Another year, another CA that didn't address soup or Castellans, another big tournament dominated by soup and Castellans. Raise your hand if you're surprised. Anyone? Didn't think so. There's been a lot of discussion about this lately, but I'm not sure how anyone of sound mind could follow the tournament scene and come to the conclusion that undercosted units are the problem instead of soup. 7 of the top 8 lists are some flavor of soup. Even if we pretend for a second that undercosted units are the problem, the existence of soup alone makes properly balancing units point cost based on their effectiveness is nearly impossible. Let's take a look at the issues soup presents:
1. The soup lists perform much better than lists using the same units but sticking to a single codex.
2. There is literally no drawback to soup, only benefits.
3. GW has a hard enough time getting points right in that context alone. When they have to factor in every possible unit combination in all imperium armies to come up with an appropriate point cost for something, it is literally impossible. Unit point costs are based on the other units in their codex. If you price a squad of guardsmen based on their value in a custodes jetbike list, they become useless in a pure guard army. If you price them based on their value to a pure guard army, you end up with vastly undercosted CP batteries and objective holders for soup lists.
4. The minute you allow an army to cover up all their weaknesses without paying any sort of penalty, you are imbalancing the game. Especially when you allow some armies to cover up all their weaknesses and others have no option to cover any of them. Each army was originally designed with certain strengths and weaknesses in mind. Space Marines are jack of all trades, master of none. Tau are the best at shooting but have no psychic phase and are terrible in close combat. Eldar are glass cannons. Imperial Knights are tough to take down and kill a lot of stuff, but don't have a good way to hold objectives because they are limited in numbers.
5.
While I'm sure GW loves selling 3 different armies and codexes to people just so they can play 1, it is bad for the game and something needs to be done about it. It blows my mind that their solution to soup was to prevent you from using multiple factions in a detachment, while giving MORE cp for souping in the cheapest battalion possible and allowing it to come from a different faction. If they want to eliminate soup, they need to go back to something similar to the old allies system. 2 detachments, 2 factions, CP can only be used by the faction that generated it, and +3 or +5 CP if both detachments come from the same faction. This will never happen, because they only care about game balance if it's so bad it's tanking their sales numbers. They will continue to write gak rules for the purpose of increasing sales and villifying anyone that has the audacity to call them out by saying they're playing the game wrong and they need to forge the narrative harder.
I don't think you'll find much disagreement on here at least. I know plenty of people irl who think that the allies system is fine as-is, but they're also not cued-in to the more competitive side of things, so they're not really the best to make such a decision. But yeah, many of us on Dakka Dakka have made the argument that soup needs some big and immediate changes to keep the game in a healthy state. I'm still not willing to say I was right yet, but I think it's obvious that Games Workshop should want to make large changes to the allies system to keep the game interesting and to make it more likely to see every faction performing well at both the top and bottom ends of play.
GW are never going to nerf soup sufficiently that IG+IK isn't better than mono IG/IK. At the same time most nerfs which would neuter Imperial Soup (say seperate CP pools) often have an almost negligible impact on Eldar Soup.
Castelans clearly need to be nerfed - and imo Knights should have their wings clipped a bit more generally. I realise "but but but my models" - or "I only run mono knights and its tough" and I sympathise a little bit - but the number of knights at competitive tournaments and even casual FLGS tables has become ridiculous. They should not be an auto-take in pretty much every imperial list, and right now they are.
Tyel wrote: GW are never going to nerf soup sufficiently that IG+IK isn't better than mono IG/IK. At the same time most nerfs which would neuter Imperial Soup (say seperate CP pools) often have an almost negligible impact on Eldar Soup.
Castelans clearly need to be nerfed - and imo Knights should have their wings clipped a bit more generally. I realise "but but but my models" - or "I only run mono knights and its tough" and I sympathise a little bit - but the number of knights at competitive tournaments and even casual FLGS tables has become ridiculous. They should not be an auto-take in pretty much every imperial list, and right now they are.
And again problem is the soup. How many PURE knight lists are dominating tournaments? Not that much. Fix the soup(by killing it completely if neccessary) rather than do pointless random inefficient totally off the mark "fixes".
Tyel wrote: GW are never going to nerf soup sufficiently that IG+IK isn't better than mono IG/IK. At the same time most nerfs which would neuter Imperial Soup (say seperate CP pools) often have an almost negligible impact on Eldar Soup.
Castelans clearly need to be nerfed - and imo Knights should have their wings clipped a bit more generally. I realise "but but but my models" - or "I only run mono knights and its tough" and I sympathise a little bit - but the number of knights at competitive tournaments and even casual FLGS tables has become ridiculous. They should not be an auto-take in pretty much every imperial list, and right now they are.
And again problem is the soup. How many PURE knight lists are dominating tournaments? Not that much. Fix the soup(by killing it completely if neccessary) rather than do pointless random inefficient totally off the mark "fixes".
Fix...the...damn...problem.
It's not that simple unfortunately. The game has been aspects (and units) that have been made and designed specifically around the current allies system. Games Workshop use it as a core mechanic for new designs, so they couldn't ever remove it. Really, I think this is a lack of foresight on Games Workshop's part as allies have always been a difficult issue for balance ever since they re-brought it back in in 6th edition.
Probably niave but in the live chat with the head of the 40k part of the studio he did say that they had been taking notice of the fact that Castalans were everywhere and were talking to the playtesters at the event about it....
Castelans clearly need to be nerfed - and imo Knights should have their wings clipped a bit more generally.
Possibly unpopular opinion from an IK/IG player, but bring on the nerf. I want it. I like playing the army, I like Imperium soup, it feels fluffy and cinematic on the tabletop. I hate the reaction from opponents, even opponents that know I am running IK/IG beforehand.
By which I mean - I get that soup lists have access to a wider variety of tools than mono-book lists, but I don't see why that's an issue. Just because mono-dex armies are the historical standard doesn't mean they're the gold standard, and there's far more variety in units and factions hitting the top 21 at LVO than I ever remember seeing in 5th Edition. Or even 7th, for that matter.
Why are people so resistant to this change?
Darsath wrote: I don't think you'll find much disagreement on here at least. I know plenty of people irl who think that the allies system is fine as-is, but they're also not cued-in to the more competitive side of things, so they're not really the best to make such a decision.
But the "more competetive side of things" is all about soup nowadays, so if your aim is "competetive" then clearly the allies rules generate that more effectively than mono-book builds do. Hence, if your aim is "competetive", then the Allies rules are fine as is.
BBAP wrote: Hence, if your aim is "competetive", then the Allies rules are fine as is.
They aren't because you're shoehorned into playing Imperial or Ynnari soup. I should be able to be competitive without playing eldar or loyal 32 and a castellan. I'm not saying every unit in the game should be viable in a top tier army, I'm saying every faction should have at least 1 build that can actually compete. Right now that's true, if your faction is imperium or eldar. Otherwise, have fun pushing models around for 5 games when you already know what the outcome will be.
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Mr Morden wrote: Probably niave but in the live chat with the head of the 40k part of the studio he did say that they had been taking notice of the fact that Castalans were everywhere and were talking to the playtesters at the event about it....
This isn't new, though. Castellans and soup were a problem months before CA was released, yet CA did absolutely nothing to address either of those things.
The issue is CP farming to pull off shenanigans that the parent Codex would struggle to, because they can be points intensive. Loyal 32 isn’t so much paying points for models, but a load of CPs and something you might want to dump on an objective. They otherwise play no part in the battle.
I don’t think there’s a huge problem with the state of the game. Yes imperial soup was the biggest winner, but so many other factions scraped into the top 20. If anything I prefer having a single army taking up a large portion of the top cut, with several other armies taking up small bits, as it makes list building easier - if you prepare for knights you’ve prepared for a good chunk of your matchups in one go
BBAP wrote: Hence, if your aim is "competetive", then the Allies rules are fine as is.
They aren't because you're shoehorned into playing Imperial or Ynnari soup. I should be able to be competitive without playing eldar or loyal 32 and a castellan. I'm not saying every unit in the game should be viable in a top tier army, I'm saying every faction should have at least 1 build that can actually compete. Right now that's true, if your faction is imperium or eldar. Otherwise, have fun pushing models around for 5 games when you already know what the outcome will be.
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Mr Morden wrote: Probably niave but in the live chat with the head of the 40k part of the studio he did say that they had been taking notice of the fact that Castalans were everywhere and were talking to the playtesters at the event about it....
This isn't new, though. Castellans and soup were a problem months before CA was released, yet CA did absolutely nothing to address either of those things.
Depends when CA was written? I am not convinced that much will happen but it was at least good that it was being noticed and commented on.
Trollbert wrote: Will the game be better as a whole when Castellans are killed?
Or will it say the same with something else being the current Castellan?
Trollbert wrote: Will the game be better as a whole when Castellans are killed?
Or will it say the same with something else being the current Castellan?
Better balance is better for everyone no?
But are Castellans really the only matter or are they just a gatekeeper for other equally unbalanced lists?
The only thing that changes this is the advantage multiple factions' stratagems bring.
Soup is only an issue where units are more efficient than others.
Units and abilities synergize in different ways with different things. Soup allows armies to have access to abilities they wouldn't otherwise have and things to interact in ways not possible in a strictly mono-codex format. Units have different values depending on the context of the force they're in, when you change that context, the balance changes. What's fine in one context is not fine in others. That's the inherent fundamental problem with allies/soup in 40k. You're basically allowing armies to pick and choose optimal tools that they may not really be intended to have access to, even if they're otherwise just fine in their original place, and as a result, forces are much more powerful than they otherwise would be. You could have perfect mono-codex balance, and Allies soup will throw it all in the air.
There's a reason most tabletop games don't allow stuff like this or place dramatic restrictions on such stuff.
This is not true at all. Having access to different types of units, bypassing intended limits of a faction, is additional power. Unit costs alone can never balance soup vs. mono-faction lists. Take the loyal 32 for example, they clearly aren't being taken because guardsmen are inherently overpowered or you'd see more than the minimum detachment of them. What they are is the cheapest possible CP battery for the IK faction. Setting their point level at a place where IK armies don't take their battery would mean making them unplayable in pure IG armies that take more than the minimum and depend on their infantry squads to do more than sit in the back providing CP.
Trollbert wrote: Will the game be better as a whole when Castellans are killed?
Or will it say the same with something else being the current Castellan?
Better balance is better for everyone no?
But are Castellans really the only matter or are they just a gatekeeper for other equally unbalanced lists?
Who said they were the only problem - but if they are a problem its better addressed than ignored?
Thats what they didn't do in 6th and 7th when we had Gladius, Riptides, Wave Serpents and Wraith Knights.
The only thing that changes this is the advantage multiple factions' stratagems bring.
Soup is only an issue where units are more efficient than others.
Units and abilities synergize in different ways with different things. Soup allows armies to have access to abilities they wouldn't otherwise have and things to interact in ways not possible in a strictly mono-codex format. Units have different values depending on the context of the force they're in, when you change that context, the balance changes. What's fine in one context is not fine in others. That's the inherent fundamental problem with allies/soup in 40k. You're basically allowing armies to pick and choose optimal tools that they may not really be intended to have access to, even if they're otherwise just fine in their original place, and as a result, forces are much more powerful than they otherwise would be. You could have perfect mono-codex balance, and Allies soup will throw it all in the air.
There's a reason most tabletop games don't allow stuff like this or place dramatic restrictions on such stuff.
This. More or less. More options plus the current command point system allows armies to get access to more units and more stratagems by taking an allied force with their main army. I would advise everyone to take my comments with a pinch of salt, though, as my main faction (Necrons) don't exactly have soup options so I'm obviously going to be biased no matter how much I try not to.
Because it kills faction diversity. Remove soup and you have IK, IG, melee space marines, etc, all with their various strengths and weaknesses. But with soup you just have a single Imperial faction that takes 1-2 units out of each book and discards the rest.
But the "more competetive side of things" is all about soup nowadays, so if your aim is "competetive" then clearly the allies rules generate that more effectively than mono-book builds do. Hence, if your aim is "competetive", then the Allies rules are fine as is.
Winning games by exploiting a bad rule doesn't make it a good rule.
If soup is a problem, it's a problem within the factions that really benefit from soup;
Aeldari
Imperium
Chaos
Chaos has about 2 main "big" builds; Bash Bros, and Cultist Spam. Imperium has 3 main builds; Castellan+Guard, Castellan+AdMech Robots, and Castellan+Space Marines. Aeldari have the most number of main builds; Ynnari with Dark Reapers and Shining Spears, Craftworlds with Rangers and Flyers, and Dark Eldar can be built in a few ways too.
If variety is what we're going for, then these are the problems:
#1 - Chaos needs more different ways of playing.
#2 - Castellan needs to be nerfed. Specifically it. No other unit seems to find its way into winning lists in quite the same way. The previous nerfs have caused the list overall to not be as good, but the fact that the Castellan is still taken so often is a problem.
#4 - Aeldari as a super-faction is likely doing fine. There is variation. Why is that? Probably because both Craftworld Eldar and Dark Eldar are really, really strong codexes all on their own, with multiple builds on their own, but both also function off some combos that don't generally work well with each other. As such, while they are a super faction, they're one that doesn't generally show up like that.
Tyranids are doing okay, with multiple builds, even if they're not super top-tier. Necrons only seem to work with triple Doomsday Ark; so changes to Necrons shouldn't focus on the Doomsday Ark. Orks I don't know well enough to judge.
Toofast wrote: They aren't because you're shoehorned into playing Imperial or Ynnari soup.
Those particular soups are sweeping the top 5, sure, but even when mono-book armies were the standard you had 2-3 army builds holding court while everyone else struggled. The problem isn't with the Allies rules, or with soup - it's that some lists and unit combinations are just more effective on the table than others. As long as GW refuses to set a central standard by which the power of models and rules can be judged then this issue will persist - and they won't do that because it'd mess with their efforts to heap special rules and expansion books on the Space Marines throughout the Edition.
Trollbert wrote: Will the game be better as a whole when Castellans are killed?
Or will it say the same with something else being the current Castellan?
Better balance is better for everyone no?
But are Castellans really the only matter or are they just a gatekeeper for other equally unbalanced lists?
Who said they were the only problem - but if they are a problem its better addressed than ignored?
Thats what they didn't do in 6th and 7th when we had Gladius, Riptides, Wave Serpents and Wraith Knights.
I just want people to be careful with their wishes, I don't think it is possible for GW and its way of working to make the game fundamentally better.
Even if Knights were fixed people would still be disappointed in the long run.
The game needs another reset for that.
8th edition was just a lazy rework (which is also the reason for why the rules are so dumped down, it is just cheaper to produce) to raise people's hopes of 40k changing fundamentally and make fresh cash. If you're honest, nothing substantually changed from mid 7th (when I quit) to now, were are basically at the same point again.
Vaktathi wrote: Units and abilities synergize in different ways with different things. Soup allows armies to have access to abilities they wouldn't otherwise have and things to interact in ways not possible in a strictly mono-codex format. Units have different values depending on the context of the force they're in, when you change that context, the balance changes. What's fine in one context is not fine in others. That's the inherent fundamental problem with allies/soup in 40k. You're basically allowing armies to pick and choose optimal tools that they may not really be intended to have access to, even if they're otherwise just fine in their original place, and as a result, forces are much more powerful than they otherwise would be. You could have perfect mono-codex balance, and Allies soup will throw it all in the air.
There's a reason most tabletop games don't allow stuff like this or place dramatic restrictions on such stuff.
Again, if all units were properly and accurately balanced against each other, it wouldn't make a difference. An army should have a selection of playstyles. If they are unable to provide their own I see no problem them drawing from other factions to try a new style. The problem is the existence of "optimal tools". Optimal tools is another way of saying overpowered units.
I'm not saying I think soup is absolutely fine as is and requires no changes, but I'm quite certain that fixing problematic units will definitely help with the current imbalance of the game.
Peregrine wrote: This is not true at all. Having access to different types of units, bypassing intended limits of a faction, is additional power. Unit costs alone can never balance soup vs. mono-faction lists. Take the loyal 32 for example, they clearly aren't being taken because guardsmen are inherently overpowered or you'd see more than the minimum detachment of them. What they are is the cheapest possible CP battery for the IK faction. Setting their point level at a place where IK armies don't take their battery would mean making them unplayable in pure IG armies that take more than the minimum and depend on their infantry squads to do more than sit in the back providing CP.
What do you mean by "intended limits of a faction"? All factions should have a variety of playstyles.
Guardsmen are absolutely taken because they are inherently overpowered. They are also taken in larger groups than the minimums to fill brigades or battalions. They are not the cheapest possible CP battery for the IK faction, that honour now belongs with Ad Mech. Setting their point level at a proper and fair place should absolutely be one of the key aims of GW at this moment in time. How they escaped not rising to at least 5 ppm as Cultists is incredible. They would certainly not become unplayable in mono IG because mono IG is incredibly strong (11th place finish at LVO anyone?). You cannot justify overpowered units with the existence of soup. Overpowered units are overpowered, whether taken in mono or soup lists.
Trollbert wrote: Will the game be better as a whole when Castellans are killed?
Or will it say the same with something else being the current Castellan?
Better balance is better for everyone no?
But are Castellans really the only matter or are they just a gatekeeper for other equally unbalanced lists?
Who said they were the only problem - but if they are a problem its better addressed than ignored?
Thats what they didn't do in 6th and 7th when we had Gladius, Riptides, Wave Serpents and Wraith Knights.
I just want people to be careful with their wishes, I don't think it is possible for GW and its way of working to make the game fundamentally better.
Even if Knights were fixed people would still be disappointed in the long run.
The game needs another reset for that.
8th edition was just a lazy rework (which is also the reason for why the rules are so dumped down, it is just cheaper to produce) to raise people's hopes of 40k changing fundamentally and make fresh cash. If you're honest, nothing substantually changed from mid 7th (when I quit) to now, were are basically at the same point again.
Disagree - for me the rules are MUCh better this edition, 6th and 7th were a disaster - the blance, rubbish like the Riptides etc being Creatures, the rules for vehicles, formations etc.
They are interacting with the audience and doing so much more interesting elements.
Could some stuff be better - yep, Could it be worse - much - just look at the 6th and 7th.
Trollbert wrote: Will the game be better as a whole when Castellans are killed?
Or will it say the same with something else being the current Castellan?
Better balance is better for everyone no?
But are Castellans really the only matter or are they just a gatekeeper for other equally unbalanced lists?
Who said they were the only problem - but if they are a problem its better addressed than ignored?
Thats what they didn't do in 6th and 7th when we had Gladius, Riptides, Wave Serpents and Wraith Knights.
I just want people to be careful with their wishes, I don't think it is possible for GW and its way of working to make the game fundamentally better.
Even if Knights were fixed people would still be disappointed in the long run.
The game needs another reset for that.
8th edition was just a lazy rework (which is also the reason for why the rules are so dumped down, it is just cheaper to produce) to raise people's hopes of 40k changing fundamentally and make fresh cash. If you're honest, nothing substantually changed from mid 7th (when I quit) to now, were are basically at the same point again.
Disagree - for me the rules are MUCh better this edition, 6th and 7th were a disaster - the blance, rubbish like the Riptides etc being Creatures, the rules for vehicles, formations etc.
They are interacting with the audience and doing so much more interesting elements.
Could some stuff be better - yep, Could it be worse - much - just look at the 6th and 7th.
Partly disagree - the codices are better in 8th but the rules are just so bland. The game is currently 90% dice rolling since the missions I have access to (I didn't buy any CA) are gak.
Trollbert wrote: Will the game be better as a whole when Castellans are killed?
Or will it say the same with something else being the current Castellan?
Better balance is better for everyone no?
But are Castellans really the only matter or are they just a gatekeeper for other equally unbalanced lists?
Who said they were the only problem - but if they are a problem its better addressed than ignored?
Thats what they didn't do in 6th and 7th when we had Gladius, Riptides, Wave Serpents and Wraith Knights.
I just want people to be careful with their wishes, I don't think it is possible for GW and its way of working to make the game fundamentally better.
Even if Knights were fixed people would still be disappointed in the long run.
The game needs another reset for that.
8th edition was just a lazy rework (which is also the reason for why the rules are so dumped down, it is just cheaper to produce) to raise people's hopes of 40k changing fundamentally and make fresh cash. If you're honest, nothing substantually changed from mid 7th (when I quit) to now, were are basically at the same point again.
Disagree - for me the rules are MUCh better this edition, 6th and 7th were a disaster - the blance, rubbish like the Riptides etc being Creatures, the rules for vehicles, formations etc.
They are interacting with the audience and doing so much more interesting elements.
Could some stuff be better - yep, Could it be worse - much - just look at the 6th and 7th.
7th Edition had much better core rules to work around than 8th Edition has atm. It's clear that 8th has been somewhat a beta test as the rules are mostly made as they go. Supplements are the real bane of the edition (formations with free benefits, overpowered detachments in books, Daemons in general). The core rules design itself however was a better system for implementing more flavour and distinct rules that would make the game fun to play over the same-ness that some of the 8th edition stuff is still being ironed out of. There were plenty of issues with the core rules too, though. For me, the Psychic phase was terrible, and the weird Monstrous Creature rules were weird for not having Firing Arcs (when some of them should have just followed the walker rules). But in the latter case, that now also applies to Land Raiders and the like aswell in 8th, so I wouldn't make that comparison as a positive for 8th.
7th Edition had much better core rules to work around than 8th Edition has atm. It's clear that 8th has been somewhat a beta test as the rules are mostly made as they go. Supplements are the real bane of the edition (formations with free benefits, overpowered detachments in books, Daemons in general). The core rules design itself however was a better system for implementing more flavour and distinct rules that would make the game fun to play over the same-ness that some of the 8th edition stuff is still being ironed out of. There were plenty of issues with the core rules too, though. For me, the Psychic phase was terrible, and the weird Monstrous Creature rules were weird for not having Firing Arcs (when some of them should have just followed the walker rules). But in the latter case, that now also applies to Land Raiders and the like aswell in 8th, so I wouldn't make that comparison as a positive for 8th.
So true IMO. Getting rid of the 8(?) unit type was correct, streamlining USR was the right idea, but could have been executed in a better way. But apart from that, 7th was playable and could have been interactive and fun if not for the codices...
7th Edition had much better core rules to work around than 8th Edition has atm.
Core rules were never the problem of 40k But that was the one thing that was always changed to make the game "better"
Of course there was the break in the game between 2nd and 3rd edition and each edition hat its problems with specific builds
The real problem came from Codex rules that were written to work around the core rules wich caused the problems in the first place (no need for a core rule if everyone as a special rule to ignore it)
But instead of fixing those problems the core rules were changed while the Codex rules stayed.
7th was a bloated mess, but the core was good with some minor easy to fix issues (looking at Horus Heresy) the mess came from the Codex rules.
Now we have 8th, the core is good (with some minor issues) but the Codex rules are the same mess as before
I also say that soup is not a problem by itself, but because Factions rules are written with specific weaknesses that can be bypassed that way and that not all factions have access to that bypass
One thing that would help could be that non-Codex units could only be used with an Allied Support Detachment, making Fluffy Soup possible (but this is no real solution anyway)
And people are now used to Soup since allies were introduced a while back, and remember 8th edition was said to be the ultimate solution to "Soup"
The Castellan benefits WAY too much from the CP of cheaper Soup elements. First Castellans should be more like 700 pts and guardsman need a bump up in point cost. Second, there needs to be a rules revision on how much CP benefit a unit like a Castellan can have with cheap brigades that the guard offer.
An Actual Englishman wrote: What do you mean by "intended limits of a faction"? All factions should have a variety of playstyles.
Tau should not have melee. Khorne should not have good shooting. IG should have trouble projecting force and claiming units outside their deployment zone. IK should have limited CP and poor ability to hold objectives. Etc. That's the whole point of having different factions, if every faction can be good at every role then you just have one faction with a variety of aesthetic choices for which models you use.
Guardsmen are absolutely taken because they are inherently overpowered. They are also taken in larger groups than the minimums to fill brigades or battalions. They are not the cheapest possible CP battery for the IK faction, that honour now belongs with Ad Mech. Setting their point level at a proper and fair place should absolutely be one of the key aims of GW at this moment in time. How they escaped not rising to at least 5 ppm as Cultists is incredible. They would certainly not become unplayable in mono IG because mono IG is incredibly strong (11th place finish at LVO anyone?). You cannot justify overpowered units with the existence of soup. Overpowered units are overpowered, whether taken in mono or soup lists.
There's a reason it's called "loyal 32", not "loyal 320". If guardsmen were that overpowered on their own merits and that was the reason IK lists took them you'd see more than the minimum required to get the CP battery. You can talk theory all you want, but in practice the IK players are treating the guardsmen as a tax unit that they have to take to get the CP, not an overpowered unit that they'd want in their army even if it didn't come with all that CP. And yes, nerfing them to a point where the CP battery becomes unappealing would make them unplayable in mono-IG armies. 5ppm would only be a 30 point difference for IK, so you'd still see the loyal 32. You'd have to give them an increase above 5ppm, at which point nobody takes them in IG armies anymore.
Also, I have to laugh at the idea that an 11th place finish is considered "incredibly strong".
Vaktathi wrote: Units and abilities synergize in different ways with different things. Soup allows armies to have access to abilities they wouldn't otherwise have and things to interact in ways not possible in a strictly mono-codex format. Units have different values depending on the context of the force they're in, when you change that context, the balance changes. What's fine in one context is not fine in others. That's the inherent fundamental problem with allies/soup in 40k. You're basically allowing armies to pick and choose optimal tools that they may not really be intended to have access to, even if they're otherwise just fine in their original place, and as a result, forces are much more powerful than they otherwise would be. You could have perfect mono-codex balance, and Allies soup will throw it all in the air.
There's a reason most tabletop games don't allow stuff like this or place dramatic restrictions on such stuff.
Again, if all units were properly and accurately balanced against each other, it wouldn't make a difference.
That's not possible with distinct army concepts, as each has their own context, and it changes from army to army. What's balanced within the context of a static attritional gunline may not be when paired with highly mobile elite force. The entire concept of distinct forces makes this a nonstarter.
You can balance units within their original context and codex, but not when you start adding in stuff from other books. CP aside, that's where we see most of the battlefield value in Guardsmen for instance, is in providing screening and ground control that otherwise wouldn't be available to armies made up of a tiny number of models and originally balanced around that concept. Even if you deleted Guardsmen from the game, such forces would just move to the next option to cover that intentional inherent weakness and the problem would still exist, they'd just move onto the next best option.
To put it another way, to make many of the dominant Soup lists "balanced", you'd have to nerf some components so hard that the original force no longer functions. Yeah, if Guardsmen are 7 or 8 PPM, the loyal 32 are no long as much of an issue with Castellan lists, but at that point you've just destroyed the viability of Guardsmen within actual IG armies.
An army should have a selection of playstyles. If they are unable to provide their own I see no problem them drawing from other factions to try a new style. The problem is the existence of "optimal tools". Optimal tools is another way of saying overpowered units.
I'm not saying I think soup is absolutely fine as is and requires no changes, but I'm quite certain that fixing problematic units will definitely help with the current imbalance of the game.
Fixing problematic units will help, but again, units are designed and costed within a specific context, and that context is not "yeah you can take anything from a dozen different books and run it as one army".
Codex books are, with few exceptions, written as self contained forces with unique strengths and weaknesses. They are not and should not be capable of every playstyle. Some armies have long establish fluff that pigeonholes them into certain playstyles, and that's fine too as long as they're functional. If they have a problem, it should be addressed within the codex, not by nabbing stuff from another force that may be perfectly balanced within the context of that other force but may have dramatically different results in the context of another force.
Guardsmen are absolutely taken because they are inherently overpowered.They are also taken in larger groups than the minimums to fill brigades or battalions
Going back to my point above, even if we nerf Guardsmen, there's a difference between Guardsmen in Soup and Guardsmen within IG armies. If they're made 5ppm, that may be appropriate for the context of a mono-IG army, but won't do squat to solve Soup. What will solve the Soup issue will have substantial impacts on mono-IG armies. Ultimately, that need isn't removed just because you've removed Guardsmen, they just happen to be the best at it and there are other alternatives that could be easily switched to, and these units aren't being costed within the context of being screener/field control for other armies. That's the issue here, the context is the fundamental problem.
Likewise, particularly in Soup lists, the number of Guardsmen we're seeing is generally the minimum required for whatever detachment or CP level is desired, not always but usually 90% of the time. We're not seeing armies built with two dozen Infantry Squads, we're not seeing people routinely using stuff like Special Weapons Squads which, even without Officer support, can be dramatically more cost effective in terms of raw killing efficiency for their points investment (possibly the best in the game). We're seeing people bring just enough to cover screening and CP needs for the overwhelmingly vast majority of Soup/Allies armies.
EDIT: didn't mean for this post to be so IG centric, it's just the easiest faction to illustrate with.
Tau should not have melee. Khorne should not have good shooting. IG should have trouble projecting force and claiming units outside their deployment zone. IK should have limited CP and poor ability to hold objectives. Etc. That's the whole point of having different factions, if every faction can be good at every role then you just have one faction with a variety of aesthetic choices for which models you use
.
Tau should rely on specific units for Melee - Alien Auxilaries like the Kroot.
Guard should rely on speclaist units for that - Stormtroopers and specific regiments with intergral air support.
Khorne - I kinda agree on
o put it another way, to make many of the dominant Soup lists "balanced", you'd have to nerf some components so hard that the original force no longer functions. Yeah, if Guardsmen are 7 or 8 PPM, the loyal 32 are no long as much of an issue with Castellan lists, but at that point you've just destroyed the viability of Guardsmen within actual IG armies.
The inidividual unit is not (IMO) the issue.
The issue is the fact that they are using that unit for that reason - it looks like they are starting to work on this issue with GSC's.
Martel732 wrote: Castellans and guardsmen both need nerfs. The guardsmen are just as guilty, if not more.
Guardsmen aren't good on their own or in a pure IG list. They only need nerfed in IK lists because they provide cheap CP and objective holders. Again, the soup is the problem because if you balance them based on an IK soup list, they will cost so much they'll be unplayable in a pure IG list.
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argonak wrote: Command points need to be restricted to the subfaction that created then. That would be an improvement.
It would, but I still think you would see imperial soup and ynnari soup winning tournaments at almost the same rate they are now. Something needs to be fundamentally changed with the way armies are allowed to be built to fix this. As I said in the OP, that won't happen because then people won't need to buy 3 codexes, a supplement, and 32 guard models they would never buy otherwise just to have a decent imperial army. Soup is good for GW's sales numbers, and because of that they couldn't care less how bad it is for the game or that it shoehorns people into playing a certain list if they want to be competitive.
An Actual Englishman wrote: What do you mean by "intended limits of a faction"? All factions should have a variety of playstyles.
Tau should not have melee. Khorne should not have good shooting. IG should have trouble projecting force and claiming units outside their deployment zone. IK should have limited CP and poor ability to hold objectives. Etc. That's the whole point of having different factions, if every faction can be good at every role then you just have one faction with a variety of aesthetic choices for which models you use.
Guardsmen are absolutely taken because they are inherently overpowered. They are also taken in larger groups than the minimums to fill brigades or battalions. They are not the cheapest possible CP battery for the IK faction, that honour now belongs with Ad Mech. Setting their point level at a proper and fair place should absolutely be one of the key aims of GW at this moment in time. How they escaped not rising to at least 5 ppm as Cultists is incredible. They would certainly not become unplayable in mono IG because mono IG is incredibly strong (11th place finish at LVO anyone?). You cannot justify overpowered units with the existence of soup. Overpowered units are overpowered, whether taken in mono or soup lists.
There's a reason it's called "loyal 32", not "loyal 320". If guardsmen were that overpowered on their own merits and that was the reason IK lists took them you'd see more than the minimum required to get the CP battery. You can talk theory all you want, but in practice the IK players are treating the guardsmen as a tax unit that they have to take to get the CP, not an overpowered unit that they'd want in their army even if it didn't come with all that CP. And yes, nerfing them to a point where the CP battery becomes unappealing would make them unplayable in mono-IG armies. 5ppm would only be a 30 point difference for IK, so you'd still see the loyal 32. You'd have to give them an increase above 5ppm, at which point nobody takes them in IG armies anymore.
Also, I have to laugh at the idea that an 11th place finish is considered "incredibly strong".
Vaktathi wrote: Units and abilities synergize in different ways with different things. Soup allows armies to have access to abilities they wouldn't otherwise have and things to interact in ways not possible in a strictly mono-codex format. Units have different values depending on the context of the force they're in, when you change that context, the balance changes. What's fine in one context is not fine in others. That's the inherent fundamental problem with allies/soup in 40k. You're basically allowing armies to pick and choose optimal tools that they may not really be intended to have access to, even if they're otherwise just fine in their original place, and as a result, forces are much more powerful than they otherwise would be. You could have perfect mono-codex balance, and Allies soup will throw it all in the air.
There's a reason most tabletop games don't allow stuff like this or place dramatic restrictions on such stuff.
Again, if all units were properly and accurately balanced against each other, it wouldn't make a difference.
That's not possible with distinct army concepts, as each has their own context, and it changes from army to army. What's balanced within the context of a static attritional gunline may not be when paired with highly mobile elite force. The entire concept of distinct forces makes this a nonstarter.
You can balance units within their original context and codex, but not when you start adding in stuff from other books. CP aside, that's where we see most of the battlefield value in Guardsmen for instance, is in providing screening and ground control that otherwise wouldn't be available to armies made up of a tiny number of models and originally balanced around that concept. Even if you deleted Guardsmen from the game, such forces would just move to the next option to cover that intentional inherent weakness and the problem would still exist, they'd just move onto the next best option.
To put it another way, to make many of the dominant Soup lists "balanced", you'd have to nerf some components so hard that the original force no longer functions. Yeah, if Guardsmen are 7 or 8 PPM, the loyal 32 are no long as much of an issue with Castellan lists, but at that point you've just destroyed the viability of Guardsmen within actual IG armies.
An army should have a selection of playstyles. If they are unable to provide their own I see no problem them drawing from other factions to try a new style. The problem is the existence of "optimal tools". Optimal tools is another way of saying overpowered units.
I'm not saying I think soup is absolutely fine as is and requires no changes, but I'm quite certain that fixing problematic units will definitely help with the current imbalance of the game.
Fixing problematic units will help, but again, units are designed and costed within a specific context, and that context is not "yeah you can take anything from a dozen different books and run it as one army".
Codex books are, with few exceptions, written as self contained forces with unique strengths and weaknesses. They are not and should not be capable of every playstyle. Some armies have long establish fluff that pigeonholes them into certain playstyles, and that's fine too as long as they're functional. If they have a problem, it should be addressed within the codex, not by nabbing stuff from another force that may be perfectly balanced within the context of that other force but may have dramatically different results in the context of another force.
Guardsmen are absolutely taken because they are inherently overpowered.They are also taken in larger groups than the minimums to fill brigades or battalions
Going back to my point above, even if we nerf Guardsmen, there's a difference between Guardsmen in Soup and Guardsmen within IG armies. If they're made 5ppm, that may be appropriate for the context of a mono-IG army, but won't do squat to solve Soup. What will solve the Soup issue will have substantial impacts on mono-IG armies. Ultimately, that need isn't removed just because you've removed Guardsmen, they just happen to be the best at it and there are other alternatives that could be easily switched to, and these units aren't being costed within the context of being screener/field control for other armies. That's the issue here, the context is the fundamental problem.
Likewise, particularly in Soup lists, the number of Guardsmen we're seeing is generally the minimum required for whatever detachment or CP level is desired, not always but usually 90% of the time. We're not seeing armies built with two dozen Infantry Squads, we're not seeing people routinely using stuff like Special Weapons Squads which, even without Officer support, can be dramatically more cost effective in terms of raw killing efficiency for their points investment (possibly the best in the game). We're seeing people bring just enough to cover screening and CP needs for the overwhelmingly vast majority of Soup/Allies armies.
EDIT: didn't mean for this post to be so IG centric, it's just the easiest faction to illustrate with.
So I get the distinct impression the two of you are arguing against my points because you enjoy 4ppm Guardsmen. That's all good. But it doesn't change the fact that truly balanced stratagems, psychic powers and units would make soup irrelevant and a non-issue.
Let's make it super simple - if every unit had exactly the same abilities and costed exactly the same the armies would be perfectly balanced, right? Like checkers is a perfectly balanced game. Now we don't want every army to be identical, obviously. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a sweet spot where the melee capability of a unit can be balanced against the shooting capability of another. I agree that IG should generally be a gunline style army. I completely disagree that there is an inherent problem with them taking a melee element from another army to sure up weaknesses. If the melee capability of the units/factions they are taking are balanced against others, and similarly their shooting potential is balanced against others, there shouldn't be a problem.
4ppm Guardsmen are mathematically too strong. They are evidently too strong. We can see this in the numbers. If they were balanced correctly, they would not be an auto-include but would instead be a fluff or aesthetic decision. Part of their balance should be the fact that they provide CP. I think most troops should be increased in cost because CP is so valuable. The same for HQs. Elite, Fast attacks and the other 1 CP detachment units should be comparatively better than troops for their cost because they do not provide as much CP. Knights need to be appropriately balanced against other superheavies. This isn't hard stuff - compare the Stompa to a Castellan. Compare the Wraithknight to a Castellan. It's obvious why the Castellan is taken in such numbers. As to Guardsmen, the special weapons squad comparison is a red herring when heavy weapons teams are taken in such large quantities. They are taken in groups larger than the minimum to get CP. And to clarify, the minimum Guardsmen to fulfil a CP requirement for IK is 0. They can pick from any Imperium faction and as I have stated, the so called Rusty 17 are cheaper. So people value the Loyal 32 because of the units themselves, not their cost.
Martel732 wrote: Castellans and guardsmen both need nerfs. The guardsmen are just as guilty, if not more.
Guardsmen aren't good on their own or in a pure IG list. They only need nerfed in IK lists because they provide cheap CP and objective holders. Again, the soup is the problem because if you balance them based on an IK soup list, they will cost so much they'll be unplayable in a pure IG list.
Can we kill this meme please? IG are one of the most powerful mono factions. Guess what they take as their troop of choice? You got it! Guardsmen!
Guardsmen are great in an Imperial soup list. They are great in a pure IG list. They would be great if I could take them in my Ork list. They are great, great units and they need to be balanced.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Again, if all units were properly and accurately balanced against each other, it wouldn't make a difference. An army should have a selection of playstyles. If they are unable to provide their own I see no problem them drawing from other factions to try a new style. The problem is the existence of "optimal tools". Optimal tools is another way of saying overpowered units.
I'm not saying I think soup is absolutely fine as is and requires no changes, but I'm quite certain that fixing problematic units will definitely help with the current imbalance of the game.
The conflict is that a Castelan in an Imperial Soup list alongside allies is clearly worth a lot more points than in a mono-Knight list.
On this issue you can, to some degree, just say tough. These asymmetries after all happen even in mono-dexes - there are plenty of units which are "good" when using certain available synergies, but are decidedly meh without them. Do we for instance balance Eldar with the knowledge that they are going to be Alaitoc, or assume that they will pick Iyanden for... reasons? It seems rational to balance on the assumption that people will pick the best - but if you price units on this basis, it underscores the need to pick the best options. The question then becomes how you nerf the synergy - without at the same time making it even more integral to get good performance out of units and therefore limiting build options. Arguably the best option would be to tweak things like Alaitoc's Chapter Tactic, further limitations on Ynnari, separate CP pools, maybe limit Knight invuls to 4++ etc etc - but this would require more modelling than just slightly raising/lowering points and seeing how it plays out.
If a Castelan goes up to say 700 points, it might still be worth it in a soup list due to the synergy - but it would have an even harder time when run mono.
Also agree with you on Guardsmen - most of these lists are running a brigade so this idea that its just the loyal 32 CP battery is false.
Tyel wrote: The conflict is that a Castelan in an Imperial Soup list alongside allies is clearly worth a lot more points than in a mono-Knight list.
On this issue you can, to some degree, just say tough. These asymmetries after all happen even in mono-dexes - there are plenty of units which are "good" when using certain available synergies, but are decidedly meh without them. Do we for instance balance Eldar with the knowledge that they are going to be Alaitoc, or assume that they will pick Iyanden for... reasons? It seems rational to balance on the assumption that people will pick the best - but if you price units on this basis, it underscores the need to pick the best options. The question then becomes how you nerf the synergy - without at the same time making it even more integral to get good performance out of units and therefore limiting build options. Arguably the best option would be to tweak things like Alaitoc's Chapter Tactic, further limitations on Ynnari, separate CP pools, maybe limit Knight invuls to 4++ etc etc - but this would require more modelling than just slightly raising/lowering points and seeing how it plays out.
If a Castelan goes up to say 700 points, it might still be worth it in a soup list due to the synergy - but it would have an even harder time when run mono.
Also agree with you on Guardsmen - most of these lists are running a brigade so this idea that its just the loyal 32 CP battery is false.
Ah I kind of agree with you but I think the Castellan is worth the same amount regardless of whether he is taken in a mono IK list or a soup list. And in both he is too cheap IMO.
You bring up an interesting point regarding balance around a particular sub-faction trait. First off I don't think there should be any that give a -1 to hit at range. It is far too powerful to hand out so easily and it is by far the best trait in any of the codexes in which it exists. I think all sub-faction traits should be properly balanced against each other. Or they should give a bonus to a certain playstyle. For example it annoys me that my particular faction of choice (Evil Sunz) is the defacto choice for all Orks because it makes Boyz and other Ork infantry way quicker. I'd have been happy if it only affected bikes and vehicles or had less of an effect on infantry. Either way, we should balance units assuming no faction traits. Faction traits need to be better balanced to ensure that one is not far superior to another and that they do not make units go from balanced to imbalanced. A flyer with -1 to hit in built isn't too bad. A flyer with -2 to hit because of a faction trait stacking is a different story.
So I get the distinct impression the two of you are arguing against my points because you enjoy 4ppm Guardsmen. That's all good. But it doesn't change the fact that truly balanced stratagems, psychic powers and units would make soup irrelevant and a non-issue.
Then, at least for my posts, I don't think I'm making my point well enough. 4ppm Guardsmen aren't anything I'm wedded to, I was fully expecting them to get a price bump with CA and was shocked they didn't get it. To illustrate the point better, I'll reiterate, if Guardsmen are undercosted at 4ppm, but are ok at 5ppm within a monoIG army, the Loyal32 probably doesn't take a meaningful power hit until they're so expensive (7 or 8ppm) that they're not useable in a mono-IG list anymore, because the value changes with the context.
Guardsmen are just the easiest go-to example to use, not really the core of the argument I'm trying to make. I'd really prefer to use something else besides Guardsmen, and to be far more specific, Infantry Squads (lets be real, nobody is talking about Special Weapons Squads, non-Mortar equipped HWS's, Veterans, Command Squads, etc because none of these units are appearing in Tournament lists), but they're just the most common example.
Ultimately, yes individual units need to be looked at, but again even if you deleted Guardsmen from the game, we'd just see a shift to the next inexpensive infantry unit and the problem would remain, in that armies like Knights having access to inexpensive infantry fills lots of capability gaps that they were intended to not have filled. Some goes for pretty much any Soup combo we see now.
Let's make it super simple - if every unit had exactly the same abilities and costed exactly the same the armies would be perfectly balanced, right? Like checkers is a perfectly balanced game. Now we don't want every army to be identical, obviously. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a sweet spot where the melee capability of a unit can be balanced against the shooting capability of another. I agree that IG should generally be a gunline style army. I completely disagree that there is an inherent problem with them taking a melee element from another army to sure up weaknesses. If the melee capability of the units/factions they are taking are balanced against others, and similarly their shooting potential is balanced against others, there shouldn't be a problem.
The problem is that the melee element has a different value in the other army than it does in the Guard army. In the Guard army, that CC ability is going to be either useless because it doesn't synergize with the shooting emphasis (as we've typically seen with most IGCC units through history), or it's going to be ungodly broken because it's opening up tactical capabilities the army was never meant to have.
That's exactly what we see with Knights. They lack CP and board control. They take Guardsmen to cover these gaps. Even if we delete Guardsmen from the game entirely, nevermind what they cost lets just assume they're gone entirely and aren't even an option to take, does the issue with Knights go away? No. If they have the ability, they're still going to take another inexpensive infantry unit that grants more CP and board control than they natively have access to. That makes them significantly more powerful than they were designed to be, the army's costs and capabilities were designed with limited numbers in mind to counteract being big and powerful. If you can have big and powerful, but can also control the board and use more Stratagems than intended, you're going to throw out the intended balance.
As to Guardsmen, the special weapons squad comparison is a red herring when heavy weapons teams are taken in such large quantities.
Why? They serve different purposes, a plasma equipped SWS is probably the most cost-efficient MEQ killer in the game, l and the only HWS's we are seeing taken are those equipped with Mortars for dirt-cheap and sat hidden away in back on auto-pilot, nobody is running HWS's with any of the other weapons options really, and even then usually you only see them to fill out HS slots for a Brigade since they're the cheapest option (same way people take single Multilaser Sentinels as FA choices to fill out slots, but they're not actually great units).
They are taken in groups larger than the minimum to get CP. And to clarify, the minimum Guardsmen to fulfil a CP requirement for IK is 0. They can pick from any Imperium faction and as I have stated, the so called Rusty 17 are cheaper. So people value the Loyal 32 because of the units themselves, not their cost.
Again, lets ignore Guardsmen entirely, pretend they don't exist.
What will happen?
We'll just see the Rusty 17 or another equivalent take their place, and the value they provide in that context will be greater than the value they provide within the context of a mono-Admech army.
Because that weakness of board control and CP is still there for the Knights, and the option to be mitigated or negated is still there, we'll see it just as often as we see the Loyal32 now, with probably only a trivial change in ultimate outcome.
Yes, the Loyal32 are currently better than the Rusty 17 and that makes them the default Soup choice, but that's a secondary issue, the problem is that the value of either changes when used in a different context than the one they were originally intended for, and the unintended synergy created makes something more powerful than was possible in either army individually.
Can we kill this meme please? IG are one of the most powerful mono factions. Guess what they take as their troop of choice? You got it! Guardsmen!
To be fair, there's 3 Guard troops choices, one of which is simply flatly inferior in literally every possible way to Infantry Squads and offers no capabilities or tactical opportunities that Infantry Squads can't do (conscripts) and from a fluff perspective really shouldn't be the core of most Guard armies in the first place, the other (stormtroopers) functions radically differently and requires a separate detachment to use its faction bonuses. Really, for most Guard armies there's only one Troops choice, the Infantry Squad.
The Infantry Squad is also the only unit that has consistently been a Troops choice through the history of the game without any strings attached (e.g. Stormtroopers and Veterans have moved in and out, Conscripts used to only be an option as an add-on to an Infantry Platoon). The Infantry Squad *should* be the default, ubiquitous Troop choice given the other options.
What about removing the +3CP for a BB army AND reducing both Battalion and Brigade back to their original values? ALSO, increase the CP given by these 3 specialist detachments: Vanguard, Outrider and Spearhead (+2 instead of only +1), AS LONG AS they have the EXACT Faction keywords from the Warlord's detachment?
This will not only reduce overall CP, but will also make people want to play more with one Faction book (as they'll get more CP that way) instead of freaking loyal 32/rusty 17 everywhere. And have the added benefit of screwing Castellan solo show.
Just make soup a Narrative only gameplay possibility. Problem solved. Casual and fluffy bunny players can still do their combinations. Competitive players can find something else to complain about.
Giantwalkingchair wrote: Just make soup a Narrative only gameplay possibility. Problem solved. Casual and fluffy bunny players can still do their combinations. Competitive players can find something else to complain about.
I think that Games Workshop are fully aware that a very large majority of players still play using points and play casually. It's just easier for pick-up games.
7th Edition had much better core rules to work around than 8th Edition has atm.
It really didn't.
Yes, let's have terrible wound allocation rules that would more at home in a skirmish game when we have a game that can use hundreds of models. No.
As for the OT- Thank you! Soup is a blight on this game in both physical appearances of the armies and player perception of how this is a "normal" way to play the game. The sooner it gets dealt with the better. If GW insist on doing soup then the two things that need to happen are as follows: CP can only be used by whatever detachment generated them (Warlord determines what detachment gets the battleforged +3) and, to take a cue from Malifaux with their merc units is they have a minor cost increase if taken outside their parent faction- so those loyal 32 are now more expensive (once again, Warlord determines who parent faction is) when taken with IK.
7th Edition had much better core rules to work around than 8th Edition has atm.
It really didn't.
Yes, let's have terrible wound allocation rules that would more at home in a skirmish game when we have a game that can use hundreds of models. No.
As for the OT- Thank you! Soup is a blight on this game in both physical appearances of the armies and player perception of how this is a "normal" way to play the game. The sooner it gets dealt with the better. If GW insist on doing soup then the two things that need to happen are as follows: CP can only be used by whatever detachment generated them (Warlord determines what detachment gets the battleforged +3) and, to take a cue from Malifaux with their merc units is they have a minor cost increase if taken outside their parent faction- so those loyal 32 are now more expensive (once again, Warlord determines who parent faction is) when taken with IK.
Wounds being allocated to the closest model first, and requiring line of sight to the model taking the wound actually make more sense, not less.
An Actual Englishman wrote: If the melee capability of the units/factions they are taking are balanced against others, and similarly their shooting potential is balanced against others, there shouldn't be a problem.
This is where you are wrong. You're ignoring the existence of synergies, diminishing returns, etc, where a unit's value depends on what other units are available. Guardsmen in a pure IG army are good screening troops with efficient small arms fire. Guardsmen in an IK army have all of that, but also the considerable additional value of adding abundant CP to an army that is unable to get it without allies. So how do you set the price of guardsmen? If you balance them for use in a pure IG army they're overpowered as an IK CP battery, if you balance them as a CP battery then they're too expensive to be viable in a pure IG army. And it's the same in other cases. Gaining access to something you otherwise can't have is often more valuable than taking yet another unit to do a job you're already winning at, and you can't set an appropriate price for both uses at the same time. The only way to balance the game is to remove the ability to take the best units from every faction without penalty.
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Darsath wrote: I have done that. Finding the front of a unit isn't hard.
I seriously doubt you removed the closest unit, measuring to 0.00001mm precision when necessary. Casualty removal from the front only works if you play it super casually and are willing to roughly approximate it without worrying about who is gaining an advantage by removing the wrong model. IOW, the rule only works if you don't follow the rule. And that's a bad mechanic.
An Actual Englishman wrote: If the melee capability of the units/factions they are taking are balanced against others, and similarly their shooting potential is balanced against others, there shouldn't be a problem.
This is where you are wrong. You're ignoring the existence of synergies, diminishing returns, etc, where a unit's value depends on what other units are available. Guardsmen in a pure IG army are good screening troops with efficient small arms fire. Guardsmen in an IK army have all of that, but also the considerable additional value of adding abundant CP to an army that is unable to get it without allies. So how do you set the price of guardsmen? If you balance them for use in a pure IG army they're overpowered as an IK CP battery, if you balance them as a CP battery then they're too expensive to be viable in a pure IG army. And it's the same in other cases. Gaining access to something you otherwise can't have is often more valuable than taking yet another unit to do a job you're already winning at, and you can't set an appropriate price for both uses at the same time. The only way to balance the game is to remove the ability to take the best units from every faction without penalty.
As I said, take a leaf out of what Malifaux does (or did are they're going into 3rd ed.). Outcasts, which are a faction in their own right but also mercs that can be taken by other factions have a +1pt increase when taken outside of Outcasts. Something like this for 40k would go some way to curbing a bit of soup if GW insist on keeping it.
An Actual Englishman wrote: If the melee capability of the units/factions they are taking are balanced against others, and similarly their shooting potential is balanced against others, there shouldn't be a problem.
This is where you are wrong. You're ignoring the existence of synergies, diminishing returns, etc, where a unit's value depends on what other units are available. Guardsmen in a pure IG army are good screening troops with efficient small arms fire. Guardsmen in an IK army have all of that, but also the considerable additional value of adding abundant CP to an army that is unable to get it without allies. So how do you set the price of guardsmen? If you balance them for use in a pure IG army they're overpowered as an IK CP battery, if you balance them as a CP battery then they're too expensive to be viable in a pure IG army. And it's the same in other cases. Gaining access to something you otherwise can't have is often more valuable than taking yet another unit to do a job you're already winning at, and you can't set an appropriate price for both uses at the same time. The only way to balance the game is to remove the ability to take the best units from every faction without penalty.
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Darsath wrote: I have done that. Finding the front of a unit isn't hard.
I seriously doubt you removed the closest unit, measuring to 0.00001mm precision when necessary. Casualty removal from the front only works if you play it super casually and are willing to roughly approximate it without worrying about who is gaining an advantage by removing the wrong model. IOW, the rule only works if you don't follow the rule. And that's a bad mechanic.
If you gotta measure it, then you can do so with a tape measure. The rules specifically state that when the models in the unit are equidistant, then the controlling player may choose which model to remove. I'm not sure if you are aware of this rule though.
An Actual Englishman wrote: If the melee capability of the units/factions they are taking are balanced against others, and similarly their shooting potential is balanced against others, there shouldn't be a problem.
This is where you are wrong. You're ignoring the existence of synergies, diminishing returns, etc, where a unit's value depends on what other units are available. Guardsmen in a pure IG army are good screening troops with efficient small arms fire. Guardsmen in an IK army have all of that, but also the considerable additional value of adding abundant CP to an army that is unable to get it without allies. So how do you set the price of guardsmen? If you balance them for use in a pure IG army they're overpowered as an IK CP battery, if you balance them as a CP battery then they're too expensive to be viable in a pure IG army. And it's the same in other cases. Gaining access to something you otherwise can't have is often more valuable than taking yet another unit to do a job you're already winning at, and you can't set an appropriate price for both uses at the same time. The only way to balance the game is to remove the ability to take the best units from every faction without penalty.
As I said, take a leaf out of what Malifaux does (or did are they're going into 3rd ed.). Outcasts, which are a faction in their own right but also mercs that can be taken by other factions have a +1pt increase when taken outside of Outcasts. Something like this for 40k would go some way to curbing a bit of soup if GW insist on keeping it.
Certainly would help. But 1 ppm still dosen't make or break a soup list.
It might have when guardsmen were still 5ppm but now?
Wounds being allocated to the closest model first, and requiring line of sight to the model taking the wound actually make more sense, not less.
Okay, now do that when playing Nids or Orks.
I have done that. Finding the front of a unit isn't hard.
I think he meant that rule hindered melee armies by quite a lot
Nope. I meant because what Perri said and the fact it slowed down the game to ridiculous levels. It is fine for a skirmish game (or up to about 2nd ed 40k), but not in a huge game that is supposed to be streamlined. That rule is the literal opposite of streamlined.
Wounds being allocated to the closest model first, and requiring line of sight to the model taking the wound actually make more sense, not less.
Okay, now do that when playing Nids or Orks.
I have done that. Finding the front of a unit isn't hard.
I think he meant that rule hindered melee armies by quite a lot
I don't argue with that point. But that's a balance issue, not a core design issue. You could make a similar argument that choosing where your wound allocation goes rewards units that can take special weapons (since they can die last).
An Actual Englishman wrote: If the melee capability of the units/factions they are taking are balanced against others, and similarly their shooting potential is balanced against others, there shouldn't be a problem.
This is where you are wrong. You're ignoring the existence of synergies, diminishing returns, etc, where a unit's value depends on what other units are available. Guardsmen in a pure IG army are good screening troops with efficient small arms fire. Guardsmen in an IK army have all of that, but also the considerable additional value of adding abundant CP to an army that is unable to get it without allies. So how do you set the price of guardsmen? If you balance them for use in a pure IG army they're overpowered as an IK CP battery, if you balance them as a CP battery then they're too expensive to be viable in a pure IG army. And it's the same in other cases. Gaining access to something you otherwise can't have is often more valuable than taking yet another unit to do a job you're already winning at, and you can't set an appropriate price for both uses at the same time. The only way to balance the game is to remove the ability to take the best units from every faction without penalty.
As I said, take a leaf out of what Malifaux does (or did are they're going into 3rd ed.). Outcasts, which are a faction in their own right but also mercs that can be taken by other factions have a +1pt increase when taken outside of Outcasts. Something like this for 40k would go some way to curbing a bit of soup if GW insist on keeping it.
Certainly would help. But 1 ppm still dosen't make or break a soup list.
It might have when guardsmen were still 5ppm but now?
Sorry, I didn't literally mean +1 ppm. That was just the system Malifaux uses, but something like that.
Do they need to be anything else? Space filler is super valuable in 8th. Assault autoloses when guardsmen get involved. You can't assault them fast enough or kill enough with each assault.
Wounds being allocated to the closest model first, and requiring line of sight to the model taking the wound actually make more sense, not less.
Okay, now do that when playing Nids or Orks.
I have done that. Finding the front of a unit isn't hard.
I think he meant that rule hindered melee armies by quite a lot
Nope. I meant because what Perri said and the fact it slowed down the game to ridiculous levels. It is fine for a skirmish game (or up to about 2nd ed 40k), but not in a huge game that is supposed to be streamlined. That rule is the literal opposite of streamlined.
I disagree heavily with only 1 point you've made here, in that the game is supposed to be fast and streamlined. I don't want that from my games, so I would keep away from those design elements. I already have plenty of board games if I only have an hour or 2 to play a game.
Sorry, I didn't literally mean +1 ppm. That was just the system Malifaux uses, but something like that.
No worries, i understood that but the my main point is, that alot of units got cheaper and cheaper and even with a system like that in place, the huge models that force the point compression it will not really work.
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Martel732 wrote: Do they need to be anything else? Space filler is super valuable in 8th. Assault autoloses when guardsmen get involved. You can't assault them fast enough or kill enough with each assault.
That's more a issue with assult units in general though.
Not with guardsmen.
Edit: and assult in general having a hard time tying stuff up in melee.
I'd prefer the solution be be something like additional CP can only be used by the detachment that makes them or by detachments from the same faction (codex). While it means more bookkeeping it at least keeps any CP farms in faction and stops factions which don't have cheap troops to spam from borrowing them from other factions.
Martel732 wrote: Is it? Punching out a skitarri or firewarrior is 7 points gone. A guardsmen is 4 point. They're bleeding points almost half as fast. That's huge.
And, they do significantly worse damage and can literally be ignored most of the time.
They can't be ignored when they are physically blocking the path to the Castellan. Can't even fly over them anymore. They can NEVER be ignored. That's the whole point. If there was a rule were I could just move them out of the way on my movement phase, I'd agree.
Volkmair wrote: I'd prefer the solution be be something like additional CP can only be used by the detachment that makes them or by detachments from the same faction (codex). While it means more bookkeeping it at least keeps any CP farms in faction and stops factions which don't have cheap troops to spam from borrowing them from other factions.
Simple any detachment that is not sharing the same faction as your warlord generates 1-2 cp less.
Darsath wrote: If you gotta measure it, then you can do so with a tape measure. The rules specifically state that when the models in the unit are equidistant, then the controlling player may choose which model to remove. I'm not sure if you are aware of this rule though.
There is no such thing as equidistant models. One model will be closer, even if it's only by 0.00000000000000001mm. The only way to make a closest-first wound allocation system work is to blatantly ignore the rules and call it close enough if you're removing models from the front of the unit instead of the back. Otherwise you get bogged down in trying to determine which model is slightly closer instead of playing the game.
Martel732 wrote: They can't be ignored when they are physically blocking the path to the Castellan. Can't even fly over them anymore. They can NEVER be ignored. That's the whole point. If there was a rule were I could just move them out of the way on my movement phase, I'd agree.
And why are they standing there?
Little hint, the Castellan is your problem then, not the guardsmen.
Grimtuff wrote: As I said, take a leaf out of what Malifaux does (or did are they're going into 3rd ed.). Outcasts, which are a faction in their own right but also mercs that can be taken by other factions have a +1pt increase when taken outside of Outcasts. Something like this for 40k would go some way to curbing a bit of soup if GW insist on keeping it.
Well yes, that's kind of my point. You can't have a single point cost for units and also have soup, as the person I was replying to claimed. You have to remove mixing factions, or at least heavily limit it and make it come with inherent costs that balance out the power increase of having access to new tools.
Darsath wrote: If you gotta measure it, then you can do so with a tape measure. The rules specifically state that when the models in the unit are equidistant, then the controlling player may choose which model to remove. I'm not sure if you are aware of this rule though.
There is no such thing as equidistant models. One model will be closer, even if it's only by 0.00000000000000001mm. The only way to make a closest-first wound allocation system work is to blatantly ignore the rules and call it close enough if you're removing models from the front of the unit instead of the back. Otherwise you get bogged down in trying to determine which model is slightly closer instead of playing the game.
It would be about the same as the whole "outside of 9 inches" thing that we currently have with deepstrike rules, or with most measuring in general. Within reason is typical, and within what the measuring tapes can measure (so probably 0.1 inches). If it can't be measured beyond that, then it is reasonably considered to be equidistant. You're not ignoring the rules either, Peregrine, and that's not at all what I'm calling for people to do.
Grimtuff wrote: As I said, take a leaf out of what Malifaux does (or did are they're going into 3rd ed.). Outcasts, which are a faction in their own right but also mercs that can be taken by other factions have a +1pt increase when taken outside of Outcasts. Something like this for 40k would go some way to curbing a bit of soup if GW insist on keeping it.
Well yes, that's kind of my point. You can't have a single point cost for units and also have soup, as the person I was replying to claimed. You have to remove mixing factions, or at least heavily limit it and make it come with inherent costs that balance out the power increase of having access to new tools.
Or enforce an actual allies detachment that costs a substantial ammount of CP to field?
Darsath wrote: If you gotta measure it, then you can do so with a tape measure. The rules specifically state that when the models in the unit are equidistant, then the controlling player may choose which model to remove. I'm not sure if you are aware of this rule though.
There is no such thing as equidistant models. One model will be closer, even if it's only by 0.00000000000000001mm. The only way to make a closest-first wound allocation system work is to blatantly ignore the rules and call it close enough if you're removing models from the front of the unit instead of the back. Otherwise you get bogged down in trying to determine which model is slightly closer instead of playing the game.
To be fair, the same can be said of all measuring. No one is expected to bring out an electron microscope to determine if the third Boy in a unit is within RF range or not, you just make the best guess you can.
Darsath wrote: If you gotta measure it, then you can do so with a tape measure. The rules specifically state that when the models in the unit are equidistant, then the controlling player may choose which model to remove. I'm not sure if you are aware of this rule though.
There is no such thing as equidistant models. One model will be closer, even if it's only by 0.00000000000000001mm. The only way to make a closest-first wound allocation system work is to blatantly ignore the rules and call it close enough if you're removing models from the front of the unit instead of the back. Otherwise you get bogged down in trying to determine which model is slightly closer instead of playing the game.
To be fair, the same can be said of all measuring. No one is expected to bring out an electron microscope to determine if the third Boy in a unit is within RF range or not, you just make the best guess you can.
Plus, the whole "closest mode/unit" thing already exists in 8th with smites and similar needing to measure to the nearest unit. Same issue.
Darsath wrote: It would be about the same as the whole "outside of 9 inches" thing that we currently have with deepstrike rules, or with most measuring in general.
It's not the same at all. Outside 9" is a clear and easy measurement, put the tape measure down at 9" and put your models outside that mark. That's not at all the same as trying to measure the difference between 5.496127mm and 5.497104mm to determine which model is closer.
Within reason is typical, and within what the measuring tapes can measure (so probably 0.1 inches). If it can't be measured beyond that, then it is reasonably considered to be equidistant. You're not ignoring the rules either, Peregrine, and that's not at all what I'm calling for people to do.
IOW, ignore the rules and play it as "close enough" instead of measuring correctly.
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Ashiraya wrote: To be fair, the same can be said of all measuring. No one is expected to bring out an electron microscope to determine if the third Boy in a unit is within RF range or not, you just make the best guess you can.
Again, not the same because it's a binary in or out measurement and it's very rare that a model is going to be right on the 12" line instead of clearly on one side or the other.
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Darsath wrote: Plus, the whole "closest mode/unit" thing already exists in 8th with smites and similar needing to measure to the nearest unit. Same issue.
And it's a bad mechanic in 8th. It's just a bit less bad in that it's limited to a few specific units and abilities instead of being the casualty removal mechanic for everything.
IMO ITC is moreso a problem than soup, YES soup is a problem.
B.c everyone likes ITC for some reason, why doesnt ITC makes Knights worth more points for killing them? Problem solved.
CA missions with good terrain so far, knights done nothing to win games. Just my 2cents.
When killing units (7PL, 20 models, heroes, vehicles, etc..) is changed to more points for controlling zones and taking ground then Knights wont be a problem.
Darsath wrote: It would be about the same as the whole "outside of 9 inches" thing that we currently have with deepstrike rules, or with most measuring in general.
It's not the same at all. Outside 9" is a clear and easy measurement, put the tape measure down at 9" and put your models outside that mark. That's not at all the same as trying to measure the difference between 5.496127mm and 5.497104mm to determine which model is closer.
Within reason is typical, and within what the measuring tapes can measure (so probably 0.1 inches). If it can't be measured beyond that, then it is reasonably considered to be equidistant. You're not ignoring the rules either, Peregrine, and that's not at all what I'm calling for people to do.
IOW, ignore the rules and play it as "close enough" instead of measuring correctly.
Read my post about smite. It already exists in the current rules, with the same issues. You're being disingenuous thinking this issue is solely with 7th edition. Even those who prefer 8th Edition to 7th wouldn't be convinced by your argument.
Darsath wrote: Read my post about smite. It already exists in the current rules, with the same issues. You're being disingenuous thinking this issue is solely with 7th edition. Even those who prefer 8th Edition to 7th wouldn't be convinced by your argument.
Read my reply to your post about smite. It's a bad mechanic in the current rules, but at least it's a lot less frequent than wound allocation in 7th.
Darsath wrote: Read my post about smite. It already exists in the current rules, with the same issues. You're being disingenuous thinking this issue is solely with 7th edition. Even those who prefer 8th Edition to 7th wouldn't be convinced by your argument.
Read my reply to your post about smite. It's a bad mechanic in the current rules, but at least it's a lot less frequent than wound allocation in 7th.
If you want to make a contest about equidistant models, you can always measure it out with whatever tools you have at hand, and the time it takes for you to measure and contest can be marked on your chess clock. You would only contest in important situations where the model removed matters, making it show up in less games than a player taking a psycher.
Infinitum ad absurdum is a weak foundation for an argument, Peregrine. No-one expects or bothers to measure distances to an extreme precision other than you.
7th Edition had much better core rules to work around than 8th Edition has atm.
It really didn't.
Yes, let's have terrible wound allocation rules that would more at home in a skirmish game when we have a game that can use hundreds of models. No.
As for the OT- Thank you! Soup is a blight on this game in both physical appearances of the armies and player perception of how this is a "normal" way to play the game. The sooner it gets dealt with the better. If GW insist on doing soup then the two things that need to happen are as follows: CP can only be used by whatever detachment generated them (Warlord determines what detachment gets the battleforged +3) and, to take a cue from Malifaux with their merc units is they have a minor cost increase if taken outside their parent faction- so those loyal 32 are now more expensive (once again, Warlord determines who parent faction is) when taken with IK.
Allies have existed in all editions except 5th. Get over yourself about thinking you play the right way.
So I get the distinct impression the two of you are arguing against my points because you enjoy 4ppm Guardsmen. That's all good. But it doesn't change the fact that truly balanced stratagems, psychic powers and units would make soup irrelevant and a non-issue.
Then, at least for my posts, I don't think I'm making my point well enough. 4ppm Guardsmen aren't anything I'm wedded to, I was fully expecting them to get a price bump with CA and was shocked they didn't get it. To illustrate the point better, I'll reiterate, if Guardsmen are undercosted at 4ppm, but are ok at 5ppm within a monoIG army, the Loyal32 probably doesn't take a meaningful power hit until they're so expensive (7 or 8ppm) that they're not useable in a mono-IG list anymore, because the value changes with the context.
Guardsmen are just the easiest go-to example to use, not really the core of the argument I'm trying to make. I'd really prefer to use something else besides Guardsmen, and to be far more specific, Infantry Squads (lets be real, nobody is talking about Special Weapons Squads, non-Mortar equipped HWS's, Veterans, Command Squads, etc because none of these units are appearing in Tournament lists), but they're just the most common example.
Ultimately, yes individual units need to be looked at, but again even if you deleted Guardsmen from the game, we'd just see a shift to the next inexpensive infantry unit and the problem would remain, in that armies like Knights having access to inexpensive infantry fills lots of capability gaps that they were intended to not have filled. Some goes for pretty much any Soup combo we see now.
Let's make it super simple - if every unit had exactly the same abilities and costed exactly the same the armies would be perfectly balanced, right? Like checkers is a perfectly balanced game. Now we don't want every army to be identical, obviously. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a sweet spot where the melee capability of a unit can be balanced against the shooting capability of another. I agree that IG should generally be a gunline style army. I completely disagree that there is an inherent problem with them taking a melee element from another army to sure up weaknesses. If the melee capability of the units/factions they are taking are balanced against others, and similarly their shooting potential is balanced against others, there shouldn't be a problem.
The problem is that the melee element has a different value in the other army than it does in the Guard army. In the Guard army, that CC ability is going to be either useless because it doesn't synergize with the shooting emphasis (as we've typically seen with most IGCC units through history), or it's going to be ungodly broken because it's opening up tactical capabilities the army was never meant to have.
That's exactly what we see with Knights. They lack CP and board control. They take Guardsmen to cover these gaps. Even if we delete Guardsmen from the game entirely, nevermind what they cost lets just assume they're gone entirely and aren't even an option to take, does the issue with Knights go away? No. If they have the ability, they're still going to take another inexpensive infantry unit that grants more CP and board control than they natively have access to. That makes them significantly more powerful than they were designed to be, the army's costs and capabilities were designed with limited numbers in mind to counteract being big and powerful. If you can have big and powerful, but can also control the board and use more Stratagems than intended, you're going to throw out the intended balance.
As to Guardsmen, the special weapons squad comparison is a red herring when heavy weapons teams are taken in such large quantities.
Why? They serve different purposes, a plasma equipped SWS is probably the most cost-efficient MEQ killer in the game, l and the only HWS's we are seeing taken are those equipped with Mortars for dirt-cheap and sat hidden away in back on auto-pilot, nobody is running HWS's with any of the other weapons options really, and even then usually you only see them to fill out HS slots for a Brigade since they're the cheapest option (same way people take single Multilaser Sentinels as FA choices to fill out slots, but they're not actually great units).
They are taken in groups larger than the minimum to get CP. And to clarify, the minimum Guardsmen to fulfil a CP requirement for IK is 0. They can pick from any Imperium faction and as I have stated, the so called Rusty 17 are cheaper. So people value the Loyal 32 because of the units themselves, not their cost.
Again, lets ignore Guardsmen entirely, pretend they don't exist.
What will happen?
We'll just see the Rusty 17 or another equivalent take their place, and the value they provide in that context will be greater than the value they provide within the context of a mono-Admech army.
Because that weakness of board control and CP is still there for the Knights, and the option to be mitigated or negated is still there, we'll see it just as often as we see the Loyal32 now, with probably only a trivial change in ultimate outcome.
Yes, the Loyal32 are currently better than the Rusty 17 and that makes them the default Soup choice, but that's a secondary issue, the problem is that the value of either changes when used in a different context than the one they were originally intended for, and the unintended synergy created makes something more powerful than was possible in either army individually.
Can we kill this meme please? IG are one of the most powerful mono factions. Guess what they take as their troop of choice? You got it! Guardsmen!
To be fair, there's 3 Guard troops choices, one of which is simply flatly inferior in literally every possible way to Infantry Squads and offers no capabilities or tactical opportunities that Infantry Squads can't do (conscripts) and from a fluff perspective really shouldn't be the core of most Guard armies in the first place, the other (stormtroopers) functions radically differently and requires a separate detachment to use its faction bonuses. Really, for most Guard armies there's only one Troops choice, the Infantry Squad.
The Infantry Squad is also the only unit that has consistently been a Troops choice through the history of the game without any strings attached (e.g. Stormtroopers and Veterans have moved in and out, Conscripts used to only be an option as an add-on to an Infantry Platoon). The Infantry Squad *should* be the default, ubiquitous Troop choice given the other options.
Except we can argue The Rusty 17 aren't an issue because they're only CP and can't do much more compared to Infantry, which are undercosted.
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Blastaar wrote: Infinitum ad absurdum is a weak foundation for an argument, Peregrine. No-one expects or bothers to measure distances to an extreme precision other than you.
Why not? I'm not letting your unit fire if they're not in range or charge if they're not in range.
7th Edition had much better core rules to work around than 8th Edition has atm.
It really didn't.
Yes, let's have terrible wound allocation rules that would more at home in a skirmish game when we have a game that can use hundreds of models. No.
As for the OT- Thank you! Soup is a blight on this game in both physical appearances of the armies and player perception of how this is a "normal" way to play the game. The sooner it gets dealt with the better. If GW insist on doing soup then the two things that need to happen are as follows: CP can only be used by whatever detachment generated them (Warlord determines what detachment gets the battleforged +3) and, to take a cue from Malifaux with their merc units is they have a minor cost increase if taken outside their parent faction- so those loyal 32 are now more expensive (once again, Warlord determines who parent faction is) when taken with IK.
Allies have existed in all editions except 5th. Get over yourself about thinking you play the right way.
Except they were handled sometimes better before.
Not to mention that with cp there could be a easy balancing rule implemented, but truth be told, soup makes money and gw has firstly interest in money.
Darsath wrote: Read my post about smite. It already exists in the current rules, with the same issues. You're being disingenuous thinking this issue is solely with 7th edition. Even those who prefer 8th Edition to 7th wouldn't be convinced by your argument.
Read my reply to your post about smite. It's a bad mechanic in the current rules, but at least it's a lot less frequent than wound allocation in 7th.
This also proves how fixed allies are as a concept in 8th. Nobody complained about allies outside Wolfstar, and you had tons of insane shenanagins you could pull off, like Azrael camping indefinitely in Infantry + Conscripts and giving them all a 4++. That or Sanguine Priests giving a bunch of people FNP because reasons.
Notice none of these were really winning and this does go back to certain units just being broken?
7th Edition had much better core rules to work around than 8th Edition has atm.
It really didn't.
Yes, let's have terrible wound allocation rules that would more at home in a skirmish game when we have a game that can use hundreds of models. No.
As for the OT- Thank you! Soup is a blight on this game in both physical appearances of the armies and player perception of how this is a "normal" way to play the game. The sooner it gets dealt with the better. If GW insist on doing soup then the two things that need to happen are as follows: CP can only be used by whatever detachment generated them (Warlord determines what detachment gets the battleforged +3) and, to take a cue from Malifaux with their merc units is they have a minor cost increase if taken outside their parent faction- so those loyal 32 are now more expensive (once again, Warlord determines who parent faction is) when taken with IK.
Allies have existed in all editions except 5th. Get over yourself about thinking you play the right way.
Except they were handled sometimes better before.
Not to mention that with cp there could be a easy balancing rule implemented, but truth be told, soup makes money and gw has firstly interest in money.
You mean the CP giving out those special rules units used to just have by default while more broken allies shenanagins existed?
Also it proves that it was simply certain armies not being worth running. You'd be shocked if you looked at how many Daemonhunters units you could run in an another army, and simply didn't because they sucked.
Blastaar wrote: Infinitum ad absurdum is a weak foundation for an argument, Peregrine. No-one expects or bothers to measure distances to an extreme precision other than you.
Why not? I'm not letting your unit fire if they're not in range or charge if they're not in range.
Sure, they should need to be in range, but measuring to the tiniest fraction of distance is ridiculous .
Darsath wrote: If you want to make a contest about equidistant models, you can always measure it out with whatever tools you have at hand, and the time it takes for you to measure and contest can be marked on your chess clock. You would only contest in important situations where the model removed matters, making it show up in less games than a player taking a psycher.
Oh, so you mean I can remove whatever model I want (even if it isn't the closest) and if you want to dispute that it's the closest you have to burn chess clock time to correct the measurement? Now the rule is "cheat unless it's significant enough to spend clock time"?
Darsath wrote: If you want to make a contest about equidistant models, you can always measure it out with whatever tools you have at hand, and the time it takes for you to measure and contest can be marked on your chess clock. You would only contest in important situations where the model removed matters, making it show up in less games than a player taking a psycher.
Oh, so you mean I can remove whatever model I want (even if it isn't the closest) and if you want to dispute that it's the closest you have to burn chess clock time to correct the measurement? Now the rule is "cheat unless it's significant enough to spend clock time"?
While that would only take a few seconds to measure, you could always show it's not equidistant if 1 is 12 inches away, and other is 14. You wouldn't need finer measurements there, since the measuring tape is enough. You're convincing no one. You're literally trying anything to justify your argument ad hoc and off-the-cuff, and it's not working. But hey, if someone wants to do that, call the Judge and get them disqualified.
I just got back from LVO and saw a crap ton of knights, 3/6 of my games were vs knights. Due to me having 6 haywire jetbikes, Doom, prisms, and hemlocks I was able to handle 2/3 of the knight lists (3rd player was far better than I and just smashed me in the face!). This was my first tournament and knew that for the most part I could handle a knight, but in fact was able to handle multiple knights. That's simply because of haywire (with the prisms/hemlocks finishing the job)
So you have aeldari soup to get haywire bikes, because they handle knights. And knight players hate it, so you can't nerf knights too much because than haywire aeldari will rise higher. You can't really nerf haywire without nerfing knights or the knight dominance will continue.
The problem I see is then that other lists just have a much harder time taking out the knights (no access to doom, jinx or haywire). So I think there needs to be a major rebalance of the other two.
Nerf knights to make it harder to currently do what they do, I just don't know how to do that outside of not allowing an invuln of better than 4+ and not using strats from other detachments. Likewise, nerf Doom to only allow Craftworld to take advantage of it. Now both knights and haywire drop down, making other armies a little more equal. It would be a good start IMHO.
GW really needs to look at how many armies are using knights.....I don't know if that is really a good thing.
bullyboy wrote: I just got back from LVO and saw a crap ton of knights, 3/6 of my games were vs knights. Due to me having 6 haywire jetbikes, Doom, prisms, and hemlocks I was able to handle 2/3 of the knight lists (3rd player was far better than I and just smashed me in the face!). This was my first tournament and knew that for the most part I could handle a knight, but in fact was able to handle multiple knights. That's simply because of haywire (with the prisms/hemlocks finishing the job)
So you have aeldari soup to get haywire bikes, because they handle knights. And knight players hate it, so you can't nerf knights too much because than haywire aeldari will rise higher. You can't really nerf haywire without nerfing knights or the knight dominance will continue.
The problem I see is then that other lists just have a much harder time taking out the knights (no access to doom, jinx or haywire). So I think there needs to be a major rebalance of the other two.
Nerf knights to make it harder to currently do what they do, I just don't know how to do that outside of not allowing an invuln of better than 4+ and not using strats from other detachments. Likewise, nerf Doom to only allow Craftworld to take advantage of it. Now both knights and haywire drop down, making other armies a little more equal. It would be a good start IMHO.
GW really needs to look at how many armies are using knights.....I don't know if that is really a good thing.
There is always the possibility that so many people were using knights because they were so successful and popular before, and they're just riding that wave. But I can't be certain without being there. Either way, what you say is true. The game is in a state where you have to make multiple changes at the same time to re-balance the game (haywire, doom, Knights, CPs etc) without making other stuff OP or useless. I think big models with strong Invulns should always be a big no-no though. If they got good invulns, then they would need to be crazy expensive to justify it.
If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
The problem is Castellans, Ynnari, and how they receive advantages through cheap CP, cheap units, and the IGOUGO system.
Typically taking super heavies was a liability, because if you lose first turn you risk getting degraded or taken off the table. Knights get around this by taking more knights, being able to stand back up, and ignoring degradation.
Ynnari is an index ability that grants free actions, which breaks IGOUGO on it's own.
By increasing the costs of how easy it is to achieve these things you might address the overall issue.
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
Another aspect of allies that no one is discussing is that they have double the number of stratagems to choose from than the opposing mono list. This is a pretty big issue going forward.
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
Another aspect of allies that no one is discussing is that they have double the number of stratagems to choose from than the opposing mono list. This is a pretty big issue going forward.
It's one that I felt GSC handled fairly well with Brood Brothers, and I hope to see become the norm.
Guard Detachments generate half the CPs they normally would.
You know for all you soup is a new thing and it's killing the game people. In 2nd Edition your army could have up to 20%(IIRC) of its points in allies.
What would you people complain about if GW just reissued the codices as "Imperium" that lists all of the units already in the existing codices? Or how about a new codex called Ynnari that just takes all the CWE and Harlie units? I can see this last one actually happening.
I don't think the problem is soup per se. I think that it's a lack of viable options for the various soups. If you want to run a mono dex army then that's your choice. But complaining that soup is the problem when you could soup (except Necrons and Tau) and choose not to then you're just bringing a knife to a gun fight. Can you win? It's possible. But the smart money would be on the gun.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: You know for all you soup is a new thing and it's killing the game people. In 2nd Edition your army could have up to 20%(IIRC) of its points in allies.
Which has what to do with anything?
What would you people complain about if GW just reissued the codices as "Imperium" that lists all of the units already in the existing codices? Or how about a new codex called Ynnari that just takes all the CWE and Harlie units? I can see this last one actually happening.
I don't think the problem is soup per se. I think that it's a lack of viable options for the various soups. If you want to run a mono dex army then that's your choice. But complaining that soup is the problem when you could soup (except Necrons and Tau) and choose not to then you're just bringing a knife to a gun fight. Can you win? It's possible. But the smart money would be on the gun.
We know and have known for some time the issue is soup. There's still pushback with regards to it for whatever silly reason.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: You know for all you soup is a new thing and it's killing the game people. In 2nd Edition your army could have up to 20%(IIRC) of its points in allies.
What would you people complain about if GW just reissued the codices as "Imperium" that lists all of the units already in the existing codices? Or how about a new codex called Ynnari that just takes all the CWE and Harlie units? I can see this last one actually happening.
I don't think the problem is soup per se. I think that it's a lack of viable options for the various soups. If you want to run a mono dex army then that's your choice. But complaining that soup is the problem when you could soup (except Necrons and Tau) and choose not to then you're just bringing a knife to a gun fight. Can you win? It's possible. But the smart money would be on the gun.
Well, I play Necrons so yeah. I can't soup obv. But even if I could, allies in other editions have had limitations and issues of their own. Command Points and stratagems also didn't exist, which exacerbate the problem further by providing soup lists access to cheap command points and simply more stratagems than their mono-list counterparts (i.e. a Mono-marine list can only use marine stratagems, but a marine and mechanicus list can use marine and mechanicus stratagems as they want).
Blastaar wrote: Infinitum ad absurdum is a weak foundation for an argument, Peregrine. No-one expects or bothers to measure distances to an extreme precision other than you.
Why not? I'm not letting your unit fire if they're not in range or charge if they're not in range.
Sure, they should need to be in range, but measuring to the tiniest fraction of distance is ridiculous .
If you're a fraction of an inch off, you don't get to attack. Simple as that.
Blastaar wrote: Infinitum ad absurdum is a weak foundation for an argument, Peregrine. No-one expects or bothers to measure distances to an extreme precision other than you.
Why not? I'm not letting your unit fire if they're not in range or charge if they're not in range.
Sure, they should need to be in range, but measuring to the tiniest fraction of distance is ridiculous .
If you're a fraction of an inch off, you don't get to attack. Simple as that.
I'm not sure I understand your position here. Are you complaining that you have to measure distances?
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
...because the Castellan with Cawls Wrath and the fixings still wouldn't be problematic.
Get real. The issue isn't picking and choosing "to cover weaknesses". The issue is picking and choosing the broken units that don't actually have weaknesses, like those Castellans and Infantry (in before you chime in that 10 man squads is a weakness. LOL)
Leo_the_Rat wrote: You know for all you soup is a new thing and it's killing the game people. In 2nd Edition your army could have up to 20%(IIRC) of its points in allies.
2E was a very different game however in almost every respect, with substantially fewer issues in this regard and played at a dramatically smaller scale.
Not Online!!! wrote: truth be told, soup makes money and gw has firstly interest in money.
This is exactly why GW hasn't done anything to fix it. Every imperium player has to buy 3 boxes of guard or 2 boxes of admech, 2 HQs, and the codex for those whether they actually want to play that army or not. If it wasn't so profitable, it would've been fixed by now. That's why they created allies and then changed the allies system to allow twice as many allied factions as before even though everyone bitched when it was just one allied detachment allowed.
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Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
The problem is Castellans, Ynnari, and how they receive advantages through cheap CP, cheap units, and the IGOUGO system.
Typically taking super heavies was a liability, because if you lose first turn you risk getting degraded or taken off the table. Knights get around this by taking more knights, being able to stand back up, and ignoring degradation.
Ynnari is an index ability that grants free actions, which breaks IGOUGO on it's own.
By increasing the costs of how easy it is to achieve these things you might address the overall issue.
If soup wasn't a problem, you would see all knight lists with castellans, pure IG with 200 guardsmen, or pure custodes jetbikes doing well in tournaments. The castellan isn't the problem, the fact that it can be bubblewrapped with cheap objective holders while custodes bikes zoom all over the place grabbing far away objectives and tying up enemy units is the problem. The availability of 3-5 extra CP to use knight stratagems is the problem. The fact that you can't accurately adjust the cost of any of the units I mentioned in a way that would be fair both in a mono list and a soup list is the problem.
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
...because the Castellan with Cawls Wrath and the fixings still wouldn't be problematic.
Pointed appropriately and not getting CPs that you wouldn't see normally? It might still be a problem--but then we'd know that it was, even in 'ideal' circumstances.
Get real. The issue isn't picking and choosing "to cover weaknesses". The issue is picking and choosing the broken units that don't actually have weaknesses, like those Castellans and Infantry (in before you chime in that 10 man squads is a weakness. LOL)
Again: Without the CPs from soup and pointed appropriately, the Castellan with Cawl's Wrath(a relic--which is a whole other kettle of fish that needs to be addressed) could be made into a more reasonable item.
And I like that however long into this crazy "infantry squads are the apocalypse" thing we are you're still misrepresenting the argument with regards to Infantry Squads. "10 man squads" is a weakness when one looks at the static point costs and the inflexible nature of the composition of an Infantry Squad(10 models strong no +/-. Composed of 1 Sergeant with a specific weapon loadout, up to 1 model with vox, another with a special, two as a weapons team and the rest are just straight lasguns) compared to other choices which get a sort of 'sliding scale' whether it be more models with a tie-in to more special/heavy options or the ability to start off at a lower model count for a cheaper squad points cost.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: You know for all you soup is a new thing and it's killing the game people. In 2nd Edition your army could have up to 20%(IIRC) of its points in allies.
What would you people complain about if GW just reissued the codices as "Imperium" that lists all of the units already in the existing codices? Or how about a new codex called Ynnari that just takes all the CWE and Harlie units? I can see this last one actually happening.
I don't think the problem is soup per se. I think that it's a lack of viable options for the various soups. If you want to run a mono dex army then that's your choice. But complaining that soup is the problem when you could soup (except Necrons and Tau) and choose not to then you're just bringing a knife to a gun fight. Can you win? It's possible. But the smart money would be on the gun.
Well, I play Necrons so yeah. I can't soup obv. But even if I could, allies in other editions have had limitations and issues of their own. Command Points and stratagems also didn't exist, which exacerbate the problem further by providing soup lists access to cheap command points and simply more stratagems than their mono-list counterparts (i.e. a Mono-marine list can only use marine stratagems, but a marine and mechanicus list can use marine and mechanicus stratagems as they want).
Even back then (in 2nd) you had special cards that you paid points for. IIRC they were mostly weapons that your model had access to for the entire game. There were some one shot exceptions but in general you had them all game. And if you had allies they could take the special cards for their armies as well.
The big difference between then and now regarding allies is the lack of restraint under the current system. Like I said, back then there was a point limit as a percent of the game level. So a 2000 pt game would allow 400 pts of allies max. I think that limitation would be enough to rein in soup while still allowing a little extra flavor to your army.
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
Remember when Shadowswords were all the rage? Those required no soup. They got replaced by a more reliable analogue.
If soup wasn't a problem, you would see all knight lists with castellans, pure IG with 200 guardsmen, or pure custodes jetbikes doing well in tournaments. The castellan isn't the problem, the fact that it can be bubblewrapped with cheap objective holders while custodes bikes zoom all over the place grabbing far away objectives and tying up enemy units is the problem. The availability of 3-5 extra CP to use knight stratagems is the problem. The fact that you can't accurately adjust the cost of any of the units I mentioned in a way that would be fair both in a mono list and a soup list is the problem.
Shadowswords were basically Castellans before Castellans existed. Bubble wrap and all. 200 IG don't get used, because it's unwieldy. Custodes Jetbikes spam was quite popular for quite some time.
CP is the enabler. Not the root cause. Soup is an incredibly broad thing to near when a very narrow set of units poses the problem.
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
...because the Castellan with Cawls Wrath and the fixings still wouldn't be problematic.
Pointed appropriately and not getting CPs that you wouldn't see normally? It might still be a problem--but then we'd know that it was, even in 'ideal' circumstances.
Get real. The issue isn't picking and choosing "to cover weaknesses". The issue is picking and choosing the broken units that don't actually have weaknesses, like those Castellans and Infantry (in before you chime in that 10 man squads is a weakness. LOL)
Again:
Without the CPs from soup and pointed appropriately, the Castellan with Cawl's Wrath(a relic--which is a whole other kettle of fish that needs to be addressed) could be made into a more reasonable item.
And I like that however long into this crazy "infantry squads are the apocalypse" thing we are you're still misrepresenting the argument with regards to Infantry Squads. "10 man squads" is a weakness when one looks at the static point costs and the inflexible nature of the composition of an Infantry Squad(10 models strong no +/-. Composed of 1 Sergeant with a specific weapon loadout, up to 1 model with vox, another with a special, two as a weapons team and the rest are just straight lasguns) compared to other choices which get a sort of 'sliding scale' whether it be more models with a tie-in to more special/heavy options or the ability to start off at a lower model count for a cheaper squad points cost.
Except banning allies doesn't fix the external problem of the Castellan. So by that, you admit the actual issue is points. When units are costed appropriately, nobody seems to care when they are allied in, as you aren't getting anymore of an advantage than usual.
Ally in only certain units that are broken and we get complaints about the whole system. It's like saying 6th edition Tyranids were broken because they had Flyrants.
Also I knew you would bring up those "static" costs for a unit that has a minimum cost closer to the minimum of most units that have 6-8 point models. Don't make me laugh about your "forced 10 man groups". It's honestly stupid.
Not Online!!! wrote: truth be told, soup makes money and gw has firstly interest in money.
This is exactly why GW hasn't done anything to fix it. Every imperium player has to buy 3 boxes of guard or 2 boxes of admech, 2 HQs, and the codex for those whether they actually want to play that army or not. If it wasn't so profitable, it would've been fixed by now. That's why they created allies and then changed the allies system to allow twice as many allied factions as before even though everyone bitched when it was just one allied detachment allowed.
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Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
The problem is Castellans, Ynnari, and how they receive advantages through cheap CP, cheap units, and the IGOUGO system.
Typically taking super heavies was a liability, because if you lose first turn you risk getting degraded or taken off the table. Knights get around this by taking more knights, being able to stand back up, and ignoring degradation.
Ynnari is an index ability that grants free actions, which breaks IGOUGO on it's own.
By increasing the costs of how easy it is to achieve these things you might address the overall issue.
If soup wasn't a problem, you would see all knight lists with castellans, pure IG with 200 guardsmen, or pure custodes jetbikes doing well in tournaments. The castellan isn't the problem, the fact that it can be bubblewrapped with cheap objective holders while custodes bikes zoom all over the place grabbing far away objectives and tying up enemy units is the problem. The availability of 3-5 extra CP to use knight stratagems is the problem. The fact that you can't accurately adjust the cost of any of the units I mentioned in a way that would be fair both in a mono list and a soup list is the problem.
You answer your own premise, actually. Why just take 1-2 broken units if I can make an army with 6 of them?
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
...because the Castellan with Cawls Wrath and the fixings still wouldn't be problematic.
Pointed appropriately and not getting CPs that you wouldn't see normally? It might still be a problem--but then we'd know that it was, even in 'ideal' circumstances.
Get real. The issue isn't picking and choosing "to cover weaknesses". The issue is picking and choosing the broken units that don't actually have weaknesses, like those Castellans and Infantry (in before you chime in that 10 man squads is a weakness. LOL)
Again:
Without the CPs from soup and pointed appropriately, the Castellan with Cawl's Wrath(a relic--which is a whole other kettle of fish that needs to be addressed) could be made into a more reasonable item.
And I like that however long into this crazy "infantry squads are the apocalypse" thing we are you're still misrepresenting the argument with regards to Infantry Squads. "10 man squads" is a weakness when one looks at the static point costs and the inflexible nature of the composition of an Infantry Squad(10 models strong no +/-. Composed of 1 Sergeant with a specific weapon loadout, up to 1 model with vox, another with a special, two as a weapons team and the rest are just straight lasguns) compared to other choices which get a sort of 'sliding scale' whether it be more models with a tie-in to more special/heavy options or the ability to start off at a lower model count for a cheaper squad points cost.
Except banning allies doesn't fix the external problem of the Castellan. So by that, you admit the actual issue is points. When units are costed appropriately, nobody seems to care when they are allied in, as you aren't getting anymore of an advantage than usual.
Ally in only certain units that are broken and we get complaints about the whole system. It's like saying 6th edition Tyranids were broken because they had Flyrants.
Also I knew you would bring up those "static" costs for a unit that has a minimum cost closer to the minimum of most units that have 6-8 point models. Don't make me laugh about your "forced 10 man groups". It's honestly stupid.
Not Online!!! wrote: truth be told, soup makes money and gw has firstly interest in money.
This is exactly why GW hasn't done anything to fix it. Every imperium player has to buy 3 boxes of guard or 2 boxes of admech, 2 HQs, and the codex for those whether they actually want to play that army or not. If it wasn't so profitable, it would've been fixed by now. That's why they created allies and then changed the allies system to allow twice as many allied factions as before even though everyone bitched when it was just one allied detachment allowed.
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Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
The problem is Castellans, Ynnari, and how they receive advantages through cheap CP, cheap units, and the IGOUGO system.
Typically taking super heavies was a liability, because if you lose first turn you risk getting degraded or taken off the table. Knights get around this by taking more knights, being able to stand back up, and ignoring degradation.
Ynnari is an index ability that grants free actions, which breaks IGOUGO on it's own.
By increasing the costs of how easy it is to achieve these things you might address the overall issue.
If soup wasn't a problem, you would see all knight lists with castellans, pure IG with 200 guardsmen, or pure custodes jetbikes doing well in tournaments. The castellan isn't the problem, the fact that it can be bubblewrapped with cheap objective holders while custodes bikes zoom all over the place grabbing far away objectives and tying up enemy units is the problem. The availability of 3-5 extra CP to use knight stratagems is the problem. The fact that you can't accurately adjust the cost of any of the units I mentioned in a way that would be fair both in a mono list and a soup list is the problem.
You answer your own premise, actually. Why just take 1-2 broken units if I can make an army with 6 of them?
The problem of the castellan is impossible to fix when you're simultaneously trying to figure out an appropriate point cost for it in both pure IK lists and 3 detachments lists with loyal 32 bubblewrap and custodes jetbikes. That is the problem, there's too many variables with soup to give something a proper point cost. It would either be unusable in a non-soup list, or OP in a soup list. I don't know why it's so hard for people to comprehend that. Units are unable to be costed properly because their value greatly changes depending on what kind of list they're used in. You don't think it would be easier to put a proper point cost on guardsmen or a castellan if they couldn't be used together? That is objectively wrong as the more variables you have, the more difficult it is to determine how much something should cost. Either you're pretending you don't understand that simple, logical fact, or you're willfully ignorant for the sake of argument.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You answer your own premise, actually. Why just take 1-2 broken units if I can make an army with 6 of them?
Because if it's just about broken units being overpowered individually then one of those 6 broken units is the most broken one, and you'd just spam that best unit. But instead we see soup lists, which start with the most overpowered thing and then pick the best support units out of multiple codices to let the list do things that the first unit's faction wouldn't normally be able to do. You start with your broken Castellan, and then you add a broken CP battery and a broken melee death star. Take away soup and you have to take multiple Castellans instead, running straight into the IK faction's weaknesses of objective control and CP supply. It's the combination that takes it to next-level broken, even if the individual units are all the same power level.
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
...because the Castellan with Cawls Wrath and the fixings still wouldn't be problematic.
Pointed appropriately and not getting CPs that you wouldn't see normally? It might still be a problem--but then we'd know that it was, even in 'ideal' circumstances.
Get real. The issue isn't picking and choosing "to cover weaknesses". The issue is picking and choosing the broken units that don't actually have weaknesses, like those Castellans and Infantry (in before you chime in that 10 man squads is a weakness. LOL)
Again:
Without the CPs from soup and pointed appropriately, the Castellan with Cawl's Wrath(a relic--which is a whole other kettle of fish that needs to be addressed) could be made into a more reasonable item.
And I like that however long into this crazy "infantry squads are the apocalypse" thing we are you're still misrepresenting the argument with regards to Infantry Squads. "10 man squads" is a weakness when one looks at the static point costs and the inflexible nature of the composition of an Infantry Squad(10 models strong no +/-. Composed of 1 Sergeant with a specific weapon loadout, up to 1 model with vox, another with a special, two as a weapons team and the rest are just straight lasguns) compared to other choices which get a sort of 'sliding scale' whether it be more models with a tie-in to more special/heavy options or the ability to start off at a lower model count for a cheaper squad points cost.
Except banning allies doesn't fix the external problem of the Castellan. So by that, you admit the actual issue is points. When units are costed appropriately, nobody seems to care when they are allied in, as you aren't getting anymore of an advantage than usual.
Ally in only certain units that are broken and we get complaints about the whole system. It's like saying 6th edition Tyranids were broken because they had Flyrants.
Also I knew you would bring up those "static" costs for a unit that has a minimum cost closer to the minimum of most units that have 6-8 point models. Don't make me laugh about your "forced 10 man groups". It's honestly stupid.
Not Online!!! wrote: truth be told, soup makes money and gw has firstly interest in money.
This is exactly why GW hasn't done anything to fix it. Every imperium player has to buy 3 boxes of guard or 2 boxes of admech, 2 HQs, and the codex for those whether they actually want to play that army or not. If it wasn't so profitable, it would've been fixed by now. That's why they created allies and then changed the allies system to allow twice as many allied factions as before even though everyone bitched when it was just one allied detachment allowed.
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Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
The problem is Castellans, Ynnari, and how they receive advantages through cheap CP, cheap units, and the IGOUGO system.
Typically taking super heavies was a liability, because if you lose first turn you risk getting degraded or taken off the table. Knights get around this by taking more knights, being able to stand back up, and ignoring degradation.
Ynnari is an index ability that grants free actions, which breaks IGOUGO on it's own.
By increasing the costs of how easy it is to achieve these things you might address the overall issue.
If soup wasn't a problem, you would see all knight lists with castellans, pure IG with 200 guardsmen, or pure custodes jetbikes doing well in tournaments. The castellan isn't the problem, the fact that it can be bubblewrapped with cheap objective holders while custodes bikes zoom all over the place grabbing far away objectives and tying up enemy units is the problem. The availability of 3-5 extra CP to use knight stratagems is the problem. The fact that you can't accurately adjust the cost of any of the units I mentioned in a way that would be fair both in a mono list and a soup list is the problem.
You answer your own premise, actually. Why just take 1-2 broken units if I can make an army with 6 of them?
The problem of the castellan is impossible to fix when you're simultaneously trying to figure out an appropriate point cost for it in both pure IK lists and 3 detachments lists with loyal 32 bubblewrap and custodes jetbikes. That is the problem, there's too many variables with soup to give something a proper point cost. It would either be unusable in a non-soup list, or OP in a soup list. I don't know why it's so hard for people to comprehend that. Units are unable to be costed properly because their value greatly changes depending on what kind of list they're used in. You don't think it would be easier to put a proper point cost on guardsmen or a castellan if they couldn't be used together? That is objectively wrong as the more variables you have, the more difficult it is to determine how much something should cost. Either you're pretending you don't understand that simple, logical fact, or you're willfully ignorant for the sake of argument.
If you don't think it's easy to increase the cost for those units that mathematically excel as is, I don't know what to tell you.
And of course units will have differing value depending what list their in, as obviously you could make lack in infantry killing or tank killing upon list construction. However, if a 60 point units was on average blowing up Rhinos and Wave Serpents in a single go with 60" range and not requiring LOS, it doesn't matter what kind of army I can take it in, does it?
Blastaar wrote: Infinitum ad absurdum is a weak foundation for an argument, Peregrine. No-one expects or bothers to measure distances to an extreme precision other than you.
Why not? I'm not letting your unit fire if they're not in range or charge if they're not in range.
Sure, they should need to be in range, but measuring to the tiniest fraction of distance is ridiculous .
If you're a fraction of an inch off, you don't get to attack. Simple as that.
I'm not sure I understand your position here. Are you complaining that you have to measure distances?
If this was directed towards me, not at all. I was pointing out the silliness of Peregrine's position on measuring range down to the .0000000000001mm. That amount of precision is far beyond reasonable for a game.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You answer your own premise, actually. Why just take 1-2 broken units if I can make an army with 6 of them?
Because if it's just about broken units being overpowered individually then one of those 6 broken units is the most broken one, and you'd just spam that best unit. But instead we see soup lists, which start with the most overpowered thing and then pick the best support units out of multiple codices to let the list do things that the first unit's faction wouldn't normally be able to do. You start with your broken Castellan, and then you add a broken CP battery and a broken melee death star. Take away soup and you have to take multiple Castellans instead, running straight into the IK faction's weaknesses of objective control and CP supply. It's the combination that takes it to next-level broken, even if the individual units are all the same power level.
Ah, so you already answered part of this via:
1. Rule of 3 existing now
2. You can't take 6 Castellans in a 2000 point list anyway
3. Objective Control not mattering when you can eliminate objective holders in a single round of shooting
Yes, and that demonstrates the problem with soup. Guardsmen alone have problems scaling up, even if they're overpowered at 4ppm there's a limit to how much you can abuse them. At some point you're going to have to take other units to fill out the rest of your list. Without soup that means taking more IG units and having to use the second-tier units in the codex. With soup you have no such problem, you just take the most overpowered thing from another codex or two and keep adding top-tier units even though your original codex can no longer supply them.
Easier =/= better. Soup allows you more options and most people agree more options are better than fewer options. Soup even allows fluffy armies unlike mono dex armies. Soup allows you to field a Knight with it's escorting infantry units and its mechanical support troops. Soup allows you to have a Daemon Prince to be surrounded by chaos troops they used to lead and some cultist and still have plenty of variety of lesser daemons to call upon. What you say you'd like to see how well White Scar bikers work with Ravenwing bikers sorry mono dexers can't be done but soup says enjoy yourself.
It's time to grow up people. The mono army days have come and gone.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ah, so you already answered part of this via:
1. Rule of 3 existing now
2. You can't take 6 Castellans in a 2000 point list anyway
3. Objective Control not mattering when you can eliminate objective holders in a single round of shooting
None of these are relevant.
Rule of 3 doesn't apply to troops or Castellans. Guardsmen are obviously unrestricted, and once you've taken three Castellans you've burned a ton of your points and probably want something different anyway to finish the rest of your list. And yes, objective control is relevant because LOS blocking terrain prevents you from hitting everything you want to hit and an MSU army can put a ton of objective holders on the table. And really, can you honestly argue #3 when part of the argument that guardsmen are overpowered is that on top of being a CP battery they help the IK list secure objectives? If objective control doesn't matter then camping a single knight on an objective at some point should be enough to win the game.
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Leo_the_Rat wrote: Soup allows you more options and most people agree more options are better than fewer options.
That's because most people have a very poor understanding of game design. "Take whatever overpowered thing you want" gives you lots of options, but it isn't better than a more restricted list building system where you have to make interesting and difficult choices about what you're going to bring because you can't have everything you want at the same time.
Well as an active 2nd ed player I can tell you most armies could take up to 50% in allies. Orks had no allies.(except one faction) Chaos 'could' take Orks however. Some like Sisters could only take 25% allies.
The problem with any edition withoug allies is that it is so unfluffy why an Assassin or an Inquisitor or one unit of Sisters of Battle cannot join an Imperial Guard force.
You cannot have a mono faction ONLY game. It drains the fun for many.
So if 'soup' is the meta....then why? CPs and fixing your weaknesses seems the 2 standouts.
Rein in the CPs in some manner. Limit the use and or effectiveness of allies and it will be about as good as you can get.
admironheart wrote: Well as an active 2nd ed player I can tell you most armies could take up to 50% in allies. Orks had no allies.(except one faction) Chaos 'could' take Orks however. Some like Sisters could only take 25% allies.
The problem with any edition withoug allies is that it is so unfluffy why an Assassin or an Inquisitor or one unit of Sisters of Battle cannot join an Imperial Guard force.
You cannot have a mono faction ONLY game. It drains the fun for many.
So if 'soup' is the meta....then why? CPs and fixing your weaknesses seems the 2 standouts.
Rein in the CPs in some manner. Limit the use and or effectiveness of allies and it will be about as good as you can get.
I'm not asking for mono faction. My suggestion is 2 detachments, 2 factions max. All units in a detachment must share a keyword. CP can only be used by the faction that provided it. You can still have your fluffy allies, a knight supporting a guard or ad mech army, assassins supporting an imperial army, a contingent of dark eldar or harlequins going to battle with the eldar, etc. You just won't have absolutely broken lists like what we see dominating tournaments right now.
I don't even understand the impetus to want single codex armies, other than "i just want it". All you're asking for is an additional restriction, you're not inserting more balance.
"My suggestion is 2 detachments, 2 factions max"... Like what is this? What are you trying to achieve? You honestly believe there wont be broken lists with this simple rule? There will be, they'll just look different. I don't want to play your restricted version of the game that will likely have its own balance issues.
Why not just approach it from a balanced units perspective, work on bringing down the Castellan as a unit, cutting off the peaks of the meta, and maybe your blood angels will become more relevant eventually. Or you know... keep adding restrictions until single codex xenos becomes degenerate.
hollow one wrote: I don't even understand the impetus to want single codex armies, other than "i just want it".
It improves faction diversity and maintains armies as distinct armies, not one super-faction for the entire Imperium.
All you're asking for is an additional restriction, you're not inserting more balance.
100% wrong. Removing allies is a huge balance improvement because mixing units from different factions is inherently a difficult, if not impossible, thing to do. A unit of guardsmen in a pure IG army and a unit of guardsmen supporting an IK army have different values, so you can't assign a single point cost to the unit that is accurate in both situations. The only way to resolve it is to remove, or at least heavily restrict and penalize, the ability to take units from multiple armies.
And that's not even considering the balance issues from sheer unit count. Even if every unit's point cost is perfectly balanced having options is still a powerful thing. And the current system gives the Imperium half the game as a single faction, while Tau players get one codex and that's it. There's no way you're going to make those two things equivalent while also making single-codex Imperial armies viable.
It's not easy. It would require a lot more than what's being brought to the table now and it would take imo probs at least 6 months to 2 years to fix the issue as they update and make new codex's.
The quickest fix would be just to restrict allies to Open or narrative events, but of course that would only increase the salt from the competitive crowd that they are trying to entice.
To me the easiest way to at least make a step forward to nerf soup would be to introduce a 'primary detachment'.
Primary Detachments:
"At the head of every force lies a strategic mastermind who has banded these groups together for a common purpose or cause"
- Has to include warlord. - You get everything, CP, Sub-Faction traits, Strats, etc. - Other detachments that do not share the same Faction and Sub-faction keywords only grant the CP and the sub-faction trait. No Obj. secured, no Strats, etc. - If you have multiple detachments of the same faction and sub-faction then they also count as 'Primary detachments'.
Now if you want to play with all your toys, you can! but now you won't be invalidating people who wish to play Mono as much. I'm not saying this is perfect but it's a huge step forwards to attempting to bring about some semblance of balance.
In regards to the Loyal 32, if they need to go up in points just make them the same points as a Cultist their practically the same stat line and both just normal human beings so why not?
I think GW hardest part in all this will be trying to bring something that will please the entire gamer-base. Competitive players don't care about balance of the game since they support GW's actions by buying whatever's hot, however I can still imagine a large grumbling from that crowd who play soup if they just took it away (after all shelling about £200-500 on a soup army and being told you can't use it could rile anyones blood), meanwhile you want other types of player to feel included by not having their force feel invalidated by whatever's competitively hot.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ah, so you already answered part of this via:
1. Rule of 3 existing now
2. You can't take 6 Castellans in a 2000 point list anyway
3. Objective Control not mattering when you can eliminate objective holders in a single round of shooting
None of these are relevant.
Rule of 3 doesn't apply to troops or Castellans. Guardsmen are obviously unrestricted, and once you've taken three Castellans you've burned a ton of your points and probably want something different anyway to finish the rest of your list. And yes, objective control is relevant because LOS blocking terrain prevents you from hitting everything you want to hit and an MSU army can put a ton of objective holders on the table. And really, can you honestly argue #3 when part of the argument that guardsmen are overpowered is that on top of being a CP battery they help the IK list secure objectives? If objective control doesn't matter then camping a single knight on an objective at some point should be enough to win the game.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Soup allows you more options and most people agree more options are better than fewer options.
That's because most people have a very poor understanding of game design. "Take whatever overpowered thing you want" gives you lots of options, but it isn't better than a more restricted list building system where you have to make interesting and difficult choices about what you're going to bring because you can't have everything you want at the same time.
You're the one that's talked about LOS blocking terrain not really existing, and it's a silly thing to bring up with a model as tall as a Castellan.
Also Rule of 3 applies to units that aren't troops or dedicated transports. This applies to Castellans. That's why we aren't able to see 4 of them.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Easier =/= better. Soup allows you more options and most people agree more options are better than fewer options. Soup even allows fluffy armies unlike mono dex armies. Soup allows you to field a Knight with it's escorting infantry units and its mechanical support troops. Soup allows you to have a Daemon Prince to be surrounded by chaos troops they used to lead and some cultist and still have plenty of variety of lesser daemons to call upon. What you say you'd like to see how well White Scar bikers work with Ravenwing bikers sorry mono dexers can't be done but soup says enjoy yourself.
It's time to grow up people. The mono army days have come and gone.
Allies can in theory facilitate some fluffy lists. In practice, I can count on one hand the number of well thought out fluffy allies builds I've seen in the half dozen years since 6E brought them back into the mainstream. When well done, they're really cool and awesome. However, the overwhelmingly vast majority of use, in my experience, is for min/maxing and synergy power purposes, or to just screw around (which is fine, but that's not really what we're concerned about here). The army books are fundamentally still largely designed as self contained forces with an extremely small number of mechanics that affect factions other than those in whatever book they happen to be in. GW just is not writing codex army lists thinking about how people are going to slap things together with other factions, nor making extensive facilitation of interaction between such forces.
I'm ok missing out on the niche-interest case of the notoriously secretive Ravenwing bikers apparently riding saddle to saddle with the wild White Scars against literally the same enemy positions, if it means less absurd power combos in matched/competitive play.
I'm ok missing out on the niche-interest case of the notoriously secretive Ravenwing bikers apparently riding saddle to saddle with the wild White Scars against literally the same enemy positions, if it means less absurd power combos in matched/competitive play.
It's always easy to make sacrifices when you're not the person affected.
I skipped to page 5, so sorry if someones already mentioned it, but in the absence of Games-Workshop addressing the issue, have those tournament organizers done anything to address it themselves?
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Easier =/= better. Soup allows you more options and most people agree more options are better than fewer options. Soup even allows fluffy armies unlike mono dex armies. Soup allows you to field a Knight with it's escorting infantry units and its mechanical support troops. Soup allows you to have a Daemon Prince to be surrounded by chaos troops they used to lead and some cultist and still have plenty of variety of lesser daemons to call upon. What you say you'd like to see how well White Scar bikers work with Ravenwing bikers sorry mono dexers can't be done but soup says enjoy yourself.
It's time to grow up people. The mono army days have come and gone.
Allies can in theory facilitate some fluffy lists. In practice, I can count on one hand the number of well thought out fluffy allies builds I've seen in the half dozen years since 6E brought them back into the mainstream. When well done, they're really cool and awesome. However, the overwhelmingly vast majority of use, in my experience, is for min/maxing and synergy power purposes, or to just screw around (which is fine, but that's not really what we're concerned about here). The army books are fundamentally still largely designed as self contained forces with an extremely small number of mechanics that affect factions other than those in whatever book they happen to be in. GW just is not writing codex army lists thinking about how people are going to slap things together with other factions, nor making extensive facilitation of interaction between such forces.
I'm ok missing out on the niche-interest case of the notoriously secretive Ravenwing bikers apparently riding saddle to saddle with the wild White Scars against literally the same enemy positions, if it means less absurd power combos in matched/competitive play.
Please do tell how many of these ally lists were broken in 6th and 7th compared to anything else that was winning. I'll wait.
Automatically Appended Next Post: If it helps you compile the data, Blood of Kittens probably still has most of those lists!
Ginjitzu wrote: I skipped to page 5, so sorry if someones already mentioned it, but in the absence of Games-Workshop addressing the issue, have those tournament organizers done anything to address it themselves?
Tournaments for the most part want to mess with the rules as little as possible, so everyone is on the same page when it comes to how the game will play.
I am amazed at how much does get changed in 40k, and i think it shows how bad the rules are at the moment. When popular rules packs can effect how the game plays as much as they do.
Soup is bad for the game, and should have been done as part of there narrative drive. Balance the base game as best you can, then have additions for the players who want to go a bit wild.
When it comes down to it, most battles would be representing a larger war, and do not need there ally on the battlefield to represent them.
But its also the issue of things like the IK, They should have been fleshed out with auxiliary and support. Rather than the mess they are now. That would have gone a long way to keep the game not going towards stupid levels of bad balance.
Things like assassins and inquisitors could be a special case, and very interesting if done well. Would be cool to see an Inquisitor join a Eldar force, to show that the Imperium and Eldar can work together and do on such occasions.
But this only matters if players stop paying money in huge amounts. If it brings in money, then GW can only think they are doing the right thing.
Ginjitzu wrote: I skipped to page 5, so sorry if someones already mentioned it, but in the absence of Games-Workshop addressing the issue, have those tournament organizers done anything to address it themselves?
Tournaments for the most part want to mess with the rules as little as possible, so everyone is on the same page when it comes to how the game will play.
I am amazed at how much does get changed in 40k, and i think it shows how bad the rules are at the moment. When popular rules packs can effect how the game plays as much as they do.
Soup is bad for the game, and should have been done as part of there narrative drive. Balance the base game as best you can, then have additions for the players who want to go a bit wild.
When it comes down to it, most battles would be representing a larger war, and do not need there ally on the battlefield to represent them.
But its also the issue of things like the IK, They should have been fleshed out with auxiliary and support. Rather than the mess they are now. That would have gone a long way to keep the game not going towards stupid levels of bad balance.
Things like assassins and inquisitors could be a special case, and very interesting if done well. Would be cool to see an Inquisitor join a Eldar force, to show that the Imperium and Eldar can work together and do on such occasions.
But this only matters if players stop paying money in huge amounts. If it brings in money, then GW can only think they are doing the right thing.
ONCE AGAIN
Allies have been a thing in every edition outside 5th. Quit saying it's "bad for the game" or that people are making armies wrong when they include allies. Just get off your high horse and accept problem units are to blame.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Easier =/= better. Soup allows you more options and most people agree more options are better than fewer options. Soup even allows fluffy armies unlike mono dex armies. Soup allows you to field a Knight with it's escorting infantry units and its mechanical support troops. Soup allows you to have a Daemon Prince to be surrounded by chaos troops they used to lead and some cultist and still have plenty of variety of lesser daemons to call upon. What you say you'd like to see how well White Scar bikers work with Ravenwing bikers sorry mono dexers can't be done but soup says enjoy yourself.
It's time to grow up people. The mono army days have come and gone.
Necrons, Tau, and Orks would have something to say about this, also Tryanids and GCS
Ginjitzu wrote: I skipped to page 5, so sorry if someones already mentioned it, but in the absence of Games-Workshop addressing the issue, have those tournament organizers done anything to address it themselves?
Tournaments for the most part want to mess with the rules as little as possible, so everyone is on the same page when it comes to how the game will play.
I am amazed at how much does get changed in 40k, and i think it shows how bad the rules are at the moment. When popular rules packs can effect how the game plays as much as they do.
Soup is bad for the game, and should have been done as part of there narrative drive. Balance the base game as best you can, then have additions for the players who want to go a bit wild.
When it comes down to it, most battles would be representing a larger war, and do not need there ally on the battlefield to represent them.
But its also the issue of things like the IK, They should have been fleshed out with auxiliary and support. Rather than the mess they are now. That would have gone a long way to keep the game not going towards stupid levels of bad balance.
Things like assassins and inquisitors could be a special case, and very interesting if done well. Would be cool to see an Inquisitor join a Eldar force, to show that the Imperium and Eldar can work together and do on such occasions.
But this only matters if players stop paying money in huge amounts. If it brings in money, then GW can only think they are doing the right thing.
ONCE AGAIN
Allies have been a thing in every edition outside 5th. Quit saying it's "bad for the game" or that people are making armies wrong when they include allies. Just get off your high horse and accept problem units are to blame.
Yes, they have play a part. But not really this much a part. And it is bad for the game, GW is barley capable of managing it when its low and rarely used.
I also said, that it can be a part if done well. And with here push for Narrative as a big part, That is the perfect place for it.
Problem units, How do you balance a unit for one Codex that gives buffs to that codex and a codex that has no access to those buffs? Should GW Release Codex and army books that dont function without another. Is it worth the loss of design space for that.
What about debuffs to enemy units, If taken to account for codex's with no access to such.
I also said nothing about people making armies wrong.
Ginjitzu wrote: I skipped to page 5, so sorry if someones already mentioned it, but in the absence of Games-Workshop addressing the issue, have those tournament organizers done anything to address it themselves?
Tournaments for the most part want to mess with the rules as little as possible, so everyone is on the same page when it comes to how the game will play.
I am amazed at how much does get changed in 40k, and i think it shows how bad the rules are at the moment. When popular rules packs can effect how the game plays as much as they do.
Soup is bad for the game, and should have been done as part of there narrative drive. Balance the base game as best you can, then have additions for the players who want to go a bit wild.
When it comes down to it, most battles would be representing a larger war, and do not need there ally on the battlefield to represent them.
But its also the issue of things like the IK, They should have been fleshed out with auxiliary and support. Rather than the mess they are now. That would have gone a long way to keep the game not going towards stupid levels of bad balance.
Things like assassins and inquisitors could be a special case, and very interesting if done well. Would be cool to see an Inquisitor join a Eldar force, to show that the Imperium and Eldar can work together and do on such occasions.
But this only matters if players stop paying money in huge amounts. If it brings in money, then GW can only think they are doing the right thing.
ONCE AGAIN
Allies have been a thing in every edition outside 5th. Quit saying it's "bad for the game" or that people are making armies wrong when they include allies. Just get off your high horse and accept problem units are to blame.
Yes, they have play a part. But not really this much a part. And it is bad for the game, GW is barley capable of managing it when its low and rarely used.
I also said, that it can be a part if done well. And with here push for Narrative as a big part, That is the perfect place for it.
Problem units, How do you balance a unit for one Codex that gives buffs to that codex and a codex that has no access to those buffs? Should GW Release Codex and army books that dont function without another. Is it worth the loss of design space for that.
What about debuffs to enemy units, If taken to account for codex's with no access to such.
Nobody is giving buffs to anyone outside specific instances (Custodes banner, Knight Aegis Strat). If you noticed, the worst that allies could pull off was in 6th/7th, yet it was a lot of pure lists winning overall.
The crux is the terrible internal and external writing all at once. We might have more middle-of-the-road stuff right now, but for this edition, anything that's OP is ridiculously so.
There's no Golden Age for competitive 40k. All editions of it have had metagame problems. Sometimes it's demon princes with Lash of Submission, sometimes it's Wolf Guard with Assault Cannons or whatever the hell the top 2nd ed. list was. Every iteration of the game is thrown in to the crucible of competitive gaming and refined into one or two top-tier builds. The process is fundamental to tournament play, and only worse by GW's inadequate games design process and ineffectual play testing. You can't fix it in any real sense, the pendulum will simply swing wildly when the next codex or FAQ comes around. Another "degenerate" build will rise and nothing changes.
Ginjitzu wrote: I skipped to page 5, so sorry if someones already mentioned it, but in the absence of Games-Workshop addressing the issue, have those tournament organizers done anything to address it themselves?
Tournaments for the most part want to mess with the rules as little as possible, so everyone is on the same page when it comes to how the game will play.
I am amazed at how much does get changed in 40k, and i think it shows how bad the rules are at the moment. When popular rules packs can effect how the game plays as much as they do.
Soup is bad for the game, and should have been done as part of there narrative drive. Balance the base game as best you can, then have additions for the players who want to go a bit wild.
When it comes down to it, most battles would be representing a larger war, and do not need there ally on the battlefield to represent them.
But its also the issue of things like the IK, They should have been fleshed out with auxiliary and support. Rather than the mess they are now. That would have gone a long way to keep the game not going towards stupid levels of bad balance.
Things like assassins and inquisitors could be a special case, and very interesting if done well. Would be cool to see an Inquisitor join a Eldar force, to show that the Imperium and Eldar can work together and do on such occasions.
But this only matters if players stop paying money in huge amounts. If it brings in money, then GW can only think they are doing the right thing.
ONCE AGAIN
Allies have been a thing in every edition outside 5th. Quit saying it's "bad for the game" or that people are making armies wrong when they include allies. Just get off your high horse and accept problem units are to blame.
Yes, they have play a part. But not really this much a part. And it is bad for the game, GW is barley capable of managing it when its low and rarely used.
I also said, that it can be a part if done well. And with here push for Narrative as a big part, That is the perfect place for it.
Problem units, How do you balance a unit for one Codex that gives buffs to that codex and a codex that has no access to those buffs? Should GW Release Codex and army books that dont function without another. Is it worth the loss of design space for that.
What about debuffs to enemy units, If taken to account for codex's with no access to such.
Nobody is giving buffs to anyone outside specific instances (Custodes banner, Knight Aegis Strat). If you noticed, the worst that allies could pull off was in 6th/7th, yet it was a lot of pure lists winning overall.
The crux is the terrible internal and external writing all at once. We might have more middle-of-the-road stuff right now, but for this edition, anything that's OP is ridiculously so.
The very fact you can get Command points is a example of that. As well as units designed within a space where they are a option. It also completely ignores faction balance. Which any good tabletop game will have variance. One unit can be great within its intended design, Both balanced and functinal within the faction as a whole. But broken when taken in small specialized roles to support another force.
Again, GW is pushing Narritive play. If they where any good at it. These issues could be much easier to manage.
Doom changed to: "If manifested, choose an enemy unit within 24" of the psyker. You can re-roll Asuryani unit's failed wound rolls against that unit until your next Psychic phase."
It's not easy. It would require a lot more than what's being brought to the table now and it would take imo probs at least 6 months to 2 years to fix the issue as they update and make new codex's.
The quickest fix would be just to restrict allies to Open or narrative events, but of course that would only increase the salt from the competitive crowd that they are trying to entice.
To me the easiest way to at least make a step forward to nerf soup would be to introduce a 'primary detachment'.
Primary Detachments:
"At the head of every force lies a strategic mastermind who has banded these groups together for a common purpose or cause"
- Has to include warlord.
- You get everything, CP, Sub-Faction traits, Strats, etc.
- Other detachments that do not share the same Faction and Sub-faction keywords only grant the CP and the sub-faction trait. No Obj. secured, no Strats, etc.
- If you have multiple detachments of the same faction and sub-faction then they also count as 'Primary detachments'.
Now if you want to play with all your toys, you can! but now you won't be invalidating people who wish to play Mono as much. I'm not saying this is perfect but it's a huge step forwards to attempting to bring about some semblance of balance.
In regards to the Loyal 32, if they need to go up in points just make them the same points as a Cultist their practically the same stat line and both just normal human beings so why not?
I think GW hardest part in all this will be trying to bring something that will please the entire gamer-base. Competitive players don't care about balance of the game since they support GW's actions by buying whatever's hot, however I can still imagine a large grumbling from that crowd who play soup if they just took it away (after all shelling about £200-500 on a soup army and being told you can't use it could rile anyones blood), meanwhile you want other types of player to feel included by not having their force feel invalidated by whatever's competitively hot.
I personally have pondered about something like this but whilst I do think it'll work it's too big of a step for GW to make. Instead I just feel like we should go back to the old CP values for battalions and brigades (3&9) and make being battleforged 5 CP instead. This will put less onus on always having 2/3 battalions as they're no longer as super efficient and you might see more specialist detchments. Those 5CP from battleforged only becomes available to you if you have a mono-codex army. That's the balance, it's a big enough hindrance that you'd actually see mono codex armies but it doesn't invalidate bringing a IG brigade.
The game sill requires quite a few instances of balancing specific units however, the problems we're seeing in competitive are stemming from these units alongside the soup mechanic.
The Castellan goes up to 675 points, IK invulns maxes out at 4++, you only get the "house stratagems" in a Knight Lance
I think, when Castellans get worse, we'll see far more Gallants. They probably need to go up to 400 points.
Bring the humble guardsman up to 5ppm
The CHE feels undercosted at 161 points compared to almost every other flyer in the game.
Ynnari just needs a rework in a new codex/ in White Dwarf. That mechanic is just terrible to play against.
ONCE AGAIN
Allies have been a thing in every edition outside 5th. Quit saying it's "bad for the game" or that people are making armies wrong when they include allies. Just get off your high horse and accept problem units are to blame.
Gonna keep prattling on with that false analogy are we? I don't see anyone complaining about allies (even myself, despite whatever your mental gymnastics tell yourself). We're complaining about people being able to systematically cherry pick the best units from multiple codexes which is a major detriment to the game. This is far from the same as in any previous editions.
So, yes folks- Castellans and Custodes jetbikers that are in armies with no other associated units are comparable to Kroot mercs and =][= Stormtroopers. You heard it here first!
ONCE AGAIN
Allies have been a thing in every edition outside 5th. Quit saying it's "bad for the game" or that people are making armies wrong when they include allies. Just get off your high horse and accept problem units are to blame.
Gonna keep prattling on with that false analogy are we? I don't see anyone complaining about allies (even myself, despite whatever your mental gymnastics tell yourself). We're complaining about people being able to systematically cherry pick the best units from multiple codexes which is a major detriment to the game. This is far from the same as in any previous editions.
So, yes folks- Castellans and Custodes jetbikers that are in armies with no other associated units are comparable to Kroot mercs and =][= Stormtroopers. You heard it here first!
Then again Taudar were a thing last time.
THIS time however not only can we now cherry pick to pad weaknesses, now we can also cherrypick to make use of stratagems, which are inbetween factions terribly unbalanced, in their effectiveness and in the cost.
Factions like Knights now get access to CP of guard. In essence the Guard stratagems are useless compared to the knight ones, etc.
I like soup even if I tend to play mono-armies myself. I like seeing the wildly different forces and how they work together.
Now, regarding the original question I would say that the problems are:
* Ynnari double-shenanigans. Ynnari needs to be dealt with and rewritten from top-to-bottom.
* CP Batteries. Something like the new GSCCP change would be interesting to test.
Address these two pink elephants in the room and a lot of soup issues go away considering the fact that the biggest problems complain over is IK access to a lot of CP and Ynnari soups.
Also, going over some of the lists they do paint a picture that some units are just too good to say no to considering how they are spammed.
Super Heavy Aux and Supreme Command being the most damning.
What about something like in 30k? One Battalion and an allied Patrol or Super Heavy detachment. Can put a Super Heavy on the Battalion to still take Girlyman or other big thing.
2 detachments, everone has the same CP, and one ally? Can still take your knight but would need an Armiger tax, and less of the current CP situation that heavily punishes Elite armies vs horde that get 18+
Kinda feel a good way to fix this is to have points increase for every squad not in your primary detachments faction (one eith most points) so first squad is 1pts more for every unit, 2nd squad is 2pts more for every unit and so on... but your main faction stays same points no matter what,
I think the Brood Brothers ruling in the new GSC book is probably meant to be a 'test' for a potential soft nerf of soup, but I don't think they'll go any further than that. They'll be raking in too many pennies from it. Their lack of action in regards to soup all this time makes it quite apparent they don't mind it.
Soup isn't the problem, it's Knights that are the problem.
Personally I want CP to be only generated by the Warlords faction and Stratagems from only the Warlords faction. That would mean Soup gets the benefit from better unit choice but loses the benefit from Stratagems and cheap CP.
I think (even for my new GSC) that any detachment that does not contain your warlord should produce half CP rounded "DOWN" which means any non battalion+ will produce 0CP and Battalions will produce 2CP, Bregades would produce 5CP.
Finally you can only use Strats/Relics from your warlord's faction.
Edit: BCB beat me to near the exact same post lol.
Could just add a 25% tax on all units that do not share a (non-Imperium/Chaos/Aeldari) keyword with your Warlord and adjust the % until it works. That way you can have 7 PPM (or whatever) Guardsmen for the Castellans without making IG pay for it.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Could just add a 25% tax on all units that do not share a (non-Imperium/Chaos/Aeldari) keyword with your Warlord and adjust the % until it works. That way you can have 7 PPM (or whatever) Guardsmen for the Castellans without making IG pay for it.
So your adding a 25% tax onto assasins, inquisition etc?
Also how does that work with subfactions?
BaconCatBug wrote: Soup isn't the problem, it's Knights that are the problem.
Personally I want CP to be only generated by the Warlords faction and Stratagems from only the Warlords faction. That would mean Soup gets the benefit from better unit choice but loses the benefit from Stratagems and cheap CP.
Yes the army with 1 detachment outside the undercosted Castellen in the top 21 lists is the problem codex breaking 8th edition.
Not the insane CP of IG or the Free actions of Yannari.
BaconCatBug wrote: Soup isn't the problem, it's Knights that are the problem.
Personally I want CP to be only generated by the Warlords faction and Stratagems from only the Warlords faction. That would mean Soup gets the benefit from better unit choice but loses the benefit from Stratagems and cheap CP.
Would this be <faction> or some other keyword-driven? I'd be down with the first, tbh. As long as it also came with a psyker non-interaction clause, and aux detachments still costed you CP (I could see people arguing that because allies don't contribute CP, aux detachments don't "Add" -1CP to your pool, lol, basically leaving Eldar soup in its current incarnation untouched).
Trollbert wrote: I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...
Because if the solution to the problem causes more issues it's probably not the correct solution.
If you need to introduce 3 rules to give out exceptions to your new rule it probably means that you haven't really got to the bottom of the problem and are creating a bandaid rule instead of solving the problem.
BaconCatBug wrote: Soup isn't the problem, it's Knights that are the problem.
Personally I want CP to be only generated by the Warlords faction and Stratagems from only the Warlords faction. That would mean Soup gets the benefit from better unit choice but loses the benefit from Stratagems and cheap CP.
Yes the army with 1 detachment outside the undercosted Castellen in the top 21 lists is the problem codex breaking 8th edition.
Not the insane CP of IG or the Free actions of Yannari.
Well the 11 place for pure AM list shows that mono list buffs means nothing and empire first company is fair and balanced, since you don`t have CP to use it.
23 place for pure Custodes list shows that CA approved point reduction is meaningless.
O fcourse after the faq everyone was taking the wraith and windrider host since they are so "good".
To be fair, in the Top 8 while the Castellan is certainly a problem, the lists themselves weren't that bad except for the (as of last night) #1 Ynnari list which was pure cupcakes with 6 flyers and 18 scatbikes.
There were two Guard armies that were actually Guard + IK, rather than Loyal 32 and smash captains or other assorted trash. Although one did have 2 Custodes bikers and Trajann Valoris.
The AdMech army (it was #4 or #5 as of last night) was a little bad, as it had the Rusty 17 and then a variation of the Loyal 32 as well but also had about 5 tanks and *melee* knights of all things (2x Warglaives and a Cerastus Knight Lancer).
The second Ynnari list at least looked like what I'd expect a Ynnari list to have: A actual mix of Craftworld, Drukhari, and Harlequins.
Anyways my point is that yes the Knight is a problem and yes soup still needs to be toned down (they really need to give more incentive to NOT soup, rather than more incentive and bonuses if you do), but the top 8 weren't terrible from an overall army standpoint at least compared to the usual disgusting tournament lists you see.
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
Remember when Shadowswords were all the rage? Those required no soup. They got replaced by a more reliable analogue.
Shadowswords were basically Castellans before Castellans existed. Bubble wrap and all. 200 IG don't get used, because it's unwieldy. Custodes Jetbikes spam was quite popular for quite some time.
CP is the enabler. Not the root cause. Soup is an incredibly broad thing to near when a very narrow set of units poses the problem.
And do you remember why "Shadowswords were all the rage"?
Supreme Command Detachments allowing for you to bring Primaris Psykers and a Shadowsword. The +1 to Hit from Shadowsword Targeters when targeting a Titanic keyworded model...gee, I wonder who was commonly showing up in Chaos lists at the time? Couldn't have been two characters with Titanic!
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
...because the Castellan with Cawls Wrath and the fixings still wouldn't be problematic.
Pointed appropriately and not getting CPs that you wouldn't see normally? It might still be a problem--but then we'd know that it was, even in 'ideal' circumstances.
Get real. The issue isn't picking and choosing "to cover weaknesses". The issue is picking and choosing the broken units that don't actually have weaknesses, like those Castellans and Infantry (in before you chime in that 10 man squads is a weakness. LOL)
Again:
Without the CPs from soup and pointed appropriately, the Castellan with Cawl's Wrath(a relic--which is a whole other kettle of fish that needs to be addressed) could be made into a more reasonable item.
And I like that however long into this crazy "infantry squads are the apocalypse" thing we are you're still misrepresenting the argument with regards to Infantry Squads. "10 man squads" is a weakness when one looks at the static point costs and the inflexible nature of the composition of an Infantry Squad(10 models strong no +/-. Composed of 1 Sergeant with a specific weapon loadout, up to 1 model with vox, another with a special, two as a weapons team and the rest are just straight lasguns) compared to other choices which get a sort of 'sliding scale' whether it be more models with a tie-in to more special/heavy options or the ability to start off at a lower model count for a cheaper squad points cost.
Except banning allies doesn't fix the external problem of the Castellan. So by that, you admit the actual issue is points. When units are costed appropriately, nobody seems to care when they are allied in, as you aren't getting anymore of an advantage than usual.
Ally in only certain units that are broken and we get complaints about the whole system. It's like saying 6th edition Tyranids were broken because they had Flyrants.
At this point, we're not "banning allies". I'm not suggesting that and haven't really been suggesting it. What I have been suggesting is banning the mechanisms that are used for abuse--Company Commander Recycler most notably--in a soup list. GSC have, as I mentioned,
Also I knew you would bring up those "static" costs for a unit that has a minimum cost closer to the minimum of most units that have 6-8 point models. Don't make me laugh about your "forced 10 man groups". It's honestly stupid.
Yes, I brought it up...in reply to you commenting on it.
It's fine that you might not think it is an issue but IMO it is something that has to be factored in but people like you continually focus on the "Well they're still cheap!" bit.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Could just add a 25% tax on all units that do not share a (non-Imperium/Chaos/Aeldari) keyword with your Warlord and adjust the % until it works. That way you can have 7 PPM (or whatever) Guardsmen for the Castellans without making IG pay for it.
So your adding a 25% tax onto assasins, inquisition etc?
Also how does that work with subfactions?
Yes, there'd be a 25% tax on Assassins etc., but it's easily circumvent able by pricing them so that their cost plus 25% is their actual value since an army of Assassins is nigh impossible to win with. Alternatively you could make an exception for Assassins, Inquisitors and other "bolt-on" units, but exceptions to the wrong unit could be bad.
In the case of subfactions you'd still have a common keyword, right? Like, Nurgle Daemons and Khorne Daemons would still have "Daemon" as a common keyword. As a side-note this could allow stuff like having Word Bearers count as having the Daemon keyword for the purposes of determining cost (so no Daemon stratagems on CSM) as part of their Legion tactic.
Wayniac wrote: To be fair, in the Top 8 while the Castellan is certainly a problem, the lists themselves weren't that bad except for the (as of last night) #1 Ynnari list which was pure cupcakes with 6 flyers and 18 scatbikes.
There were two Guard armies that were actually Guard + IK, rather than Loyal 32 and smash captains or other assorted trash. Although one did have 2 Custodes bikers and Trajann Valoris.
The AdMech army (it was #4 or #5 as of last night) was a little bad, as it had the Rusty 17 and then a variation of the Loyal 32 as well but also had about 5 tanks and *melee* knights of all things (2x Warglaives and a Cerastus Knight Lancer).
The second Ynnari list at least looked like what I'd expect a Ynnari list to have: A actual mix of Craftworld, Drukhari, and Harlequins.
Anyways my point is that yes the Knight is a problem and yes soup still needs to be toned down (they really need to give more incentive to NOT soup, rather than more incentive and bonuses if you do), but the top 8 weren't terrible from an overall army standpoint at least compared to the usual disgusting tournament lists you see.
Really ? Top 4 had 3 list with Castellan and 1 cupcakes Ynnari list with 7 flyers, only the cheese list was match from the 8 mounts old IK+IG list.
It is a problem if only fraction that can use double action is a match for the IG/IK list and even that is not enough.
Wayniac wrote: To be fair, in the Top 8 while the Castellan is certainly a problem, the lists themselves weren't that bad except for the (as of last night) #1 Ynnari list which was pure cupcakes with 6 flyers and 18 scatbikes.
There were two Guard armies that were actually Guard + IK, rather than Loyal 32 and smash captains or other assorted trash. Although one did have 2 Custodes bikers and Trajann Valoris.
The AdMech army (it was #4 or #5 as of last night) was a little bad, as it had the Rusty 17 and then a variation of the Loyal 32 as well but also had about 5 tanks and *melee* knights of all things (2x Warglaives and a Cerastus Knight Lancer).
The second Ynnari list at least looked like what I'd expect a Ynnari list to have: A actual mix of Craftworld, Drukhari, and Harlequins.
Anyways my point is that yes the Knight is a problem and yes soup still needs to be toned down (they really need to give more incentive to NOT soup, rather than more incentive and bonuses if you do), but the top 8 weren't terrible from an overall army standpoint at least compared to the usual disgusting tournament lists you see.
Really ? Top 4 had 3 list with Castellan and 1 cupcakes Ynnari list with 7 flyers, only the cheese list was match from the 8 mounts old IK+IG list.
It is a problem if only fraction that can use double action is a match for the IG/IK list and even that is not enough.
They did but the 2 guard lists I saw were actual Guard and a Knight (okay one had 3 Custodes guys). It wasn't a pure trash list as I could see a guard brigade backed up by a knight in the fluff. Far from "good" as far as things are concerned, but not pure cupcakes like Loyal 32 everywhere. One of them was a legit catachan guard army that had a knight in support.
To expand a little more thought on my feelings, in general, the issue is that it really seems like IK were designed with the notion that you would have very limited access to CP, so their stratagems are better in many ways to account for that. Soup lets you ignore that entirely by brinigng cheap CP batteries to power the high-end IK stratagems.
That's a big indicator of the problems. You can't balance something around "Oh they will ony get 5 or 6 CP at most" and then give a way to get 14 CP.
GW really does need to address soup though it is a huge issue.
BaconCatBug wrote: Soup isn't the problem, it's Knights that are the problem.
Personally I want CP to be only generated by the Warlords faction and Stratagems from only the Warlords faction. That would mean Soup gets the benefit from better unit choice but loses the benefit from Stratagems and cheap CP.
"Soup isn't the problem"
*Proposes nerf to soup*
I like your fix though. I agree it needs to be simple, percentages aren't going to happen. Taking allies with this rule would be a real cost/benefit decision, which I like.
Why do most of you want to nerf allies, when the only really annoying knight to play against is the Castellan? Just nerf the Castellan, and maybe some Eldar lists to compensate, since without the Castellan list the Eldar are undisputed number 1.
Horst wrote: Why do most of you want to nerf allies, when the only really annoying knight to play against is the Castellan? Just nerf the Castellan, and maybe some Eldar lists to compensate, since without the Castellan list the Eldar are undisputed number 1.
Because it's not just about the Castellan. It's about the Loyal 32, and Doom, and so on and so forth.
Yeah, we could nerf those too. But then there would be a next best soup, and that would still be better than a mono list purely by virtue of greater choice. And if you keep just knocking down the best options that soup has then that ALSO hurts the armies as mono forces. Which some may be fine with, but most people seem to want mono to be viable, and I understand and agree with that sentiment.
Trollbert wrote: I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...
Because if the solution to the problem causes more issues it's probably not the correct solution.
If you need to introduce 3 rules to give out exceptions to your new rule it probably means that you haven't really got to the bottom of the problem and are creating a bandaid rule instead of solving the problem.
There's no such thing as a "magic bullet" when it comes to solutions, it's more important that any problem(s) beyond the first one is more manageable than the previous ones. What's more of a problem, being stuck in an infinite loop of minor points adjustment trying to get the game to work with mono factions being as good as a soup list without resulting in factions that can soup now unable to be mono lists against armies that can't soup or screwing over those army that can't soup, or dinging soup even a little bit and giving some exceptions to certain units?
Besides, Inquisition seems dead in the water and harliquin will likely see an expansion into full army like GSC did. If assassains are the only exception, then it's not a big deal.
BaconCatBug wrote: Soup isn't the problem, it's Knights that are the problem.
Personally I want CP to be only generated by the Warlords faction and Stratagems from only the Warlords faction. That would mean Soup gets the benefit from better unit choice but loses the benefit from Stratagems and cheap CP.
"Soup isn't the problem"
*Proposes nerf to soup*
I like your fix though. I agree it needs to be simple, percentages aren't going to happen. Taking allies with this rule would be a real cost/benefit decision, which I like.
Percentages as in you'd have one "mono-dex" cost and one "soup" cost printed where the "soup" cost would be x% more expensive than baseline. You'd not have to do any calculation in your head, you'd just take "allied Infantry Squad" rather than "Infantry Squad".
You can only use your Warlord's Strats.
You can only single use in a game Strats that are not your warlords strats.
Strats that are not your warlords cost double.
Detachment specific CP.
I don't want soup to die, but watching 15 CP funneled through a 600 point model with effective stratagems is just silly.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Percentages as in you'd have one "mono-dex" cost and one "soup" cost printed where the "soup" cost would be x% more expensive than baseline. You'd not have to do any calculation in your head, you'd just take "allied Infantry Squad" rather than "Infantry Squad".
I wouldn't trust GW to add two and two together let alone do multiplication on every single points cost in the game.
What about units where the bulk of the cost is in the weapons and not the body? Do you pay 25% more for their weapons too?
I honestly think that as cool as the detachment system is, it was a terrible mistake. The FOC with ways to make certain units as troops for thematic purposes was fine and way less prone to abuse
I really think the best solution overall would be to make only your primary detachment generate CP, maybe even remove the bonus for Battleforged.
The idea is to keep CP very limited, not something you want to game to have as much as possible. Then you have the freedom to make better stratagems because you know that CP will be very limited, so if you use a 4 CP stratagem that might be all but 1 or 2 of the CP you're ever going to get. The problem now is that you get your cake and eat it too: high-end stratagems that are clearly meant to be rare things being used more often because they are fueled with cheap CP batteris.
An army should not have 14 CP, period. Fix that problem and the stock of soup goes down and the stock of CP being something rare that can really help swing the game goes up.
You can only use your Warlord's Strats.
You can only single use in a game Strats that are not your warlords strats.
Strats that are not your warlords cost double.
Detachment specific CP.
I don't want soup to die, but watching 15 CP funneled through a 600 point model with effective stratagems is just silly.
You could also have command units generate command points that they use. No sharing.
Could even open the game up to having units generate points for there own little things. A hero unit for IG has a single point each turn to spend on one of three things.
Would probably work for psychic powers as well.
iGuy91 wrote: Crazy idea. Why don't we jack up the points cost of the Castellan by...iunno....100 points to bring it in line with its over-performing status.
Seem fair?
Not, because its not fair, and its not the problem.
And I'm not sure how you misunderstand that point.
You can only use your Warlord's Strats.
You can only single use in a game Strats that are not your warlords strats.
Strats that are not your warlords cost double.
Detachment specific CP.
I don't want soup to die, but watching 15 CP funneled through a 600 point model with effective stratagems is just silly.
You could also have command units generate command points that they use. No sharing.
Could even open the game up to having units generate points for there own little things. A hero unit for IG has a single point each turn to spend on one of three things.
Would probably work for psychic powers as well.
I'm not sure that it falls right, but I think it could work.
Overall, the other than the LOS/Terrain rules, CP and how it works should be rethought for the complete game to move to a better place.
Horst wrote: Why do most of you want to nerf allies, when the only really annoying knight to play against is the Castellan? Just nerf the Castellan, and maybe some Eldar lists to compensate, since without the Castellan list the Eldar are undisputed number 1.
Because while at the moment the Castellan is the obvious example that shows why soup is broken in its current form, if you just nerf the Castellan we'll be dealing with the same problem with different units. There's a fundamental problem with being able to mix different armies to cover each other's weaknesses and gather up loads of CPs for factions balanced around having limited access to such things. The Castellan is the most obvious culprit now but just removing that shifts the problem rather than fixing it.
iGuy91 wrote: Crazy idea. Why don't we jack up the points cost of the Castellan by...iunno....100 points to bring it in line with its over-performing status.
Seem fair?
Before CA18 I actually heard a lot of speculation that the Castellan should be like around 670 points
iGuy91 wrote: Crazy idea. Why don't we jack up the points cost of the Castellan by...iunno....100 points to bring it in line with its over-performing status.
Seem fair?
Not, because its not fair, and its not the problem.
And I'm not sure how you misunderstand that point.
Because Castellans *do* seem to be a problem? What makes you think the Castellan isn't a problem, when really only the Eldar have effective counters for it. Other knights aren't really an issue like this, you can counter melee knights with screening units / good positioning, and the other shooty knights aren't nearly as powerful as the Castellan. It needs some nerfs.
I mean it should be jacked up in points but a big issue is still that there are no drawbacks wahtsoever to souping. There are no tactical compromises being made and that's just poor design.
If you want those better units that really complement your army then you should be able to take them, but at a cost not merely defined by points. At the very least remove battleforged CP if you have a soup army. That means mixing chapters/craftworlds/klans within your codex as well.
Now we're all applauding the guy that took pure astartes at 8 (albeit mixed chapters) and pure IG (might've had mixed regiments) at 11 because they hamstrung themslves and still did well. Imagine if soup was merely an option, not the definitive one.
Horst wrote: Why do most of you want to nerf allies, when the only really annoying knight to play against is the Castellan? Just nerf the Castellan, and maybe some Eldar lists to compensate, since without the Castellan list the Eldar are undisputed number 1.
Because while at the moment the Castellan is the obvious example that shows why soup is broken in its current form, if you just nerf the Castellan we'll be dealing with the same problem with different units. There's a fundamental problem with being able to mix different armies to cover each other's weaknesses and gather up loads of CPs for factions balanced around having limited access to such things. The Castellan is the most obvious culprit now but just removing that shifts the problem rather than fixing it.
This is a VERY good point. We need to stop doing band-aid and kneejerk fixes to things that are currently being abused and actually change the underlying cause to try and minimize the whole treadmill that you see with the min/maxing lists. If you nerf Castellan, you'll just see the next best thing show up just as frequently. Then that gets nerfed, and the next thing in the chain gets abused. Fix the abuse in general.
What we should be striving for is having there be a minimal gap between what's currently OP and what the next OP thing will be when you nerf the first OP thing. Cure the root disease, not just provide endless treatment for the problems.
Horst wrote: Why do most of you want to nerf allies, when the only really annoying knight to play against is the Castellan? Just nerf the Castellan, and maybe some Eldar lists to compensate, since without the Castellan list the Eldar are undisputed number 1.
Because while at the moment the Castellan is the obvious example that shows why soup is broken in its current form, if you just nerf the Castellan we'll be dealing with the same problem with different units. There's a fundamental problem with being able to mix different armies to cover each other's weaknesses and gather up loads of CPs for factions balanced around having limited access to such things. The Castellan is the most obvious culprit now but just removing that shifts the problem rather than fixing it.
If they keep up the pattern of nerfing any list that is obviously overpowered (currently Castellan imperial lists, and Eldar soup lists) then eventually we'll have more lists viable. It may shift the meta to something new being viable. If that turns out to dominate all armies, then it gets nerfed as well eventually.
Or, alternatively, just buff all underperforming armies. That'd be fine too.
The only problem the Castellan, and other Knights have really, is that Rotate Ion Shields allows you to get to a 3++ on a 28 wound, T8 model.
Personally, I think the only change Knights need (other than maybe a 25-50 point increase on the Castellan) is preventing Ion Bulwark from going above 4++.
Imperium soup wouldn’t be so much of an issue if it didn’t take your opponent their entire shooting phase (sometimes 2 shooting phases) to kill a single 604 point model, that, even when damaged, can remove a lot of the units that threaten it in one turn, thus, increasing its subsequent survivability later on.
As for Ynnari soup, the only problem here is Doom, imo. As many have suggested, limit it to “Asuryani” models and things begin to re-balance out. (will likely need other changes as well, but, until Doom is changed, you can’t really highlight them all)
Horst wrote: Why do most of you want to nerf allies, when the only really annoying knight to play against is the Castellan? Just nerf the Castellan, and maybe some Eldar lists to compensate, since without the Castellan list the Eldar are undisputed number 1.
Because while at the moment the Castellan is the obvious example that shows why soup is broken in its current form, if you just nerf the Castellan we'll be dealing with the same problem with different units. There's a fundamental problem with being able to mix different armies to cover each other's weaknesses and gather up loads of CPs for factions balanced around having limited access to such things. The Castellan is the most obvious culprit now but just removing that shifts the problem rather than fixing it.
If they keep up the pattern of nerfing any list that is obviously overpowered (currently Castellan imperial lists, and Eldar soup lists) then eventually we'll have more lists viable. It may shift the meta to something new being viable. If that turns out to dominate all armies, then it gets nerfed as well eventually.
Or, alternatively, just buff all underperforming armies. That'd be fine too.
No. The better approach is to try to reduce the effectiveness of soup across the board so it becomes a genuine choice whether to soup or not. I don't think that'll be achieved with points changes. You need fundamental changes to the rules for allies to do it. Once you've achieved that then balancing individual units becomes much more effective because the playing field is more level to start with.
iGuy91 wrote: Crazy idea. Why don't we jack up the points cost of the Castellan by...iunno....100 points to bring it in line with its over-performing status.
Seem fair?
Not, because its not fair, and its not the problem.
And I'm not sure how you misunderstand that point.
You can only use your Warlord's Strats.
You can only single use in a game Strats that are not your warlords strats.
Strats that are not your warlords cost double.
Detachment specific CP.
I don't want soup to die, but watching 15 CP funneled through a 600 point model with effective stratagems is just silly.
You could also have command units generate command points that they use. No sharing.
Could even open the game up to having units generate points for there own little things. A hero unit for IG has a single point each turn to spend on one of three things.
Would probably work for psychic powers as well.
I'm not sure that it falls right, but I think it could work.
Overall, the other than the LOS/Terrain rules, CP and how it works should be rethought for the complete game to move to a better place.
Actually Castellan point increase is quite fair, people bringing almost 80 Castellans in LVO was swap in the face in GW.
3 of the top 4 list had Casstellan in it and other knights list performed quite good. Casstellan on tables really is bad for elite armies.
AM mono list performing amusingly good shows that guard infantry is too good and regardless the AM players whine, they have the tools to build good armies.
Everyone expected knights and guard points increase, but instead they got buffs.
The other fraction that need changes is Ynnari, but they can`t be balanced with point increases. I really hope they plan to release Ynnari codex in the next few mounts, but instead we will get in march assassins.
I'm ok missing out on the niche-interest case of the notoriously secretive Ravenwing bikers apparently riding saddle to saddle with the wild White Scars against literally the same enemy positions, if it means less absurd power combos in matched/competitive play.
It's always easy to make sacrifices when you're not the person affected.
Every edition change, every codex change, every CA update, every FAQ, etc all make changes that mess with some armies and break others and immediately cause other people to go out and rebuild or start entirely new ones, and never moreso than in this edition. How many competitive lists from the start of this edition have survived intact without substantial revision to this point barely a year and a half later? How many lists had to radically change to deal with the Rule of 3, Battle Brothers, Tactical Reserves, etc?
Please do tell how many of these ally lists were broken in 6th and 7th compared to anything else that was winning. I'll wait.
If it helps you compile the data, Blood of Kittens probably still has most of those lists!
They do not appear to, as all the links appear to either be broken or reroute to 8E top lists now, but I didn't think it was quite so easy to forget things like Taudar and Superpals deathstars.
Ultimately, yes individual units need to be addressed in their own right. I'm sure Castellans and Guardsmen will go up in cost in the future for example. However the mix-n-match "take anything with everything" functionality of the current allies system also has inherently has multiple large problems at a fundamental level. Between CP issues, unintended synergies and weakness covering, different access to allies between factions, etc, it's a huge mess.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Percentages as in you'd have one "mono-dex" cost and one "soup" cost printed where the "soup" cost would be x% more expensive than baseline. You'd not have to do any calculation in your head, you'd just take "allied Infantry Squad" rather than "Infantry Squad".
I wouldn't trust GW to add two and two together let alone do multiplication on every single points cost in the game.
What about units where the bulk of the cost is in the weapons and not the body? Do you pay 25% more for their weapons too?
Yes, everything would be X% more expensive. This could then be adjusted on a per-unit or per-wargear basis, just like a unit can be made cheaper or more expensive in the current game. For example, if no one took Chaos Furies (bet y'all had forgotten those existed, eh?) as an ally, they could have their percentage penalty FAQ'd down, or removed entirely. If no one takes Furies anyway (which no one would, come on, they're FURIES) they'd need a general price drop. It'd be clunky as gak, but it'd be a way to keep soup in the game while bypassing the inherent impossibility of having one price be fair for both mono-Codex contexts and soup contexts.
This way a Castellan in a pure Knight list could be priced at 600 points, while one in a soup could be priced at 900 points (purely hypothetical numbers). Hell, you could even make the rule a blanket "if all your detachments don't share a non-Imperium/Chaos/Aeldari/whatever-granularity-we-want, pay X extra points" to avoid people making their most expensive stuff the Warlord to avoid paying extra points.
iGuy91 wrote: Crazy idea. Why don't we jack up the points cost of the Castellan by...iunno....100 points to bring it in line with its over-performing status.
Seem fair?
Not, because its not fair, and its not the problem.
And I'm not sure how you misunderstand that point.
Because Castellans *do* seem to be a problem? What makes you think the Castellan isn't a problem, when really only the Eldar have effective counters for it. Other knights aren't really an issue like this, you can counter melee knights with screening units / good positioning, and the other shooty knights aren't nearly as powerful as the Castellan. It needs some nerfs.
Cause its not. Chaos has access to the exact same model with the same points. Its not tearing up the meta there.
You are conflating CP usage and Stratagems problem with the Castellan being the problem.
Balance is achieved by fixing what is wrong, not shifting a model to unusable because people don't understand the issue.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kdash wrote: The only problem the Castellan, and other Knights have really, is that Rotate Ion Shields allows you to get to a 3++ on a 28 wound, T8 model.
Personally, I think the only change Knights need (other than maybe a 25-50 point increase on the Castellan) is preventing Ion Bulwark from going above 4++.
Imperium soup wouldn’t be so much of an issue if it didn’t take your opponent their entire shooting phase (sometimes 2 shooting phases) to kill a single 604 point model, that, even when damaged, can remove a lot of the units that threaten it in one turn, thus, increasing its subsequent survivability later on.
As for Ynnari soup, the only problem here is Doom, imo. As many have suggested, limit it to “Asuryani” models and things begin to re-balance out. (will likely need other changes as well, but, until Doom is changed, you can’t really highlight them all)
How many games against Mono Knights have you played to sort this change out?
Ginjitzu wrote: I skipped to page 5, so sorry if someones already mentioned it, but in the absence of Games-Workshop addressing the issue, have those tournament organizers done anything to address it themselves?
Tournaments for the most part want to mess with the rules as little as possible, so everyone is on the same page when it comes to how the game will play.
I am amazed at how much does get changed in 40k, and i think it shows how bad the rules are at the moment. When popular rules packs can effect how the game plays as much as they do.
Soup is bad for the game, and should have been done as part of there narrative drive. Balance the base game as best you can, then have additions for the players who want to go a bit wild.
When it comes down to it, most battles would be representing a larger war, and do not need there ally on the battlefield to represent them.
But its also the issue of things like the IK, They should have been fleshed out with auxiliary and support. Rather than the mess they are now. That would have gone a long way to keep the game not going towards stupid levels of bad balance.
Things like assassins and inquisitors could be a special case, and very interesting if done well. Would be cool to see an Inquisitor join a Eldar force, to show that the Imperium and Eldar can work together and do on such occasions.
But this only matters if players stop paying money in huge amounts. If it brings in money, then GW can only think they are doing the right thing.
ONCE AGAIN
Allies have been a thing in every edition outside 5th. Quit saying it's "bad for the game" or that people are making armies wrong when they include allies. Just get off your high horse and accept problem units are to blame.
Yes, they have play a part. But not really this much a part. And it is bad for the game, GW is barley capable of managing it when its low and rarely used.
I also said, that it can be a part if done well. And with here push for Narrative as a big part, That is the perfect place for it.
Problem units, How do you balance a unit for one Codex that gives buffs to that codex and a codex that has no access to those buffs? Should GW Release Codex and army books that dont function without another. Is it worth the loss of design space for that.
What about debuffs to enemy units, If taken to account for codex's with no access to such.
Nobody is giving buffs to anyone outside specific instances (Custodes banner, Knight Aegis Strat). If you noticed, the worst that allies could pull off was in 6th/7th, yet it was a lot of pure lists winning overall.
The crux is the terrible internal and external writing all at once. We might have more middle-of-the-road stuff right now, but for this edition, anything that's OP is ridiculously so.
The very fact you can get Command points is a example of that. As well as units designed within a space where they are a option. It also completely ignores faction balance. Which any good tabletop game will have variance. One unit can be great within its intended design, Both balanced and functinal within the faction as a whole. But broken when taken in small specialized roles to support another force.
Again, GW is pushing Narritive play. If they where any good at it. These issues could be much easier to manage.
You mean those Command Points being used on Strategems to give out rules that units probably already had anyway until 8th edition?
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
Remember when Shadowswords were all the rage? Those required no soup. They got replaced by a more reliable analogue.
Shadowswords were basically Castellans before Castellans existed. Bubble wrap and all. 200 IG don't get used, because it's unwieldy. Custodes Jetbikes spam was quite popular for quite some time.
CP is the enabler. Not the root cause. Soup is an incredibly broad thing to near when a very narrow set of units poses the problem.
And do you remember why "Shadowswords were all the rage"?
Supreme Command Detachments allowing for you to bring Primaris Psykers and a Shadowsword. The +1 to Hit from Shadowsword Targeters when targeting a Titanic keyworded model...gee, I wonder who was commonly showing up in Chaos lists at the time? Couldn't have been two characters with Titanic!
Daedalus81 wrote: If Soup were actually the problem then you'd see things other than Castellans or Ynnari.
Would you really though?
The issue stemming from soup is the "pick and choose" methodology of covering the weaknesses in your list. Seeing those specific items repeated ad infinitum suggests that yes, the issue is soup and these specific items are a problem as part of it.
...because the Castellan with Cawls Wrath and the fixings still wouldn't be problematic.
Pointed appropriately and not getting CPs that you wouldn't see normally? It might still be a problem--but then we'd know that it was, even in 'ideal' circumstances.
Get real. The issue isn't picking and choosing "to cover weaknesses". The issue is picking and choosing the broken units that don't actually have weaknesses, like those Castellans and Infantry (in before you chime in that 10 man squads is a weakness. LOL)
Again:
Without the CPs from soup and pointed appropriately, the Castellan with Cawl's Wrath(a relic--which is a whole other kettle of fish that needs to be addressed) could be made into a more reasonable item.
And I like that however long into this crazy "infantry squads are the apocalypse" thing we are you're still misrepresenting the argument with regards to Infantry Squads. "10 man squads" is a weakness when one looks at the static point costs and the inflexible nature of the composition of an Infantry Squad(10 models strong no +/-. Composed of 1 Sergeant with a specific weapon loadout, up to 1 model with vox, another with a special, two as a weapons team and the rest are just straight lasguns) compared to other choices which get a sort of 'sliding scale' whether it be more models with a tie-in to more special/heavy options or the ability to start off at a lower model count for a cheaper squad points cost.
Except banning allies doesn't fix the external problem of the Castellan. So by that, you admit the actual issue is points. When units are costed appropriately, nobody seems to care when they are allied in, as you aren't getting anymore of an advantage than usual.
Ally in only certain units that are broken and we get complaints about the whole system. It's like saying 6th edition Tyranids were broken because they had Flyrants.
At this point, we're not "banning allies". I'm not suggesting that and haven't really been suggesting it. What I have been suggesting is banning the mechanisms that are used for abuse--Company Commander Recycler most notably--in a soup list. GSC have, as I mentioned,
Also I knew you would bring up those "static" costs for a unit that has a minimum cost closer to the minimum of most units that have 6-8 point models. Don't make me laugh about your "forced 10 man groups". It's honestly stupid.
Yes, I brought it up...in reply to you commenting on it.
It's fine that you might not think it is an issue but IMO it is something that has to be factored in but people like you continually focus on the "Well they're still cheap!" bit.
The Commander recycling was already fixed though via 1CP regenerated per turn. So I don't know what you mean.
iGuy91 wrote: Crazy idea. Why don't we jack up the points cost of the Castellan by...iunno....100 points to bring it in line with its over-performing status.
Seem fair?
Not, because its not fair, and its not the problem.
And I'm not sure how you misunderstand that point.
Because Castellans *do* seem to be a problem? What makes you think the Castellan isn't a problem, when really only the Eldar have effective counters for it. Other knights aren't really an issue like this, you can counter melee knights with screening units / good positioning, and the other shooty knights aren't nearly as powerful as the Castellan. It needs some nerfs.
Cause its not. Chaos has access to the exact same model with the same points. Its not tearing up the meta there.
Chaos Knights don't get Households, nowhere near the same level of Stratagems, or any of the (good) Relics or (good) Warlord traits.
I mean it should be jacked up in points but a big issue is still that there are no drawbacks wahtsoever to souping. There are no tactical compromises being made and that's just poor design.
I disagree with this sentiment. There should be no advantages to souping, but neither should there be disadvantages. I'd rather have it in the middle so people can bring interesting armies to the field without shoehorning people into boxes. I want games to be interesting and dynamic, not squares fighting other squares.
To be honest I agree that Soup is a problem. But I wouldn't like to lose the hability to field my Adeptus Custodes, Tempestus Scions+Bullgryns, and Sisters of Silence army.
AoS does the ally system better. If you do a Grand Alliance (In this case something like Imperium, Chaos or Aeldari) mixed army you should lose all of your faction specific bonuses, be it stratagems, warlord traits and "chapter tactics".
They can add a couple of weaker generic warlord traits, relics or stratagems for IMPERIUM, CHAOS and AELDARI, that those armies can use. Those combined with the generic rulebook ones should be enough.
Then they can ad allies like AoS where you have a list of possible allies that don't make you lose your bonuses, they can't be more than 20% of your army points, and the ratio of units needs to be 3:1 (So for example if you have 3 Imperial Knights you could have max 1 Imperial Guard unit)
Of course this is based in the more flexible List Building style of AoS, it wouldn't work translated literally with 40k detachment system. But I think the idea is there.
And then once all of those unintended soup interactions are fixed, you can start fixing the problematic units by themselves because a Castellan is a problem even with 0 relics and warlord traits and Noble House customs. Just compare it with literally all other superheavies of the game. He is just so much better. The fact that people is saying that a vanilla Castellan is just "OK" is a proof of how skewed the perception of power is for the top5 lists of the moment. A vanilla castellan is still the best superheavy of the game by a GOOD margin.
iGuy91 wrote: Crazy idea. Why don't we jack up the points cost of the Castellan by...iunno....100 points to bring it in line with its over-performing status.
Seem fair?
Not, because its not fair, and its not the problem.
And I'm not sure how you misunderstand that point.
Because Castellans *do* seem to be a problem? What makes you think the Castellan isn't a problem, when really only the Eldar have effective counters for it. Other knights aren't really an issue like this, you can counter melee knights with screening units / good positioning, and the other shooty knights aren't nearly as powerful as the Castellan. It needs some nerfs.
Cause its not. Chaos has access to the exact same model with the same points. Its not tearing up the meta there.
Chaos Knights don't get Households, nowhere near the same level of Stratagems, or any of the (good) Relics or (good) Warlord traits.
Specifically, Cawl's Wrath and Ion Bulwark. Those are the big problems. A Castellan is actually just "O.K." without them but they're so good you just about never see one without them.
Kdash wrote: The only problem the Castellan, and other Knights have really, is that Rotate Ion Shields allows you to get to a 3++ on a 28 wound, T8 model.
Personally, I think the only change Knights need (other than maybe a 25-50 point increase on the Castellan) is preventing Ion Bulwark from going above 4++.
Imperium soup wouldn’t be so much of an issue if it didn’t take your opponent their entire shooting phase (sometimes 2 shooting phases) to kill a single 604 point model, that, even when damaged, can remove a lot of the units that threaten it in one turn, thus, increasing its subsequent survivability later on.
As for Ynnari soup, the only problem here is Doom, imo. As many have suggested, limit it to “Asuryani” models and things begin to re-balance out. (will likely need other changes as well, but, until Doom is changed, you can’t really highlight them all)
How many games against Mono Knights have you played to sort this change out?
I’ve played vs, and as, mono-Knights a fair few times. But, unfortunately, you can’t use the argument of a pure Knight list with a Castellan doing badly, as an indicator that the Castellan is “fine”. Even in pure Knight lists, the Castellan is usually the one that does a lot of the heavy lifting, maybe alongside the Gallant if it makes it into combat. Pure Knights has a fair amount of counters, but, one of them is simply that at least 1 model will only have a 5++.
The issue is when we look at a Knight in isolation that can be fed CP. My suggestion with the invlun being capped at a 4++ is pretty reasonable – and, if I’m honest I’d also go as far as arguing that the CP cost could then be reduced to 2 for Dominus, rather than the current 3. The biggest frustration of playing vs Knights is that you can either kill a 3++ Castellan in 1 turn, or, you play for the mission and hope you can outscore the Knights before you get blown apart, piece by piece. This is true, even in pure Knight lists. If you don’t target the Castellan, it does serious damage to you in return. If you focus the Castellan, you have to know you’re going to kill it.
Castellans win games. Pure Knight, or souped in. It really is just as simple as that at times. Unless you have an army setup to take them on (which is getting more prevalent with the horde setups), then you’re going to struggle.
It is not a coincidence that most competitive lists (top end or mid table) are built with the requirement of killing a 3++ Castellan.
I mostly like BCB's solution. I would add the caveat that you can only take relics from your warlord's codex. In fact, it should just be that you can only take options (other than psyker and built in weapon choices) from your warlord's codex. Also only those formations that come from your warlord's codex can generate or spend CPs. Although I would allow usage of the universal strats since they are universal.
So if you want to use IG and a Castellan then that's fine. However the Castellan can only choose weapon options that are on its data sheet and you can't use any IK strats to help it along. Unless the Castellan is your warlord and then the IG don't generate CPs and you can't use their strats or relics.
I mean it should be jacked up in points but a big issue is still that there are no drawbacks wahtsoever to souping. There are no tactical compromises being made and that's just poor design.
I disagree with this sentiment. There should be no advantages to souping, but neither should there be disadvantages. I'd rather have it in the middle so people can bring interesting armies to the field without shoehorning people into boxes. I want games to be interesting and dynamic, not squares fighting other squares.
I don't thnik you disagree with me TBH. The first part of the sentence has nothing to do with souping, it's just a statement that I think the Castellan is too cheap.
The advantage of souping right now is flexibilty, being able to spend CP where they weren't ment to be used and choosing the absolute best units out of a huge catalogue. The disadvantages are none. My solution was to remove the battleforged CP if you soup, meaning you keep all of the aforementioned advantages but that becomes your sole disadvantage. Bringing the game something resembling balance when it comes to soup/mono-faction rosters IMO.
glados wrote: Let’s get to the heart of the real issue. It’s not soup, it’s the inclusion of Titanic vehicles to the game.
If a Land Raider was the biggest armoured vehicle in the game this thread wouldn’t be happening,
Phase out super heavies to only being permitted in a special rules Apocalypse style game and the problem is completely solved
Nah, the vast majority of “Titanic” units are perfectly fine, if not underpowered compared to what you can get for the points elsewhere.
The only units you tend to see how are Knights, the odd Shadowsword and maybe a Stormsurge here or there. The rest are practically never seen.
glados wrote: Let’s get to the heart of the real issue. It’s not soup, it’s the inclusion of Titanic vehicles to the game.
If a Land Raider was the biggest armoured vehicle in the game this thread wouldn’t be happening,
Phase out super heavies to only being permitted in a special rules Apocalypse style game and the problem is completely solved
Then we could just go back to the good old days when threads were about how the problem was the Eldar Flying Circus, or Rhino Rush, or untargetable Daemon Princes. Much better.
The fact is there are lots of problems - and GW doesn't really care about fixing game balance.
After all, if the game is balanced, how will they sell errata every year..?
Specifically, Cawl's Wrath and Ion Bulwark. Those are the big problems. A Castellan is actually just "O.K." without them but they're so good you just about never see one without them.
I disagree. It's about unit miscosting. Nothing else. Castellan. Miscosted. Guardsmen. Miscosted. Ynarri units. Miscosted. Cost units correctly, soup doesn't matter.
This guy doesn't get it.
Castellans are only good when you can filter 15CP through them in a game. If you raise the cost, it won't change. If you then nerf them, the same will happen, just with a Porphy or Crusader.
If you want to fix the issue, fix CP. Castellans were balanced to have 10 or sp CP to use in a game, along with other stuff. Get them to that point again and they are fine, as you see with the Castellans that Chaos use.
glados wrote: Let’s get to the heart of the real issue. It’s not soup, it’s the inclusion of Titanic vehicles to the game.
If a Land Raider was the biggest armoured vehicle in the game this thread wouldn’t be happening,
Phase out super heavies to only being permitted in a special rules Apocalypse style game and the problem is completely solved
This is the best solution but also impossible at this point in time. Flyers and Superheavies don't belong in 40k proper, but they've been included too long to phase them out.
The biggest mistake of all was rolling Apoc into the base game instead of keeping it separate and distinct.
I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long? This game has always had soup in it and removing it doesn't fix anything. GW isn't just going to squat all those Ynari players and Knight House infantry lists to not actually address the problem.
This is a knee-jerk 5-minute solution that smacks of populist thinking as opposed to actual critical thinking
No. As has been pointed out repeatedly in this very thread it's because 8th edition changed the very nature of how armies and allies work. We now have stratagems and CPs and faction bonuses and different detachment types to consider. That makes taking allies a fundamentally different proposition in 8th than in previous games when the only benefit was expanding the total number of unit choices an army could pick from. Costing units properly doesn't help as a solution because it's almost impossible to properly cost a unit when it can be available to a mono-Codex army with all the restrictions that entails or a soup army with essentially no restrictions at all.
ChargerIIC wrote: I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long? This game has always had soup in it and removing it doesn't fix anything. GW isn't just going to squat all those Ynari players and Knight House infantry lists to not actually address the problem.
This is a knee-jerk 5-minute solution that smacks of populist thinking as opposed to actual critical thinking
The problem is that there are a lot of problems. And GW happy enough to make the game for some players, but leave others behind.
It’s very likely that people are fine with ally’s when they are not the only way for some factions to even participate. I would also say that ally’s have not been a core part of the game. But a complimentary part until recently.
ChargerIIC wrote: I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long? This game has always had soup in it and removing it doesn't fix anything. GW isn't just going to squat all those Ynari players and Knight House infantry lists to not actually address the problem.
This is a knee-jerk 5-minute solution that smacks of populist thinking as opposed to actual critical thinking
'Soup' in older editions required meeting FOC requirements for each detachment, and provided no inter-faction synergy through abilities. Obviously CP didn't exist either.
You could take allies, but each faction had to be a substantial chunk of your army, each had minimum FOC requirements that represented a significant tax, and they provided no benefits to one another apart from simply being able to mix units from different armies.
In other words, it was completely different from the present situation, in which you can simply bolt a Castellan on to any Imperial list and supercharge it with CP. I see a lot fewer people advocating for the end of mixed-faction armies entirely than advocating for a revision to the soup mechanics to be more like it used to be.
But how many people are actually advocating for the removal of soup? If there were drawbacks introduced to the mechanic then it's fine. Many soup lists are fluffy and fun, but a system where you can draw from 500 datasheets instead of 30 with no drawbacks at all is just really tough to balance.
A lot of people quickly shoot down any proposed fixes because there might be some unintended consequences/ doesn't go far enough, but the only solution in my mind is incremental changes. That's what we should hope for, not some over-arching ban on soup or no changes at all
iGuy91 wrote: Crazy idea. Why don't we jack up the points cost of the Castellan by...iunno....100 points to bring it in line with its over-performing status.
Seem fair?
Not, because its not fair, and its not the problem.
And I'm not sure how you misunderstand that point.
Because Castellans *do* seem to be a problem? What makes you think the Castellan isn't a problem, when really only the Eldar have effective counters for it. Other knights aren't really an issue like this, you can counter melee knights with screening units / good positioning, and the other shooty knights aren't nearly as powerful as the Castellan. It needs some nerfs.
Ok, but if we nerf knights, then all there is going to be left is eldar armies. Right now as bad as it maybe, there are two more or less equal armies. Eldar soups, of which there are a few versions and IG+castellan soups, which again have some variation. If IG or the knights get nerfed then all we are going to get is eldar players steam rolling everyone. That would be even less balance then we have now. Instead of talking of how to kill armies which clearly work, how about GW goes on and starts fixing armies that do not work. Maybe orcs need some valid anti tank, no idea what tau or necrons need to be on pair with the best. Fixing the meta by just making it an eldar heaven is like turning back the clock to 2017.
ChargerIIC wrote: I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long? This game has always had soup in it and removing it doesn't fix anything. GW isn't just going to squat all those Ynari players and Knight House infantry lists to not actually address the problem.
This is a knee-jerk 5-minute solution that smacks of populist thinking as opposed to actual critical thinking
So it is not ok for eldar or IK players to have more equal opponents, but other factions can stay squalched for years? How does mono BA or GK do in tournaments or casual games? Those factions are non existant.
The partial or ful removal of soup would mean one thing. GW, if they were to stay true to what they say about the quality of their products, would have to make each new codex have a valid army to play with. They wouldn't be able to make books which are "ok" to play as long as you take a castellan and a IG detachment alongside of it.
No. The better approach is to try to reduce the effectiveness of soup across the board so it becomes a genuine choice whether to soup or not. I don't think that'll be achieved with points changes. You need fundamental changes to the rules for allies to do it. Once you've achieved that then balancing individual units becomes much more effective because the playing field is more level to start with.
No, because vast majority of the soup lists are not a problem at all. Why does an AdMech + Iron Hands list need to be nerfed while it is already much weaker than many of the mono armies available?
glados wrote: Let’s get to the heart of the real issue. It’s not soup, it’s the inclusion of Titanic vehicles to the game.
If a Land Raider was the biggest armoured vehicle in the game this thread wouldn’t be happening,
Phase out super heavies to only being permitted in a special rules Apocalypse style game and the problem is completely solved
This is the best solution but also impossible at this point in time. Flyers and Superheavies don't belong in 40k proper, but they've been included too long to phase them out.
The biggest mistake of all was rolling Apoc into the base game instead of keeping it separate and distinct.
Yup, the proverbial Rubicon has firmly been crossed here.
No. The better approach is to try to reduce the effectiveness of soup across the board so it becomes a genuine choice whether to soup or not. I don't think that'll be achieved with points changes. You need fundamental changes to the rules for allies to do it. Once you've achieved that then balancing individual units becomes much more effective because the playing field is more level to start with.
No, because vast majority of the soup lists are not a problem at all. Why does an AdMech + Iron Hands list need to be nerfed while it is already much weaker than many of the mono armies available?
Because if we build a wall around each army than that army will get a chance to shine! None of this point balance nonsense that threatens my mono-build. What we need are quick, instinctive leadership decisions that don't affect us and lower the playability of others!
If you think Allies are a bad thing and should go, while I disagree, I think there are viable arguments both for and against and I respect your opinion. However, reading so-called "nerfs" to Allies that functionally deletes them from the game (Silo-ing off CP, restricting anything useful being generated by non-Warlord detachments, etc etc) makes me want to headbutt my desk. If you want Allies removed, then say it. 40K has enough trap options as-is without you wanting to add more!
If I were to make any suggestions, it would firstly be to make "Troop Detachments" (Battalions & Brigades) a 1-per-army detachment. The issue isn't multiple Battalions per se, but rather that some armies (Read: IG) can cheaply "upgrade" a Spearhead into a Battalion by taking about 200pts of perfectly good screening/ob.sec. while other armies get left to hang. Sidenote: Non-Troop Detachments (Spearheads, Outriders, Vanguards etc) have three troop slots each. Forcing Troop-spam to mix up their lists a bit won't kill them.
Also, why do LoW get a better Auxiliary detachment? Delete it and put a LoW option in the Auxiliary Detachment. Likewise, Supreme Command Detachments have never provided anything good enough to outweigh their detriment to the game. Delete 'em.
Having extra rules for free if your army is mono. Want a melee army with catachans, smash hammers and some knights running around. Here you go, you can even cross use the CP etc. But if someone takes a pure IK,Catachan, or BA army there should be army buffs and unit buffs.
If this can't be done on a unit per unit basis, then specilised detachments that require so many units you end up with something like 1800pts of stuff, so the possibility of someone taking a knight and IG with such a list is zero. Unless someone plays those crazy 2000pts+ games.
Forcing Troop-spam to mix up their lists a bit won't kill them.
LoL so GK players to avoid the horrible termintors and bad strikes, turn to interceptors and now to run them they need 3 units of the stuff they wanted to avoid taking. Nice.
How about just make every detachment take 5 troops, then playing GK will have no sense at all, because it won't be possible fit GK in to a 2000pts army.
Trollbert wrote: ...... If you're honest, nothing substantially changed from mid 7th (when I quit) to now, were are basically at the same point again.
Besides literally everything about the game changing you mean?
If you quit mid 7th, then you have no clue how 8th plays at all and how drastically different it is then 7th towards the end.
As for the topic, not sharing CP is the fast way to fix this, and I'm kind of wondering why people and tournaments are not doing this on their own to drive the point home. But I'm not ignorant, I know why, because if that happened it would take a concerted effort by the community to drive the point home to all players that we need balance. That didn't happen at the end of 5th/6th7th, it's not going to start happening now, so GW needs to do something about it.
The ITC missions are hot garbage at the moment, the champions packet rewards leafblowers and it's not even close, 8 of the 11 secondary objectives are "kill" related, and you can earn 12 points a mission just with those alone. The bonus points are nearly impossible, and are all objectives related. The primary mission is heavily dependent on the number of objectives laid down in deployment, and rewards nothing. If you can sit on half the objectives and out shoot someone you win.
ChargerIIC wrote: I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long?
Because they havent really. 2E was a very different game with a different scale and different mechanics and interactions, far fewer units and armies, and had hard limits on allies usage and none of the back end army building stuff like detachments/CPs/etc. Allies were nonexistent for three editions outside of the WH/DH books (which had severe restrictions and limitations). Allies, in the current incarnation, are a relatively recent development of the last couple editions.
Pancakey wrote: All I see is nerf nerf nerf! Why not incentivize mono builds by buffing mono armies?
That could work aswell. The real question is, what buff would make people play mono armies?
The quickest and most bolt on solution for 8th right now is to just rework battle forged CP and the CP for detachments, reduce battalions and brigades up the battle forged CP and you loose CP if your army is joined by the "super faction keywords, ie Aledari, choas, imperium, basically copy the battle brother's detachment wording across.
LoL so GK players to avoid the horrible termintors and bad strikes, turn to interceptors and now to run them they need 3 units of the stuff they wanted to avoid taking. Nice.
How about just make every detachment take 5 troops, then playing GK will have no sense at all, because it won't be possible fit GK in to a 2000pts army.
If your only objection is that mono-GK armies wouldn't work under my system, then I think I'm doing fine! /s
Seriously though, the ability to effectively purchase 4CP for approx. 200pts of good models you wanted anyway is a massive part of why some armies are better than others. Additionally, it would force problematic lists like Boyz spam (which I still see at tables R.I.P) into putting points into other stuff. The other option is to nerf Battalion and Brigade CP back to old levels, but that still doesn't solve the issue of cheaply buying CP with models you were already taking.
No. The better approach is to try to reduce the effectiveness of soup across the board so it becomes a genuine choice whether to soup or not. I don't think that'll be achieved with points changes. You need fundamental changes to the rules for allies to do it. Once you've achieved that then balancing individual units becomes much more effective because the playing field is more level to start with.
No, because vast majority of the soup lists are not a problem at all. Why does an AdMech + Iron Hands list need to be nerfed while it is already much weaker than many of the mono armies available?
Because if you ever want your fluffy IH/AdMech list to be even slightly competitive the game needs to be readjusted so that the most extreme abuse isn't as good. At the moment that extreme abuse is doe via soup. Once you've reined in the most abusive parts of soup the ideal scenario would be that soup is still viable, but not the default always-best option.
Just wanted to say that I TO'd my first tournament this weekend. 44 players over 2 days.
I put in significant restrictions to army comp to push people away from soup. And by soup I don't just mean knights with guard. I mean Hive Fleet Leviathan fighting next to Hive Fleet Kraken.
Or Blood Angels and Dark Angels fighting side by side. Min-max nonsense to get the right bonuses on the right models with little downside.
Lists are publically viewable...
Here are the winners ordered by "Best Overall" (combined best general, best painting and best sports)
Top 5 are:
1. pure Bad Moons Orks
2. pure Sisters of Battle
3. pure House Krast Knights
4. pure Blood Angels
5. pure Deathskulls Orks
Here are the winners ordered by "Best General" - only their tournament points
Top 5:
1. IMPERIAL SOUP!!! A brigade of Cadians plus 2 helverins and a Castellan. Beat the Sisters on strength of schedule after a close final game.
2. Sisters
3. Bad Moons
4. Krast Knights
5. Blood Angels
Doesn't show you that a pure Bad Moons list would win the LVO.
Does show you that if you take a bit of time to think of some army comp rules and reward things other than just the Best General, you will get a very diverse list of winning armies.
Soup still won the game, but only by narrowly beating a mono-faction army.
My players are still doing the post-tournament survey but the feedback was mostly "Next year just go mono codex!"
I'm not sure I agree but there is definitely an appetite for this sort of event.
kingheff wrote: I've posted a rough draft of a change to how allies work in the proposed rules section, if anyone wants to provide feedback.
With respect, we all have. I spent ages writing mine and you haven't read them. You spent ages writing yours and I won't read them. Neither you nor I are going to affect the rules in any way, unless you choose to run your own tournament or gaming group and apply your rules.
#trufax
Edit: I did read them Not terrible and not miles from mine. Don't like the +1 cp for stratagems not from main detachment part. Extra bookkeeping and tough to remember/easy to either deliberately forget or accidentally forget.
LoL so GK players to avoid the horrible termintors and bad strikes, turn to interceptors and now to run them they need 3 units of the stuff they wanted to avoid taking. Nice.
How about just make every detachment take 5 troops, then playing GK will have no sense at all, because it won't be possible fit GK in to a 2000pts army.
If your only objection is that mono-GK armies wouldn't work under my system, then I think I'm doing fine! /s
Seriously though, the ability to effectively purchase 4CP for approx. 200pts of good models you wanted anyway is a massive part of why some armies are better than others. Additionally, it would force problematic lists like Boyz spam (which I still see at tables R.I.P) into putting points into other stuff. The other option is to nerf Battalion and Brigade CP back to old levels, but that still doesn't solve the issue of cheaply buying CP with models you were already taking.
Everyone is ok with an army they don't play getting nerfed. GK don't work as mono, and souping up doesn't help them, because there are better armies to soup instead of them.
LoL so GK players to avoid the horrible termintors and bad strikes, turn to interceptors and now to run them they need 3 units of the stuff they wanted to avoid taking. Nice.
How about just make every detachment take 5 troops, then playing GK will have no sense at all, because it won't be possible fit GK in to a 2000pts army.
If your only objection is that mono-GK armies wouldn't work under my system, then I think I'm doing fine! /s
Seriously though, the ability to effectively purchase 4CP for approx. 200pts of good models you wanted anyway is a massive part of why some armies are better than others. Additionally, it would force problematic lists like Boyz spam (which I still see at tables R.I.P) into putting points into other stuff. The other option is to nerf Battalion and Brigade CP back to old levels, but that still doesn't solve the issue of cheaply buying CP with models you were already taking.
Everyone is ok with an army they don't play getting nerfed. GK don't work as mono, and souping up doesn't help them, because there are better armies to soup instead of them.
That highlights one of the other problems with soup. Paradoxically it tends to reduce options because once you've decided to soup in order to be as competitive as possible you're restricting yourself to only the best units available. You know longer have to think about how to deal with your weaknesses as an army because you just take the best units from multiple factions to cover those weaknesses. You can easily substitute Imperial Fists for Grey Knights in your comment above. Once you decide to try to be as competitive as possible you'd discard the IF in favour of IG for CPs or Custodes or Smash Captains for close combat punch.
If you paid for taking detachments instead of getting paid to take detachments (Patrol, Batt, Brigg included, all 3 at the same CP cost), then you have a CP incentive to take fewer allies - filling out or upsizing your core detachment gives more CP than adding a detachment from another book.
Trollbert wrote: ...... If you're honest, nothing substantially changed from mid 7th (when I quit) to now, were are basically at the same point again.
Besides literally everything about the game changing you mean?
If you quit mid 7th, then you have no clue how 8th plays at all and how drastically different it is then 7th towards the end.
As for the topic, not sharing CP is the fast way to fix this, and I'm kind of wondering why people and tournaments are not doing this on their own to drive the point home. But I'm not ignorant, I know why, because if that happened it would take a concerted effort by the community to drive the point home to all players that we need balance. That didn't happen at the end of 8th, it's not going to start happening now, so GW needs to do something about it.
The ITC missions are hot garbage at the moment, the champions packet rewards leafblowers and it's not even close, 8 of the 11 secondary objectives are "kill" related, and you can earn 12 points a mission just with those alone. The bonus points are nearly impossible, and area all objective related. The primary mission is heavily dependent on the number of objectives laid down in deployment, and rewards nothing. If you can sit on half the objectives and out shoot someone you win.
I quit mid 7th and came back for 8th (and I am about to quit again).
The game changed drastically, but I was not saying that the game didn't evolve. I am in fact saying that the game sidestepped.
In 7th I could only have fair games against certain players with certain armies. That is still true.
In 7th I could only use a small range of my models against slightly stronger opponents. That is still true.
In 7th, games against the opponents with armies that I could fairly fight got boring really quickly because the games turned out to play in the same way each time we played. That is still true.
That highlights one of the other problems with soup. Paradoxically it tends to reduce options because once you've decided to soup in order to be as competitive as possible you're restricting yourself to only the best units available. You know longer have to think about how to deal with your weaknesses as an army because you just take the best units from multiple factions to cover those weaknesses. You can easily substitute Imperial Fists for Grey Knights in your comment above. Once you decide to try to be as competitive as possible you'd discard the IF in favour of IG for CPs or Custodes or Smash Captains for close combat punch
Not saying no, but in GK case this a strickt there are identical better units type of problem. DW are no where near eldar or IG/castellan lists, but they cost is identical to GK cost. The units do the same stuff, only DW get free ammo and Storm Shields. I understand that tournaments will always focus the meta and counter to meta. But there just isn't any mechanical incite to run a GK strike over a DW vet or even primaris.
kingheff wrote: I've posted a rough draft of a change to how allies work in the proposed rules section, if anyone wants to provide feedback.
With respect, we all have. I spent ages writing mine and you haven't read them. You spent ages writing yours and I won't read them. Neither you nor I are going to affect the rules in any way, unless you choose to run your own tournament or gaming group and apply your rules.
#trufax
Edit: I did read them Not terrible and not miles from mine. Don't like the +1 cp for stratagems not from main detachment part. Extra bookkeeping and tough to remember/easy to either deliberately forget or accidentally forget.
Fair point, I'm a fairly infrequent user of dakka so I don't read everything.
To be fair I took approximately five minutes to write mine! Hence why I was looking for feedback. That and the fact that I don't claim to be an expert on the game and there's bound to be lots that I don't know.
In regards to the CP adjustment I figured it might help with people bringing three drukhari fliers just to get the vect strategy, for example.
Personally - soup is much less an issue than over overpowered units. I didn't do great at LVO but my Castellan killed over it's points in every game and no one every even shot at it except in 1 of 6 games. Keep in mind that the only reason it didn't kill 2x it's points every game was the fact that there were turns it didn't even get to fire (this is an ITC exclusive problem with LOS blocking being all over the place) More of less this kind of mitigates how OP the unit is. On a table with wide open shooting lanes NOTHING beats a Castellan over the long haul.
Also - stratagems are quite clearly the biggest issue in the game right now. They are basically free actions just like Ynnari is free actions. ALL FREE ACTIONS NEED TO BE REMOVED FROM THIS GAME.
No. As has been pointed out repeatedly in this very thread it's because 8th edition changed the very nature of how armies and allies work. We now have stratagems and CPs and faction bonuses and different detachment types to consider. That makes taking allies a fundamentally different proposition in 8th than in previous games when the only benefit was expanding the total number of unit choices an army could pick from. Costing units properly doesn't help as a solution because it's almost impossible to properly cost a unit when it can be available to a mono-Codex army with all the restrictions that entails or a soup army with essentially no restrictions at all.
I will reiterate again that these bonuses you talk about were already available in the form of formations (most of which not problematic) and allies could do far worse things. Remember people complaining about Azrael making several hundreds of points of Infantry Fearless and granting them a 4++ too?
Me neither.
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Xenomancers wrote: Personally - soup is much less an issue than over overpowered units. I didn't do great at LVO but my Castellan killed over it's points in every game and no one every even shot at it except in 1 of 6 games. Keep in mind that the only reason it didn't kill 2x it's points every game was the fact that there were turns it didn't even get to fire (this is an ITC exclusive problem with LOS blocking being all over the place) More of less this kind of mitigates how OP the unit is. On a table with wide open shooting lanes NOTHING beats a Castellan over the long haul.
Also - stratagems are quite clearly the biggest issue in the game right now. They are basically free actions just like Ynnari is free actions. ALL FREE ACTIONS NEED TO BE REMOVED FROM THIS GAME.
Trollbert wrote: ...... If you're honest, nothing substantially changed from mid 7th (when I quit) to now, were are basically at the same point again.
Besides literally everything about the game changing you mean?
Yeah, everyone complains about Allies and Alpha Strike, people are still not able to finish games on time, rules are distributed thru several books/documents
terrain rules are still an issue as are some armies are clearly stronger than others
8th was meant to solve a lot of problems of 7th, and it worked as long as there were just the index books and got worse over time and now we are back at the same mess that was supposed to be fixed
if you really need to bring up the details that changed instead of something from the overall gameplay that should have gotten better, than nothing really changed
Hmm, the units/strats/powers/relics/traits people been crying about for pretty much the whole edition dominated LVO and GW had no idea?
The game really breaks down when people are applying strats/buffs/whatever to over sized and resilient units. Being able to buff a huge unit of shining spears which can zoom in and out of combat/los, the shooting of your entire army (doom), a knight worth 600 points with a 3++, a 24 man strong loota unit that has endless grot bodies, or that tau crap that gives them re-roll all for a turn or two while surrounded by drones. It comes down to the powers/strats/relics/traits have uses that GW just didn't figure out. Those synergies aren't baked into the costs of the units nor are they reflected in the costs of the buffs because GW doesn't take the time/$ to properly play test their game.
You can try to fix this by limiting the amount of CP they can use (nerf soup but it's way harder than just that). Handicapping those units that abuse these synergies (points nerfs which piss customers off). Stealth nerfs (reducing max unit sizes, upping strat cp costs, changing rule wording) which I would prefer but would be very hard to pull off (and most likely would only be noticed by the most competitive gamers).
People calling for nerfs to soup are trying to solve this problem with a sledge hammer. I don't think those who just want more points for knights are seeing the forest for the trees and I don't think GW has the desire to understand the game well enough to make the stealth nerfs work (given how bad they missed in CA 2017, 2018, the FAQs).
My guess is GW kneejerks and raises the cost of knights and reduces RIS to a 4++ max. Gives yanarri some different rules in the next FAQ which end up more broken (but for different units for that sweet churn $$$). Meta gets shaken up for a couple months,competitive players drop that sweet loot on gsc/nid/ig soup. Eldar, orks and tau figure it out in time for CA 2019 which shakes things up again until 9th edition is dropped 2021.
No. As has been pointed out repeatedly in this very thread it's because 8th edition changed the very nature of how armies and allies work. We now have stratagems and CPs and faction bonuses and different detachment types to consider. That makes taking allies a fundamentally different proposition in 8th than in previous games when the only benefit was expanding the total number of unit choices an army could pick from. Costing units properly doesn't help as a solution because it's almost impossible to properly cost a unit when it can be available to a mono-Codex army with all the restrictions that entails or a soup army with essentially no restrictions at all.
I will reiterate again that these bonuses you talk about were already available in the form of formations (most of which not problematic) and allies could do far worse things. Remember people complaining about Azrael making several hundreds of points of Infantry Fearless and granting them a 4++ too?
Me neither.
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Xenomancers wrote: Personally - soup is much less an issue than over overpowered units. I didn't do great at LVO but my Castellan killed over it's points in every game and no one every even shot at it except in 1 of 6 games. Keep in mind that the only reason it didn't kill 2x it's points every game was the fact that there were turns it didn't even get to fire (this is an ITC exclusive problem with LOS blocking being all over the place) More of less this kind of mitigates how OP the unit is. On a table with wide open shooting lanes NOTHING beats a Castellan over the long haul.
Also - stratagems are quite clearly the biggest issue in the game right now. They are basically free actions just like Ynnari is free actions. ALL FREE ACTIONS NEED TO BE REMOVED FROM THIS GAME.
You were at LVO? No way! What did you bring?
IG cadians with a Castellan. Not experienced in ITC formats and only managed a 2-3-1. I went last in every game though which played a pretty big factor. I faced 2x Ynnari/ 2x choas soup with TS Tzangor bombs/ A DW list/ Imperium dark angels.
Blastaar wrote: Just remove allies altogether. There are too many different units and factions in 40k to balance them if you can mix and match.
I'd rather allies b.c limited than removed. One of these should be fine
A) Can only take Detachments, Vanguard, Outrider, Spearhead
B) Limited to 1 detachment
C) Limited to Points, 25%
D) Gain no Codex rules other than whats on the Datasheet (No Relics, Stratagems, etc..)
Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...
What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"
bananathug wrote: Hmm, the units/strats/powers/relics/traits people been crying about for pretty much the whole edition dominated LVO and GW had no idea?
The game really breaks down when people are applying strats/buffs/whatever to over sized and resilient units. Being able to buff a huge unit of shining spears which can zoom in and out of combat/los, the shooting of your entire army (doom), a knight worth 600 points with a 3++, a 24 man strong loota unit that has endless grot bodies, or that tau crap that gives them re-roll all for a turn or two while surrounded by drones. It comes down to the powers/strats/relics/traits have uses that GW just didn't figure out. Those synergies aren't baked into the costs of the units nor are they reflected in the costs of the buffs because GW doesn't take the time/$ to properly play test their game.
You can try to fix this by limiting the amount of CP they can use (nerf soup but it's way harder than just that). Handicapping those units that abuse these synergies (points nerfs which piss customers off). Stealth nerfs (reducing max unit sizes, upping strat cp costs, changing rule wording) which I would prefer but would be very hard to pull off (and most likely would only be noticed by the most competitive gamers).
People calling for nerfs to soup are trying to solve this problem with a sledge hammer. I don't think those who just want more points for knights are seeing the forest for the trees and I don't think GW has the desire to understand the game well enough to make the stealth nerfs work (given how bad they missed in CA 2017, 2018, the FAQs).
My guess is GW kneejerks and raises the cost of knights and reduces RIS to a 4++ max. Gives yanarri some different rules in the next FAQ which end up more broken (but for different units for that sweet churn $$$). Meta gets shaken up for a couple months,competitive players drop that sweet loot on gsc/nid/ig soup. Eldar, orks and tau figure it out in time for CA 2019 which shakes things up again until 9th edition is dropped 2021.
In a game that I drew vs Chaos soup. My Opponent went first and buffed a 20 man noise marine up to insanity level.
Played a strat to let them scout
Played another to make them move twice (or it was warp time I don't remember)
Played a strat to make them +1 to wound
Hit them with prescience
Hit them with 5++ FNP.
Plays a strat to let them shoot twice
Dark matters a unit of tzangors hits them with -1 to hit and +1 invo save.
Makes the 8 inch charge with Gaze of fate
Then fights twice.
I think he spent 12 CP in the first turn....
Strong well thought out list no doubt - but quite possibly one of the worst first turns I've ever had to endure. My Castellan singlehandely with the support of some wyverns and helvrines brough me back into the game though. Only managed to tie the game by detonating my Castellan with my last 2 CP and killing like 500 points with a single dice roll. Would have gone on to win if we had time for 1 more round but that is my fault more than anything.
The point here is the stratagems are doubling to quadrupling base damage based on buffs. Gman gets a lot of hate and costs 400 points. All he does is increase units around him by like 50%-80%max and he costs 1/5 of your army....
And do you remember why "Shadowswords were all the rage"?
Supreme Command Detachments allowing for you to bring Primaris Psykers and a Shadowsword. The +1 to Hit from Shadowsword Targeters when targeting a Titanic keyworded model...gee, I wonder who was commonly showing up in Chaos lists at the time? Couldn't have been two characters with Titanic!
Let's think about this for a second.
....Magnus and Morty are not Titanic. Castellans *are* Titanic. Where are the Shadowswords? Nowhere to be found.
Castellans replaced Shadowswords whole cloth. They do the same job, but with more flexibility. WL traits, houses, and relics are things SS do not have nor will they ever.
Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...
What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"
Because if the problem is that big as allies are your fix shouldn't be layering rulea and exceptions over bad rules.
You need to get back to the drawing board and understand why units do or don't work in the game and fix that not turn this into a here is the rules except for list 8+ factions/codex.
Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...
What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"
Because if the problem is that big as allies are your fix shouldn't be layering rulea and exceptions over bad rules.
You need to get back to the drawing board and understand why units do or don't work in the game and fix that not turn this into a here is the rules except for list 8+ factions/codex.
Conversely, you shouldn't band aid individual units when there's a fundamental issue with the system. Fix the system first, then deal with specific cases.
Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...
What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"
Because if the problem is that big as allies are your fix shouldn't be layering rulea and exceptions over bad rules.
You need to get back to the drawing board and understand why units do or don't work in the game and fix that not turn this into a here is the rules except for list 8+ factions/codex.
Conversely, you shouldn't band aid individual units when there's a fundamental issue with the system. Fix the system first, then deal with specific cases.
Totally agree with that, what I don't agree with is people suggesting fixes that arn't addressing the route cause of the problems.
It seems odd to me that Command Points accrue regardless of mixing disparate forces. If anything, I think a force would lose special abilities from training, access to special equipment, etc. if forced to integrate unfamiliar units. It makes more sense to me that a combined force of dissimilar units would LOSE command points per each integrated ally, since MORE effort has to be made to simply maintain normal chain of command and combat coordination.
amanita wrote: It seems odd to me that Command Points accrue regardless of mixing disparate forces. If anything, I think a force would lose special abilities from training, access to special equipment, etc. if forced to integrate unfamiliar units. It makes more sense to me that a combined force of dissimilar units would LOSE command points per each integrated ally, since MORE effort has to be made to simply maintain normal chain of command and combat coordination.
Only if they are thrown together at a given moment - mainy "armies" on the table can represent disperate units that have been working together for weeks, month, years - adventure story 101
And do you remember why "Shadowswords were all the rage"?
Supreme Command Detachments allowing for you to bring Primaris Psykers and a Shadowsword. The +1 to Hit from Shadowsword Targeters when targeting a Titanic keyworded model...gee, I wonder who was commonly showing up in Chaos lists at the time? Couldn't have been two characters with Titanic!
Let's think about this for a second.
....Magnus and Morty are not Titanic.
Yes, that's my bad--one of the few houserules that I tend to see locally with the folks I play with is that if you're a LoW? You have Titanic.
Castellans *are* Titanic. Where are the Shadowswords? Nowhere to be found.
Castellans replaced Shadowswords whole cloth. They do the same job, but with more flexibility. WL traits, houses, and relics are things SS do not have nor will they ever.
So why were you complaining about them to start with?
You brought up "Shadowswords didn't need to be souped"--yeah, they didn't but they still required a separate Detachment.
Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...
What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"
Because if the problem is that big as allies are your fix shouldn't be layering rulea and exceptions over bad rules.
You need to get back to the drawing board and understand why units do or don't work in the game and fix that not turn this into a here is the rules except for list 8+ factions/codex.
I didn't say this was the fix, I'm just saying "Your fix would hurt [insert fringe case here]!" isn't really an issue. Fringe cases can be avoided with one-sentence rules.
Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...
What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"
Because if the problem is that big as allies are your fix shouldn't be layering rulea and exceptions over bad rules.
You need to get back to the drawing board and understand why units do or don't work in the game and fix that not turn this into a here is the rules except for list 8+ factions/codex.
I didn't say this was the fix, I'm just saying "Your fix would hurt [insert fringe case here]!" isn't really an issue. Fringe cases can be avoided with one-sentence rules.
Except your just falling into the same trap GW has so many times in 8th edition. Right X rule in 1 sentence, find it doesn't actually work the way you ment, kneejerk reaction that screws it up even more.
See the mess they have made of fly, wieird FAQ ruling which then got overnerfed for CC models making them useless.
When your rules need more exceptions that thier rules they are an inelegant solution.
Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...
What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"
Because if the problem is that big as allies are your fix shouldn't be layering rulea and exceptions over bad rules.
You need to get back to the drawing board and understand why units do or don't work in the game and fix that not turn this into a here is the rules except for list 8+ factions/codex.
Conversely, you shouldn't band aid individual units when there's a fundamental issue with the system. Fix the system first, then deal with specific cases.
So can you prove it's the system itself and not just the same few units that show up that are clearly a mathematical problem?
Fundamentally it comes down to "what is the baseline".
You can balance armies in their codexes - but then soup will be a problem because synergies exist.You can balance factions for soup - and whatever happens to the mono codexes happens.
Sisters+Black Templar is a soup army. Is it a problem for the game? No. Is a pure CW army going "this detachment's Alaitoc, This detachments Ulthwe" bad for the game? Itchy perhaps - but not really.
The problem is you take top tier units from 2-3 books and because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, you create an even greater tier, and the only way to balance is to price these units on the assumption that they are only played under these circumstances.
There is some degree of bitterness here. As I forecast a year ago, Knights are becoming as obnoxious as the Wardian codexes. I would personally like the Castelan to become about as popular as the Valiant. This situation where you are mad to not take one (and only because you prefer say 2 gallants) has to end.
Eldar Flyers meanwhile need to be looked at again - although I feel there the solution is just to cap them at -1 to hit. In fact such a blanket cap would probably help a lot in general.
amanita wrote: It seems odd to me that Command Points accrue regardless of mixing disparate forces. If anything, I think a force would lose special abilities from training, access to special equipment, etc. if forced to integrate unfamiliar units. It makes more sense to me that a combined force of dissimilar units would LOSE command points per each integrated ally, since MORE effort has to be made to simply maintain normal chain of command and combat coordination.
Only if they are thrown together at a given moment - mainy "armies" on the table can represent disperate units that have been working together for weeks, month, years - adventure story 101
Perhaps so, but in that case it seems more likely they'd develop entirely new stratagems in place of the prior ones since the context for the original doctrine within the parent force would be lost. Yeah, so now if you add allies you get RANDUMB stratagems! Doesn't THAT sound like fun?
Daedalus81 wrote: WL traits, houses, and relics are things SS do not have nor will they ever.
Wait... Why won't they again?
I can see them totally having a Character Shadowsword etc in a Viglis style Superheavy formation and/or relevant stuff. Its in the fluff same as any other sub faction
Relics are for characters, which tanks basically aren't ever outside Knights and Tank Commanders.
So no real difficulty in them doing the same for superheavy tanks but lets face it it will likely be a Marine one.
Invul saves on taitanic units are a problem, dropping that save to 3 up re-rollable (cause pay the command point to re roll it) is a big problem. And word of the phoenix is a problem.
After that you will have a new problem. But those two things are the big hairy deal right now.
ChargerIIC wrote: I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long? This game has always had soup in it and removing it doesn't fix anything. GW isn't just going to squat all those Ynari players and Knight House infantry lists to not actually address the problem.
This is a knee-jerk 5-minute solution that smacks of populist thinking as opposed to actual critical thinking
Templates have also been a core mechanic since 1st. They no longer exist. "that's how it used to work" is not an argument.
ChargerIIC wrote: I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long? This game has always had soup in it and removing it doesn't fix anything. GW isn't just going to squat all those Ynari players and Knight House infantry lists to not actually address the problem.
This is a knee-jerk 5-minute solution that smacks of populist thinking as opposed to actual critical thinking
Templates have also been a core mechanic since 1st. They no longer exist. "that's how it used to work" is not an argument.
And people have been bickering back and forth about the pros and cons of the template and blast system.
ChargerIIC wrote: I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long? This game has always had soup in it and removing it doesn't fix anything. GW isn't just going to squat all those Ynari players and Knight House infantry lists to not actually address the problem.
This is a knee-jerk 5-minute solution that smacks of populist thinking as opposed to actual critical thinking
Templates have also been a core mechanic since 1st. They no longer exist. "that's how it used to work" is not an argument.
And people have been bickering back and forth about the pros and cons of the template and blast system.
Such as it's anyone's right to do so. But people have also bickered about the cover system, modifier AP vs comparative AP, shooting vs melee, and the vast virtual paper wasted on which unit is overpower/underpowered or not.
Rules are not sacred, they're always a chance they'll change, and saying that "Allies has always existed" when how allies functioned was much, much more limited before 6 feels disingenuous.
Xenomancers wrote: My Castellan singlehandely with the support of some wyverns and helvrines brough me back into the game though. Only managed to tie the game by detonating my Castellan with my last 2 CP and killing like 500 points with a single dice roll. Would have gone on to win if we had time for 1 more round but that is my fault more than anything.
The point here is the stratagems are doubling to quadrupling base damage based on buffs. Gman gets a lot of hate and costs 400 points. All he does is increase units around him by like 50%-80%max and he costs 1/5 of your army....
And this is why I feel the Castellan is considered to be a gate keeper. And why at Australia's CANCON tournament (150 players) the winner decided to play scissors paper rock and went with 180 termagants.
Up until this point some codex and combinations are so strong that without a Castellan, many lists will just crumble. Replace the fire power of the Castellan with 3 tank commanders and watch as the list probably fails miserably.
The Castellan is single handedly keeping IG/Admech lists from failing.
Also lets not kid ourselves, if most other players ran Brandon Grants list (likewise Naydens or Nanavatis), they would just as likely lose a couple of games and finish somewhere in the middle. Some players are just on another level. It wasn't the Castellan that won the LVO, it was the tactical genius of Grant.
How would I want to see the Castellan nerfed? Probably a small points increase of say max 60pts.
Invulnerable saves ruined 8th for me... anything 5+ invulnerable is fine but the 2-4+ just kinda sucks the life out of the game (unless it's HQ 1 off low wound units). All they do is make my list basically double it's cost if I bring high AP weapons. At least with 5+there is only a 1/3 chance my shots will fail. With 3+ invulnerable I can fire weapons that would destroy a titan and cost more than the unit I'm firing at but stillonly have a 25% chance of wounding.
Cheap stuff tends to have low T so it balances out. Plus you're mostly firing like 50 no AP shots at that stuff anyway. What hurts my soul is when I have a single shot expensive weapon that hits, wounds and it's -3AP is useless and does nothing to help me. What hurts even more is when I hit wound and they fail their save only to reroll it and go from 1/3 chance of doing damage to a 1/6.
5++ on, say, DCA is fine. You don't want to shoot high AP guns at 1W T3 models anyway!
But 3++/4++ on knights means AP-1 weapons are more efficient against knights than AP-4 weapons which is dumb.
So really, just remove invulnerable save for T7+ models.
Raiders and venoms have low toughness and low armor. Strenght 6 ap -1 is what you want. They also have few wounds and aren't really that cheep.
But I take your point.
I play Dark elfs (in spaaaaace!) The one that seems out of whack to me is the Grotesque. At t6 4++ and a 6 up feel no pain they are harder to take down than a land raider.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: 5++ on, say, DCA is fine. You don't want to shoot high AP guns at 1W T3 models anyway!
But 3++/4++ on knights means AP-1 weapons are more efficient against knights than AP-4 weapons which is dumb.
So really, just remove invulnerable save for T7+ models.
Terminators are a great example of how the invulnerable should work. It's not supposed to be your main save... it's a save you fall back on in the event your opponent decided to shoot his doomsday ark into your small little guy. Plasma is just more effective against a Terminator than a bolter because the save goes to 4-5+ while a anti tank -4ap forces it to go up to a 5++. You're unlikely to survive but there is the odd chance you pulled through. I've always seen Invulns as a design choice to let players know "hey, maybe you shouldn't shoot your anti tank into these guys.." Like FNP should only be a 5+++ and nothing more. You're supposed to be pulling through a mortal wound not going for a casual stroll as anti titan weapons hit you.
If I had my way FNP and Inulns would be locked at 5+ for anything other than HQ's and low wound units. And, in return, anything that had 3++ gets a 2+armour save. That way mass low S no AP weapons do very little damage while expensive high AP weapons have their place again.
The Invul problem is classic example of a chicken or the egg, what came first. I started in 5th and I remember when SS going to 3+ all the time was considered a massive shift in unit durability. Without that though, Terminators were not likely to get into combat as GW has increasingly upped how common high AP weapons are to the point were even a 2+ armor save is a joke this edition.
That isn't even touching the issue with mortal wounds being handed out like candy which means you now need to have to hand out FNP like saves to give units some protection from those attacks. The game needs to tone down how easy it is to ignore armor and then it can address how to handle saves.
ChargerIIC wrote: I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long? This game has always had soup in it and removing it doesn't fix anything. GW isn't just going to squat all those Ynari players and Knight House infantry lists to not actually address the problem.
This is a knee-jerk 5-minute solution that smacks of populist thinking as opposed to actual critical thinking
Templates have also been a core mechanic since 1st. They no longer exist. "that's how it used to work" is not an argument.
And people have been bickering back and forth about the pros and cons of the template and blast system.
Such as it's anyone's right to do so. But people have also bickered about the cover system, modifier AP vs comparative AP, shooting vs melee, and the vast virtual paper wasted on which unit is overpower/underpowered or not.
Rules are not sacred, they're always a chance they'll change, and saying that "Allies has always existed" when how allies functioned was much, much more limited before 6 feels disingenuous.
The difference here is how long the debates have been going on for.
Arguments against allies has only begun near the end of 6th, whereas people have argued templates should go since the dawn of them being introduced.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: 5++ on, say, DCA is fine. You don't want to shoot high AP guns at 1W T3 models anyway!
But 3++/4++ on knights means AP-1 weapons are more efficient against knights than AP-4 weapons which is dumb.
So really, just remove invulnerable save for T7+ models.
Terminators are a great example of how the invulnerable should work. It's not supposed to be your main save... it's a save you fall back on in the event your opponent decided to shoot his doomsday ark into your small little guy. Plasma is just more effective against a Terminator than a bolter because the save goes to 4-5+ while a anti tank -4ap forces it to go up to a 5++. You're unlikely to survive but there is the odd chance you pulled through. I've always seen Invulns as a design choice to let players know "hey, maybe you shouldn't shoot your anti tank into these guys.." Like FNP should only be a 5+++ and nothing more. You're supposed to be pulling through a mortal wound not going for a casual stroll as anti titan weapons hit you.
If I had my way FNP and Inulns would be locked at 5+ for anything other than HQ's and low wound units. And, in return, anything that had 3++ gets a 2+armour save. That way mass low S no AP weapons do very little damage while expensive high AP weapons have their place again.
Terminators are a nice example of how you DO NOT implements invul saves. A 5++ on a 2+ model is useless.
What really matters when you talk about invul saves are only 2 figures:
1) X+ - X++, as is, the difference between your armor save and your invul save. If the difference is 3, then the invul is useless, at 2 (like demon engines) this is a nice bonus to have, but nothing game breaking. When it gets lower than 2, you have problems.
On knights this is combined with:
2) Wounds. The more wounds you have, the better the invul save, because you are a target of high damage weapons, which always come with high AP.
Xenomancers wrote: My Castellan singlehandely with the support of some wyverns and helvrines brough me back into the game though. Only managed to tie the game by detonating my Castellan with my last 2 CP and killing like 500 points with a single dice roll. Would have gone on to win if we had time for 1 more round but that is my fault more than anything.
The point here is the stratagems are doubling to quadrupling base damage based on buffs. Gman gets a lot of hate and costs 400 points. All he does is increase units around him by like 50%-80%max and he costs 1/5 of your army....
And this is why I feel the Castellan is considered to be a gate keeper. And why at Australia's CANCON tournament (150 players) the winner decided to play scissors paper rock and went with 180 termagants.
Up until this point some codex and combinations are so strong that without a Castellan, many lists will just crumble. Replace the fire power of the Castellan with 3 tank commanders and watch as the list probably fails miserably.
The Castellan is single handedly keeping IG/Admech lists from failing.
Also lets not kid ourselves, if most other players ran Brandon Grants list (likewise Naydens or Nanavatis), they would just as likely lose a couple of games and finish somewhere in the middle. Some players are just on another level. It wasn't the Castellan that won the LVO, it was the tactical genius of Grant.
How would I want to see the Castellan nerfed? Probably a small points increase of say max 60pts.
I don't think its quite as simple as this, or how many people are making it out.
The problem isn't just the castellan, it is AM units being 4ppm for orders and regiment abilities.
Simply upping infantry squads by 1ppm, and some of the characters by 10-20pts would drastically change peoples abilities to combine the most efficient cheap troops in the game (CP battery) with the most efficient LoW in the game (Castellan)
The reason we will continue to see AM/IK dominate is because other factions soup does not compare. No other faction can get a low ppm unit as efficient as AM infantry squads, and a high ppm unit as efficient as the castellan.
Pure knights with castellan are not dominating, because they lack CP and bodies to hold objectives. It is the cheap AM units as well.
Xenomancers wrote: My Castellan singlehandely with the support of some wyverns and helvrines brough me back into the game though. Only managed to tie the game by detonating my Castellan with my last 2 CP and killing like 500 points with a single dice roll. Would have gone on to win if we had time for 1 more round but that is my fault more than anything.
The point here is the stratagems are doubling to quadrupling base damage based on buffs. Gman gets a lot of hate and costs 400 points. All he does is increase units around him by like 50%-80%max and he costs 1/5 of your army....
And this is why I feel the Castellan is considered to be a gate keeper. And why at Australia's CANCON tournament (150 players) the winner decided to play scissors paper rock and went with 180 termagants.
Up until this point some codex and combinations are so strong that without a Castellan, many lists will just crumble. Replace the fire power of the Castellan with 3 tank commanders and watch as the list probably fails miserably.
The Castellan is single handedly keeping IG/Admech lists from failing.
Also lets not kid ourselves, if most other players ran Brandon Grants list (likewise Naydens or Nanavatis), they would just as likely lose a couple of games and finish somewhere in the middle. Some players are just on another level. It wasn't the Castellan that won the LVO, it was the tactical genius of Grant.
How would I want to see the Castellan nerfed? Probably a small points increase of say max 60pts.
I don't think its quite as simple as this, or how many people are making it out.
The problem isn't just the castellan, it is AM units being 4ppm for orders and regiment abilities.
Simply upping infantry squads by 1ppm, and some of the characters by 10-20pts would drastically change peoples abilities to combine the most efficient cheap troops in the game (CP battery) with the most efficient LoW in the game (Castellan)
The reason we will continue to see AM/IK dominate is because other factions soup does not compare. No other faction can get a low ppm unit as efficient as AM infantry squads, and a high ppm unit as efficient as the castellan.
Pure knights with castellan are not dominating, because they lack CP and bodies to hold objectives. It is the cheap AM units as well.
Infantry squads are 4 points. Period. GW has cemented that point in the last CA by lowering veterans to 5, so let's stop talking about it, it's meaningless.
We could discuss about upping the points on the IGHQs, which IMHO would be even better than upping the cost of guardsmen, but that is not the point of this discussion.
Pure AM are good, but nothing special (pure AM ranked below pure Astartes , and that pure AM didn't even play guards if i remember correctly ). It's the CP sharing which takes them to another level. Get rid of that and you won't be seeing imperial soups so dominant any more.
We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.
I wouldn't rule any points changes out. GW hasn't cemented anything apart from the meta until the next FAQ.
Castellans are also way too efficient for their cost.
Both of these troublesome units need to be addressed or the meta will remain stale and people will grow tired of competitive play. If GW want to turn 40k into an eSport they need to be much more reactive to the meta. We wouldn't see the meta in LoL stay the same without changes for this long.
An Actual Englishman wrote: We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.
It's been proven mathematically?
Does the proof involve non-quantifiable or external elements such as stratagems, orders etc, or does it revolve specifically around the 4ppm Guardsmen against other units (which, to ensure the comparison is accurate, also don't have stratagems or other external elements)?
If it is the latter, can you provide a link to this proof?
An Actual Englishman wrote: We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.
I wouldn't rule any points changes out. GW hasn't cemented anything apart from the meta until the next FAQ.
Castellans are also way too efficient for their cost.
Both of these troublesome units need to be addressed or the meta will remain stale and people will grow tired of competitive play. If GW want to turn 40k into an eSport they need to be much more reactive to the meta. We wouldn't see the meta in LoL stay the same without changes for this long.
Sorry, it has never been proved mathematically. All of us sort of did empirically because we "feel" that they perform over 4 points when playing against them, but a mathematical demonstration has never been provided.
The only thing we have is a dubious direct confrontation between them and equivalent points of other troops, but that is hardly an indicator for everything. Guards lose a direct confrontation against equal points of tac marines, should we nerf tac marines?
An Actual Englishman wrote: We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.
I wouldn't rule any points changes out. GW hasn't cemented anything apart from the meta until the next FAQ.
Castellans are also way too efficient for their cost.
Both of these troublesome units need to be addressed or the meta will remain stale and people will grow tired of competitive play. If GW want to turn 40k into an eSport they need to be much more reactive to the meta. We wouldn't see the meta in LoL stay the same without changes for this long.
Sorry, it has never been proved mathematically. All of us sort of did empirically because we "feel" that they perform over 4 points when playing against them, but a mathematical demonstration has never been provided.
The only thing we have is a dubious direct confrontation between them and equivalent points of other troops, but that is hardly an indicator for everything. Guards lose a direct confrontation against equal points of tac marines, should we nerf tac marines?
Not to mention that many comparison suddendly started including stuff like FRFSRF, catachan cadian reroll mixed etc.
An Actual Englishman wrote: We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.
It's been proven mathematically?
Does the proof involve non-quantifiable or external elements such as stratagems, orders etc, or does it revolve specifically around the 4ppm Guardsmen against other units (which, to ensure the comparison is accurate, also don't have stratagems or other external elements)?
If it is the latter, can you provide a link to this proof?
Also this.
Even if you manage to create a mathematical model to make direct confrontations between profiles, you still would failt to consider this, which is by all means not secondary.
Look at CP generation for example (assuming no CP sharing, which is the root of all evils). CPs generated by guards are worth less than the CPs generated by Eldar guardians, because the AM faction uses less and has an easy access to them. If you were to give a point value to a CP in a monoAM army it would be worth less than the same CP in a mono CWE army.
When confronting troops this a hugely influencing parameter.
I'm not going to say that guards are fine at 4ppm, i'm of the idea that they are more of a 5ppm model than a 4ppm one, but saying that this is mathematically proven is not correct.
i dont care how you twist it, soup IS the problem, forced mono codex in matched play is the only solution.
the "cheap and undercosted units" are just fine when you start playing mono codex, plus some proper balancing can then begin.
if you nerf a unit due to soup, you make it usless in a mono codex situation.
but as beeing said other places, by other humans so, many times, GW is not about selling a game, it is about selling models.
FrozenDwarf wrote: i dont care how you twist it, soup IS the problem, forced mono codex in matched play is the only solution.
the "cheap and undercosted units" are just fine when you start playing mono codex, plus some proper balancing can then begin.
if you nerf a unit due to soup, you make it usless in a mono codex situation.
but as beeing said other places, by other humans so, many times, GW is not about selling a game, it is about selling models.
That's kind of an overkill, we would go back 6 editions. No good.
Limit CP by detachments, that's enough to add an hefty cost to souping and make people actually consider it as an option compared to a no brainer.
An Actual Englishman wrote: We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.
I wouldn't rule any points changes out. GW hasn't cemented anything apart from the meta until the next FAQ.
Castellans are also way too efficient for their cost.
Both of these troublesome units need to be addressed or the meta will remain stale and people will grow tired of competitive play. If GW want to turn 40k into an eSport they need to be much more reactive to the meta. We wouldn't see the meta in LoL stay the same without changes for this long.
Sorry, it has never been proved mathematically. All of us sort of did empirically because we "feel" that they perform over 4 points when playing against them, but a mathematical demonstration has never been provided.
An Actual Englishman wrote: We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.
It's been proven mathematically?
Does the proof involve non-quantifiable or external elements such as stratagems, orders etc, or does it revolve specifically around the 4ppm Guardsmen against other units (which, to ensure the comparison is accurate, also don't have stratagems or other external elements)?
If it is the latter, can you provide a link to this proof?
Also this.
Even if you manage to create a mathematical model to make direct confrontations between profiles, you still would failt to consider this, which is by all means not secondary.
Look at CP generation for example (assuming no CP sharing, which is the root of all evils). CPs generated by guards are worth less than the CPs generated by Eldar guardians, because the AM faction uses less and has an easy access to them. If you were to give a point value to a CP in a monoAM army it would be worth less than the same CP in a mono CWE army.
When confronting troops this a hugely influencing parameter.
I'm not going to say that guards are fine at 4ppm, i'm of the idea that they are more of a 5ppm model than a 4ppm one, but saying that this is mathematically proven is not correct.
it has been done both with and without buffs, with and without msu battalions with and without faction bonuses and guard won time and again.
Someone claimed they lost 1v1 to intercessors but that was model to model not point for point.
They also over looked that intercessors make an MEQ wound 9 points with -1AP and additional range.
Not to mention once you shoot HBC dissys etc the intercessors loose points stupidly faster than IS.
IS out perform every other 1W model troop but in some cases rediculous margins.
Also all CP is equally as the common strategums are costed the same across all codex's. This idea that Guard CP is worth less than anyone else's is faulse and ignores the current rules.
FrozenDwarf wrote: i dont care how you twist it, soup IS the problem, forced mono codex in matched play is the only solution.
the "cheap and undercosted units" are just fine when you start playing mono codex, plus some proper balancing can then begin.
if you nerf a unit due to soup, you make it usless in a mono codex situation.
but as beeing said other places, by other humans so, many times, GW is not about selling a game, it is about selling models.
Do you want all Eldar top 8? Because that's how you get an all Eldar top 8. Soup is the only thing keeping Eldar in check.
An Actual Englishman wrote: We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.
It's been proven mathematically?
Does the proof involve non-quantifiable or external elements such as stratagems, orders etc, or does it revolve specifically around the 4ppm Guardsmen against other units (which, to ensure the comparison is accurate, also don't have stratagems or other external elements)?
If it is the latter, can you provide a link to this proof?
Also this.
Even if you manage to create a mathematical model to make direct confrontations between profiles, you still would failt to consider this, which is by all means not secondary.
Look at CP generation for example (assuming no CP sharing, which is the root of all evils). CPs generated by guards are worth less than the CPs generated by Eldar guardians, because the AM faction uses less and has an easy access to them. If you were to give a point value to a CP in a monoAM army it would be worth less than the same CP in a mono CWE army.
When confronting troops this a hugely influencing parameter.
I'm not going to say that guards are fine at 4ppm, i'm of the idea that they are more of a 5ppm model than a 4ppm one, but saying that this is mathematically proven is not correct.
it has been done both with and without buffs, with and without msu battalions with and without faction bonuses and guard won time and again.
Someone claimed they lost 1v1 to intercessors but that was model to model not point for point.
They also over looked that intercessors make an MEQ wound 9 points with -1AP and additional range.
Not to mention once you shoot HBC dissys etc the intercessors loose points stupidly faster than IS.
IS out perform every other 1W model troop but in some cases rediculous margins.
Also all CP is equally as the common strategums are costed the same across all codex's. This idea that Guard CP is worth less than anyone else's is faulse and ignores the current rules.
I know for a fact that what you said is mathematically wrong (yes, now i can use that term), so please provide this math you say. There are many 1W troops to which guards lose in a "direct confrontation" (whatever that means) on a point per point basis, including the tac marines. Intercessors outshoot them point per point by such a huge margin that you would need 50% points more in guards to have an even match.
Can you please give the definition of "Out perform" that you are using? Maybe that we are valuing things differently and our math differs as a consequence.
, and that pure 