Which armies do you think would/could improve if Soup didnt exist?
Which do you think would take an obvious nerf and which could still motor on regardless?
Which rely on Soup too much (or not)?

Or is it a case of leaving the Soup armies to battle away (at the top?) and others to just play as best they can?

Have I asked too many questions here? Can woodchucks still chuck? Is this a question mark ? Or is this

Armys that Improve: All Monofactions like orks, necrons, tau and nids.

Armys that get nerfed: All non-monofaction armies. All Imperial factions, ynnari, chaos.

Armies that depend on allies too much: All armies that have trouble generating CP on their own, have too little of a modelcount to score objectives reliably or have no access to cheap chaff.

Certain armies simply don't work with out allies, which puts GW in a bind with how to balance allies in general, particularly as they release more and more tiny factions.

There is no such thing as soup except for Space Marines.

Everyone else must bring pure detachments.

You can't have a detachment with multi-factions, that is souping.

Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

Morkphoiz wrote:
Armys that Improve: All Monofactions like orks, necrons, tau and nids.

Armys that get nerfed: All non-monofaction armies. All Imperial factions, ynnari, chaos.

Armies that depend on allies too much: All armies that have trouble generating CP on their own, have too little of a modelcount to score objectives reliably or have no access to cheap chaff.

False.

Armies that comparatively improve: IK, AM
-improved by virtue of lack of hard counters. Most other codex lacks good internal balance that can deal with hordes and heavy hitters alike. Weak against mirror matches as it is hard counter to itself.
Armies that are unaffected: Necrons, Tau, Nids
-never relied on allies to begin with
Armies that are slightly nerfed, but still competitive: DE, CWE
-aeldari soup combines the best of ynnari, DE, CWE. Still plethora of great units with above par internal balance.
Armies that becomes less playable: SM, BA, DA, DW, CSM, DG, Tson, Daemons, Harlequin, Ynnari
-SM flavor of the month don't synergize with one another. CSM flavors benefit greatly from allying in DP's from daemon codex and vice-versa. Others have poor internal balance/lack of units in codex.
Armies so bad that it doesn't matter: GK
-Who?

Real Answer: We don't know. It's too complex.

Best Guess:
It's easy to say "anything that's already mono-faction and good will do comparatively better", and there's likely some truth to that. I'd expect Tyranids to be flying pretty high because they rarely include allies as it is, and are still a top performer (due to some fiendish cunning). Problem is, once the top armies are known, people build with them in mind. Once that happens, it's impossible to say what the best mono-faction army is that tackles both Tyranids and whatever else is doing really good.

It's also possible that some current portions of top performing lists, like Astra Militarum, won't lose as much as others do, and the way that they make up for their loss throws the meta into such disarray that, again, we can't predict what the response to it will be.

What is likely is that the forces that don't just use allies, but flat-out depend on them, like Custodes and Grey Knights, will likely do much worse.

I don't think it's too complex. Generally speaking, soup (which is not units in a detachment like GW states, as the term is more about army detachments now - and has been since the edition started) benefits those armies which can ally.

Any "army" which has access to 120 datasheets, when the opposing army has access to 20...is inherently at an advantage.

I think without Soup the top end of the power curve comes down. We'd have a simpler heirachy of power rankings to be sure and less variety within many armies. I dont think the worst armies are better off but some of the mid/lowermid tier armies would have a better chance.

 Marmatag wrote:


Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

To be fair, the game went most of its recent existence without them for the 14 years of 3E/4E/5E (not counting WH/DH that was available in a very limited capacity).

More to the point, the unfortunate reality is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, allies are used as power combos and crutches, not for fluff, most of the allies combos ive seen on tables over the last few editions have been unimaginative fluff abortions, and the rate that Allies are used makes little sense within the framework of the 40k universe (e.g. Celestine does not always accompany a grip of Guardsmen, Mortarian and Magnus sharing the same field should be an inconceivably rare event, etc).

The top 3 lists at SoCal were mostly mono faction.

Brandon Grandt - Astra Militarum, but with a Castellan.
Cooper Waddel - Tyranids, but with a GSC detachment.
Alex Aquila - Dark Eldar, with 1 aux Farseer Skyrunner.

I'm not seeing a huge problem here.

 Marmatag wrote:
The top 3 lists at SoCal were mostly mono faction.

Brandon Grandt - Astra Militarum, but with a Castellan.
Cooper Waddel - Tyranids, but with a GSC detachment.
Alex Aquila - Dark Eldar, with 1 aux Farseer Skyrunner.

I'm not seeing a huge problem here.

Of course there isn't a problem when you look at a single event. Look at 8th edition tournament results as a whole and the problem becomes blatantly obvious. Top 3 at GTs has been dominated by imperial soup with loyal 32 and IKs, and ynnari soup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If there was no soup, GW might sell a few less models, and we can't have that. Allies were a problem, battalions made the problem worse. They removed battalions but doubled down on the original problem of allies by the way CP and detachments work. Here's a crazy idea, give CP based on points of the game. Maybe 2 CP for every 500 points, plus 1 per turn. Go back to the allies system where you can only have 2 factions. This would fix most of the balance issues the game has right now without even touching stat lines, special rules, or point values. However, GW will never do it because it might mean less sales, despite the fact that a well-balanced game will inherently sell more models anyway.

 Marmatag wrote:
The top 3 lists at SoCal were mostly mono faction.

Brandon Grandt - Astra Militarum, but with a Castellan.
Cooper Waddel - Tyranids, but with a GSC detachment.
Alex Aquila - Dark Eldar, with 1 aux Farseer Skyrunner.

I'm not seeing a huge problem here.

Keyword: MOSTLY.

Castellan, GSC detachment, Farseer all provides the extra oomph unattainable if not for allies - Banesword swapped out for castellan, GSC & farseer provides access to additional psykers/powers.

 Toofast wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The top 3 lists at SoCal were mostly mono faction.

Brandon Grandt - Astra Militarum, but with a Castellan.
Cooper Waddel - Tyranids, but with a GSC detachment.
Alex Aquila - Dark Eldar, with 1 aux Farseer Skyrunner.

I'm not seeing a huge problem here.

Of course there isn't a problem when you look at a single event. Look at 8th edition tournament results as a whole and the problem becomes blatantly obvious. Top 3 at GTs has been dominated by imperial soup with loyal 32 and IKs, and ynnari soup.

If it's so obvious you shouldn't have trouble proving it. You could make the case that Ynnari are a problem, and I would agree, but that's not a "soup" or "allies" problem, that's a SOULBURST problem.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 skchsan wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The top 3 lists at SoCal were mostly mono faction.

Brandon Grandt - Astra Militarum, but with a Castellan.
Cooper Waddel - Tyranids, but with a GSC detachment.
Alex Aquila - Dark Eldar, with 1 aux Farseer Skyrunner.

I'm not seeing a huge problem here.

Keyword: MOSTLY.

Castellan, GSC detachment, Farseer all provides the extra oomph unattainable if not for allies - Banesword swapped out for castellan, GSC & farseer provides access to additional psykers/powers.

Sure. Mostly. What's wrong with that? Are you going to sit here and say that these lists are toxic for the game/ meta? Because that's not a winning argument.

Morkphoiz wrote:
Armys that Improve: All Monofactions like orks, necrons, tau and nids.

Armys that get nerfed: All non-monofaction armies. All Imperial factions, ynnari, chaos.

Armies that depend on allies too much: All armies that have trouble generating CP on their own, have too little of a modelcount to score objectives reliably or have no access to cheap chaff.

I LOL at the notion that you think Necrons will just improve like that with the elimination of allies.

Please explain in depth that thought process.

No soup? What will the Imperium eat? Corpse rations?

Seriously though (and I'm only speaking in terms of competetive play), Marines would be unplayable, Knights would be low tier, Custodes might not even see the table, Eldar would be spanking everyone like it was 7th and generally the meta wouldn't be shifting around as much as it is currently.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
No soup? What will the Imperium eat? Corpse rations?

Seriously though (and I'm only speaking in terms of competetive play), Marines would be unplayable, Knights would be low tier, Custodes might not even see the table, Eldar would be spanking everyone like it was 7th and generally the meta wouldn't be shifting around as much as it is currently.

Eldar without allies are mediocre.
Dark Eldar without allies are barely mediocre.
Ynnari exist only in the concept of allies.

I can't even with this place sometimes.

 Marmatag wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
No soup? What will the Imperium eat? Corpse rations?

Seriously though (and I'm only speaking in terms of competetive play), Marines would be unplayable, Knights would be low tier, Custodes might not even see the table, Eldar would be spanking everyone like it was 7th and generally the meta wouldn't be shifting around as much as it is currently.

Eldar without allies are mediocre.
Dark Eldar without allies are barely mediocre.
Ynnari exist only in the concept of allies.

I can't even with this place sometimes.

Craftworld are solid, even with Ynnari. Ynnari just takes a solid army and makes it a brokenly good army.

And seriously, that Ynnari list finishing 4th at SoCal was losing its game to Genestealer cult, but Daniel threatened to attack Nick so Nick resigned and said screw this. Tastey Taste did a blog about it and you can see the argument starting in one of his videos where he walks down the line of the top tables.

Daniel was getting stomped and *lost his mind* which forced his opponent to be an adult and walk away.

Ynnari are good but beatable, acting like they're this god mode faction is hilarious.

 Marmatag wrote:
And seriously, that Ynnari list finishing 4th at SoCal was losing its game to Genestealer cult, but Daniel threatened to attack Nick so Nick resigned and said screw this. Tastey Taste did a blog about it and you can see the argument starting in one of his videos where he walks down the line of the top tables.

Daniel was getting stomped and *lost his mind* which forced his opponent to be an adult and walk away.

Ynnari are good but beatable, acting like they're this god mode faction is hilarious.

I never claimed they were unbeatable, just that they're basically broken.

And in a monocodex setting, both flavors of Eldar would be sitting pretty high on the list. Don't use current tournament results to make judgements as those are results based on mono-faction armies facing various levels of soup. Even stripping the Aeldari soup away doesn't make either Eldar codex bad. And stripping Imperial soup away only allows already good armies to be better, while every Imperial faction with more than 4+ armour save on average that needs that extra support right now falls pretty hard.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

To be fair, the game went most of its recent existence without them for the 14 years of 3E/4E/5E (not counting WH/DH that was available in a very limited capacity).

More to the point, the unfortunate reality is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, allies are used as power combos and crutches, not for fluff, most of the allies combos ive seen on tables over the last few editions have been unimaginative fluff abortions, and the rate that Allies are used makes little sense within the framework of the 40k universe (e.g. Celestine does not always accompany a grip of Guardsmen, Mortarian and Magnus sharing the same field should be an inconceivably rare event, etc).

Bu can't that be said about everythng, and use it as an argument agaisnt most options? In a competitive scene everything is a fluff abortion.
Special Characters are always used in the most broken combo possible, they aren't fluffy, ban them. Forgeworld? You don't see the fluffy options, just the OP ones. Ban it. Super heavies? Ban them. Relics? The same OP ones are always used, ban them.
Most armies in the competitive scene aren't based aroud fluff but by how competitive they are. Should we ban competitive play?

At the end of the day, allies have a place both in narrative and casual play (There they allow to fluffy lists), and competitive play (There they allow for broken combos, but everything in competitive play is based around building broken combos, allies are a tool like Forgeworld or Special Characters or Reliqs or Subfaction rules)

 Galas wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

To be fair, the game went most of its recent existence without them for the 14 years of 3E/4E/5E (not counting WH/DH that was available in a very limited capacity).

More to the point, the unfortunate reality is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, allies are used as power combos and crutches, not for fluff, most of the allies combos ive seen on tables over the last few editions have been unimaginative fluff abortions, and the rate that Allies are used makes little sense within the framework of the 40k universe (e.g. Celestine does not always accompany a grip of Guardsmen, Mortarian and Magnus sharing the same field should be an inconceivably rare event, etc).

Bu can't that be said about everythng, and use it as an argument agaisnt most options? In a competitive scene everything is a fluff abortion.
Special Characters are always used in the most broken combo possible, they aren't fluffy, ban them. Forgeworld? You don't see the fluffy options, just the OP ones. Ban it. Super heavies? Ban them. Relics? The same OP ones are always used, ban them.
Most armies in the competitive scene aren't based aroud fluff but by how competitive they are. Should we ban competitive play?

This. lol

 Galas wrote:
Should we ban competitive play?

Ideally? Yes.

Then we can go back to concentrating on having fun with our toy soldiers, and not worrying about "the meta", the latest tournament shenanigans, or other people trying to eek out that extra 0.001% performance from a list as they've decided it determines the size of their e-peen...

 Galas wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

To be fair, the game went most of its recent existence without them for the 14 years of 3E/4E/5E (not counting WH/DH that was available in a very limited capacity).

More to the point, the unfortunate reality is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, allies are used as power combos and crutches, not for fluff, most of the allies combos ive seen on tables over the last few editions have been unimaginative fluff abortions, and the rate that Allies are used makes little sense within the framework of the 40k universe (e.g. Celestine does not always accompany a grip of Guardsmen, Mortarian and Magnus sharing the same field should be an inconceivably rare event, etc).

Bu can't that be said about everythng, and use it as an argument agaisnt most options? In a competitive scene everything is a fluff abortion.
Special Characters are always used in the most broken combo possible, they aren't fluffy, ban them. Forgeworld? You don't see the fluffy options, just the OP ones. Ban it. Super heavies? Ban them. Relics? The same OP ones are always used, ban them.
Most armies in the competitive scene aren't based aroud fluff but by how competitive they are. Should we ban competitive play?

At the end of the day, allies have a place both in narrative and casual play (There they allow to fluffy lists), and competitive play (There they allow for broken combos, but everything in competitive play is based around building broken combos, allies are a tool like Forgeworld or Special Characters or Reliqs or Subfaction rules)

The original statement was that allies are fundamental to fluffy play. The results we see on tables strongly disagree was my point, allies are far more commonly used as power crutches than for anything fluffy, usually quite the opposite.

If we want to talk about that other stuff, we can, but thats a different conversation and bucket of worms. Each faction is designed inherently as a complete self contained force not only in background but as a game faction as well, and its own product release, with only a few exceptions (and of those many are unnecessarily forced). Allies end up creating a whole lot more issues than internal book issues do, and with a lot less game design justification for their existence and poor actual results in terms of reflecting their intent on the table.

People can play whatever they want. I'm not going to show up and tell you that you cant play whatever Soup list you're running, but lets not pretend like fluff is really what drives its utilization. The allies mechanics are overwhelmingly used as mix-n-match power crutches as opposed to any well thought out coherent background representation. The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

 Elbows wrote:

Any "army" which has access to 120 datasheets, when the opposing army has access to 20...is inherently at an advantage.

Space Marines have easily over hundred datasheets. Is this why they are dominating all the tournaments? Should Space Marines be banned?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:
And seriously, that Ynnari list finishing 4th at SoCal was losing its game to Genestealer cult, but Daniel threatened to attack Nick so Nick resigned and said screw this. Tastey Taste did a blog about it and you can see the argument starting in one of his videos where he walks down the line of the top tables.

Daniel was getting stomped and *lost his mind* which forced his opponent to be an adult and walk away.

Wait what?

 Dysartes wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Should we ban competitive play?

Ideally? Yes.

Then we can go back to concentrating on having fun with our toy soldiers, and not worrying about "the meta", the latest tournament shenanigans, or other people trying to eek out that extra 0.001% performance from a list as they've decided it determines the size of their e-peen...

Maybe in an ideal world, but we've seen time and time again that competetive play and the "meta" are the things that largely keep GW afloat. Tournament players spend a lot more than casual players expanding, adjusting and changing their armies on the regular after all.

No, we need a solid game rewritten from the ground up, rebalanced in a way that allows both horde and elite armies to share the table without gimping one or the other.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

That's completely subjective. To me, the single BEST mechanic in 8th is how easy it is to ally because it's so freeing from a hobby perspective.

 Marmatag wrote:
And seriously, that Ynnari list finishing 4th at SoCal was losing its game to Genestealer cult, but Daniel threatened to attack Nick so Nick resigned and said screw this. Tastey Taste did a blog about it and you can see the argument starting in one of his videos where he walks down the line of the top tables.

Daniel was getting stomped and *lost his mind* which forced his opponent to be an adult and walk away.

Ynnari are good but beatable, acting like they're this god mode faction is hilarious.

You got a link for that? Google isn't showing anything and I have trouble believing the drama-loving 40k community would miss something like that.

Dandelion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

That's completely subjective. To me, the single BEST mechanic in 8th is how easy it is to ally because it's so freeing from a hobby perspective.

7th had just the right amount of freedom. My stand-in Assassins for my Necrons are basically unusable now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Galas wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

To be fair, the game went most of its recent existence without them for the 14 years of 3E/4E/5E (not counting WH/DH that was available in a very limited capacity).

More to the point, the unfortunate reality is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, allies are used as power combos and crutches, not for fluff, most of the allies combos ive seen on tables over the last few editions have been unimaginative fluff abortions, and the rate that Allies are used makes little sense within the framework of the 40k universe (e.g. Celestine does not always accompany a grip of Guardsmen, Mortarian and Magnus sharing the same field should be an inconceivably rare event, etc).

Bu can't that be said about everythng, and use it as an argument agaisnt most options? In a competitive scene everything is a fluff abortion.
Special Characters are always used in the most broken combo possible, they aren't fluffy, ban them. Forgeworld? You don't see the fluffy options, just the OP ones. Ban it. Super heavies? Ban them. Relics? The same OP ones are always used, ban them.
Most armies in the competitive scene aren't based aroud fluff but by how competitive they are. Should we ban competitive play?

At the end of the day, allies have a place both in narrative and casual play (There they allow to fluffy lists), and competitive play (There they allow for broken combos, but everything in competitive play is based around building broken combos, allies are a tool like Forgeworld or Special Characters or Reliqs or Subfaction rules)

The original statement was that allies are fundamental to fluffy play. The results we see on tables strongly disagree was my point, allies are far more commonly used as power crutches than for anything fluffy, usually quite the opposite.

If we want to talk about that other stuff, we can, but thats a different conversation and bucket of worms. Each faction is designed inherently as a complete self contained force not only in background but as a game faction as well, and its own product release, with only a few exceptions (and of those many are unnecessarily forced). Allies end up creating a whole lot more issues than internal book issues do, and with a lot less game design justification for their existence and poor actual results in terms of reflecting their intent on the table.

People can play whatever they want. I'm not going to show up and tell you that you cant play whatever Soup list you're running, but lets not pretend like fluff is really what drives its utilization. The allies mechanics are overwhelmingly used as mix-n-match power crutches as opposed to any well thought out coherent background representation. The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

Except allies HAVE always existed, just in differing capacities.

Nobody complained about Grey Knights and Sisters, right? I almost feel like you'll just say "no that doesn't count", but it does. There was a way to throw in Guard and Marines, and a way to throw in Grey Knights and Sisters.

That's allies. It doesn't matter how you want to interpret it.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

That's completely subjective. To me, the single BEST mechanic in 8th is how easy it is to ally because it's so freeing from a hobby perspective.

7th had just the right amount of freedom. My stand-in Assassins for my Necrons are basically unusable now.

8th hasn't figured out how to do tiny factions allying in well. Yes I know there is the -1 cp option but to me it's silly that I get punished cause I want to take a solo inquisitor or a single assassin.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Should we ban competitive play?

Ideally? Yes.

Then we can go back to concentrating on having fun with our toy soldiers, and not worrying about "the meta", the latest tournament shenanigans, or other people trying to eek out that extra 0.001% performance from a list as they've decided it determines the size of their e-peen...

LOL, this is the most trollish post i've seen in a while.

"My way to play is the right way, and anyone else is a horrible person."

HoundsofDemos wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

That's completely subjective. To me, the single BEST mechanic in 8th is how easy it is to ally because it's so freeing from a hobby perspective.

7th had just the right amount of freedom. My stand-in Assassins for my Necrons are basically unusable now.

8th hasn't figured out how to do tiny factions allying in well. Yes I know there is the -1 cp option but to me it's silly that I get punished cause I want to take a solo inquisitor or a single assassin.

Undersized Chaos Terminator squads was the biggest casualty of all that. I liked my 4 man Termicide squads and now I'm worse off for wanting it :(

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
And seriously, that Ynnari list finishing 4th at SoCal was losing its game to Genestealer cult, but Daniel threatened to attack Nick so Nick resigned and said screw this. Tastey Taste did a blog about it and you can see the argument starting in one of his videos where he walks down the line of the top tables.

Daniel was getting stomped and *lost his mind* which forced his opponent to be an adult and walk away.

Ynnari are good but beatable, acting like they're this god mode faction is hilarious.

You got a link for that? Google isn't showing anything and I have trouble believing the drama-loving 40k community would miss something like that.

I already told you where to find it.

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2018/10/26/socal-open-2018-coverage/

Second to last video, he goes down the top tables. You can hear Nick and Daniel arguing. You can also get a look at the Ork list that was undefeated and competing for 3rd place (it lost to the almost-mono DE army shown in the video by 2 points). It'll give you a look at the buildings everyone was talking about.

Last video, he talks about it.

 Marmatag wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
And seriously, that Ynnari list finishing 4th at SoCal was losing its game to Genestealer cult, but Daniel threatened to attack Nick so Nick resigned and said screw this. Tastey Taste did a blog about it and you can see the argument starting in one of his videos where he walks down the line of the top tables.

Daniel was getting stomped and *lost his mind* which forced his opponent to be an adult and walk away.

Ynnari are good but beatable, acting like they're this god mode faction is hilarious.

You got a link for that? Google isn't showing anything and I have trouble believing the drama-loving 40k community would miss something like that.

I already told you where to find it.

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2018/10/26/socal-open-2018-coverage/

Second to last video, he goes down the top tables. You can hear Nick and Daniel arguing. You can also get a look at the Ork list that was undefeated and competing for 3rd place (it lost to the almost-mono DE army shown in the video by 2 points). It'll give you a look at the buildings everyone was talking about.

Last video, he talks about it.

So you're argument is because the optimized army loses on occasion it's perfectly fine?

On topic:

Eldar and Space Marines would dominate, espeically built-in soup factions like Blood Angels/Space Wolves/Dark Angels, who get their own stuff + all the Space Marine goodies.

Eldar get better with soup, but they have a huge suite of tough mono-book lists that can and are performing on the tournament scene already.

Imperial Guard probably comes in third, since their faction is still centered around indirect firepower and the forgiveness of cheap models.

Necrons and Orks would be unaffected since they neither experience soup now nor would they do particularly different in a non-soup. Necron players would be particularly bitter, since people keep stating that they'd be doing it for Necrons, when in reality Necrons need cost and stat adjustments.

Tyranid players would be out of luck for soup, but they are a pretty adaptive community and the GSC half doesn't have a codex yet. GSC players would be screwed, but people seem to enjoy seeing the other Xenos Soup faction suffer.

You'd be pretty much banning Inquisition/Imperial agencts from the game, but the anti-soup crowd seems to be considering that a benefit and the affected players would either need to sell their collections and get into a 'proper' faction, or just leave the game entirely. Same for the handful of Ynari players who bought into the idea of having a wide, supported faction with options. They'd have to go space marine or GTFO.

Chaos has always been built in soup and it'd be pretty much impossible to de-soup them without making them unplayable. It'd become a faction of isolated islands, with a duplicitiy of datasheets shoved into incredibly complicated codexes. I suspect Chaos will rebel the hardest, even if they aren't the worst affected.

The game has never really had a true mono-faction mode, so it's not really an achievable goal in the first place. It's more of a Trump-style 'I just had this great 5 minute idea on how to fix everything!' twitter shot.

Since my post is generally in the negative, that makes me responsible for suggesting an alternative. Xenos-friendly mercenaries. There are several (including Necron and Ork aligned humans) in the fluff and having a couple options that could hop from one Xenos faction to another helps give those factions some of the flexability they desire. Besides, it's silly that we don't have human auxiliaries for Tau. I mean, really?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

That's completely subjective. To me, the single BEST mechanic in 8th is how easy it is to ally because it's so freeing from a hobby perspective.

7th had just the right amount of freedom. My stand-in Assassins for my Necrons are basically unusable now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Galas wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

To be fair, the game went most of its recent existence without them for the 14 years of 3E/4E/5E (not counting WH/DH that was available in a very limited capacity).

More to the point, the unfortunate reality is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, allies are used as power combos and crutches, not for fluff, most of the allies combos ive seen on tables over the last few editions have been unimaginative fluff abortions, and the rate that Allies are used makes little sense within the framework of the 40k universe (e.g. Celestine does not always accompany a grip of Guardsmen, Mortarian and Magnus sharing the same field should be an inconceivably rare event, etc).

Bu can't that be said about everythng, and use it as an argument agaisnt most options? In a competitive scene everything is a fluff abortion.
Special Characters are always used in the most broken combo possible, they aren't fluffy, ban them. Forgeworld? You don't see the fluffy options, just the OP ones. Ban it. Super heavies? Ban them. Relics? The same OP ones are always used, ban them.
Most armies in the competitive scene aren't based aroud fluff but by how competitive they are. Should we ban competitive play?

At the end of the day, allies have a place both in narrative and casual play (There they allow to fluffy lists), and competitive play (There they allow for broken combos, but everything in competitive play is based around building broken combos, allies are a tool like Forgeworld or Special Characters or Reliqs or Subfaction rules)

The original statement was that allies are fundamental to fluffy play. The results we see on tables strongly disagree was my point, allies are far more commonly used as power crutches than for anything fluffy, usually quite the opposite.

If we want to talk about that other stuff, we can, but thats a different conversation and bucket of worms. Each faction is designed inherently as a complete self contained force not only in background but as a game faction as well, and its own product release, with only a few exceptions (and of those many are unnecessarily forced). Allies end up creating a whole lot more issues than internal book issues do, and with a lot less game design justification for their existence and poor actual results in terms of reflecting their intent on the table.

People can play whatever they want. I'm not going to show up and tell you that you cant play whatever Soup list you're running, but lets not pretend like fluff is really what drives its utilization. The allies mechanics are overwhelmingly used as mix-n-match power crutches as opposed to any well thought out coherent background representation. The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

Except allies HAVE always existed, just in differing capacities.

Nobody complained about Grey Knights and Sisters, right? I almost feel like you'll just say "no that doesn't count", but it does. There was a way to throw in Guard and Marines, and a way to throw in Grey Knights and Sisters.

That's allies. It doesn't matter how you want to interpret it.

I specifically noted that example earlier. That said, there were also very tight limits on what you could and could not mix and how it could be done, and it was specifically just through just the WH and DH books, it was all handled within those isolated examples that had a lot of thought put into that interaction. A vastly different situation to what we have now where you can take stuff from wildly disparate armies in whatever manner you want. I'm fine with the former, not so much the latter.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Should we ban competitive play?

Ideally? Yes.

Then we can go back to concentrating on having fun with our toy soldiers, and not worrying about "the meta", the latest tournament shenanigans, or other people trying to eek out that extra 0.001% performance from a list as they've decided it determines the size of their e-peen...

Maybe in an ideal world, but we've seen time and time again that competetive play and the "meta" are the things that largely keep GW afloat. Tournament players spend a lot more than casual players expanding, adjusting and changing their armies on the regular after all.

No, we need a solid game rewritten from the ground up, rebalanced in a way that allows both horde and elite armies to share the table without gimping one or the other.

For every meta chasing tournament player there a lots of casual players that buy whatever they like, thats whats keeping GW afloat.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
And seriously, that Ynnari list finishing 4th at SoCal was losing its game to Genestealer cult, but Daniel threatened to attack Nick so Nick resigned and said screw this. Tastey Taste did a blog about it and you can see the argument starting in one of his videos where he walks down the line of the top tables.

Daniel was getting stomped and *lost his mind* which forced his opponent to be an adult and walk away.

Ynnari are good but beatable, acting like they're this god mode faction is hilarious.

You got a link for that? Google isn't showing anything and I have trouble believing the drama-loving 40k community would miss something like that.

I already told you where to find it.

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2018/10/26/socal-open-2018-coverage/

Second to last video, he goes down the top tables. You can hear Nick and Daniel arguing. You can also get a look at the Ork list that was undefeated and competing for 3rd place (it lost to the almost-mono DE army shown in the video by 2 points). It'll give you a look at the buildings everyone was talking about.

Last video, he talks about it.

So you're argument is because the optimized army loses on occasion it's perfectly fine?

Where did I say that? Orks win their last game they finish ahead of Ynnari. Does this mean that Orks are better? No, but it does suggest there isn't this massive gulf between "top tier" and "other" as posters on here would suggest.

I doubt Marines would "dominate" since the +1 versions have all the weaknesses of Vanilla (lack of durability, high cost) paired with a need for CP not seen in the Vanilla book. Vanilla only gets worse when your tactic basically boil down to relying on Guilliman to prop the book up since most of the others don't have a lot of impact on the meta (save for Imperial Fists who have some utility due to ignoring cover).

The problem isn't soup its lack of the incentive to play monolist or that cross functional armies are a thing, taking the most powerful units from each codex to build an army is what people are doing. Custodes are one of the few if only races currently that if you play mono get better (but still lack ways to get cheap troops, at this point just give custodes access to 'stormtroopers' or something as a regular troop choice.)

 Asherian Command wrote:
The problem isn't soup its lack of the incentive to play monolist or that cross functional armies are a thing, taking the most powerful units from each codex to build an army is what people are doing. Custodes are one of the few if only races currently that if you play mono get better (but still lack ways to get cheap troops, at this point just give custodes access to 'stormtroopers' or something as a regular troop choice.)

Custodes should have been paired with Sisters of Silence which would have given squishier (and cheaper) bodies to the army to solve the problem.

Also Custodes really need CP. It's a big problem for them.

 Marmatag wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
No soup? What will the Imperium eat? Corpse rations?

Seriously though (and I'm only speaking in terms of competetive play), Marines would be unplayable, Knights would be low tier, Custodes might not even see the table, Eldar would be spanking everyone like it was 7th and generally the meta wouldn't be shifting around as much as it is currently.

Eldar without allies are mediocre.
Dark Eldar without allies are barely mediocre.
Ynnari exist only in the concept of allies.

I can't even with this place sometimes.

Respectfully disagree. CWE and DE are IMO 2 of the strongest mono dex in the game. In your opinion what mono codex is better than DE?

I'm glad dakka has absolutely no influence on balance.

I do find it ironic that:

The competitive community continues to grow, and outside of isolated incidents people have a great time.

Meanwhile, the casual community is just a nonstop cesspool of complaints and nerf threads, using tournament data to grind their axes.

Who enjoys the game more?

 Ratius wrote:
Which armies do you think would/could improve if Soup didnt exist?

This is a loaded question. There are a lot of ways to answer it.

Certain armies would diminish because they no longer have soup options to improve from. Certain armies would improve because they no longer have to face those same soup armies. There's no way to deny that.

But that's not to say the game would be better. The old Force Organization Chart forced players to take sub-optimal load-outs to satisfy FOC requirements, points were being spent on units that were horribly inefficient. It was needlessly dissatisfying.

The 8th edition detachment system is a big improvement precisely because it offers more flexibility over what you collect and use in the game. From that perspective, every army would be diminished because there are fewer options for how to field it. No one really benefits from having less options for how to construct your army.

Also, one of the things that really complicates this question is what you mean when you say soup.

If you mean an army with detachments that each draw from different Codexes: there's not a lot of differences between that and the ally system introduced in 6th edition. I'm not sure it's even worth giving it a name, you've been able to do that for years. (Inquisiton armies could do that going back to 3rd edition.)

If you mean an army with at least one detachment drawing units from different Codexes: I haven't noticed too many armies like that winning tournaments. The most powerful armies appear to have separate detachments for units from each Codex.

From that perspective, soup doesn't make a big difference, I can't see how it really affects the outcome of competitive games. Even if there was no way to mix detachments, presumably there would still be a way to bring in allies from another Codex.

If the question was "how would the outcome of games be affected were players forced to construct their armies using a single Codex," that might be more interesting to talk about.

With my Black Legion army, the only allies I ever use are Daemons. With my Grey Knights army, the only allies I ever use are Guard / Inquisition / Assassins. Having to fight without allies would be a disappointment from a fluff perspective, but (assuming my opponent is also forced to choose from a single Codex), I think the results would remain the same.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:
The problem isn't soup its lack of the incentive to play monolist or that cross functional armies are a thing, taking the most powerful units from each codex to build an army is what people are doing. Custodes are one of the few if only races currently that if you play mono get better (but still lack ways to get cheap troops, at this point just give custodes access to 'stormtroopers' or something as a regular troop choice.)

Custodes should have been paired with Sisters of Silence which would have given squishier (and cheaper) bodies to the army to solve the problem.

Also Custodes really need CP. It's a big problem for them.

I was surprised it was TALONS OF THE EMPEROR as a single codex. As it would flesh out the entirety of custodes codex and would allow for cheaper sisters and would provide the way to prevent Psykers and deal with demons as well. This would also have a cross benefit of both of them having rules that coincide with one another.

Plus I really want a Sisters & Custode codex, ever since I saw them in the old horus heresy artwork I've loved their design.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
Which armies do you think would/could improve if Soup didnt exist?

This is a loaded question. There are a lot of ways to answer it.

Certain armies would diminish because they no longer have soup options to improve from. Certain armies would improve because they no longer have to face those same soup armies. There's no way to deny that.

But that's not to say the game would be better. The old Force Organization Chart forced players to take sub-optimal load-outs to satisfy FOC requirements, points were being spent on units that were horribly inefficient. It was needlessly dissatisfying.

The 8th edition detachment system is a big improvement precisely because it offers more flexibility over what you collect and use in the game. From that perspective, every army would be diminished because there are fewer options for how to field it. No one really benefits from having less options for how to construct your army.

Also, one of the things that really complicates this question is what you mean when you say soup.

If you mean an army with detachments that each draw from different Codexes: there's not a lot of differences between that and the ally system introduced in 6th edition. I'm not sure it's even worth giving it a name, you've been able to do that for years. (Inquisiton armies could do that going back to 3rd edition.)

If you mean an army with at least one detachment drawing units from different Codexes: I haven't noticed too many armies like that winning tournaments. The most powerful armies appear to have separate detachments for units from each Codex.

From that perspective, soup doesn't make a big difference, I can't see how it really affects the outcome of competitive games. Even if there was no way to mix detachments, presumably there would still be a way to bring in allies from another Codex.

If the question was "how would the outcome of games be affected were players forced to construct their armies using a single Codex," that might be more interesting to talk about.

With my Black Legion army, the only allies I ever use are Daemons. With my Grey Knights army, the only allies I ever use are Guard / Inquisition / Assassins. Having to fight without allies would be a disappointment from a fluff perspective, but (assuming my opponent is also forced to choose from a single Codex), I think the results would remain the same.

I think the big problem is that the codexes for all the races aren't even done yet we are still waiting for Corsairs, Ynnari, The Lost & The Damned, Emperors Children, Talons of the EMP, Sisters of Battle, and the World Eaters.

WE have alot of missing codexes still and some still only use their index or don't even have an entry or are not represented in the slightest (looks at the legion of the damned)

I keep seeing "mostly mono". Mostly mono, is not mono. How is that even an argument?

Allies should be relegated to open/narrative play.

Dandelion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

That's completely subjective. To me, the single BEST mechanic in 8th is how easy it is to ally because it's so freeing from a hobby perspective.

I'm on both sides of this. I started in 4E when aliies weren't a thing. All your units had to be from the same Codex. Period.
What I liked about this (as a newer player) was that once I had a general idea of what each army was, I had an idea of what a particular army list may be capable of.
Outside of knowing what the latest "netlists" are, this ability to know what a list can do just by knowing the faction is all but gone and I miss that surety.

But on the other side, having allies allows for fun lists that expand your army without being restricted to a single book.
The problem is that instantly allows players to "plug holes" in an army's weakness.

I like 8E for allies the best as it prevents combos that should never happen, like taking CWE and Necrons together. I did this twice in 7E myself using Scatterbikes, a WK and Necron Wraith formations. It was broken, so after winning 2 local tournies to prove that point, I sold the Necrons so I could go back to playing my Eldar with GK allies

What's funny for me is that I took allies in 7E to "dilute" my CWE as they were considered OP. So allies allowed me to continue using my Eldar, but also throw in some sub-par stuff that I just wanted to play too, like GKs or DE.
In 8E, even though allies seem more restricted (some factions cannot allie with anyone) allies are still used to create advantages

-

 Elbows wrote:
I don't think it's too complex. Generally speaking, soup (which is not units in a detachment like GW states, as the term is more about army detachments now - and has been since the edition started) benefits those armies which can ally.

Any "army" which has access to 120 datasheets, when the opposing army has access to 20...is inherently at an advantage.

not ALWAYS, depends on the quality of those data sheets, after all using tyhat logic if we get rid of soup space marines will be the top army by virtue of having more data sheets then anyone else

 Galef wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

That's completely subjective. To me, the single BEST mechanic in 8th is how easy it is to ally because it's so freeing from a hobby perspective.

I'm on both sides of this. I started in 4E when aliies weren't a thing. All your units had to be from the same Codex. Period.

Exceeeept that Codexes Witchhunters and Daemonhunters still had working rules for allies in 4th with their 3rd ed codexes. It's not that there were no allies, they just weren't as common and I recall a lot of people lamenting they couldn't fully match the fluff with cool allied based army lists.

Yay being old I guess?

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Galef wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

That's completely subjective. To me, the single BEST mechanic in 8th is how easy it is to ally because it's so freeing from a hobby perspective.

I'm on both sides of this. I started in 4E when aliies weren't a thing. All your units had to be from the same Codex. Period.

Exceeeept that Codexes Witchhunters and Daemonhunters still had working rules for allies in 4th with their 3rd ed codexes. It's not that there were no allies, they just weren't as common and I recall a lot of people lamenting they couldn't fully match the fluff with cool allied based army lists.

Yay being old I guess?

Fair enough. At my LGS at the time no one took either "Hunters" army. I seem to recall the same codex copy on the wall collecting dust for years.
Still, with Matched play vs Open/Narrative, there can now be levels of play.
Matched play could be far more restrictive, for example by requiring all units share 2 or more faction keywords for an army, and Open/Narrative play can be for using allies.
This will obviously mean some armies just do not see Matched play, but how is that any different that how it is now?

Honestly, I feel the days on 1 consistent mode of play are gone. Even before 8E you had casual play, but different LGSs had different expectations at to what this means and competitive play has had different formats (ITC, ETC, etc) for a while too.

-

Zothos wrote:
I keep seeing "mostly mono". Mostly mono, is not mono. How is that even an argument?

Allies should be relegated to open/narrative play.

How do you guys not see the irony in this?

You don't play competitive. So you want allies relegated to the only mode you play. LOL! It's so comical.

"I can't hang in competitive play because of <reasons> so let's make those <reasons> only apply to me!"

 Galef wrote:
I'm on both sides of this. I started in 4E when aliies weren't a thing. All your units had to be from the same Codex. Period.

Off the top of my head, allied options in 4th edition, either with allied rules or printed/reprinted in another factions dex -

Inquisitors
Assassins
Ministorum (both as allied units and reprinted in the guard book)
Sororitas
Grey Knights
Daemons (until codex daemons, plus generic daemons and daemonic adversaries)
Renegades (in various forms, including adversaries in the WH book)
Deathwatch (later replaced by sternguard, later still spun out into a book)
Legion of the damned
And everything superheavy due to being apoc only.

As of 5th the Harlequins were also double printed in the eldar and dark eldar dex.

GW have split a lot out of books over the years.

A.T. wrote:

GW have split a lot out of books over the years.

This is a huge part of the issue. We have bunch of stuff that never should have been considered an "army" in and of itself, or that never should have been split out of their old parent dex (or at least not in the way that it was). This then results in issues and allowing stuff that wasnt intended to be used like that to piggyback such mechanics.

 Marmatag wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
And seriously, that Ynnari list finishing 4th at SoCal was losing its game to Genestealer cult, but Daniel threatened to attack Nick so Nick resigned and said screw this. Tastey Taste did a blog about it and you can see the argument starting in one of his videos where he walks down the line of the top tables.

Daniel was getting stomped and *lost his mind* which forced his opponent to be an adult and walk away.

Ynnari are good but beatable, acting like they're this god mode faction is hilarious.

You got a link for that? Google isn't showing anything and I have trouble believing the drama-loving 40k community would miss something like that.

I already told you where to find it.

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2018/10/26/socal-open-2018-coverage/

Second to last video, he goes down the top tables. You can hear Nick and Daniel arguing. You can also get a look at the Ork list that was undefeated and competing for 3rd place (it lost to the almost-mono DE army shown in the video by 2 points). It'll give you a look at the buildings everyone was talking about.

Last video, he talks about it.

OMG DRAMAAA!!

Like...how TF do they have that much space between tables? That place must be huge.

A.T. wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I'm on both sides of this. I started in 4E when aliies weren't a thing. All your units had to be from the same Codex. Period.

Off the top of my head, allied options in 4th edition, either with allied rules or printed/reprinted in another factions dex -

Inquisitors
Assassins
Ministorum (both as allied units and reprinted in the guard book)
Sororitas
Grey Knights
Daemons (until codex daemons, plus generic daemons and daemonic adversaries)
Renegades (in various forms, including adversaries in the WH book)
Deathwatch (later replaced by sternguard, later still spun out into a book)
Legion of the damned
And everything superheavy due to being apoc only.

As of 5th the Harlequins were also double printed in the eldar and dark eldar dex.

GW have split a lot out of books over the years.

Like I said, I started in 4E, so aside from Witchhunters and Daemonhunters, I didn't know most of those existed.
So made I shouldn't have used the "Period" in my earlier statement, but the vast majority of player were "codex-bound"

 Vaktathi wrote:

A.T. wrote:

GW have split a lot out of books over the years.

This is a huge part of the issue. We have bunch of stuff that never should have been considered an "army" in and of itself, or that never should have been split out of their old parent dex (or at least not in the way that it was). This then results in issues and allowing stuff that wasnt intended to be used like that to piggyback such mechanics.

Indeed, Harlequins, for example, were at one point just be a single unit entry in both the Eldar and DE Codices. Kinda wish GW would consolidate some stuff rather than give every unit its own Codex.

-

Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

I think Imperial guard heavily rely on soup.
It's cheap to produce and warms a soldier up in cold weather.
It can be great if you've only got stale bread too.

 Marmatag wrote:
You don't play competitive. So you want allies relegated to the only mode you play. LOL! It's so comical.

"I can't hang in competitive play because of <reasons> so let's make those <reasons> only apply to me!"

That's not how it works, at all. Soup in competitive play and allies in casual/narrative play are not the same thing. In narrative games the only mixed-faction armies you see are ones that fit the story, it doesn't matter if it's theoretically possible to make something overpowered because nobody is going to play against it. The stuff people want banned from competitive play isn't going to be relegated to casual/narrative games, it's going to disappear entirely.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

They are playable, they just suck. Far cry from "factions" like the assassins who absolutely should not exist in the first place. At least you can just play it as a spooky IG conversion and more or less do the same thing you were already doing, similarly crappy factions like Necrons don't have that luxury.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

They are playable, they just suck. Far cry from "factions" like the assassins who absolutely should not exist in the first place. At least you can just play it as a spooky IG conversion and more or less do the same thing you were already doing, similarly crappy factions like Necrons don't have that luxury.

Assassins exist as such so that you can replicate lone assassin missions that happen in the middle of battle. They aren't always going to be accompanied by an Inquisitor.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

They are playable, they just suck. Far cry from "factions" like the assassins who absolutely should not exist in the first place. At least you can just play it as a spooky IG conversion and more or less do the same thing you were already doing, similarly crappy factions like Necrons don't have that luxury.

Right, right. That famous 'ally with Daemons' thing that the Astra Militarum do.

R&H as a monofaction do not merely suck. You literally might as well not bother setting up. It isn't fun. It isn't interesting.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Far cry from "factions" like the assassins who absolutely should not exist in the first place.

I don't get your weird hate in this and other threads for assassins. They are a legacy unit from the rogue trader era, not some plot by GW to ruin games for non-imperial players, and they've been allies for almost the entirety of 40ks history.

If the question was "how would the outcome of games be affected were players forced to construct their armies using a single Codex," that might be more interesting to talk about.

That was what I was aiming at but my lack of post structure had it degenerate into randomly generated thematical questions.

 techsoldaten wrote:
If the question was "how would the outcome of games be affected were players forced to construct their armies using a single Codex," that might be more interesting to talk about.

Much as the game was in the past, it would come down to how powerful and flexible each codex was with no possibility of improving your situation through allies - just the long wait for the next book.

Even as a WH/DH player though i'm not a huge fan of the 'improve your army by taking less of your army' situation and GWs decisions over the years have made balancing faction advantages against drawbacks impossible for the Imperium and Chaos - units being neutered to prevent them from being cherry picked.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Certain armies simply don't work with out allies, which puts GW in a bind with how to balance allies in general, particularly as they release more and more tiny factions.

5th edition would argue otherwise...

We still had the weak and strong codices, but each codex worked on its own.

If they scrapped the whole allies idea, it would allow them to adjust the armies to work on their own. Then the armies that have options to ally would be more special, i.e. chaos using demons, genestealer cults, marines embeded in an ig army.

I do like being able to ally, but i hate having to feel like i must ally to compete.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

A.T. wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
If the question was "how would the outcome of games be affected were players forced to construct their armies using a single Codex," that might be more interesting to talk about.

Much as the game was in the past, it would come down to how powerful and flexible each codex was with no possibility of improving your situation through allies - just the long wait for the next book.

Even as a WH/DH player though i'm not a huge fan of the 'improve your army by taking less of your army' situation and GWs decisions over the years have made balancing faction advantages against drawbacks impossible for the Imperium and Chaos - units being neutered to prevent them from being cherry picked.

I agree. This all started in n 6th with the stupidity there (remember necron/blood angel allies?)

By allowing armies to combine they made it harder to balance, and created situations where broken combinations are more common. Youd think by now they would know people will game and pick the most efficient combinations of units, and with the way the web works now, theres plenty of data for them to check to make game adjustments.

 Zid wrote:
By allowing armies to combine they made it harder to balance, and created situations where broken combinations are more common. Youd think by now they would know people will game and pick the most efficient combinations of units, and with the way the web works now, theres plenty of data for them to check to make game adjustments.

Oh they do. They are counting on it...

A.T. wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
If the question was "how would the outcome of games be affected were players forced to construct their armies using a single Codex," that might be more interesting to talk about.

Much as the game was in the past, it would come down to how powerful and flexible each codex was with no possibility of improving your situation through allies - just the long wait for the next book.

Even as a WH/DH player though i'm not a huge fan of the 'improve your army by taking less of your army' situation and GWs decisions over the years have made balancing faction advantages against drawbacks impossible for the Imperium and Chaos - units being neutered to prevent them from being cherry picked.

It'd be much easier to externally balance each codex if you weren't allowed to mix and match from individual codex?

Trying to balance the game with allies as they stand now is like trying to solve a second degree polynomial with just 1 equation.

 Marmatag wrote:
I'm glad dakka has absolutely no influence on balance.

I do find it ironic that:

The competitive community continues to grow, and outside of isolated incidents people have a great time.

Meanwhile, the casual community is just a nonstop cesspool of complaints and nerf threads, using tournament data to grind their axes.

Who enjoys the game more?

The casual players who sit back and watch it all happen.

 Marmatag wrote:
I'm glad dakka has absolutely no influence on balance.

I do find it ironic that:

The competitive community continues to grow, and outside of isolated incidents people have a great time.

Meanwhile, the casual community is just a nonstop cesspool of complaints and nerf threads, using tournament data to grind their axes.

Who enjoys the game more?

What you forget is that it's the casual players to whom game being reasonably balanced would be better. Competive players? Game is unbalanced and balance shifts? Just buy new army. They aren't interested in fluff nor have they tie with army so new army is no biggie. Indeed chasing down current broken combo is generally part of the point...Meanwhile casual players are the ones who can't just switch to new broken combo. While nobody enjoys games that are foregone conclusion.

It's the casual group that has vested interested in game being balanced. Competive ones just go for next broken combo.

Soup as a concept is fine.

Soup needs to be balanced with Mono lists.

At some point as well, the game follows the Fluff. People read about X person and Y forces, and Z forces all scrapping with A,b and C forces want that look on the table as well.

But it doesn't stop there. How many times did you see Deathwing armies show when they were the only ones who could have an all Terminator Army. Those kind of options were popular and should be.

The game is ready for a Organized play offshoot. This would make clear the subdivide between the Casual and Competitive players, and that would really help the game's community.

tneva82 wrote:


What you forget is that it's the casual players to whom game being reasonably balanced would be better. Competive players? Game is unbalanced and balance shifts? Just buy new army. They aren't interested in fluff nor have they tie with army so new army is no biggie. Indeed chasing down current broken combo is generally part of the point...Meanwhile casual players are the ones who can't just switch to new broken combo. While nobody enjoys games that are foregone conclusion.

It's the casual group that has vested interested in game being balanced. Competive ones just go for next broken combo.

But if a casual group isn't chasing down broken combos, then surely those broken combos wouldn't be a big problem for them? Unless one of the players coincidentally happens to have a combo that becomes OP or something.

tneva82 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
I'm glad dakka has absolutely no influence on balance.

I do find it ironic that:

The competitive community continues to grow, and outside of isolated incidents people have a great time.

Meanwhile, the casual community is just a nonstop cesspool of complaints and nerf threads, using tournament data to grind their axes.

Who enjoys the game more?

What you forget is that it's the casual players to whom game being reasonably balanced would be better. Competive players? Game is unbalanced and balance shifts? Just buy new army. They aren't interested in fluff nor have they tie with army so new army is no biggie. Indeed chasing down current broken combo is generally part of the point...Meanwhile casual players are the ones who can't just switch to new broken combo. While nobody enjoys games that are foregone conclusion.

It's the casual group that has vested interested in game being balanced. Competive ones just go for next broken combo.

Pretty much this. I have long argued that a balanced game is beneficial to all players but it is MOST beneficial for casual players (who often put up the biggest fuss about changes).

 nurgle5 wrote:

But if a casual group isn't chasing down broken combos, then surely those broken combos wouldn't be a big problem for them? Unless one of the players coincidentally happens to have a combo that becomes OP or something.

I think this is a big reason why there are so many complaints about the IG. Their OP stuff is not some weird combo you need to specifically build towards, it it their basic bread and butter stuff, so it will be felt even in a casual environment where the players are not intentionally trying to break things.

 Crimson wrote:

 nurgle5 wrote:

But if a casual group isn't chasing down broken combos, then surely those broken combos wouldn't be a big problem for them? Unless one of the players coincidentally happens to have a combo that becomes OP or something.

I think this is a big reason why there are so many complaints about the IG. Their OP stuff is not some weird combo you need to specifically build towards, it it their basic bread and butter stuff, so it will be felt even in a casual environment where the players are not intentionally trying to break things.

Agreed with this. I went to use IG rules for my RnH. It was a pretty standard list. And also extremely broken. Went back to RnH, because rather be bad and have a fun time than have an OP list and stomp everyone.

 Zid wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Certain armies simply don't work with out allies, which puts GW in a bind with how to balance allies in general, particularly as they release more and more tiny factions.

5th edition would argue otherwise...

We still had the weak and strong codices, but each codex worked on its own.

If they scrapped the whole allies idea, it would allow them to adjust the armies to work on their own. Then the armies that have options to ally would be more special, i.e. chaos using demons, genestealer cults, marines embeded in an ig army.

I do like being able to ally, but i hate having to feel like i must ally to compete.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

A.T. wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
If the question was "how would the outcome of games be affected were players forced to construct their armies using a single Codex," that might be more interesting to talk about.

Much as the game was in the past, it would come down to how powerful and flexible each codex was with no possibility of improving your situation through allies - just the long wait for the next book.

Even as a WH/DH player though i'm not a huge fan of the 'improve your army by taking less of your army' situation and GWs decisions over the years have made balancing faction advantages against drawbacks impossible for the Imperium and Chaos - units being neutered to prevent them from being cherry picked.

I agree. This all started in n 6th with the stupidity there (remember necron/blood angel allies?)

By allowing armies to combine they made it harder to balance, and created situations where broken combinations are more common. Youd think by now they would know people will game and pick the most efficient combinations of units, and with the way the web works now, theres plenty of data for them to check to make game adjustments.

>still had strong and weak codices
>each codex worked on its own

You gotta pick one. Otherwise this is just nostalgia talking for you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
I'm glad dakka has absolutely no influence on balance.

I do find it ironic that:

The competitive community continues to grow, and outside of isolated incidents people have a great time.

Meanwhile, the casual community is just a nonstop cesspool of complaints and nerf threads, using tournament data to grind their axes.

Who enjoys the game more?

What you forget is that it's the casual players to whom game being reasonably balanced would be better. Competive players? Game is unbalanced and balance shifts? Just buy new army. They aren't interested in fluff nor have they tie with army so new army is no biggie. Indeed chasing down current broken combo is generally part of the point...Meanwhile casual players are the ones who can't just switch to new broken combo. While nobody enjoys games that are foregone conclusion.

It's the casual group that has vested interested in game being balanced. Competive ones just go for next broken combo.

That's because the casual players secretly like their non-balanced lists and want no change to them.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

Until they get their update.

If there was no soup you'd not be able to do a nice fun Blood Angel + Steel Legion armageddon force.
Because nobody but the Legion can make that delicious mushroom soup with herbs that only the blood angels posses.

And that'd be terrible

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

Until they get their update.

Maybe when FW stops being such a mess (and it sadly is a big fecking mess right now).

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

Until they get their update.

Heh. Yeah. That, Bannerlord and half life 3. All be really fun in 2050.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

Until they get their update.

Maybe when FW stops being such a mess (and it sadly is a big fecking mess right now).

Yeah. It's disappointing.

I like soup armies as it shows the incredible range of the 41st millennium. I don't generally play competitively (I go to the occasional tournament) and think the game is the most balanced and varied it has ever been.

Having huge factions and smaller factions is a good thing. It gives players options and allows for a range of different models. Apart from a few point costs and CP costs here and there I think soup is delicious.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

Eh. They are okay. Militia suck, but Cultists with flamers and Enforcers as screening for Leman Russes works pretty well. Then through in some marauders and sents, it can work okay. Won't compete in a competitive setting, but let's be honest

In a competitive setting, Renegades are unplayable unless you intend to do anything other than use them to bring Leman Russes for other factions.

Actually it's just a mentality thing:


Competitive players: Okay, the game has changed, how do I win?

Casual players: I refuse to change or alter my expectations, the game is bad.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Zid wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Certain armies simply don't work with out allies, which puts GW in a bind with how to balance allies in general, particularly as they release more and more tiny factions.

5th edition would argue otherwise...

We still had the weak and strong codices, but each codex worked on its own.

If they scrapped the whole allies idea, it would allow them to adjust the armies to work on their own. Then the armies that have options to ally would be more special, i.e. chaos using demons, genestealer cults, marines embeded in an ig army.

I do like being able to ally, but i hate having to feel like i must ally to compete.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

A.T. wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
If the question was "how would the outcome of games be affected were players forced to construct their armies using a single Codex," that might be more interesting to talk about.

Much as the game was in the past, it would come down to how powerful and flexible each codex was with no possibility of improving your situation through allies - just the long wait for the next book.

Even as a WH/DH player though i'm not a huge fan of the 'improve your army by taking less of your army' situation and GWs decisions over the years have made balancing faction advantages against drawbacks impossible for the Imperium and Chaos - units being neutered to prevent them from being cherry picked.

I agree. This all started in n 6th with the stupidity there (remember necron/blood angel allies?)

By allowing armies to combine they made it harder to balance, and created situations where broken combinations are more common. Youd think by now they would know people will game and pick the most efficient combinations of units, and with the way the web works now, theres plenty of data for them to check to make game adjustments.

>still had strong and weak codices
>each codex worked on its own

You gotta pick one. Otherwise this is just nostalgia talking for

My point was once upon a time the armies worked by themselves, the problems came from codex creep and extremely long release times for codices. Faqs were rare, balance issues persisted, but overall the game felt good.

I was able to play 4th edition codex armies (chaos demons) and beat 5th ed codex armies, and there were a variety of ways to play. Gw also were not active in balancing the codices either.

I think a few core issues sprang from allies:
1) dependence on cheap battalions for cp to fuel armies that were balanced around having limited cp (am + knights)
2) rules from one codex effecting the other. This was seen by the sudden need to nerf codex demons strats to not effect anyone else, yet we still have crap like ynnari.
3) armies picking power options from each other to power game. Yes, spam has always been a thing, but allies just exacerbated it by allowing people to instead spam the best stuff from multiple armies.

Im just saying if each codex operated independently, then some armies had options to ally (where it made sense, like chaos summoning demons) then i think it would be easier to spot broken combos and fix them, while balancing stuff.

I also said in another thread gw could always implement an armywide buff for players whom only use a single codex; for example, space marines would have a buff that gave all models in their detachment chapter tactics (which fixes the gripe that sm vehicles are left out to dry, and powers up the army). This could be applicable for any army that is underpowered when it operates by itself.

Its just an idea, i dont think soups going anywhere.

 Marmatag wrote:
Actually it's just a mentality thing:


Competitive players: Okay, the game has changed, how do I win?

Casual players: I refuse to change or alter my expectations, the game is bad.

To be fair I believe part of it has to do with Competitive player's willingness to completely change their armies.

As a casual player, I don't want to get rid of my Militia squads. I want to be able to use them and still have a chance to win the game.

Thing is, in the current state of things, I cant!

Sir Heckington wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

Until they get their update.

Heh. Yeah. That, Bannerlord and half life 3. All be really fun in 2050.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

Until they get their update.

Maybe when FW stops being such a mess (and it sadly is a big fecking mess right now).

Yeah. It's disappointing.

I guess you haven't been following the news?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Sir Heckington wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

Until they get their update.

Heh. Yeah. That, Bannerlord and half life 3. All be really fun in 2050.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Renegades and Heretics are utterly unplayable without allies.

Until they get their update.

Maybe when FW stops being such a mess (and it sadly is a big fecking mess right now).

Yeah. It's disappointing.

I guess you haven't been following the news?

Spoiler:

I have not! That gives me hope. Thanks for sharing.

Imperial Knights supporting hordes of guard is fluffy. Ynnari detachments with both DE and Eldar is fluffy in the current context. Genestealer Cults and Tyranids are fluffy. Almost every allied detachment is fluffy. Loyal 32 and knights are extremely fluffy. Fluff is not the matter. Everyone can play with allies in narrative play, but I think for tournaments, allies may/may not be banned. I think it's just gonna drag Eldar to the top of the curve again, guard fall a bit, Tau, perhaps Orks, and Necrons get better. But, many synergies will remain as competitive as ever. GW has an inherent problem with OP units that runs far beyond soup. A Min/Maxed 40K list will always be overpowered. Loyal 32 and knights is broken, DE and Eldar is broken, the best combos in the game will always be broken. I think there needs to be a complete rules overhaul for there to be positive change, as band-aid solutions such as banning allies only further exacerbates the problem.

Sir Heckington wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Actually it's just a mentality thing:


Competitive players: Okay, the game has changed, how do I win?

Casual players: I refuse to change or alter my expectations, the game is bad.

To be fair I believe part of it has to do with Competitive player's willingness to completely change their armies.

As a casual player, I don't want to get rid of my Militia squads. I want to be able to use them and still have a chance to win the game.

Thing is, in the current state of things, I cant!

But there will always be a casual player running some thing that isn't at the top of the power scale, who wants it to be what they consider viable. You can't cater to everyone in this regard. If you bring competitive stuff the game is actually very balanced. The faction representation in the top 50 at SoCal (4-2 or better) was impressive.

 Marmatag wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
No soup? What will the Imperium eat? Corpse rations?

Seriously though (and I'm only speaking in terms of competetive play), Marines would be unplayable, Knights would be low tier, Custodes might not even see the table, Eldar would be spanking everyone like it was 7th and generally the meta wouldn't be shifting around as much as it is currently.

Eldar without allies are mediocre.
Dark Eldar without allies are barely mediocre.
Ynnari exist only in the concept of allies.

I can't even with this place sometimes.

3rd at SoCal was pure DE with a SINGLE allied 135 pt. MODEL. Looks like an army being barely mediocre is irrelevant if it can be piloted to 5-0-1.

Lemondish wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
No soup? What will the Imperium eat? Corpse rations?

Seriously though (and I'm only speaking in terms of competetive play), Marines would be unplayable, Knights would be low tier, Custodes might not even see the table, Eldar would be spanking everyone like it was 7th and generally the meta wouldn't be shifting around as much as it is currently.

Eldar without allies are mediocre.
Dark Eldar without allies are barely mediocre.
Ynnari exist only in the concept of allies.

I can't even with this place sometimes.

3rd at SoCal was pure DE with a SINGLE allied 135 pt. MODEL. Looks like an army being barely mediocre is irrelevant if it can be piloted to 5-0-1.

Well that guy is a sexy genius but that's not really here nor there, without Doom + 2 deny the witch Dark Eldar really suffer.

 Marmatag wrote:

Sir Heckington wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Actually it's just a mentality thing:


Competitive players: Okay, the game has changed, how do I win?

Casual players: I refuse to change or alter my expectations, the game is bad.

To be fair I believe part of it has to do with Competitive player's willingness to completely change their armies.

As a casual player, I don't want to get rid of my Militia squads. I want to be able to use them and still have a chance to win the game.

Thing is, in the current state of things, I cant!

But there will always be a casual player running some thing that isn't at the top of the power scale, who wants it to be what they consider viable. You can't cater to everyone in this regard. If you bring competitive stuff the game is actually very balanced. The faction representation in the top 50 at SoCal (4-2 or better) was impressive.

Fair enough. Ideally I'd like to see detachments cost CP, and CP be based on point level. I think that's about all we need to fix soup.

Then it'd be about balancing individual units.

I really don't know Chaos. So I can't really think of them and have ignored them. I suspect Thousand Sons and Death Guard would be oka. Mono Alpha Legion would have issues.

IG, Eldar, Dark Eldar would be top tier. Probably with Tau, Knights, Orks and Tyranids being slightly rarer but still in with a chance.

SM with Bobby G are top tier too. All non UM and whatever flavour of Marine are doing worse down to Grey Knights.

Necrons are not doing well but slightly better to the point where if you had a lucky tournament they might do okay. Pure Ad Mech are probably in a position where they crush some games but lose horribly in others so winning a tournament is pretty unlikely.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Should we ban competitive play?

Ideally? Yes.

Then we can go back to concentrating on having fun with our toy soldiers, and not worrying about "the meta", the latest tournament shenanigans, or other people trying to eek out that extra 0.001% performance from a list as they've decided it determines the size of their e-peen...

LOL, this is the most trollish post i've seen in a while.

"My way to play is the right way, and anyone else is a horrible person."

...have you been reading Martel's posts in the current "When do the Indexes go?" thread? Trust me, the above has nothing on those posts.

 Marmatag wrote:
Actually it's just a mentality thing:


Competitive players: Okay, the game has changed, how do I win?

Casual players: I refuse to change or alter my expectations, the game is bad.

Because I don't really care about winning. I play to win in game, but I don't feel the need to constantly chase the dragon and have a huge model overturn just to have every last advantage. I enjoy 40k the most when I see a ton of army diversity and people who can pull together a fluffy list and have a bunch of cool minis, particularly older ones. Having to retire huge parts of a collection that I poured time into because GW can't write balanced rules sucks.