So long ago there was a decade or 2 that 'Detachment' did not exist in the rules. Back then it was 25% min for troops and 50% max for HeavySupport/Characters.

That was easily abused. It should have been 50% min troops.

There is a lot of fuss over CP and spam lists and it seems really based on the use of Detachments.

There used to be rules that said if you wanted this character you needed to have this squad/unit. It would be easy to apply that to get the same results as most infantry based detachments. Actually would be quite simple.

The problems arise when someone wants to play an armored column or all flyer list or super heavy list or so on. But is that really a big deal for a Platoon or 2 sized game?

Should there be one set of rules for 40k (vehicle facing, fire arcs, etc) and another for Apocolypse games (much like we have in 8th currently)

thoughts?

Detachments are fine.

I remember when we just had the one Force Org Chart, and everyone either used it or ignored it.

Ah, sweet apathy, where have you gone?

The problem is that there are units, often troops, that are just no good. And there are units, often elites or flyers, that are *too* good.

Every unit should have some sort of use. Otherwise its just a tax to bring the unit you really want.

So far it feels like 8th's "wound anything" really helps with that. But it remains to be seen.

If the issue is "troops are too weak", the solution isn't "we need more detachments".

That's GW-thought. And GW-thought is wrongthink.

I would prefer a system where each player got 3 command points base, with an additional point for each troop unit in the army.

As things are now, 8th edition has me feeling like troops struggle for identity.

 Fafnir wrote:
I would prefer a system where each player got 3 command points base, with an additional point for each troop unit in the army.

As things are now, 8th edition has me feeling like troops struggle for identity.

In real wars armies are almost entirely troops, until one side has such an enormous resource advantage over the other that they don't have to field troops.

40k ignores resource limitations, and assumes that Baneblades are as plentiful as Guardsmen.

That's why troops have no identity.

 Fafnir wrote:
I would prefer a system where each player got 3 command points base, with an additional point for each troop unit in the army.

As things are now, 8th edition has me feeling like troops struggle for identity.

I gotta say I really like that idea

To be honest why some troops don't make it into play is that some armies have such a poor selection and others have tons to choose from that are adequate/great.

Detachments have always been fun for me to fill out. What the actual army on the board looks like really did not change that much from 2nd to 3rd. Same units same roles just a new way to fit them in.

 Selym wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
I would prefer a system where each player got 3 command points base, with an additional point for each troop unit in the army.

As things are now, 8th edition has me feeling like troops struggle for identity.

In real wars armies are almost entirely troops, until one side has such an enormous resource advantage over the other that they don't have to field troops.

40k ignores resource limitations, and assumes that Baneblades are as plentiful as Guardsmen.

That's why troops have no identity.

And it all comes from jervis being a pushover to the marketing team and the ethos of play wit ma toyz take precedent over a coherent game that doesn't involve super heavies at 500pts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 admironheart wrote:


Should there be one set of rules for 40k (vehicle facing, fire arcs, etc) and another for Apocolypse games (much like we have in 8th currently)

thoughts?

Yeah the removal of arcs, especially given the introduction of splitfire is baffling and ruins the nuance of various vehicles and their mountings. Apoc is made irrelevant by the core game essentially just being apoc, sadly. I do think separation between super heavies and gigantic fmc's and everything else would certainly help the game, at the very least index stuff to points like 30k does.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
I would prefer a system where each player got 3 command points base, with an additional point for each troop unit in the army.

As things are now, 8th edition has me feeling like troops struggle for identity.

In real wars armies are almost entirely troops, until one side has such an enormous resource advantage over the other that they don't have to field troops.

40k ignores resource limitations, and assumes that Baneblades are as plentiful as Guardsmen.

That's why troops have no identity.

And it all comes from jervis being a pushover to the marketing team and the ethos of play wit ma toyz take precedent over a coherent game that doesn't involve super heavies at 500pts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 admironheart wrote:


Should there be one set of rules for 40k (vehicle facing, fire arcs, etc) and another for Apocolypse games (much like we have in 8th currently)

thoughts?

Yeah the removal of arcs, especially given the introduction of splitfire is baffling and ruins the nuance of various vehicles and their mountings. Apoc is made irrelevant by the core game essentially just being apoc, sadly. I do think separation between super heavies and gigantic fmc's and everything else would certainly help the game, at the very least index stuff to points like 30k does.

As someone who hasn't played 40k since 2nd, (so my memories are pretty foggy), I am really enjoying the approachability of 8th. My troops die in droves, but we can play a game in a reasonable amount of time. I'm glad I don't have to spend time arguing about individual weapon arcs, hull sides and such. Hell I'd rather not have to individually measure weapon distances to be honest. And getting rid of templates, fine by me! I've only played two games so far, but it was pretty easy to pick up and it played at a great pace.

I mean, we only played 500 points, and I still had 30 infantry on the table, and two vehicles. Scale that up and you're looking at WFB 8th edition numbers of toy soldiers, but having to move and measure them all individually! That doesn't sound like much fun to me. I'm going to dig out my movement trays for from WFB for my next game, and eventually pick up skirmish trays.

But I'm still a newb to 40k so I may see more problems as time goes by.

 argonak wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
I would prefer a system where each player got 3 command points base, with an additional point for each troop unit in the army.

As things are now, 8th edition has me feeling like troops struggle for identity.

In real wars armies are almost entirely troops, until one side has such an enormous resource advantage over the other that they don't have to field troops.

40k ignores resource limitations, and assumes that Baneblades are as plentiful as Guardsmen.

That's why troops have no identity.

And it all comes from jervis being a pushover to the marketing team and the ethos of play wit ma toyz take precedent over a coherent game that doesn't involve super heavies at 500pts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 admironheart wrote:


Should there be one set of rules for 40k (vehicle facing, fire arcs, etc) and another for Apocolypse games (much like we have in 8th currently)

thoughts?

Yeah the removal of arcs, especially given the introduction of splitfire is baffling and ruins the nuance of various vehicles and their mountings. Apoc is made irrelevant by the core game essentially just being apoc, sadly. I do think separation between super heavies and gigantic fmc's and everything else would certainly help the game, at the very least index stuff to points like 30k does.

As someone who hasn't played 40k since 2nd, (so my memories are pretty foggy), I am really enjoying the approachability of 8th. My troops die in droves, but we can play a game in a reasonable amount of time. I'm glad I don't have to spend time arguing about individual weapon arcs, hull sides and such. Hell I'd rather not have to individually measure weapon distances to be honest. And getting rid of templates, fine by me! I've only played two games so far, but it was pretty easy to pick up and it played at a great pace.

I mean, we only played 500 points, and I still had 30 infantry on the table, and two vehicles. Scale that up and you're looking at WFB 8th edition numbers of toy soldiers, but having to move and measure them all individually! That doesn't sound like much fun to me. I'm going to dig out my movement trays for from WFB for my next game, and eventually pick up skirmish trays.

But I'm still a newb to 40k so I may see more problems as time goes by.

To contrast your opinion, what if I said "painting isn't very fun, so i just don't" I mean it's a valid opinion, no one can make me paint. In a game that I put great love and TIME into, sometimes taking hours to just setup a board and dutifully ensuring only to play with painted models/armies I really don't mind a game taking longer if the experience is more detailed and subjectively rewarding on account of that detail. This is the polar opposite of bear and pretzels casual fun, it's obsessive focus, time and effort, often with the same expectations of prospective opponents. It's fine to enjoy the simplicity but for a lot of us, the lack of depth is hard to ignore.




I think if GW limited detachments more and focused on the patrol-battalion-brigade side of things it'd be a good start. At the minimum 1 or 2 max under 1500 IMO. The other detachments should be taxed or unlocked by special characters. Right now the system is so silly, especially for mega factions like imperium that you can just make a collection of stuff and then see if it fits into detachment(s) might need like a cheap hq or other tax, but for the most part, it really limits very little with 3 detachments, especially at 2000.

Not sure if OP has played any 8th. Troops of all kinds are doing great this edition - just look for all the threads talking about how conscripts are probably too good.

Arachnofiend wrote:
Not sure if OP has played any 8th. Troops of all kinds are doing great this edition - just look for all the threads talking about how conscripts are probably too good.

A single under-costed troop choice that players facetiously point to with a gak eating grin and say "I love this edition's renewed focus on infantry, so refreshing" smiling through their teeth while the other side of their mouth refers to their beloved infantry as simply "bubble wrap" used ostensibly to take up space and to keep your tanks from getting into.. fist.. fights..

I'd see Apoc models relegated to Apoc before the end of detachments.
But I said the same thing about Formations so my opinion is out of step.

I would be okay with giving an even greater advantage to troop-based armies (currently you get a few more CP and that's it), if there were also more ways to make units troop choices.

Certain sub-factions should have different troop choices. Current Death Guard has plague marines as a troops for instance. Saim-Hann CWE could also have windriders as troops, provided it comes with some restrictions (all HQs have to be on jetbikes, some units become unavailable etc.).
And we could also have special characters unlock troop choices like they used to. Maybe with a limit, like: "if you take X as an HQ choice, you can take up to N units of Y as troops instead of elite/HS/whatever".

Just go back to 5th edition where only troops could score... problem solved.

secretForge wrote:
Just go back to 5th edition where only troops could score... problem solved.

That's a lot of what works well in 30k.

This is where Gw's we're a model not a games company comes through tough.

Gameplay/" realistically"(how I hate using that word in conjunction with 40k) you should encourage troops and basic infantry.

Practically they want people (not just little Timmy also his father Johny) to be able to use their cool new painted god looking centerpieces wothout needing a day for an apoc game.

They may have gone too far in this direction but everyrhing being able to hurt everything should help

Irl militaries are very careful not to have all their eggs in one basket since WWII. You just can't protect that basket sufficiently from bad luck.

 admironheart wrote:
To be honest why some troops don't make it into play is that some armies have such a poor selection and others have tons to choose from that are adequate/great.

The thing is though, you could say the exact same thing about HQs. However, whilst there are many detachments that allow you to field no troops, there are none that allow you to field no HQs (outside of the LoW and aircraft ones, obviously).

 Fafnir wrote:
I would prefer a system where each player got 3 command points base, with an additional point for each troop unit in the army.

I really like that idea.

 Fafnir wrote:
As things are now, 8th edition has me feeling like troops struggle for identity.

I think the issue is that they've been made completely optional. The whole point of troops is that they're supposed to be the core of the army.

 admironheart wrote:
So long ago there was a decade or 2 that 'Detachment' did not exist in the rules. Back then it was 25% min for troops and 50% max for HeavySupport/Characters.

That was easily abused. It should have been 50% min troops.

This could work if it would mean all non-character infantry would become a troop choice. Nobody wants to play 1000 points of Rangers/Guardians/Dire Avengers in a 2000 point game. However, if the troop choice would include Dark Reapers, Swooping Hawks, Striking Scorpions, Wraith Guards, and so on(basically all infantry that is non-character becomes a troop choice), it would make more sense.

Eldarsif wrote:

 admironheart wrote:
So long ago there was a decade or 2 that 'Detachment' did not exist in the rules. Back then it was 25% min for troops and 50% max for HeavySupport/Characters.

That was easily abused. It should have been 50% min troops.

This could work if it would mean all non-character infantry would become a troop choice. Nobody wants to play 1000 points of Rangers/Guardians/Dire Avengers in a 2000 point game. However, if the troop choice would include Dark Reapers, Swooping Hawks, Striking Scorpions, Wraith Guards, and so on(basically all infantry that is non-character becomes a troop choice), it would make more sense.

Actually, that would defeat the whole purpose - because once again the troops would just be ignored in favour of more 'flashy' units.

What if it was just 25% Troops?

I say no

Variety promotes experimentation

Also, the whole 'troops are useless' thing is hilarious to watch.

In all of the games i have played, troops have been the absolute bane of my existence. Mass number units hurt like a bee sting.

(Also. For people who think the conscrip + Commisar combo is great and all. I laugh in your face at the sheer lack of depth you posses.

I have found that if your willing to spare an extra 2 pts per model. you can go instead with 5 lots of infantry guardsmen, who do a heck of a lot more than the 50 blob conscripts.

Add a commisar and company commander to that line and watch your opponents cry tears. Believe me, I know)

I think the current detachments system is nearly there, but not quite. Would be nice to see some sort of incentive (bonus CPs maybe?) to actually fill out your detachments, rather than just take the bare minimum for the CPs. For example, why would I take an extra HQ/three HS slots in a Battalion when I can take them as a separate detachment and get +1CP?

 vipoid wrote:

Eldarsif wrote:

 admironheart wrote:
So long ago there was a decade or 2 that 'Detachment' did not exist in the rules. Back then it was 25% min for troops and 50% max for HeavySupport/Characters.

That was easily abused. It should have been 50% min troops.

This could work if it would mean all non-character infantry would become a troop choice. Nobody wants to play 1000 points of Rangers/Guardians/Dire Avengers in a 2000 point game. However, if the troop choice would include Dark Reapers, Swooping Hawks, Striking Scorpions, Wraith Guards, and so on(basically all infantry that is non-character becomes a troop choice), it would make more sense.

Actually, that would defeat the whole purpose - because once again the troops would just be ignored in favour of more 'flashy' units.

What if it was just 25% Troops?

Make it 30% basic squaddies, and it's a deal.

In every 1,000 points, you must have 300pts of Troops.
In every 1,500 points, you must have 450pts of Troops.
In every 2,000 points, you must have 600pts of Troops.
In every 2,500 points, you must have 750pts of Troops.
In every 3,000 points, you must have 900pts of Troops.

This is easy to achieve - A Tactical Marine squad can make over 200 points in a single skwad.

Anything like this has very different impacts on different factions. Some have good Troops and some have awful Troops. Some have Troops that are worth taking but not in large numbers. Sometimes this change doesn't have that big of an impact on lists that are still pretty weird.

I don't have an in-principle problem with this as long as many factions get their units' roles re-thought. Necrons need way more than just Warriors and Immortals as Troops, for example. Lots of Craftworld Eldar lists aren't going to care about this change, because while they're only bringing a few min-sized Guardian squads, all of those squads have expensive Wave Serpents, but others who want to bring lots of Aspect Warriors are screwed (or if the transports don't count then Craftworld Eldar really just have nothing worth spending lots of Troops points on). Tau can't put together very suit-heavy lists.

I mean, it's a little weird to say that it's a problem that a Tau army can field a force consisting mostly of elite battlesuits but not a problem that the Imperium can field a force consisting entirely of ultra-elite space marines.

I was referring to troops sans transport...

But yeah, factions need at least three troop options, and for the current ones to become valid choices. As right now, even implementing quotas, they are not.

 Selym wrote:
I remember when we just had the one Force Org Chart, and everyone either used it or ignored it.

Ah, sweet apathy, where have you gone?

4th and 5th edition, you mean? 8 years out of the nineteen that the Force Organisation Chart has been part of the game. Even then, I think Daemonhunters and Witch Hunters had their own, didn't they? And Space Wolves modified it, and other armies had rules that let other units count as Troops (which is exactly the same as saying "if so-and-so is in your army, use this FOC instead".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:

Eldarsif wrote:

 admironheart wrote:
So long ago there was a decade or 2 that 'Detachment' did not exist in the rules. Back then it was 25% min for troops and 50% max for HeavySupport/Characters.

That was easily abused. It should have been 50% min troops.

This could work if it would mean all non-character infantry would become a troop choice. Nobody wants to play 1000 points of Rangers/Guardians/Dire Avengers in a 2000 point game. However, if the troop choice would include Dark Reapers, Swooping Hawks, Striking Scorpions, Wraith Guards, and so on(basically all infantry that is non-character becomes a troop choice), it would make more sense.

Actually, that would defeat the whole purpose - because once again the troops would just be ignored in favour of more 'flashy' units.

What if it was just 25% Troops?

Back when it was split by percentages, you only had Characters, Troops and Support. For Space Marines, the troops section included Terminators, Assault Marines and Devastators.

Characters is self-evident (but also included veteran sergeants and the like, and Exarchs were independent characters), Support was tanks, artillery, field guns and allies, Troops was everything else - including all the Aspect Warriors, as Eldarsif suggests.

I think that the detachments have been OK and from what I have seen troops have taken a step into the spotlight for 8th (especially compared to 7th). I do like the idea of giving a command point per troop choice, but I just know that it would be abused by people. Perhaps for each 10% of the armies total spent on troops you get an additional command point?

Dionysodorus wrote:
Anything like this has very different impacts on different factions. Some have good Troops and some have awful Troops. Some have Troops that are worth taking but not in large numbers. Sometimes this change doesn't have that big of an impact on lists that are still pretty weird.

I don't have an in-principle problem with this as long as many factions get their units' roles re-thought. Necrons need way more than just Warriors and Immortals as Troops, for example. Lots of Craftworld Eldar lists aren't going to care about this change, because while they're only bringing a few min-sized Guardian squads, all of those squads have expensive Wave Serpents, but others who want to bring lots of Aspect Warriors are screwed (or if the transports don't count then Craftworld Eldar really just have nothing worth spending lots of Troops points on). Tau can't put together very suit-heavy lists.

I mean, it's a little weird to say that it's a problem that a Tau army can field a force consisting mostly of elite battlesuits but not a problem that the Imperium can field a force consisting entirely of ultra-elite space marines.

Quoted for truth.
Also don't underestimate how this scales up towards bigger point levels.
I know a number of poeple who would be very unhappy (not in a WAAC) fashion if Gw invalidated their armies and lists like this.
It's possible but you would have to balance every faction around this kind of restriction.

I think formations were the way to go to force "balanced" lists but this failed due toii bad implementations.

Eldar are only fine if dedicated transports count as troops. They don't right now, they have their own slots. Imagine having to take that many guardians, DA and rangers. Doesn't fit the lore either Eldar don't count on numpbers to win, they rely on tech,tanks and specialists.

 vipoid wrote:


I think the issue is that they've been made completely optional. The whole point of troops is that they're supposed to be the core of the army.

Devil's advocate time - in favour of some of those non-Troop detachments.

There have been a number of armies in the past who had non-conventional troops in some form or another - Dark Angels, Blood Angels had Assault Marines as troops for a while, Alpha Legion CSM could field Chosen as troops...it goes on. You also had odd variant lists - armoured companies, Ork Speed Freak lists, Bike Boy lists....

And then when a new codex comes along suddenly that army is illegal. And the 'mandatory' troops feel like a smack in the face to those players who enjoyed that theme or approach.

8th's varied detachments have actually done a very good job of addressing this. Hells, if I still had them I could go back and play my 5th edition Blood Angels again - before Assault Marines poofing back to Fast Attack made my army illegal - thanks to the Outrider detachment. Armoured company lists can play with the Spearhead detachment. Alpha Legion Chosen lists can benefit from Vanguard. Deathwing benefit from Vanguard.

Suddenly they've produced a detachment system that retroactively caters to the armies that had the odd troops choices or selections - Eldar Ghost Warriors for example - now you can field Vanguard for multiple Wraithguard, some Wraithlords, a Supreme Command detachment for the Warlocks and you can be happy.

It actually lets older armies come back out to play.

 Selym wrote:
Make it 30% basic squaddies, and it's a deal.

In every 1,000 points, you must have 300pts of Troops.
In every 1,500 points, you must have 450pts of Troops.
In every 2,000 points, you must have 600pts of Troops.
In every 2,500 points, you must have 750pts of Troops.
In every 3,000 points, you must have 900pts of Troops.

This is easy to achieve - A Tactical Marine squad can make over 200 points in a single skwad.

The one thing I'll say n regard to this is that I'm wondering whether transports should really factor into this.

For example, a squad of DE Warriors is about half the cost of their transport. So in a 2000pt game, if you have to spend 600pts on Warriors, you'd then have to spend a further ~1200pts to actually put them in transports. Might be a tad excessive.

Dionysodorus wrote:
I don't have an in-principle problem with this as long as many factions get their units' roles re-thought. Necrons need way more than just Warriors and Immortals as Troops, for example.

I actually think that Necrons are fine with the troops they have. Warriors and Immortals are both solid and I'd have no objections to them making up 25-30% of my list. Hell, I'd even be willing to go higher than that.

My only issue is how stupidly expensive the models for immortals are.

That said, what changes would you propose for Necrons? Are there any units you'd want to move to Troops (Scarabs maybe?)? Or would you like a whole new troop unit for them?


Also, serious question, which armies do you guys think would suffer most from being forced to field more troops?

We are currently trying out the following:

-dedicated transport remains unchanged
-Troop choices are unlimited. (something I really miss in any 40k edition)
- You have one HQ you have to fill.
- You have up to one choice each of fast assault, heavy support and elite as base.

-For each Troop choice you take, you can pick ONE other choice from HQ or elites or assault or support.
Alternatively:
- For two Troop choices you take , you can pick a flyer or lord of war.

You cannot have a troop choice count for both.

The system is not tied to the number of points you play but can get quite troop centric over 3000 points.

Command points are a flat 1 per 250 points.

Albeit the one CP per troop was discussed as well but discarded as some armies have it easier to fill every need on the battlefield with troops than others.

I think unlimited troops is a good idea.

 vipoid wrote:

I actually think that Necrons are fine with the troops they have. Warriors and Immortals are both solid and I'd have no objections to them making up 25-30% of my list. Hell, I'd even be willing to go higher than that.

My only issue is how stupidly expensive the models for immortals are.

That said, what changes would you propose for Necrons? Are there any units you'd want to move to Troops (Scarabs maybe?)? Or would you like a whole new troop unit for them?

I think that mostly the problem with Necrons is that their armies become really boring and same-y. Yeah, Warriors and Immortals are pretty good, but they're both slow footsloggers that shoot small arms at about 24". So, suppose you have to spend 600 points on Troops at 2k. What are you doing? You're probably bringing 2 big squads of Warriors and a squad of Immortals (note that you can't actually bring just 2 big squads of Immortals and a squad of Warriors -- that doesn't hit 600 -- though you could bring MSU immortals). That means you pretty much have to bring a Ghost Ark. If you already have such a big infantry blob including Immortals it's kind of stupid not to bring an Overlord and a Cryptek. With so many gauss or tesla weapons already it's really hard to justify the non-Troops choices which pack similar guns, and you definitely need anti-tank which your Troops don't really provide at all. So you're then probably spending another 600 points on either Heavy Destroyers or Doomsday Arks. And that's approaching 1600 points or so where your main options were whether to bring a named Overlord and Cryptek and whether to use Heavy Destroyers or DDAs.

I think if you're doing this you absolutely would need to offer anti-tank options at Troops.

Dionysodorus wrote:

I think that mostly the problem with Necrons is that their armies become really boring and same-y. Yeah, Warriors and Immortals are pretty good, but they're both slow footsloggers that shoot small arms at about 24". So, suppose you have to spend 600 points on Troops at 2k. What are you doing? You're probably bringing 2 big squads of Warriors and a squad of Immortals (note that you can't actually bring just 2 big squads of Immortals and a squad of Warriors -- that doesn't hit 600 -- though you could bring MSU immortals). That means you pretty much have to bring a Ghost Ark. If you already have such a big infantry blob including Immortals it's kind of stupid not to bring an Overlord and a Cryptek.

That's a fair point, although I'd argue that part of the problem is having buffs that either only work on Warriors or else are only cost-effective on Warriors. e.g. Crypteks need large squads to really shine, and Ghost Arks can only transport and heal Warriors.

Dionysodorus wrote:
So you're then probably spending another 600 points on either Heavy Destroyers or Doomsday Arks. And that's approaching 1600 points or so where your main options were whether to bring a named Overlord and Cryptek and whether to use Heavy Destroyers or DDAs.

I think if you're doing this you absolutely would need to offer anti-tank options at Troops.

Yeah, I do get what you're saying. What would you suggest in terms of anti-tank options for troops?

Even 25% of 2000 points would mean that I would need 50 Guardians.

To be honest I am getting the vibe that people want Warhammer 40.000 to become nearly rank and file like Warhammer Fantasy with huge contingents of the same troops over and over again just slowly marching across the plains.

I just don't see the appeal. I have played basic Footdar(Guardians en masse) it just gets boring. Playing a lot of Guardians became super boring after the Shuriken Catapult nerf. Boosting their statline is not going to make them more fun, and adding more special abilities to make them interesting means we could have just as well just stuck to allowing lots of Elites and Fast attack units.

Also, why is it so important that all armies play like the Horde armies? If you want to play a lot of troops, fine, go play your army if it allows you to do that. Why should everyone else have to do that?

If this is an indirect cry of foul regarding mass Stormraven/Insert OP unit lists I do believe that time would be better spent asking for a nerf on those unit so people don't spam it instead of having the game restructured into Warhammer Fantasy.

My Ravenwing bikers aren't Troops and neither are my Eldar wraith constructs, but both of these are the core of a strongly themed, and fluffy army (Ravenwing and Iyanden). I already pay a tax in reduced Command Points (by having to use the Outrider or Vanguard detachments) so don't need any other system to tax me or force be to spend x amount of points in Rangers or Scouts just to please someone else's idea of what the game should be.

Troops are pretty excellent in this edition - Though some armies troops are horrifically bad - like Eldar and Space Marines.

Fix the bad troops and you wont have any problem with detachments. Though I do believe certain detachments like the air wing and super-heavy (except for imperial knights) detachments shouldn't exist.

Eldar are and were a hot mess of internal codex imbalance and always have been. In 5th-6th, their Troops were either Jetbikes or Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents. In 7th, it became "Jetbikes only, Final Destination." This is a twofold issue: Scatbikes were gamebreakingly good, and every other Eldar Troop choice only existed to unlock Wave Serpents. With the option to take them as Fast Attack, or grant them BS 5 via the Aspect Host, the "unlocking" purpose didn't matter anymore.

Come 8th, Guardian Jetbikes are now Fast Attack. Sadly, this leaves the foot Guardians out to dry. While fine-tuning the actual internal balance is an issue, some spitball thoughts (for 7e) include:

-Guardian Jetbikes get 4+ armor instead of 3+. Jetbike Scatter Lasers are Range 12. (Turns them into a more glass-cannon Warp Spider admittedly).
-Dire Avengers get 3+ armor.
-Warlocks get 2 Wounds, and 2 attacks.
-Guardians are 8 points, Storm Guardians are 7.
-The Aspect Host is reworked: 3 units of Aspect Warriors. Each unit must take an Exarch, and you cannot take the same Aspect type multiple times. While an Exarch is alive, all other Exarchs in that formation have access to that Exarch's special skill. It would be powerful, but by definition would be an anti-spam formation.

...actually, that's the real issue with 8e, and certain 7e ones. They either promoted spam or didn't encourage mixed units. For every Pinion Demi-Company or Ynnead's Net, you had a Riptide Wing.

The problem with any arbitrary restrictions on any slot is that slots (including troops) are not at all balanced between armies. At say 25% (500 points at 2k) some armies will happily field more points than this and still do well. Others will struggle to make a competitive list that requires 500 points of junk units. Daemons seem a prime candidate for an example of troops as junk, 500 points is basically requiring them to field ~56 troop models, that are mediocre, where as say Orks will be more than happy to bring 90 ork boyz to every game. I think this kind of thinking leads to a lot of armies being very much the same, unless a lot of options are added to what are considered Troops.

I think a decent fix in this edition might be something like "troop models count as 2 models for the purpose of scoring objectives".

Or if the concern is Infantry being prioritized, you could say objectives are held based on the number of infantry models within 3".

But emphasizing troops based on quotas is just bad unless a lot changes.

As for detachments, my only complaint is that there isn't a 1HQ + troops detachment that gives CP. Battalion requires 2 HQ, and Patrol gives no CP.

I would have liked to see either a detachment similar to the Vanguard/Spearhead/Outrider but for troops and giving 2 CP, or simply a Combined arms detachment which would give 2 CP.

 Nazrak wrote:
I think the current detachments system is nearly there, but not quite. Would be nice to see some sort of incentive (bonus CPs maybe?) to actually fill out your detachments, rather than just take the bare minimum for the CPs. For example, why would I take an extra HQ/three HS slots in a Battalion when I can take them as a separate detachment and get +1CP?

I realy like this idea. In fact I'd go so far as to say that it's the only idea in this thread worth considering, everything else is a trash heap idea of forcing all armies to take X amount of troops and will result in every army playing the same way, despite the fact that it would completely gut quite a few armies (With the 30% troops suggestion my Dark Eldar would become functionally useless thanks to having to spend roughly another 50% on transports. If I don't take the transports, the army is useless, but if I take them I have enough points for maybe a Ravager and HQ.) as not every faction is remotely designed to play the same way.

 Imateria wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:
I think the current detachments system is nearly there, but not quite. Would be nice to see some sort of incentive (bonus CPs maybe?) to actually fill out your detachments, rather than just take the bare minimum for the CPs. For example, why would I take an extra HQ/three HS slots in a Battalion when I can take them as a separate detachment and get +1CP?

I realy like this idea.

I would agree, I think perhaps there should be increasing CP for filling out detachments.

Breng77 wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:
I think the current detachments system is nearly there, but not quite. Would be nice to see some sort of incentive (bonus CPs maybe?) to actually fill out your detachments, rather than just take the bare minimum for the CPs. For example, why would I take an extra HQ/three HS slots in a Battalion when I can take them as a separate detachment and get +1CP?

I realy like this idea.

I would agree, I think perhaps there should be increasing CP for filling out detachments.

Again, though, I think this will hit some armies a lot harder than others.

For example, a chap on dakkadakka recently looked into the minimum cost for a Brigade for each army. Most were somewhere in the region of 500-600pts. The Necron one was 1400+pts.

While making list-building a bit more cumbersome, I actually like Detachments in 8th Ed.

 vipoid wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:
I think the current detachments system is nearly there, but not quite. Would be nice to see some sort of incentive (bonus CPs maybe?) to actually fill out your detachments, rather than just take the bare minimum for the CPs. For example, why would I take an extra HQ/three HS slots in a Battalion when I can take them as a separate detachment and get +1CP?

I realy like this idea.

I would agree, I think perhaps there should be increasing CP for filling out detachments.

Again, though, I think this will hit some armies a lot harder than others.

For example, a chap on dakkadakka recently looked into the minimum cost for a Brigade for each army. Most were somewhere in the region of 500-600pts. The Necron one was 1400+pts.

Most armies are never going to bother with a Brigade. Maybe the Patrol should give +1CP as well and from there work out how many extra CP each detachment should give for filling it out, with the number and variety of the current detachments it would be easy then to pick one that suits the army you're playing.

 vipoid wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:
I think the current detachments system is nearly there, but not quite. Would be nice to see some sort of incentive (bonus CPs maybe?) to actually fill out your detachments, rather than just take the bare minimum for the CPs. For example, why would I take an extra HQ/three HS slots in a Battalion when I can take them as a separate detachment and get +1CP?

I realy like this idea.

I would agree, I think perhaps there should be increasing CP for filling out detachments.

Again, though, I think this will hit some armies a lot harder than others.

For example, a chap on dakkadakka recently looked into the minimum cost for a Brigade for each army. Most were somewhere in the region of 500-600pts. The Necron one was 1400+pts.

Yes, but if Necrons could take a Vanguard for +1, then get another +1 for taking the 2 FA slots, another +1 for taking the 2 Heavy Slots, +1for 2 flyers and another +1 for taking 3 troops, for a total of +6 CP, then if they take a second HQ on top of everything else they get + 6 CP For a total of 9 CP. To get 9 CP currently they would need to take 2 Battalion detachments.

Now sure some armies will have an easier time filling out detachments than other, but in general you would end up with more varied armies being rewarded

Breng77 wrote:

Yes, but if Necrons could take a Vanguard for +1, then get another +1 for taking the 2 FA slots, another +1 for taking the 2 Heavy Slots, +1for 2 flyers and another +1 for taking 3 troops, for a total of +6 CP, then if they take a second HQ on top of everything else they get + 6 CP For a total of 9 CP. To get 9 CP currently they would need to take 2 Battalion detachments.

Sorry, I really don't understand what you're saying here.

Breng77 wrote:
Now sure some armies will have an easier time filling out detachments than other, but in general you would end up with more varied armies being rewarded

I don't see how, honestly. It seems like a punishment for armies that can't just spam cheap units to fill up excess slots.

EDIT:

 Imateria wrote:

Most armies are never going to bother with a Brigade. Maybe the Patrol should give +1CP as well and from there work out how many extra CP each detachment should give for filling it out, with the number and variety of the current detachments it would be easy then to pick one that suits the army you're playing.

I appreciate that, but I think you missed my point. I was using it as an indicator of how much more Necrons are likely to have to pay to fill up a detachment, compared to other armies.

 vipoid wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Yes, but if Necrons could take a Vanguard for +1, then get another +1 for taking the 2 FA slots, another +1 for taking the 2 Heavy Slots, +1for 2 flyers and another +1 for taking 3 troops, for a total of +6 CP, then if they take a second HQ on top of everything else they get + 6 CP For a total of 9 CP. To get 9 CP currently they would need to take 2 Battalion detachments.

Sorry, I really don't understand what you're saying here.

Breng77 wrote:
Now sure some armies will have an easier time filling out detachments than other, but in general you would end up with more varied armies being rewarded

I don't see how, honestly. It seems like a punishment for armies that can't just spam cheap units to fill up excess slots.

EDIT:

 Imateria wrote:

Most armies are never going to bother with a Brigade. Maybe the Patrol should give +1CP as well and from there work out how many extra CP each detachment should give for filling it out, with the number and variety of the current detachments it would be easy then to pick one that suits the army you're playing.

I appreciate that, but I think you missed my point. I was using it as an indicator of how much more Necrons are likely to have to pay to fill up a detachment, compared to other armies.

A vanguard detachment is
1-2 HQ
0-3 Troops
3-6 elites
0-2 FA
0-2 Heavy
0-2 Flyers

What I'm saying is that for filling out each slot (except elites) you gain +1 CP, and that necrons would be more likely to be able to make an effective army and have CP in this method, rather than needing to spam HQs and Troops to get the same benefit.

Sure some armies could spam super cheap units to fill out a this detachment, but they can already do that by taking things like the brigade, or battalion, while still getting a ton of stuff that is useful. Expensive armies on the other hand have a harder time doing this, so being able to take say 2 FA for +1 CP would be of use to those armies.

Now I am not saying my method is the way to do it, It might be +1 for the detachment, then an additional +2 if you fill it out. Also to some extent CP have diminishing returns, there is IMO a bigger difference between having 5 CP and 9 CP, than there is between having 9 CP and 13 CP

Oh, I get you now. Cheers for elaborating.

It is also of note that spamming CP by itself doesn't win games, they are a bonus to good armies, so being able to have a super cheap brigade (presume it is imperium spamming acoltyes, and other cheap options) doesn't mean that army can win.

I said it in some other thread with a similar premise iirc but i miss objective secured

it made sense that only troops would be focused in capturing a thing.

but why bother doing that when you could just shoot the enemy off the table with the most elite hs or fa slots.

i still think the troop slot needs a little something something but not sure since they cant be as good as the other slots.

 Desubot wrote:
I said it in some other thread with a similar premise iirc but i miss objective secured

it made sense that only troops would be focused in capturing a thing.

but why bother doing that when you could just shoot the enemy off the table with the most elite hs or fa slots.

i still think the troop slot needs a little something something but not sure since they cant be as good as the other slots.

At this point I'd almost say battlefield role should just go away and points should be used for balance, given the current detachments there is really very little that prevents you from fielding just about anything. All you need to do is pay the HQ tax. Then you could give units abilities like OS that would make them good a holding objectives.

Looking at what I have, and what I plan on getting for armies I currently collect, in liking the Detachments in 8th quite a lot. Granted, some of that was down to seeing the options for taking small, focused detachments for the extra CP, but for some of the army special rules where everything in a Detachment needs to be from the same faction it still makes allies useful.

The confusion over the wording of "Ynnari army" for example might not be a huge deal, but I'd still probably find it easier to take a Ynnari detachment and then separate detachments for the other Aeldari dudes. As Codex specific detachments come out (purely speculation but I'd be surprised if they don't) it may become even more important.

Mostly though, I just like them because it gives me relative freedom to rock out with whatever models I feel like. They might suck (or maybe that's their commander?) but at least they'll be legal.

I usually run around 6-7 command points at 2k. YOU DON'T NEED MORE THAN THIS. Armies that are spamming cheap units also don't benefit command points much. So it's totally pointless to spam cheap units to get command points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:
I said it in some other thread with a similar premise iirc but i miss objective secured

it made sense that only troops would be focused in capturing a thing.

but why bother doing that when you could just shoot the enemy off the table with the most elite hs or fa slots.

i still think the troop slot needs a little something something but not sure since they cant be as good as the other slots.

Point reduction is all they need IMO.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I usually run around 6-7 command points at 2k. YOU DON'T NEED MORE THAN THIS. Armies that are spamming cheap units also don't benefit command points much. So it's totally pointless to spam cheap units to get command points.

Yup, that is why I said it is a diminishing return. It is obviously a benefit to have more command points, but after a certain point based on the limitations on using them, after a certain point sacrificing things to get them is no longer worth the investment.

I mean you could re-roll ~35 times per game if you had the command points, but the chance that you will have super important rolls once per phase for 7 turns is low. Similarly you could auto-pass morale for 14 Cp, but chances are you won't need to. I think 6-7 is enough, 9 or 10 is nice, more than that and you end up using them just because you have them and not because they are truly needed.

I like the Detachment system in 8th edition. It allows for almost the same level of flexibility in army construction as 7th edition, but without the Formation Benefits that everyone complained about as being of extremely variable power.

With the way 8th Edition's core rules work, Command Points are helpful but not so good as to warrant spamming to get the maximum possible. More army flexibility gives a greater variety of competitive builds for an army, which in my opinion is a good thing.

I think having objectives only secured by troop choices would instantly drive the game back to having armies be mostly basic riflemen.

I like the different detachments with their different CP rewards, though.

Heh, how about starting all armies with only troop slots and 9 CP. Each slot you convert into a non-troop slot costs 1 CP. Non-troops are non-objective scoring.

Combine with Strategms. 1 CP to give a non-troop unit the ability to score objectives. Maybe for 2 CP you can call in an artillery strike. For a CP, you can Deep Strike, or perhaps give them Scout or other special rules (or GW can sell them as a deck of cards you can choose from in a "hand", especially if some could be played midgame to represent battlefield conditions, luck, strategy or somesuch). Maybe even use them summoning (say, fixing each CP to be worth about 20 points of units/upgrades) Certain armies/chapters/factions might have their own special Strategms.

This would make army building relatively flexible, but these upgrades still have a cost associated with them. Essentially CPs would be a currency you put aside for army customization/luck mitigation.

 Stormonu wrote:
Heh, how about starting all armies with only troop slots and 9 CP. Each slot you convert into a non-troop slot costs 1 CP. Non-troops are non-objective scoring.

Combine with Strategms. 1 CP to give a non-troop unit the ability to score objectives. Maybe for 2 CP you can call in an artillery strike. For a CP, you can Deep Strike, or perhaps give them Scout or other special rules (or GW can sell them as a deck of cards you can choose from in a "hand", especially if some could be played midgame to represent battlefield conditions, luck, strategy or somesuch). Maybe even use them summoning (say, fixing each CP to be worth about 20 points of units/upgrades) Certain armies/chapters/factions might have their own special Strategms.

This would make army building relatively flexible, but these upgrades still have a cost associated with them. Essentially CPs would be a currency you put aside for army customization/luck mitigation.

That would be terrible.

My army easily fields 5-8 armored vehicles, and an amount of infantry that makes people annoyed at the amount of time I spend setting it up.

If it counts down from a fixed number, wherever the number is set, it shifts the balance of power as it were much more drastically than the current system does, I think.

 Stormonu wrote:
Heh, how about starting all armies with only troop slots and 9 CP. Each slot you convert into a non-troop slot costs 1 CP. Non-troops are non-objective scoring.

Combine with Strategms. 1 CP to give a non-troop unit the ability to score objectives. Maybe for 2 CP you can call in an artillery strike. For a CP, you can Deep Strike, or perhaps give them Scout or other special rules (or GW can sell them as a deck of cards you can choose from in a "hand", especially if some could be played midgame to represent battlefield conditions, luck, strategy or somesuch). Maybe even use them summoning (say, fixing each CP to be worth about 20 points of units/upgrades) Certain armies/chapters/factions might have their own special Strategms.

This would make army building relatively flexible, but these upgrades still have a cost associated with them. Essentially CPs would be a currency you put aside for army customization/luck mitigation.

I really like this idea.

I guess most players have not been here for 20+ years. I would like to expand the word or 'troop' in this discussion as I origninally intended. Troops were Terminators, All aspects, etc. Heavy Support was tanks and walkers and artillery. Of course Characters were your HQ choices.

There were not elites and fast attack. There were 3 big problems. small bikes counted as support/heavy and could block shots to that leman russ line. That was dumb
I mentioned the 2nd already....players took some units to meet 25% and then maxed out on characters and heavy weapons/tanks. Again it was about shooting or hacking with big pieces and the small average model was just cannon fodder...not how real battles play out.
The last was the troops taken were usually what we now know as elites/fast attack.

So if there were built in restrictions like....you have to field one of these to get 2 or 3 of those then you would need to fill out requirments WHICH WAS THE WHOLE PURPOSE of 3rd edition Detachments. My most used combo was that I must field 1 aspect squad to take 1 Exarch. 1 for 1.

So the above base cp currency idea is great. Perhaps for every troop choice or so you take you gain more cp and if you want to field a vanguard or spearhead, etc then those detachments cost cp not add. Same with Lords of War or Flyer wings...

With that idea in mind then Terminator armies, and tank column armies etc would need adjusted to be fair for the CP tax they have. It would be a consolation to that balanced list that has to face those 4 Lords of War.

Yeah, I still remember when the 50% "Troops" was made up of any squad of guys. The characters and vehicles were what you had to limit. My army building still basically reverts to that kinda layout.

 admironheart wrote:
So long ago there was a decade or 2 that 'Detachment' did not exist in the rules. Back then it was 25% min for troops and 50% max for HeavySupport/Characters.

That was easily abused. It should have been 50% min troops.

There is a lot of fuss over CP and spam lists and it seems really based on the use of Detachments.

There used to be rules that said if you wanted this character you needed to have this squad/unit. It would be easy to apply that to get the same results as most infantry based detachments. Actually would be quite simple.

The problems arise when someone wants to play an armored column or all flyer list or super heavy list or so on. But is that really a big deal for a Platoon or 2 sized game?

Should there be one set of rules for 40k (vehicle facing, fire arcs, etc) and another for Apocolypse games (much like we have in 8th currently)

thoughts?

Your argument inherently fails because it's based off of a faulty premise.

Which is that the "ideal list" is predominantly infantry with cavalry and vehicles/monsters sprinkled in.

This isn't true. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a list that's nothing but tanks, or giant suits or flyers. Variety is the spice of life and the encouragement of making a list with whatever theme you want is one of the crowning achievement of the past few editions.

Detachments are fine; they add variety to the gameplay, letting you take different styles of the same army, like a terminator detachment or all-jump pack detachment or a vehicle section. It's unit balance that needs fixing.

 admironheart wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Heh, how about starting all armies with only troop slots and 9 CP. Each slot you convert into a non-troop slot costs 1 CP. Non-troops are non-objective scoring.

Combine with Strategms. 1 CP to give a non-troop unit the ability to score objectives. Maybe for 2 CP you can call in an artillery strike. For a CP, you can Deep Strike, or perhaps give them Scout or other special rules (or GW can sell them as a deck of cards you can choose from in a "hand", especially if some could be played midgame to represent battlefield conditions, luck, strategy or somesuch). Maybe even use them summoning (say, fixing each CP to be worth about 20 points of units/upgrades) Certain armies/chapters/factions might have their own special Strategms.

This would make army building relatively flexible, but these upgrades still have a cost associated with them. Essentially CPs would be a currency you put aside for army customization/luck mitigation.

I really like this idea.

I guess most players have not been here for 20+ years. I would like to expand the word or 'troop' in this discussion as I origninally intended. Troops were Terminators, All aspects, etc. Heavy Support was tanks and walkers and artillery. Of course Characters were your HQ choices.

There were not elites and fast attack. There were 3 big problems. small bikes counted as support/heavy and could block shots to that leman russ line. That was dumb
I mentioned the 2nd already....players took some units to meet 25% and then maxed out on characters and heavy weapons/tanks. Again it was about shooting or hacking with big pieces and the small average model was just cannon fodder...not how real battles play out.
The last was the troops taken were usually what we now know as elites/fast attack.

So if there were built in restrictions like....you have to field one of these to get 2 or 3 of those then you would need to fill out requirments WHICH WAS THE WHOLE PURPOSE of 3rd edition Detachments. My most used combo was that I must field 1 aspect squad to take 1 Exarch. 1 for 1.

So the above base cp currency idea is great. Perhaps for every troop choice or so you take you gain more cp and if you want to field a vanguard or spearhead, etc then those detachments cost cp not add. Same with Lords of War or Flyer wings...

With that idea in mind then Terminator armies, and tank column armies etc would need adjusted to be fair for the CP tax they have. It would be a consolation to that balanced list that has to face those 4 Lords of War.

So, why should Terminators, who are small specialist units deployed in penny-packets not have an additional penalty to field when my tank units, who are deployed in greater mass than Terminators ever are, do come with a penalty? My tanks are more basic than some of your infantry units are.

Also, consider the fact that, by unit count, I can end up with twice as many units on the board as the Space Marines, and even if half of those units are tanks, I still have more heavy support options taken than he has troops in his entire army.

If we do it by percentage of unit cost, it's the same sort of affair. My infantry is literally 3 points a model. If I fill half my army by cost with troops, I'll have so many models I won't be able to fit them on the board.




Here's the thing. I think troops should have incentives to have more of them than tanks have an incentive to have less of them. A clause such as objectives only being secured by troops would make having a large number of troop units almost essential to winning.




Also, counting down is certainly worse for armies like mine than counting up is for armies like Space Marines. There's a law of diminishing returns on command points, so each one lost is worth more than each one gained.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Heh, how about starting all armies with only troop slots and 9 CP. Each slot you convert into a non-troop slot costs 1 CP. Non-troops are non-objective scoring.

Combine with Strategms. 1 CP to give a non-troop unit the ability to score objectives. Maybe for 2 CP you can call in an artillery strike. For a CP, you can Deep Strike, or perhaps give them Scout or other special rules (or GW can sell them as a deck of cards you can choose from in a "hand", especially if some could be played midgame to represent battlefield conditions, luck, strategy or somesuch). Maybe even use them summoning (say, fixing each CP to be worth about 20 points of units/upgrades) Certain armies/chapters/factions might have their own special Strategms.

This would make army building relatively flexible, but these upgrades still have a cost associated with them. Essentially CPs would be a currency you put aside for army customization/luck mitigation.

That would be terrible.

My army easily fields 5-8 armored vehicles, and an amount of infantry that makes people annoyed at the amount of time I spend setting it up.

If it counts down from a fixed number, wherever the number is set, it shifts the balance of power as it were much more drastically than the current system does, I think.

Am I missing something here? I don't have my books with me, but those armies I associate with taking tanks and such (like IG), could take one "Heavy" choice of say, 3 Leman Russes, which under this would cost 1 CP. And dedicated transports wouldn't cost CPs. That'd still give you a lot to work with.

Also, this was for a "Patrol" sized detatchment. Something like Brigade or Regiment would start with double or even triple CPs (but for fairness, you'd probably want both sides to start with the same skeleton). If you filled out all the slots in a Patrol like we normally see, you'd have 2 Heavy, 2 Elite, 2 Fast Attack and 3 CP's for Strategms/Rerolls. In your case, you might do 6 Heavy and forego the other slots partially or completely and still have 3 CP's. Heck, you could go all in and have 9 Heavy slots, and no CPs - maybe an armored column with a Tank Commander at the lead?

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Here's the thing. I think troops should have incentives to have more of them than tanks have an incentive to have less of them. A clause such as objectives only being secured by troops would make having a large number of troop units almost essential to winning.

We tried that for like three editions, objective secured, it didn't really work as intended.

The real issue with army composition stems from the objective system in general being garbage. Simply put the eternal war missions are ass and need to die in a fire. Only scoring points at the END of the game directly reduces the value of troops because it's too difficult to keep them alive until the end of the game, especially if you're MSU. First blood is also cancer for the same reason.

Objectives need to be gained cumulatively at the end of each turn, like maelstrom, and scoring needs to be determined by # of models on it, like now, so that a single tank or monstrous creature can't swipe it out from under the nose a 50-man blob.

 Stormonu wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Heh, how about starting all armies with only troop slots and 9 CP. Each slot you convert into a non-troop slot costs 1 CP. Non-troops are non-objective scoring.

Combine with Strategms. 1 CP to give a non-troop unit the ability to score objectives. Maybe for 2 CP you can call in an artillery strike. For a CP, you can Deep Strike, or perhaps give them Scout or other special rules (or GW can sell them as a deck of cards you can choose from in a "hand", especially if some could be played midgame to represent battlefield conditions, luck, strategy or somesuch). Maybe even use them summoning (say, fixing each CP to be worth about 20 points of units/upgrades) Certain armies/chapters/factions might have their own special Strategms.

This would make army building relatively flexible, but these upgrades still have a cost associated with them. Essentially CPs would be a currency you put aside for army customization/luck mitigation.

That would be terrible.

My army easily fields 5-8 armored vehicles, and an amount of infantry that makes people annoyed at the amount of time I spend setting it up.

If it counts down from a fixed number, wherever the number is set, it shifts the balance of power as it were much more drastically than the current system does, I think.

Am I missing something here? I don't have my books with me, but those armies I associate with taking tanks and such (like IG), could take one "Heavy" choice of say, 3 Leman Russes, which under this would cost 1 CP. And dedicated transports wouldn't cost CPs. That'd still give you a lot to work with.

Also, this was for a "Patrol" sized detatchment. Something like Brigade or Regiment would start with double or even triple CPs (but for fairness, you'd probably want both sides to start with the same skeleton). If you filled out all the slots in a Patrol like we normally see, you'd have 2 Heavy, 2 Elite, 2 Fast Attack and 3 CP's for Strategms/Rerolls. In your case, you might do 6 Heavy and forego the other slots partially or completely and still have 3 CP's. Heck, you could go all in and have 9 Heavy slots, and no CPs - maybe an armored column with a Tank Commander at the lead?

Forcing people to take troops by enforcing penalties on them having fun is stupid, asinine bullgak.(And if you know anything about gamification, starting at high CP and losing CP as you take slots is ALWAYS going to be seen as a penalty even if you don't intend it to be.) That's the kind of idea that Kirby era GW would have. Congratulation, you're all Kirby era game designers.

You want people to take more troops? Make troops MORE appealing, not other things LESS and certainly don't do BOTH. Wanna see more troops? 'Every army gets an additional 20% of the total points limit they can spend on troops."

Or just like, play the game.

Detachments are one of my favourite aspects of 8th. I don't think anyone should be forced to play with more troops than they want to. You get so much more CPs for troop heavy detachments they have all the incentive you need built into them.

secretForge wrote:
Just go back to 5th edition where only troops could score... problem solved.

I'm sold.

 Crablezworth wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:
Not sure if OP has played any 8th. Troops of all kinds are doing great this edition - just look for all the threads talking about how conscripts are probably too good.

A single under-costed troop choice that players facetiously point to with a gak eating grin and say "I love this edition's renewed focus on infantry, so refreshing" smiling through their teeth while the other side of their mouth refers to their beloved infantry as simply "bubble wrap" used ostensibly to take up space and to keep your tanks from getting into.. fist.. fights..

Just the most extreme example. I play Thousand Sons and Rubrics are great this edition.

everyone complaining about having to take good troops choices in detachments...why not use an army where you like their troops choices?

The DE army I'm building doesn't have Kabalites as the sexiest thing in their roster, but they're far from my last choice to bulk out the numbers. My Blood Angels Tactical Squads might not be my favourite unit, but they can hold their own, I suppose.

I am an overly fluffy player though, so see troops as the bare bones of my army. Maybe sometimes I'll have a lot more specialist units in my armies, and tailor them to the situations I want them for, but 10-20 basic dudes with guns isn't usually gonna hurt any list.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

secretForge wrote:
Just go back to 5th edition where only troops could score... problem solved.

I'm sold.

I'm not.

Because all the specialist armies that had alternative Troops... Ravenwing, Deathwing, Iyanden, Alpha Legion Chosen, Black Legion Terminator and Chosen forces, Armoured Companies and so on basically get told at this point they can't play the game anymore.

40k has never really been about mass spamming Troops in any edition - this is why these variant army lists existed - some people prefer smaller elite armies, some people prefer monsters, some people prefer tank companies. Next you'll want us all to start using movement trays and to get rank bonuses....

 DarkStarSabre wrote:
40k has never really been about mass spamming Troops in any edition

That depends on the army in question. Most non-Marine forces have had at least one edition where it was quite useful to spam a troops choice. But it's certainly true that GW has never crafted Tacticals in a way that made competitive players want to spam them (though I certainly remember scout-sniper spam in previous editions being one of several SM tactics that became popular). The problem lies mostly with tacticals in this regard, though I'm not saying all the other troops choices are great this edition.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:
Because all the specialist armies that had alternative Troops... Ravenwing, Deathwing, Iyanden, Alpha Legion Chosen, Black Legion Terminator and Chosen forces, Armoured Companies and so on basically get told at this point they can't play the game anymore.

Key point: "alternative troops". After implementing the "only troops score" rule you also return the "X unit can be taken as troops" rules where appropriate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
The real issue with army composition stems from the objective system in general being garbage. Simply put the eternal war missions are ass and need to die in a fire. Only scoring points at the END of the game directly reduces the value of troops because it's too difficult to keep them alive until the end of the game, especially if you're MSU.

Strongly disagree. Scoring objectives at the end of the game increases the value of troops because you have to play the long game and keep your troops alive until the end, you can't just zerg rush MSU units onto everything and get a decisive lead in 1-2 turns. If you aren't keeping your troops alive long enough to score objectives at the end of the game then stop doing things like taking two 5-man tactical squads to fill the FOC minimum and bring enough troops that you have some still alive at the end of the game.

Just a random thought.

What about if you lose victory points depending on the amount of troops you lose at the end of the game. If you lose 50% of your troops you loose XXpts. If you lose 100% of your troops; if you win you lose (pyrhic victory). Troops are the army; the rest are just support. If you lose your troops what are they supporting.

Tygre wrote:
Just a random thought.

What about if you lose victory points depending on the amount of troops you lose at the end of the game. If you lose 50% of your troops you loose XXpts. If you lose 100% of your troops; if you win you lose (pyrhic victory). Troops are the army; the rest are just support. If you lose your troops what are they supporting.

That makes no sense fluff-wise. Troops fluff-wise are often expendable units that are stuck garrisoning objectives because they are the least valuable units in the army, while the more valuable elites and tanks and such are taken away to fight elsewhere once the battle is over. A pyrrhic victory would be one where your troops survive and claim objectives, but your HQ and elites are wiped out, not one in which your most valuable units survive but the cannon fodder dies.

Tygre wrote:
Just a random thought.

What about if you lose victory points depending on the amount of troops you lose at the end of the game. If you lose 50% of your troops you loose XXpts. If you lose 100% of your troops; if you win you lose (pyrhic victory). Troops are the army; the rest are just support. If you lose your troops what are they supporting.

That would be the single most evil thing anyone could think of.

Just think about this for a second.

You would incentivize list tailored SPECIFICALLY to destroy troop role units. And these list would try and find the most 'bang for your buck' troops to play as a permanent rearguard.

The amount of people who would ignore big things because if they destroy their opponents troops they still win would be INSANE.

I would probably see a list where you would have fields of LOW's just pushing up while troops in the back sit there and twiddle their thumbs

Troops may be more expendable in the fluff, but if all that is left of you IG company is your captain, a cross attached basilisk; and a cross attached Leman Russ Squadron; it is not really an IG company anymore. Or a Space Marine example if you are left with just a few vehicles, a terminator squad, and a assault squad; you have lost the 2nd company.

If you are worried your troops are going to be easily anihilated; use cover and bring more. And it works both ways. Kill his troops.

Auto lose maybe a bit harsh. Draw if you win? or maybe just ignore that part.

I did mention it was just a random thought, as we were discussing how to make troops more important.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

secretForge wrote:
Just go back to 5th edition where only troops could score... problem solved.

I'm sold.

I'm not.

Because all the specialist armies that had alternative Troops... Ravenwing, Deathwing, Iyanden, Alpha Legion Chosen, Black Legion Terminator and Chosen forces, Armoured Companies and so on basically get told at this point they can't play the game anymore.

40k has never really been about mass spamming Troops in any edition - this is why these variant army lists existed - some people prefer smaller elite armies, some people prefer monsters, some people prefer tank companies. Next you'll want us all to start using movement trays and to get rank bonuses....

GW has tried to convince us that 40k has never been about being a game at all, 40k was just an excuse to get your models out of their display case, throw dice and have a laugh.
What 40k is about is selling models and seven editions of constant harassment from people who buy the models about game balance has convinced them that maybe 40k buyers are gamers rather than just modellers/painters.

I play Deathwatch and Space Wolves, I'm quite happy to and quite capable of playing elite forces - when you're not investing in units that can score you're throwing all your eggs in the boardwipe basket and if you're consistently capable of that then kudos to you.
Ravenwing, Deathwing and Terminators are quite capable of being part of a bigger force, all they need is a capable general.
If you're spamming them because they're your strongest unit my sympathy is about the same as it is for the Eldar players crying about the death of the spammed Wraithknight or Tau players sobbing about the death of the Riptide Wing.
Your tears make the best part of that serenade.

For those of you who have moved on to the spammed "Intangible Ghostkeel" props on your adaptability.

 argonak wrote:
The problem is that there are units, often troops, that are just no good. And there are units, often elites or flyers, that are *too* good.

Every unit should have some sort of use. Otherwise its just a tax to bring the unit you really want.

So far it feels like 8th's "wound anything" really helps with that. But it remains to be seen.

Been thinking alot about balance lately. I don't think it will ever work. Secondly why should it exist?

War has never been fair. The germans never asked the french if they though it was a well matched conflict.

What should be against the rules is Mathhammer min maxing and power gaming.

Stupidly over the top win win win at all costs players ruin this game. Trying to balance 40 k ruins the game. Making it simplified for children ruins the game. This game has always been about long strategy like civ. This is what makes it fun. If you want a quick game go play pokemon or snakes and ladders.
.

I rather win a game against a more powerful force using tactics then show up and. Go pew pew roll dice for effect.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Ravenwing, Deathwing and Terminators are quite capable of being part of a bigger force, all they need is a capable general.
If you're spamming them because they're your strongest unit my sympathy is about the same as it is for the Eldar players crying about the death of the spammed Wraithknight or Tau players sobbing about the death of the Riptide Wing.
Your tears make the best part of that serenade.

See, now I know you're straight up talking out of your rear end.

You'd realise that Deathwing and Ravenwing armies hark back to 2nd edition. Armoured company harks back to 3rd edition. Nidzilla to 4th.

And the fact you seem to think they were being spammed 'because they were the strongest'.

Holy feth...

On what planet have Terminators ever been considered the greatest thing ever? They've always been overpriced, horrendously weak to small arms fire and hordes and in general not that much to look at.

Armoured Companies were largely Leman Russ based - the Leman Russ has been a joke the past 4 editions as far as tanks go. Again, overpriced, too fragile for what it does and with a horrendous kit layout.

Chaos Chosen? Never good. Overpriced and even worse in 6th/7th than they were in 3.5 and 4th/5th when they could at least Infiltrate.

Tyranid Carnifexes - hahahahahahahahahahaah. Oh god, you kill me here. They were great in 4th. Then they became horrendously overpriced steaming piles of gak in the editions where Riptides, Wraithlords and Wraithknights existed. TMCs were awful. Truly awful across the board for 3 editions. The Flyrant was the ONLY good reliable TMC - everything else was either too conditional or so overpointed it was unfeasible. Tervigons, while 'good' in the 5th edition Codex generally posed as much risk as reward due to nuking all the gaunts they just spawned when they popped.

And you play Space Wolves. Pot, stop trying to call things you perceive as kettles black. Thunderwolves are the least of your sins and they are many. Wulfen are the most recent and were amonst the greatest of your Sins due to being a horrendously overbloated pile of USRs and Wargear that cost less and was twice as efficient as any of their counterparts - go compare 7th ed Wulfen to Death Company and tell me how those point values were remotely fair or balanced.

But worst of all, you seem to have tried to take the 'fluffy and narrative' high ground and ignored the fact that those specialist armies were all generally weak fluff armies. You don't get to pat yourself on the back for ignoring that. And you certainly don't get to pat yourself on the back for telling BA Death Company armies, Ravenwing armies, Deathwing armies and so on that they have to take a mandatory unit that doesn't fit their army's fluff or theme tax or just auto-lose by default and then pat yourself on the back because you play two armies that have been considered to have very solid troops choices for the past 4 bloody editions.

I quite like the detachment rule as is, because it allows for varied army list construction without going too excessive. I think the only major problem is super-heavy/titan level units being used at too small point levels.

It would be easy to limit the Lord of War slot to 2000pt games + but that still leaves in Baneblade variants and others.

craggy wrote:
everyone complaining about having to take good troops choices in detachments...why not use an army where you like their troops choices?

The DE army I'm building doesn't have Kabalites as the sexiest thing in their roster, but they're far from my last choice to bulk out the numbers. My Blood Angels Tactical Squads might not be my favourite unit, but they can hold their own, I suppose.

I am an overly fluffy player though, so see troops as the bare bones of my army. Maybe sometimes I'll have a lot more specialist units in my armies, and tailor them to the situations I want them for, but 10-20 basic dudes with guns isn't usually gonna hurt any list.

What do you mean by like? If you mean like the way they look, sure I'm fine with that. If you mean find them effective, then all you are saying is "why doesn't everybody just play the armies with the best troops." at which point why bother having different factions.

The overall points is that not all troops are created equal so requiring a certain percentage of points be spend on troops hurts certain armies. Similarly requiring a certain number of troops selections hurts others (or is fairly pointless).

The largest issues with the game are:
1.) GW has allowed for skew lists like all super heavies to be a thing.
2.)GW has continually made "troops" crap for the most part and most armies have few choices.


I think if you wanted to solve this you would need to have the system operate like some other games where for each "Core" choice you take you are allowed to take a choice from another slot, then define the "Core" Choices by army. So elite armies like GK might have access to very powerful core choices, that are expensive, while something like Guard has access to Cheap core choices, that allow for ease of unlocking their better support slots. You could even define the core by subfaction, so Ravenwing can take Bikes as core choices, but is limited to Speeders and such as support. This wouldn't be perfect (far from it), but would encourage more balanced list design compared to now.

None of this stops YOU, personally, from taking as many troops as you want.

All of the above pushing for more Troops need to realize that not everyone wants to play the army you want. Unless GW alters what a Troop really is, none of those ideas work. If regular bike sqds (not Black Knights) were Troops in a Ravenwing list, OK...might work. If Wraithguard were Troops in an Iyanden list, again, OK. GW have instead decided that instead of creating lists where these units are Troops (they have done that in the past), how about just build detachments that allow players to take these units as the core of their force.....done!

Detachments work just fine.

 bullyboy wrote:
All of the above pushing for more Troops need to realize that not everyone wants to play the army you want. Unless GW alters what a Troop really is, none of those ideas work. If regular bike sqds (not Black Knights) were Troops in a Ravenwing list, OK...might work. If Wraithguard were Troops in an Iyanden list, again, OK. GW have instead decided that instead of creating lists where these units are Troops (they have done that in the past), how about just build detachments that allow players to take these units as the core of their force.....done!

Detachments work just fine.

I largely agree, there in 8th skew lists are a little less of an issue. For my suggestion "Core" not troops, would need to be defined by army, similar to how GW in this edition has done for Thousand Sons and Deathguard, with Rubric Marines and Plague Marines being troops for those factions.

Detachments certainly need some thought, no offense to Jy2 but both armies in this are fantastic examples of meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/731756.page

 Crablezworth wrote:
Detachments certainly need some thought, no offense to Jy2 but both armies in this are fantastic examples of meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/731756.page

Yes because Knight armies were SO broken in 6th and 7th, and Dreadnought armies weren't ever supposed to be a thing.

[MOD EDIT - Rule #1 - Alpharius]

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Ravenwing, Deathwing and Terminators are quite capable of being part of a bigger force, all they need is a capable general.
If you're spamming them because they're your strongest unit my sympathy is about the same as it is for the Eldar players crying about the death of the spammed Wraithknight or Tau players sobbing about the death of the Riptide Wing.
Your tears make the best part of that serenade.

See, now I know you're straight up talking out of your rear end.

You'd realise that Deathwing and Ravenwing armies hark back to 2nd edition. Armoured company harks back to 3rd edition. Nidzilla to 4th.

And the fact you seem to think they were being spammed 'because they were the strongest'.

Holy feth...

On what planet have Terminators ever been considered the greatest thing ever? They've always been overpriced, horrendously weak to small arms fire and hordes and in general not that much to look at.

Armoured Companies were largely Leman Russ based - the Leman Russ has been a joke the past 4 editions as far as tanks go. Again, overpriced, too fragile for what it does and with a horrendous kit layout.

Chaos Chosen? Never good. Overpriced and even worse in 6th/7th than they were in 3.5 and 4th/5th when they could at least Infiltrate.

Tyranid Carnifexes - hahahahahahahahahahaah. Oh god, you kill me here. They were great in 4th. Then they became horrendously overpriced steaming piles of gak in the editions where Riptides, Wraithlords and Wraithknights existed. TMCs were awful. Truly awful across the board for 3 editions. The Flyrant was the ONLY good reliable TMC - everything else was either too conditional or so overpointed it was unfeasible. Tervigons, while 'good' in the 5th edition Codex generally posed as much risk as reward due to nuking all the gaunts they just spawned when they popped.

And you play Space Wolves. Pot, stop trying to call things you perceive as kettles black. Thunderwolves are the least of your sins and they are many. Wulfen are the most recent and were amonst the greatest of your Sins due to being a horrendously overbloated pile of USRs and Wargear that cost less and was twice as efficient as any of their counterparts - go compare 7th ed Wulfen to Death Company and tell me how those point values were remotely fair or balanced.

But worst of all, you seem to have tried to take the 'fluffy and narrative' high ground and ignored the fact that those specialist armies were all generally weak fluff armies. You don't get to pat yourself on the back for ignoring that. And you certainly don't get to pat yourself on the back for telling BA Death Company armies, Ravenwing armies, Deathwing armies and so on that they have to take a mandatory unit that doesn't fit their army's fluff or theme tax or just auto-lose by default and then pat yourself on the back because you play two armies that have been considered to have very solid troops choices for the past 4 bloody editions.

Very solid my troops for the last four editions butt. For somebody who wants to talk about the past you seem to have the more recent past missing, in 7th, you remember, the last edition, Deathwatch and Space Wolves troops were damn near irrelevant because neither could take all Bike or all Jump units as troops choices no matter who you took as a HQ and both melted under any sustained fire, they were no better than Gaunts or Grotts.

You know it's funny. I don't recall any Wulfen lists seeing huge success in 7th - they had about a month of good fortune around February last year while people didn't know that charging on the first turn was a thing and that was about it. Didn't see much success for any pure Space Wolves lists in 7th for that matter - I recall Allies being the competitive deal. Invisible Wolves, Barkstar, Fur-tide, all required help from another faction, same with the Ravenwing or Deathwing borrowing some allied psykers for Invisibility and going to town.

If you were spamming Carnifexes either because you're a lose at all costs fluff buffer, lose at all costs for the sake of nostalgia or believe them to be your best unit you require therapy well beyond my qualifications and pay grade and still don't get my sympathy.

8th for all its problems and haters has proved that when more armies possess troops that are actually competitive options the game has a lower buy in and more people buy into it. Now that nobody has access to a troop choice as far above the competition as Scattbikes were in 7th making troops the mainstay of the game almost sounds like a move encouraging new players.

Breng77 wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:
I think the current detachments system is nearly there, but not quite. Would be nice to see some sort of incentive (bonus CPs maybe?) to actually fill out your detachments, rather than just take the bare minimum for the CPs. For example, why would I take an extra HQ/three HS slots in a Battalion when I can take them as a separate detachment and get +1CP?

I realy like this idea.

I would agree, I think perhaps there should be increasing CP for filling out detachments.

I detest this idea. All it would do is encourage MSU to an absolutely obnoxious degree.

Breng77 wrote:

craggy wrote:
everyone complaining about having to take good troops choices in detachments...why not use an army where you like their troops choices?

The DE army I'm building doesn't have Kabalites as the sexiest thing in their roster, but they're far from my last choice to bulk out the numbers. My Blood Angels Tactical Squads might not be my favourite unit, but they can hold their own, I suppose.

I am an overly fluffy player though, so see troops as the bare bones of my army. Maybe sometimes I'll have a lot more specialist units in my armies, and tailor them to the situations I want them for, but 10-20 basic dudes with guns isn't usually gonna hurt any list.

What do you mean by like? If you mean like the way they look, sure I'm fine with that. If you mean find them effective, then all you are saying is "why doesn't everybody just play the armies with the best troops." at which point why bother having different factions.

The overall points is that not all troops are created equal so requiring a certain percentage of points be spend on troops hurts certain armies. Similarly requiring a certain number of troops selections hurts others (or is fairly pointless).

The largest issues with the game are:
1.) GW has allowed for skew lists like all super heavies to be a thing.
2.)GW has continually made "troops" crap for the most part and most armies have few choices.


I think if you wanted to solve this you would need to have the system operate like some other games where for each "Core" choice you take you are allowed to take a choice from another slot, then define the "Core" Choices by army. So elite armies like GK might have access to very powerful core choices, that are expensive, while something like Guard has access to Cheap core choices, that allow for ease of unlocking their better support slots. You could even define the core by subfaction, so Ravenwing can take Bikes as core choices, but is limited to Speeders and such as support. This wouldn't be perfect (far from it), but would encourage more balanced list design compared to now.

I like the idea of core choices unlocking other options but limiting choices at the same time, sounds interesting.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

craggy wrote:
everyone complaining about having to take good troops choices in detachments...why not use an army where you like their troops choices?

The DE army I'm building doesn't have Kabalites as the sexiest thing in their roster, but they're far from my last choice to bulk out the numbers. My Blood Angels Tactical Squads might not be my favourite unit, but they can hold their own, I suppose.

I am an overly fluffy player though, so see troops as the bare bones of my army. Maybe sometimes I'll have a lot more specialist units in my armies, and tailor them to the situations I want them for, but 10-20 basic dudes with guns isn't usually gonna hurt any list.

What do you mean by like? If you mean like the way they look, sure I'm fine with that. If you mean find them effective, then all you are saying is "why doesn't everybody just play the armies with the best troops." at which point why bother having different factions.

The overall points is that not all troops are created equal so requiring a certain percentage of points be spend on troops hurts certain armies. Similarly requiring a certain number of troops selections hurts others (or is fairly pointless).

The largest issues with the game are:
1.) GW has allowed for skew lists like all super heavies to be a thing.
2.)GW has continually made "troops" crap for the most part and most armies have few choices.


I think if you wanted to solve this you would need to have the system operate like some other games where for each "Core" choice you take you are allowed to take a choice from another slot, then define the "Core" Choices by army. So elite armies like GK might have access to very powerful core choices, that are expensive, while something like Guard has access to Cheap core choices, that allow for ease of unlocking their better support slots. You could even define the core by subfaction, so Ravenwing can take Bikes as core choices, but is limited to Speeders and such as support. This wouldn't be perfect (far from it), but would encourage more balanced list design compared to now.

I like the idea of core choices unlocking other options but limiting choices at the same time, sounds interesting.

Again, all it does is encourage MSU.

The moment you force choice the game becomes about who can spend the least on compulsory choices, and the most on what they actually want.

A much better way to deal with it, IMO, is to make troops choices not suck.

I'd mainly go with the troops choices I prefer modelling and painting. Was looking at the Blood Angels I have from back in the day and I can field a pretty well rounded Battalion. Maxed out Elites choices but they're usually my favourite units in any army just for the modelling. 2 x 5 Man Tac Squads and a 10 man one to fulfil Troops requirements and a couple Fast Attack and Heavy Support slots each. Haven't done points maths yet but it's 112 Power. Could probably drop an Elite choice without much effort to get it under 100.

My thinking of what constitutes an army is quite antiquated though, as I've said before, I remember when it was 50% squads and your characters and vehicles had to share the rest. And this was all before Flyers or Lords Of War were even a thing.

As well as thinking of the fluff, I also think of the real world financial cost of my army. I've certainly got a lot more disposable income as a working adult than I did as a teen in this hobby, but I do try to balance my lists with what rules look good vs what models I'll have to buy. I also prefer working with plastic a lot more than any other material for a number of reasons. Coming back to the hobby my Space Marines are looking a lot more appealing in that respect since there's very little I can't get in plastic and most of the boxes have a lot of extras I can use elsewhere if I want to mix and match. Sadly for my dreams of running a load of Eldar Aspect Warriors, that's still not the case, which is partly why I'm doing my customised Exodites.

I'll definitely b picking up a box of sniper Scouts at some point for character harassment and just general fun building and painting them.

I can't argue with the suggestion that some troops choices are a bit poor compared to others though, or that it'd be nice to see some more units being able to be taken as Troops depending on your style of play. Chaos Marines already get the basics of this with the 4 cult armies, so I'd hope this idea gets expanded in future rules for more distinct groups within the larger factions.

 Arandmoor wrote:


A much better way to deal with it, IMO, is to make troops choices not suck.

You can do both. Then it becomes a trade off the player makes at the list building stage. The 5th ed army building rules were pretty good as far as I'm concerned (could have used a few more HQ choices that unlock certain other choices as troops), but troops in general still needed a buff/change to make them a little more interesting and relevant. The current rules for 8th already make tacticals better because the split special/heavy loadout sucked in 5th but is perfectly usable in 8th.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Arandmoor wrote:


A much better way to deal with it, IMO, is to make troops choices not suck.

You can do both. Then it becomes a trade off the player makes at the list building stage. The 5th ed army building rules were pretty good as far as I'm concerned (could have used a few more HQ choices that unlock certain other choices as troops), but troops in general still needed a buff/change to make them a little more interesting and relevant. The current rules for 8th already make tacticals better because the split special/heavy loadout sucked in 5th but is perfectly usable in 8th.

Both?

Doing both still doesn't address the problems introduced by compulsory picks. It doesn't change the fact that all you'll get with a "you must take Unit A to unlock access to Units B, C, and D" system is people minimizing the number of Unit A they have to take when they don't want to take them.