building block, every unit within a formation needs to be useful and perform their role adequately. With that being established, we can then agree that the solution to balance formations also includes at least some amount of unit balancing, while the unit balancing solution consists exclusively of balancing units.
I fully agree with you. That said, even if units weren't balanced, the game could still achieve greater balance solely through formations. If the Eldar player can take only 1 wraithknight, but he MUST take 50 guardians...
Well, that's not really good balance. You've just forced a handicap, one they probably don't want or may not even have, forcing them to buy something they don't want. Not a good solution for anyone.
You also don't seem to grasp just how varied the 40k universe is. Going with the marine example, there are at least dozens of non, partial, and mostly codex compliant chapters that don't quite fit in a GSF. There are plenty of unit combinations or army themes that are perfectly fluffy that can be built using the CAD but not with the existing formations.
This can be accounted for with more formations, namely, ones which account for the most general kinds of army composition. There should be a formation, for example, for white scars bike armies (though it should probably not include drop pods or dreadnoughts or, for that matter, anything not fast or on a bike; furthermore, it shouldn't include many, if any, buffs, unless bikes are seriously nerfed in general).
But then how many formations would there be per book? There's already so many its genuinely tedious keeping track of them. It was bad enough keeping track of all the USRs for the units and their wargear, but now you'd be adding even more formations that need to be tracked in addition to the units themselves.
Its just more work for all involved for not a whole lot of benefit.
If I'm buying a codex its to use it to build my army how I want to, not have someone tell how to build it within a narrow, blinkered vision.
I simply disagree with this. If you're buying a codex, it's to use it to build an army of the kind contained in that codex. The codex is supposed to tell you how to build, for example, an army of Tyrranids.
And an army of Tyranids is a variable thing. It could be a monster mash, or a horde, or a flying list, or an elite specialist force, or any combination thereof. It stands to reason the army book should do the best job possible at allowing the players to recreate the fluff they know and love, and the old CAD with slot swaps accomplished that just fine and did so with less work and less bookkeeping than making up a dozen restrictive formations.
Its becoming very clear your position is to ditch the idea of player options and force bundles on them. Limiting options takes away one of the few things 40k does well.
My position is to ditch the idea of unlimited player options. My position is "Mandatory Gladius Strike Force formations for everyone."
And mine is simply ditch formations and balance the units. Which, is the strongest possibility for 40k balance outside of a rewrite.
Remember there are players other than you who play with custom chapters or factions who can use the CAD to make specific armies. And lets make this clear; there is no downside to balancing the units and doing away with formations.
There absolutely is a downside to doing away with formations, even if the units are balanced.
Under a standard CAD, I can't bring more than 3 units of sternguard, for example. Even the CAD isn't a "take whatever you want" kind of thing.
Let's be clear on this, BlackSails, if you are against Unbound and are in favor of the traditional CAD, then you ALREADY are in favor of limiting player options. Just not to the same degree that I am.
No, I'm in favour of the right amount of structure. Having army construction be at the unit level is more free than having at the formation level, but we can all agree that structure is very important for a wargame. Otherwise its just Calvin Ball. A CAD is a great compromise between having structure and restrictions that create balance and make players make choices in army construction, while being open enough to create damn near any type of army they want with appropriate force org swapping.
Why does this matter? Why is spam bad?
It results in game imbalance. If I bring a TAC army, I won't be able to deal with that army composed entirely of Leeman Russ tanks. I won't have enough anti-tank weapons to deal with them all.
Formations like the GSF ideally force everyone to bring TAC armies. That results in greater game balance.
If by spam you mean literally having an army of a single unit, then sure, that's not good. But a CAD naturally limits that anyways. Oddly enough, the current formations we have allows us to spam more than a traditional CAD anyways. I can make a bound, formation based IG army using only a combination of Steel Host/Armoured Fist which is 95% Russes and either a techmarine or a Hydra. Not exactly a model of diversity.
If by spam you simply mean not having 2+ of any given unit, then I disagree it should be limited. I enjoy list symmetry, redundancy, and the coherency of bringing multiples of 'X'. I like tanks. I like them a lot. If I'm bringing 1, I'm going to bring another 2 to go with it. Hell, I might even bring an additional 3 to keep them company. If I'm bringing an arty battery, its going to be a proper battery. That shouldn't be limited. Its fluffy, is totally balanced (Guard aren't great anyways), and frankly looks dope as feth yo.
By that same logic, a land raider would be inherently unbalanced against anyone who didn't bring a lascannon (or equivalent) or melta gun (or equivalent).
Yes. They are.
And if formations aren't a thing, I am perfectly entitled to complain about the imbalance between that landraider and the points equivalency of these imperial guardsmen without upgrades.
No. That's not how balance works. We can't have a reasonable discussion about balance if that's seriously your idea of how units should be evaluated.
The GSF is literally the paragon of spamming win buttons. Between a combination of free drop pods and/or razorbacks, you can flood the table with scoring vehicles, all of which are *gasp* the same.
They're dedicated transports for core troop choices. Does anybody really complain about "spamming" core infantry units and their dedicated transports? The wave serpent might be the exceptional case, and that was only in 6th edition.
I would hardly call that spamming "the win button." Yes, I think that minimum 5 man squads shouldn't be able to get a free razorback. That said, razorbacks are hardly overpowered, in and of themselves.
Do you really want to compare 7th edition razorbacks to 6th edition wave serpents?
Yes, serpents were overpowered. That doesn't mean putting 10 razors on the table is perfectly acceptable. Apples and oranges. Its quite clear based on tournament results and overwhelming feedback that being able to put down 10 scoring vehicles for free that either drop in where you want them or can help shoot and move troops around will win games. One razor isn't an issue. Two isn't problematic. Three is annoying. Five is an issue. Ten is a problem for all but the most powerful lists.
But now we're circling back to your thread where you were defending the GSF as being fine and balanced. It was handily demonstrated to you by nearly everyone that the GSF is playing with the top dogs and will easily squash anything not using one of the top dexes.
1. I fully agree that the units should be balanced.
2. Granted that they aren't, the overall armies can still be balanced. "You have to bring 10 of these sucky things, and you can bring no more than 2 of this awesome thing." If all of the armies had similar mandatory builds, the units would still be imbalanced, but the game would be more balanced.
Two points of my own...
1. This is a very poor trait of GW that formations exacerbate. "The current rules don't work, instead of fixing them lets just keep adding more rules!" It's not a good approach to game design and it's partly why the game feels like such a mess now, we are just playing 3rd edition from 1998 with 18 years worth of flashy stickers, band aids and new hats applied.
2. If they can't balance units what makes you think they can balance formations? If they understood balance, surely they'd just balance the units and be done with it? Because they apparently game in a closed ecosystem without consideration of what goes on in forums, tournaments, local games clubs/stores, they are incapable of figuring out what is and isn't balanced. If they did, they'd just do a better job of balancing the rules and codices to begin with. They currently don't and adding an extra layer of rules isn't going to help them.
Formations were and always will be a way GW tries to extract more money from customers. Getting people to buy kits they don't already own to make a specific formation for a bonus, bundling formations in to separate publications as incentive to buy them and bundling the formation data sheet with a direct-only bundle to get players to buy from the channel that makes them the most money (web direct with no discounts).
If you think wraithknights are scary you need to re-evaluate how you are playing the game and building armies because honestly they are nothing but point sinks that punish bad players. They slay noobs, are bullet magnets against medium generals and suck against anyone that knows how to deal with them. Every time I see them I just think "thanks for putting 20% of your army in one spot."
I'll give you guys a hint on how to play the game these days.
1) Have the ability to kill 1 or more wraithknights or imperial knights a turn. Half my armies can kill 3 of either in one turn.
2) Counter, contain or avoid invisibility/ 2++ rerolls. Not hard
3) Bring ignore cover
4) Rapid objective taking
Seriously, if you can do these things you're fine. Now shut your pie holes, quit your belly aching, fix your busted ass dented in armies and turn down the god damn suck.
You can't to do math. It's okay. It's a common affliction.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: 2. If they can't balance units what makes you think they can balance formations? If they understood balance, surely they'd just balance the units and be done with it? Because they apparently game in a closed ecosystem without consideration of what goes on in forums, tournaments, local games clubs/stores, they are incapable of figuring out what is and isn't balanced. If they did, they'd just do a better job of balancing the rules and codices to begin with. They currently don't and adding an extra layer of rules isn't going to help them.
Yeah, they're ignorant/blind to the world outside the office in Nottingham and don't understand why everyone is so frustrated with the game (or likely don't even know that we are). They don't see any issue with units like the wraithknight because the guys "play testing" the game in the studio would never even think to bring more than one of them in the first place, even if it's allowed in the rules. They don't try to break the game, which is necessary when you're trying to figure out what's broken in the first place. Same thing with scatbikes, Phil Kelly probably doesn't even own more than a handful of bikes for his own personal Eldar collection and they probably all have different guns on them anyway, so to them, it doesn't come off as being massively overpowering like it is when you go up against literal armies of them out in the wild.
It makes me really curious as to what their Tau armies look like during "play testing", too. What the hell are they doing up in the Ivory Tower that gives them the complete opposite experience that everyone else has had playing against Tau?
How on earth did this thread devolve to tau bashing as well?
We JUST had Adepticon results, tau didn't have a single top 10 entry (highest tau was 11) with 4 armies having vastly better results (DA, codex marines, daemons and naturally eldar)
FFS, we know Tau are good, top tier even, but enough already, we clearly don't have a codex nearly as overpowered as you make of it. A handful of outlier crutch guns/formations,but the rest is fair enough. Give it a godamn rest.
BoomWolf wrote: How on earth did this thread devolve to tau bashing as well?
We JUST had Adepticon results, tau didn't have a single top 10 entry (highest tau was 11) with 4 armies having vastly better results (DA, codex marines, daemons and naturally eldar)
FFS, we know Tau are good, top tier even, but enough already, we clearly don't have a codex nearly as overpowered as you make of it. A handful of outlier crutch guns/formations,but the rest is fair enough. Give it a godamn rest.
BoomWolf wrote: How on earth did this thread devolve to tau bashing as well?
We JUST had Adepticon results, tau didn't have a single top 10 entry (highest tau was 11) with 4 armies having vastly better results (DA, codex marines, daemons and naturally eldar)
FFS, we know Tau are good, top tier even, but enough already, we clearly don't have a codex nearly as overpowered as you make of it. A handful of outlier crutch guns/formations,but the rest is fair enough. Give it a godamn rest.
How is getting 11th not proof they are good?
Second paragraph, first sentence. Please bother reading the entire post before replying.
BoomWolf wrote: How on earth did this thread devolve to tau bashing as well?
We JUST had Adepticon results, tau didn't have a single top 10 entry (highest tau was 11) with 4 armies having vastly better results (DA, codex marines, daemons and naturally eldar)
FFS, we know Tau are good, top tier even, but enough already, we clearly don't have a codex nearly as overpowered as you make of it. A handful of outlier crutch guns/formations,but the rest is fair enough. Give it a godamn rest.
How is getting 11th not proof they are good?
Second paragraph, first sentence. Please bother reading the entire post before replying.
I did read your post. How is getting 11th at a major tournament somehow proof they aren't good enough to be complained about?
Because the amount of sheer gak hitting us every other day is greater than the amount of gak received by the top four codcies combined, and frankly I'm getting sick and tired of it.
Saying tau are good/top tier/slightly over the top is one thing. Daily calling to nerf every single unit in the codex and that the army as a whole shouldn't exist is disgusting.
Not saying it's personally you, but it happens. See sidstyler for example. Going out on tau, not a word about marines, dark angels or daemons. Despite each of them being more powerful, and having far more teeth gnawing tools in thier potential arsenals.
BoomWolf wrote: Because the amount of sheer gak hitting us every other day is greater than the amount of gak received by the top four codcies combined, and frankly I'm getting sick and tired of it.
Saying tau are good/top tier/slightly over the top is one thing. Daily calling to nerf every single unit in the codex and that the army as a whole shouldn't exist is disgusting.
Not saying it's personally you, but it happens. See sidstyler for example. Going out on tau, not a word about marines, dark angels or daemons. Despite each of them being more powerful, and having far more teeth gnawing tools in thier potential arsenals.
I mean, I truly do despise the Tau and everything they stand for, and would love few things more in 40k than to see them wiped from the rules entirely.
Have we come to a concensus that formations as a whole are a great idea, and that the formations containing a single unit type are the issue? (riptide wing, aspect shrine, librerius, etc)
BoomWolf wrote: Have we come to a concensus that formations as a whole are a great idea, and that the formations containing a single unit type are the issue? (riptide wing, aspect shrine, librerius, etc)
Oddly enough?
We have not reached that concensus.
I am largely in agreement with you, though. My proposal in this thread is "MANDATORY GLADIUS STRIKE FORCES FOR EVERYONE!"
BoomWolf wrote: Have we come to a concensus that formations as a whole are a great idea, and that the formations containing a single unit type are the issue? (riptide wing, aspect shrine, librerius, etc)
Oddly enough?
We have not reached that concensus.
I am largely in agreement with you, though. My proposal in this thread is "MANDATORY GLADIUS STRIKE FORCES FOR EVERYONE!"
Formations aren't balanced at all so limiting people to only taking formations won't fix the game
At which point you need to fix formations to make it work. But at that point why don't you just fix the actual game. That way you won't need to ban detachments.
Why on earth will you need to ban formations? Even the op ones don't do anything that force organization charts don't match in breaking potential, and they at times unlock new interesting game style. (Adepticon winner took one formation and four FOCs, for your information)
BoomWolf wrote: Why on earth will you need to ban formations? Even the op ones don't do anything that force organization charts don't match in breaking potential, and they at times unlock new interesting game style. (Adepticon winner took one formation and four FOCs, for your information)
BoomWolf wrote: How on earth did this thread devolve to tau bashing as well?
It didn't*. I literally just brought it up, and as someone with quite a bit of Tau stuff lying around I'm sure as hell not "bashing" them.
*Well, maybe now it has. Oops. Oh well.
I spent the majority of my post complaining about problematic Eldar units that somehow just slipped by the design team and questioning how the hell that's even possible. I'm not bashing Tau or calling for GW to nerf literally the entire codex, but you can't deny that there's more than a couple things in the Tau codex that shouldn't have slipped through, either. A lot of the Tau formations are nuts and provide bonuses for running units that we really didn't need an incentive to run in a formation anyway, because they were already more than good enough. The Riptide Wing is the most infamous example of that. Personally I don't think I like any of them, they're either stupidly powerful or just useless (like the auxiliaries formation). Same problem with all formations, either they leave you scratching your head and wondering why you would ever, or they're so fething amazing you'd have to be brain-dead to run the army in any other way...kinda like the SM Gladius, LOL.
All I was really getting at is that the GW design studio doesn't play Tau the way everyone else plays Tau, or else we'd have a very different codex. I can imagine why certain things in the Eldar codex probably slipped through, but it's hard for me to see how they did it with Tau.
Traditio wrote: I mean, I truly do despise the Tau and everything they stand for, and would love few things more in 40k than to see them wiped from the rules entirely.
Well that sucks, because that's never gonna happen. Sisters of Battle will be Squatted before anyone even so much as considers doing the same for Tau. Tau make GW bank (which is why they keep getting attention, GW doesn't often throw good money after bad) and getting rid of them would be pretty fething stupid.
Also, is this an admission that formations alone can't "fix" 40k and that the game is in a much worse state than you're willing to admit? Because if that was true then why would there be any need to get rid of Tau at all? Why couldn't Tau be made more balanced or fit into the game a lot better using properly-designed formations? Axing an entire faction is pretty fething drastic and makes pretty much no sense, it's a colossal waste of time and money and generates a feth ton of bad will from all your loyal customers who bought the product under the impression it would continue to be supported. GW has done this once before with Squats and people won't ever let them forget about that...it got so bad that if I'm not mistaken GW just started ignoring questions about Squats at events, or they told people not to even bother asking. If they do it again with any faction then it's really going to hurt them in the end because it makes investing into 40k look like a huge risk if you buy anything other than Space Marines. You can waste thousands of dollars and your faction could just disappear whenever the mood strikes them. And when the 40k community is largely okay with this, like you yourself seem to be, because "Oh well, that's what you get for playing dirty xenos filth. Not my problem!" then that attitude puts people off the game even more.
BoomWolf wrote: Even the op ones don't do anything that force organization charts don't match in breaking potential
Well, there's the OSC that, if I'm not mistaken, lets you hit rear armor no matter what your facing is. That's kinda broken and also completely unnecessary, since the ghostkeel is a pretty solid unit without that. What was that Space Marine one, the Skyhammer? The one that lets you break the rules and assault after deepstriking, which you can only do with the formation? That's pretty broken and obviously something you can't do with a regular FOC, it's only enabled by broken formation special rules.
I just don't like them, and I will probably never accept them even if they could theoretically be balanced somehow, because it's too obvious to me that they're made to push sales of models and nothing else. "If people want this broken advantage in their games they have to buy these gakky models that no one's been buying for years!", or "We're not sure if this new unit is broken enough, so we'll guarantee sales by making a broken formation for them!"...the Skyhammer was fething hilarious as it was pretty blatantly pay to win, and I guess they figured the only real way they would have been able to sell new Assault Marines to people.
Anyway, that Adepticon list that got posted earlier is just trash. It's everything I feared would happen to 40k when allies were first introduced in 6th. Even if it doesn't really abuse formations it's still ugly to look at; it doesn't even look like an army, just the worst kind of min/maxing you can imagine.
Also, mixing Dark Angels and Space Wolves in the same army? I'm pretty sure the fluff says those chapters are rivals, and it isn't exactly a "friendly" rivalry either, if I remember right.
I won't be surprised if the current trend of adding formations into hardcovers continues. If GW continues to do this they'll have players buying more books to buff their armies without actually needing to develop an entirely new codex (all while encouraging players to buy the units needed for that formation.)
Unquietemu wrote: I won't be surprised if the current trend of adding formations into hardcovers continues. If GW continues to do this they'll have players buying more books to buff their armies without actually needing to develop an entirely new codex (all while encouraging players to buy the units needed for that formation.)
I don't know about that, I haven't bought a single Ork unit for the purposes of a formation ever. I happened to have a lot of the units necessary to field certain ones, "Green tide". But I never went out of my way to purchase stuff for others. Granted that might have something to do with the fact that ALL of the ork formations are utter garbage. "Ohh If i take 5 Battlewagons, they all gain scout! AWESOME!, ohh but troops inside are specifically forbidden from assaulting turn 1, well WTF is the point of that?"
LOL I could continue but, honestly at this stage, from someone who has a rather large collection of unarguably one of the worst armies in this game, formations aren't helping balance, they are merely providing the haves with more and the have nots with less.
I can't even fathom GW's policies anymore because if they were attempting to do this for a profit then they would provide every army with some kind of incentive to purchase new units, or units that aren't commonly seen. For Orks they could have buffed Storm Boyz and sold tons of them, or Killa Kanz, or Stompas, or hell just about any unit outside of Bikes and Boyz. Instead they provided us with a bunch of garbage which if it did boost sales at all will be so minor that the increase in profit will barely cover the costs/effort associated with it.
Throwing my hat into the ring, I have to agree with one of the previous posters. I really like the idea of Formations (taking units in a non-CAD for some bonuses), but I agree that some of the bonuses are just insane (looking at you Gladius and Librarius Conclave). I would be all over Formations if they toned the power level down, but I doubt that will happen.
If you tone them too much down though, people will just stick to the CADs.
The key is to avoid single unit spam formations, the only one I know that isn't bonkers is the drone network, and that's mainly because it let's you spam an otherwise poor unit, and not a unit you wanted to begin with.
Automatically Appended Next Post: If you tone them too much down though, people will just stick to the CADs.
The key is to avoid single unit spam formations, the only one I know that isn't bonkers is the drone network, and that's mainly because it let's you spam an otherwise poor unit, and not a unit you wanted to begin with.
BoomWolf wrote: Because the amount of sheer gak hitting us every other day is greater than the amount of gak received by the top four codcies combined, and frankly I'm getting sick and tired of it.
Honestly, as a bystander watching all the hate, you're seeing your own gak and ignoring others.
Eldar gets the most hate, by absolute miles. Then arguably Tau in position two. But I can explain that. It's not about how Tau are so incredibly broken that they can't be beaten (although they are very broken against most armies that aren't those top armies.) It's not that they are *the most powerful.*
It's that when a Tau army shuts you down, they do it in a way where they can kill your whole army and never sustain more than a scorch at the edge. The field is just a shooting range to them, and cover has little to no meaning. It's frustrating as gak to play against. So no, they're not the hardest to kill, but they are good enough to kill most armies most of the time and when they do, they can make the game incredibly dull for the person that they are killing, because their whole thing is to take you down before you get to them.
A game where I manage no charges and can't protect any of my units is far worse than one where I send a hundred Vanguard to simply get crushed on a daemon. At least I got to charge and roll some dice.
All that said, I welcome any game and I think the new Tau are fairly balanced towards the other top tier armies. Just too bad that's like 5 of the armies and the rest get to play pinata.
BoomWolf wrote: If you tone them too much down though, people will just stick to the CADs.
And what a tragedy that would be. Could you imagine 40k with only CADs? Madness.
The key is to avoid single unit spam formations, the only one I know that isn't bonkers is the drone network, and that's mainly because it let's you spam an otherwise poor unit, and not a unit you wanted to begin with.
With the alternative being that every formation consists of multiple unit types? No thanks, I'd rather not be forced to take a unit I don't want to take a unit I do want.
Instead of formations and their bonuses, why not pass down those benefits to the individual units where appropriate and just not have to deal with the extra complication that is formations.
BoomWolf wrote: If you tone them too much down though, people will just stick to the CADs.
And what a tragedy that would be. Could you imagine 40k with only CADs? Madness.
I would welcome it. As much as I love seeing my DA finally seeing some competition play, it disgusts me that they only get taken because of how broken the Ravenwing are.
Dark time those were (well from my I started anyways). Do you remember all the bitching about not having enough bonuses and USRs for our units if we took a certain combination of them or enough of them? Dark times indeed.
You seem to forget one major flaw of the CAD times.
It was literally "take HQ and troop tax, then spam best unit"
Zero army veriaty, zero fluffiness in force composition, just spam all day.
Formations can give you incentives to do otherwise.
BoomWolf wrote: You seem to forget one major flaw of the CAD times.
It was literally "take HQ and troop tax, then spam best unit"
Zero army veriaty, zero fluffiness in force composition, just spam all day.
Formations can give you incentives to do otherwise.
Spam whatever gives the biggest bonuses you mean,
Formations have done nothing to reduce spam, if anything they increase it.
BoomWolf wrote: You seem to forget one major flaw of the CAD times.
It was literally "take HQ and troop tax, then spam best unit"
Zero army veriaty, zero fluffiness in force composition, just spam all day.
Formations can give you incentives to do otherwise.
As opposed to "spam best formation"? Pretty much the same end result; zero army variety, zero fluffiness in force composition, just spam formations all day.
Plus, if we're going to argue theoreticals about how formations could be improved/balanced, the same arguments can be made for the CAD by adding more force org slots/alternative troop choices, a la marine bikers.
Blacksails wrote:While this is only tangentially related, I'll cover the basics.
40k's basic rules are not intuitive at all. Rolling to hit, then wound, then a save doesn't make sense and involves a whole step most games have done away with (with good reason). Cover saves being an either/or save and not a modifier is poor game design and counter intuitive. Armor saves being all or nothing is equally counter intuitive and poor design. The mismatch of individual unit rules (closest model, random wound allocation, challenges) with much larger game sizes and giant constructs (and their lack of granularity) is equally counter intuitive, and results in a bizarre game scale. The army sizes coupled with the game scale coupled with the table size, and weapon ranges easily reaching half way across the table for basic infantry, and the lack of strict terrain rules means movement isn't particularly important outside of grabbing as many objectives as possible in the equally ridiculous and schizophrenic Maelstrom missions (also counter intuitive and excessively random).
This isn't even touching on the constant removal of player decision making and replacing it with tables, random dice rolls, and sheer luck. Good, intuitive game design wouldn't have developed Maelstrom. Maelstrom is random piled on top of random with a touch of random added on top. Same goes for psychic powers, warlord traits, mysterious terrain and a dozen other faction specific tables.
Point is, the core is a jumbled mess of platoon level skirmish gaming mixed with battalion level 15/6mm mass battle gaming that uses archaic rules from the 80s and replaces player impact with random rolling. On top of all that, the faction books are terribly balanced, both internally and externally.
I do agree with you about the randomness. About the other stuff...? You should consider making another thread on this.
Well with examples like that, there's not much sense debating the point. What about an army of nothing? I have that option too. I also have the freedom to cheat, or ignore the rules I don't like.
An army of drop pods is just as legitimate as the army of sternguard that you mentioned earlier. What makes an army of empty drop pods inherently any less "cool" or what have you compared to any other army list in your "the player should be able to do whatever he wants" worldview?
Most sensible armies (ones built with something, like, say a CAD) would be perfectly viable if the player ensures they cover the basics.
If I have to take a CAD, then my options have been limited.
An army of sternguard doesn't fit into the CAD.
Again, you and I both know this example of empty drop pods is ridiculous.
What makes it ridiculous?
I'm not arguing total abject freedom where the player can do anything.
You certainly appeared to be arguing for that earlier. I believe you mentioned an army of just sternguard.
I'm arguing that the basic building block of the army should be at the unit level vice the formation level and that some structure is needed for balancing purposes. Within that structure, as much player options as possible can be reasonably included, like the old 5th ed force org swaps, which allowed for nearly any type of army you wanted by shifting units around. It was fluffy, fun, and mostly balanced, depending on the units involved.
Point is, you still need to build an army that can, you know, do something.
Please explain to me how my fluffy, GW approved and promoted, and CAD compliant army of 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, all in rhinos, are going to beat an army of just Leeman Russes (which is CAD compliant, mind you).
The simple fact is that spamming a single unit type will be able to confer a massive advantage over a TAC list every time.
Rigid formations prevent that.
In theory, yes, at the army list level, formations will have less combinations. However, when writing/balancing the factions, you still have to spend the same time balancing the individual units in both a formation system and a non formation system. With formations though, you have the extra work of writing the formations, assigning a relevant bonus, and balancing those bonuses and the formation composition.
Now, even if the total number of army list combinations is less in a formation system, and therefore theoretically requires less balancing/testing at the army level, it still requires more balancing/testing at the unit and formation level. The end result is that even I take your premise that it takes less effort to balance whole armies, I'm working under the premise that it takes more effort at the formation level to balance, therefore (at best) negating each other.
I have to disagree with this. If the game is to be balanced, truly balanced, then the developers have to try all of rules compliant lists and compare them to each other. Formations cut out a ton of those lists.
Let's just take 6 lists:
A. A list with 3 wraithknights.
B. A list with 2 wraithknights
C. A list with 1 wraithknight
D. A list with 5 leeman russes
E. A list with 2 devastator squads
F.A list composed entirely of flyrants
If, right off the bat, we assert that lists A, B, D and F are not rules compliant, that makes balancing things a lot easier.
And before you disagree with me, then consider the opposite. What is the result when more army lists become rules compliant?
Just consider unbound and allied detachments. Did that make the game more or less balanced?
Which then means that if both systems are roughly equal in terms of balance effort, why go with the more complex one and restrictive option?
Because they're not actually equal either in terms of effort or result. Again, consider unbound and allied detachments. What I'm suggesting essentially is the opposite. If the opposite of what I am suggesting made the game less balanced, necessarily, what I am suggesting would make it more balanced.
You'll find that in most real world examples, games took the simpler option that opens up more player choice and don't have formations (or similar). Remember why 40k has formations. Its all about the money.
Probably. That's probably also why the execution has been terrible.
Their goal has been to buff everything enough to get people to buy stuff. Not to balance the game and make sure people have roughly equal chances against each other.
Which is where we disagree. The work involved in coming up with formations that are a combination of fluffy, effective, have the right amount of openness and restrictions, assign relevant bonuses that are properly worded and don't contradict any of the units involved, then balance those bonuses against the formation within the same book, then as a force against other books, just sounds like way more work then testing individual units within the context of an army.
You could make the same argument about force multiplying units like psykers.
Remember that I'm not advocating for total free for all freedom here.
Earlier, you literally argued for an army of just sternguard.
My stance is that the right structure was the CAD and modifcations within it. It worked, its similar to how other games work because its a good system.
What makes the CAD any more fluffy and balanced than a formation?
Why shouldn't I be able to bring more than 3 units of sternguard?
It may be balanced, but it wouldn't be enjoyable. No one wants to be stuck with the unit equivalent of their lame kid brother.
And this comes down to the meat of the issue. You don't object to my proposal because you don't think it would balance the game. You object to the proposal because you like spamming the best units in the codex.
At any rate, it wouldn't be "the unit equivalent of their lame kid brother" if EVERYONE is doing it. All of a sudden, tactical marines would actually have things to shoot, khorne berserkers would have things to charge, ork boys would have things to WAAAGH at, etc.
Yes, it would be an overall nerf to everybody, but it would be a massive buff to the weaker units.
If you cut out formations, you get the same balance, but with less overhead.
I disagree, for the previously stated reasons.
Explain to me how my CAD compliant battle company is going to beat an army of just leeman russes.
Well, that's not really good balance. You've just forced a handicap, one they probably don't want or may not even have, forcing them to buy something they don't want. Not a good solution for anyone.
That's already true in the CAD. Suppose a marine player doesn't want to buy scouts or tactical marines.
He still has to take 2 because of the CAD. You're forcing him to buy something he doesn't want.
I still say it's perfectly acceptable.
But then how many formations would there be per book? There's already so many its genuinely tedious keeping track of them. It was bad enough keeping track of all the USRs for the units and their wargear, but now you'd be adding even more formations that need to be tracked in addition to the units themselves.
How many common playstyles can you think of for marines? How many formations can you come up with based on the fluff? I can think of 3:
1. They fall from the sky
2. They all ride in on bikes
3. They ride in on razorbacks/rhinos
And an army of Tyranids is a variable thing. It could be a monster mash, or a horde, or a flying list, or an elite specialist force, or any combination thereof.
Which may or may not be CAD compliant. You're arguing against yourself. Either you are in favor of Unbound, or else, you can't say what you are saying right now.
No, I'm in favour of the right amount of structure. Having army construction be at the unit level is more free than having at the formation level
I disagree that freedom in and of itself is necessarily desirable as a goal.
And again, there's freedom even within the GSF, even within the more limited variation that I'm proposing.
If by spam you mean literally having an army of a single unit, then sure, that's not good. But a CAD naturally limits that anyways.
How many leeman russes can an IG player bring in a CAD?
If by spam you simply mean not having 2+ of any given unit, then I disagree it should be limited.
That's not what I had in mind.
I don't know. Cheese: you know it when you see it.
Yes, serpents were overpowered. That doesn't mean putting 10 razors on the table is perfectly acceptable. Apples and oranges. Its quite clear based on tournament results and overwhelming feedback that being able to put down 10 scoring vehicles for free that either drop in where you want them or can help shoot and move troops around will win games. One razor isn't an issue. Two isn't problematic. Three is annoying. Five is an issue. Ten is a problem for all but the most powerful lists.
But now we're circling back to your thread where you were defending the GSF as being fine and balanced. It was handily demonstrated to you by nearly everyone that the GSF is playing with the top dogs and will easily squash anything not using one of the top dexes.
I'm not wanting to defend the "razorback spam" that the GSF allows (though I think it would be perfectly fine if they were fielded with 10 man squads).
I'm only pointing out that it's difficult to complain about "spamming" relatively weak units. 10 razorbacks isn't spam in the bad sense. They're dedicated transports. The problem is that you can get them for free with minimum 5 man squads.
Wave serpent spam was spam in the bad sense. What Eldar players did was take a clearly unbalanced, OP unit and take as many of them as possible.
There is no sense in which a razorback is unbalanced/OP.
In fact, it might even be overcosted/underpowered.
4 less transport capacity than a rhino and a twin linked heavy bolter = 20 points more than a rhino? Should a twin-linked heavy bolter really cost that much?
It doesn't even get 2 heavy bolters. It gets one heavy bolter that can reroll misses.
Blacksails wrote:While this is only tangentially related, I'll cover the basics.
40k's basic rules are not intuitive at all. Rolling to hit, then wound, then a save doesn't make sense and involves a whole step most games have done away with (with good reason). Cover saves being an either/or save and not a modifier is poor game design and counter intuitive. Armor saves being all or nothing is equally counter intuitive and poor design. The mismatch of individual unit rules (closest model, random wound allocation, challenges) with much larger game sizes and giant constructs (and their lack of granularity) is equally counter intuitive, and results in a bizarre game scale. The army sizes coupled with the game scale coupled with the table size, and weapon ranges easily reaching half way across the table for basic infantry, and the lack of strict terrain rules means movement isn't particularly important outside of grabbing as many objectives as possible in the equally ridiculous and schizophrenic Maelstrom missions (also counter intuitive and excessively random).
This isn't even touching on the constant removal of player decision making and replacing it with tables, random dice rolls, and sheer luck. Good, intuitive game design wouldn't have developed Maelstrom. Maelstrom is random piled on top of random with a touch of random added on top. Same goes for psychic powers, warlord traits, mysterious terrain and a dozen other faction specific tables.
Point is, the core is a jumbled mess of platoon level skirmish gaming mixed with battalion level 15/6mm mass battle gaming that uses archaic rules from the 80s and replaces player impact with random rolling. On top of all that, the faction books are terribly balanced, both internally and externally.
I do agree with you about the randomness. About the other stuff...? You should consider making another thread on this.
Its been done to death a dozen times. I'm sure you could search one.
Well with examples like that, there's not much sense debating the point. What about an army of nothing? I have that option too. I also have the freedom to cheat, or ignore the rules I don't like.
An army of drop pods is just as legitimate as the army of sternguard that you mentioned earlier. What makes an army of empty drop pods inherently any less "cool" or what have you compared to any other army list in your "the player should be able to do whatever he wants" worldview?
An army of drop pods is not legitimate, and you know it. Its a ridiculous example. My example also wasn't sternguard, it was a Firedrake Cadre, as in what the old DA rules for Deathwing; an army of terminators with a captain and other 1st company support elements. But in theory could consists of entirely terminators and a single captain in terminator army.
If you can't see the difference between that and putting a dozen drop pods on the table, I have no desire to continue on.
Most sensible armies (ones built with something, like, say a CAD) would be perfectly viable if the player ensures they cover the basics.
If I have to take a CAD, then my options have been limited.
An army of sternguard doesn't fit into the CAD.
In the DA book, an army of terminators as per my above example fits in the CAD, or did anyways, don't have the new one.
Again, you and I both know this example of empty drop pods is ridiculous.
What makes it ridiculous?
That its an army of drop pods? I don't want to insult your intelligence explaining how stupid of an example this is, so I'll let you figure it out.
I'm not arguing total abject freedom where the player can do anything.
You certainly appeared to be arguing for that earlier. I believe you mentioned an army of just sternguard.
I clarified for you, since you seem to be misremembering. I never argued for total freedom, I argued for more freedom than what a pure formation system would offer. Distinct difference.
I'm arguing that the basic building block of the army should be at the unit level vice the formation level and that some structure is needed for balancing purposes. Within that structure, as much player options as possible can be reasonably included, like the old 5th ed force org swaps, which allowed for nearly any type of army you wanted by shifting units around. It was fluffy, fun, and mostly balanced, depending on the units involved.
Point is, you still need to build an army that can, you know, do something.
Please explain to me how my fluffy, GW approved and promoted, and CAD compliant army of 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, all in rhinos, are going to beat an army of just Leeman Russes (which is CAD compliant, mind you).
The simple fact is that spamming a single unit type will be able to confer a massive advantage over a TAC list every time.
Rigid formations prevent that.
That army of Leman Russes is also formation compliant. In your formation only world, you'd still have to deal with that same army.
And honestly, if your GSF can't defeat a Russ heavy list, then the issue isn't the lists, its the operator.
In theory, yes, at the army list level, formations will have less combinations. However, when writing/balancing the factions, you still have to spend the same time balancing the individual units in both a formation system and a non formation system. With formations though, you have the extra work of writing the formations, assigning a relevant bonus, and balancing those bonuses and the formation composition.
Now, even if the total number of army list combinations is less in a formation system, and therefore theoretically requires less balancing/testing at the army level, it still requires more balancing/testing at the unit and formation level. The end result is that even I take your premise that it takes less effort to balance whole armies, I'm working under the premise that it takes more effort at the formation level to balance, therefore (at best) negating each other.
I have to disagree with this. If the game is to be balanced, truly balanced, then the developers have to try all of rules compliant lists and compare them to each other. Formations cut out a ton of those lists.
Let's just take 6 lists:
A. A list with 3 wraithknights.
B. A list with 2 wraithknights
C. A list with 1 wraithknight
D. A list with 5 leeman russes
E. A list with 2 devastator squads
F.A list composed entirely of flyrants
If, right off the bat, we assert that lists A, B, D and F are not rules compliant, that makes balancing things a lot easier.
And before you disagree with me, then consider the opposite. What is the result when more army lists become rules compliant?
Just consider unbound and allied detachments. Did that make the game more or less balanced?
You seem to be ignoring all the work involved in writing, balancing, and testing the formations themselves. It only gets more complicated when you have formations within formations within formations.
Which then means that if both systems are roughly equal in terms of balance effort, why go with the more complex one and restrictive option?
Because they're not actually equal either in terms of effort or result. Again, consider unbound and allied detachments. What I'm suggesting essentially is the opposite. If the opposite of what I am suggesting made the game less balanced, necessarily, what I am suggesting would make it more balanced.
We had an edition (several in fact) with no formations. General consensus is that 5th was the most balanced edition. No formations, only units fighting units in CADs. Even if we sit here all day arguing which takes less effort to balance, we have real world application of a no formation game that was significantly better balanced than the current edition with formations.
When we expand our scope to other games, we find more of the exact same thing.
You'll find that in most real world examples, games took the simpler option that opens up more player choice and don't have formations (or similar). Remember why 40k has formations. Its all about the money.
Probably. That's probably also why the execution has been terrible.
Their goal has been to buff everything enough to get people to buy stuff. Not to balance the game and make sure people have roughly equal chances against each other.
Which is exactly why you should dislike it as a player. Its nothing more than a money grab.
Which is where we disagree. The work involved in coming up with formations that are a combination of fluffy, effective, have the right amount of openness and restrictions, assign relevant bonuses that are properly worded and don't contradict any of the units involved, then balance those bonuses against the formation within the same book, then as a force against other books, just sounds like way more work then testing individual units within the context of an army.
You could make the same argument about force multiplying units like psykers.
Not really, considering they come with a point cost (and ideally should be paying for powers too), and eat up force org slot means they're significantly easier to balance. Again, see previous editions.
Remember that I'm not advocating for total free for all freedom here.
Earlier, you literally argued for an army of just sternguard.
Clarified above.
My stance is that the right structure was the CAD and modifcations within it. It worked, its similar to how other games work because its a good system.
What makes the CAD any more fluffy and balanced than a formation?
Why shouldn't I be able to bring more than 3 units of sternguard?
The same argument applies in reverse against formations. Why do I have to take 6 sentinels if I only want 3?
It may be balanced, but it wouldn't be enjoyable. No one wants to be stuck with the unit equivalent of their lame kid brother.
And this comes down to the meat of the issue. You don't object to my proposal because you don't think it would balance the game. You object to the proposal because you like spamming the best units in the codex.
At any rate, it wouldn't be "the unit equivalent of their lame kid brother" if EVERYONE is doing it. All of a sudden, tactical marines would actually have things to shoot, khorne berserkers would have things to charge, ork boys would have things to WAAAGH at, etc.
Yes, it would be an overall nerf to everybody, but it would be a massive buff to the weaker units.
So know you're going to assume my intentions eh? Cause that always works so well for people. How about you argue my points and not infer that I'm some min/maxing WAAC guy.
For the record, all the things I'd 'spam' in the Guard codex are not even the best units.
If you cut out formations, you get the same balance, but with less overhead.
I disagree, for the previously stated reasons.
Explain to me how my CAD compliant battle company is going to beat an army of just leeman russes.
If you have problems against russes with a GSF (or a CAD marine army), you have an operator problem.
Well, that's not really good balance. You've just forced a handicap, one they probably don't want or may not even have, forcing them to buy something they don't want. Not a good solution for anyone.
That's already true in the CAD. Suppose a marine player doesn't want to buy scouts or tactical marines.
He still has to take 2 because of the CAD. You're forcing him to buy something he doesn't want.
I still say it's perfectly acceptable.
Or he could have bikes. In my perfect world, he could also have assault squads or devs or terminators or veterans depending on the person leading them.
But then how many formations would there be per book? There's already so many its genuinely tedious keeping track of them. It was bad enough keeping track of all the USRs for the units and their wargear, but now you'd be adding even more formations that need to be tracked in addition to the units themselves.
How many common playstyles can you think of for marines? How many formations can you come up with based on the fluff? I can think of 3:
1. They fall from the sky
2. They all ride in on bikes
3. They ride in on razorbacks/rhinos
Is there a point here?
And an army of Tyranids is a variable thing. It could be a monster mash, or a horde, or a flying list, or an elite specialist force, or any combination thereof.
Which may or may not be CAD compliant. You're arguing against yourself. Either you are in favor of Unbound, or else, you can't say what you are saying right now.
All of my examples with Nids are CAD compliant.
No, I'm in favour of the right amount of structure. Having army construction be at the unit level is more free than having at the formation level
I disagree that freedom in and of itself is necessarily desirable as a goal.
And again, there's freedom even within the GSF, even within the more limited variation that I'm proposing.
And there's more in the CAD. Especially with more force org slots I'd propose.
If by spam you mean literally having an army of a single unit, then sure, that's not good. But a CAD naturally limits that anyways.
How many leeman russes can an IG player bring in a CAD?
Nine, plus up to 3 more with a Tank Commander and two friends.
If by spam you simply mean not having 2+ of any given unit, then I disagree it should be limited.
That's not what I had in mind.
I don't know. Cheese: you know it when you see it.
Which varies by person. Not a valid benchmark.
Yes, serpents were overpowered. That doesn't mean putting 10 razors on the table is perfectly acceptable. Apples and oranges. Its quite clear based on tournament results and overwhelming feedback that being able to put down 10 scoring vehicles for free that either drop in where you want them or can help shoot and move troops around will win games. One razor isn't an issue. Two isn't problematic. Three is annoying. Five is an issue. Ten is a problem for all but the most powerful lists.
But now we're circling back to your thread where you were defending the GSF as being fine and balanced. It was handily demonstrated to you by nearly everyone that the GSF is playing with the top dogs and will easily squash anything not using one of the top dexes.
I'm not wanting to defend the "razorback spam" that the GSF allows (though I think it would be perfectly fine if they were fielded with 10 man squads).
I'm only pointing out that it's difficult to complain about "spamming" relatively weak units. 10 razorbacks isn't spam in the bad sense. They're dedicated transports. The problem is that you can get them for free with minimum 5 man squads.
Wave serpent spam was spam in the bad sense. What Eldar players did was take a clearly unbalanced, OP unit and take as many of them as possible.
There is no sense in which a razorback is unbalanced/OP.
In fact, it might even be overcosted/underpowered.
4 less transport capacity than a rhino and a twin linked heavy bolter = 20 points more than a rhino? Should a twin-linked heavy bolter really cost that much?
It doesn't even get 2 heavy bolters. It gets one heavy bolter that can reroll misses.
So spam is fine if their DTs and not overpowered? Seems like a weird definition trying to skirt around your own dislike of spam but not for the formation you like.
I'm not wanting to defend the "razorback spam" that the GSF allows (though I think it would be perfectly fine if they were fielded with 10 man squads).
I'm only pointing out that it's difficult to complain about "spamming" relatively weak units. 10 razorbacks isn't spam in the bad sense. They're dedicated transports. The problem is that you can get them for free with minimum 5 man squads.
Wave serpent spam was spam in the bad sense. What Eldar players did was take a clearly unbalanced, OP unit and take as many of them as possible.
There is no sense in which a razorback is unbalanced/OP.
In fact, it might even be overcosted/underpowered.
4 less transport capacity than a rhino and a twin linked heavy bolter = 20 points more than a rhino? Should a twin-linked heavy bolter really cost that much?
It doesn't even get 2 heavy bolters. It gets one heavy bolter that can reroll misses.
Uh, it would be completely silly if you could only take Razorbacks for 10 man units as Razorback can only transport 6. Of course in gameplay you can Combat squad but in terms of fiction, a Commander would be unlikely to bring out a mechanized force where half of each squad has to be left behind when army redeploys.
I find most Formations as incredibly lazy way of forcing armies to be 'fluffy'. The actual way it should be done is to make armies and scenarios such that fluffy armies are good. If you deviate from norm, prepare for potential drawbacks. Razorback as such is not unbalanced (anymore). However when you get it for free, it's very much unbalanced. 10 Razorbacks is 550 points worth of free units. Would you fancy playing CAD vs CAD match where other player has 500 point advantage? Even if we figure that Razorback is overcosted and should only cost 40 points (5th edition cost) it's still 400 points of free stuff. I am sure Pyrovore would be popular if there was a Tyranid formation where you get them for no points cost.
This is the problem with formations. They are completely unintuitive. A Razorback or Rhino is not a 'free, disposable asset' for a Space Marine chapter. They are a limited resource which is not necessarily that easy to replace, not to mention a respected tool, comrade-in-arms, even a relic. They are not handed out like candy by Master of the Forge: "Hey, why don't you muster two more Tactical Squad? I'll give you Rhinos for free if you do!"
Also rigidity of formations. Why do you get these bonuses if you take this exact number of units? It is like Monty Python: "Book of Armaments says that thou shalt take three Predators to gain these bonuses, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt take, and the number of the Predators shall be three. Four shalt thou not take, neither should thou take two, excepting that one is lost during combat from original three, in which case it is not a problem. Five is right out...."
Backfire wrote:Uh, it would be completely silly if you could only take Razorbacks for 10 man units as Razorback can only transport 6.
Fluffwise? Maybe. Balancewise? Not at all. If you can get a free 35 point unit for a minimum 5 man squad, it doesn't make sense that you can forgo that free 35 unit in favor of a free 55 point unit. The higher points "free" benefit should require a higher "cost" to get it.
Also rigidity of formations. Why do you get these bonuses if you take this exact number of units? It is like Monty Python: "Book of Armaments says that thou shalt take three Predators to gain these bonuses, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt take, and the number of the Predators shall be three. Four shalt thou not take, neither should thou take two, excepting that one is lost during combat from original three, in which case it is not a problem. Five is right out...."
That's not always true. Some formations do give you options and/or a numerical range.
E.g., in the first company, you can take sternguard, vanguard or either choppy or shooty terminators, and you can take any combination thereof, so long as you take 3-5 units.
