1) They took away units unique abilities and turn them into stratagems (many times letter other units use them too) which make it harder to use, and also makes balancing them harder. This takes away some uniqueness feeling in units as well.
2) Many of them are gotcha mechanics which is terrible for the game
3) There are way to many that are game changing, so you need to know all the most important ones for each army making the game harder against new foes.
4) They make some units insanely stupidly strong which then makes balancing much harder, when a Troupe Master has a 80% chance to kill a Knight for 75pts but spending 6CP to do it, how do you calculate that?
5) Its also just more game tracking.
When I first herd about CP right when 8th was being announced for it i thought about some other war games with command points (or commander points, commander actions, etc..) when you played the game like GW games IGOUGO but you have CP to create a alternative action system. (You declare all moves and use CP to interrupt like declare a unit is stationary and when another unit walks in front spend a CP to shoot or hide).
they make me feel like Im playing a game of yu-gi-oh with EXTREMELY expensive cards.
The general lifespan of units that i spend 40+ hours painting that then get removed in a single volley of shooting also helps to enhance that "this is an extremely extremely expensive CCG with unnecessary props" feeling.
I think it would be cool if they had been integrated into the game a different way, seeing as there hadn't been a card element. I think if they and the Maelstrom objective cards had been mixed into decks of unit cards to make armies, then they would have been a good idea. Between adding cards, and a pool of points to play said cards, and some of the specific implementations (ignore morale, fight twice at 3 or shoot twice at 2, etc) they're a bit of a dog's breakfast.
Having strategems where you could use them to balance out unequal armies, or invest in them at the cost of units (material) would have been neat. Like suppose you're going to get boned by tanks, you could have a strategem about attacking the tank depot so that the tanks rolling doubles or triples did something.
Strategems requiring command points and reinforcement points are bunk, since there's too many conditions to pull off to be worth it, especially compared to stuff that just multiplies existing material that's already in position.
Then there's the cognitive load aspect of having a new set of rules (conditions, costs, and effects) to memorize...
My primary opinion is that unit-specific stratagems should be integrated into each units datasheet for readability. Its a pain to look for them and link them to the proper unit.
My second opinion, is that non-unit-specific stratagems should be standardized and part of the core rules.
And finally, they should only be usable in < 1000 pts games
Gives me MtG flashbacks of "I'm attacking with my creature and will tap a forest to play giant growth". I got into 40k to get away from that mess so anything that feels like it is automatically sapping a lot of the fun from the hobby. Needing to memories a bunch of faction specific stratagems feels a lot worse than trying to remember all the USRs and unit type rules back in past editions.
That said I also dislike taking unit functionality and attaching them to the whole stratagem system. Shouldn't need to use command points to throw an EMP grenade and apparently the Tau only have 1 EMP grenade available per turn (logistical drone has to deliver it I guess). This sort of "use a resource to do an ability" also feels like Company of Heroes with using munitions to pull a panzerfaust out of thin air. It works fine in that game but I don't like it in a table top game, especially when said game involves list building where your equiping your models before the battle.
Vankraken wrote: Gives me MtG flashbacks of "I'm attacking with my creature and will tap a forest to play giant growth". I got into 40k to get away from that mess so anything that feels like it is automatically sapping a lot of the fun from the hobby. Needing to memories a bunch of faction specific stratagems feels a lot worse than trying to remember all the USRs and unit type rules back in past editions.
That said I also dislike taking unit functionality and attaching them to the whole stratagem system. Shouldn't need to use command points to throw an EMP grenade and apparently the Tau only have 1 EMP grenade available per turn (logistical drone has to deliver it I guess). This sort of "use a resource to do an ability" also feels like Company of Heroes with using munitions to pull a panzerfaust out of thin air. It works fine in that game but I don't like it in a table top game, especially when said game involves list building where your equiping your models before the battle.
Oh it is 100% worst than USR, especially if you heavily trimmed the USR down to like 20 which should have been the case. Its not like every army doesn't have the same 15 rules anyways... Put the unique rules back onto units and give me back USR please!
the_scotsman wrote: they make me feel like Im playing a game of yu-gi-oh with EXTREMELY expensive cards.
The general lifespan of units that i spend 40+ hours painting that then get removed in a single volley of shooting also helps to enhance that "this is an extremely extremely expensive CCG with unnecessary props" feeling.
Basically this.
Amishprn86 also made some excellent points above but I'd also add:
- They create issues with balance because they were clearly designed for PL rather than Points. Hence, you're forever ending up with warlord traits and artefacts that are completely unbalanced because they all have to cost the exact same amount (as you pay for them via a 1CP stratagem, rather than with points like you always used to).
- So many stratagems are just 'kill more'. Sometimes it's rerolls, sometimes its shoot or fight twice, sometimes it's +1 to hit/wound, sometimes its mortal wounds, but the net result is that you get a burst of extra damage. And, in a game that already struggles to be anything more than 'damage' and 'moar damage', that's really not a useful addition.
- They are completely disconnected from anything happening on the table. It's like all the worst parts of games that revolve around wombo-combo mechanics, except that it requires zero setup. You don't need the right HQ or even any HQ in range of the unit you want to target. There's basically no way you can stop your opponent using stratagems because they don't interact with anything. This leads to them not feeling strategic at all, or even part of the game.
- This also goes back to the wargear front. I like being able to customise wargear on my models to both personalise them and also differentiate them from one another. e.g. in past editions I might have had an Archon with a Soul Trap and another without. Perhaps the Soul Trap indicated a particular interest of that Archon or was just a sign of his rank. But then in 8th the Soul Trap just became a stratagem. So suddenly every Archon had Schrödinger's Soul Trap, where it might or might not exist until you spent the CP at the relevant time. What was so wrong with me just being able to buy a Soul Trap if I wanted one? GW can't even pull the 'no model, no rules' dung because the second-newest Archon model literally had a Soul Trap.
Anyway, to get back to the question, I absolutely hate stratagems. Not only are they not remotely fun or interesting to use, they both destroy aspects of the game I did enjoy (wargear/personalisation), and also chew up a ton of design space that could be used for vastly more interesting mechanics.
I like them, but not universally. I enjoy deciding whether to invest my CPs in pre-game buffs or saving them for in-game shenanigans.
Ones that allow a player to do something during the other player's turn are generally good for my gaming experience. Counter-offensive, Auspex Scan, Smoke grenades/Lightning Fast Reflexes etc are all fine by me.
Stratagems that allow a unit to fight or shoot twice, on the other hand, are generally bad for my gaming experience. This is different from "fight on death" ones which are kind-of fun.
Stratagems that increase damage output or generate MWs should be handled with more care than GW has been doing.
A set of generic command abilities that can be applied to any unit (if in range of a character/leader), that offer tactical flexibility, at a cost. Everyone shares the abilities, they offer play and counterplay. Not reliant on memorising pages of them.
I voted yes, but there are some stratagems I would have preferred to stay unit abilities or Upgrades. Smoke or tankbuster bombs come to mind, or even daemonic shells for CSM. These are very minor Boni that get overshadowed by stronger stratagems usually, but add to the identity of a unit, so they shouldn't be hidden behind Command points.
I like stratagems that are reactions to your opponent and give you something to do when it's not your turn. Also some one-time special ability that would be hard to balance if it was always on is also nice as a stratagem.
A set of generic command abilities that can be applied to any unit (if in range of a character/leader), that offer tactical flexibility, at a cost. Everyone shares the abilities, they offer play and counterplay. Not reliant on memorising pages of them.
AoS did for sure hit it out of the park with their CP system. But it would be very hard to do that to 40k.
Nah, they're OK, it's just the quantity of them needs to be heavily reduced and what they do needs to be tactical, not additional AP or Damage type nonsense.
I think it would be cool if there were just one or two stratagems printed on a select few unit datasheets that were specific to the unit and one use only. Then have one sub-faction specific and one use only. The generic ones in the Core Rules can largely be left as is and can be used once per turn.
Voted no. Strats as is are more like magic abilities than strategic decisions - they generally offer all upside, no downside and are presented in a way that does not require any strategic thinking beyond budgeting your CP.
I'd much prefer strats if they had features like:
1. Selected pre-game like a deck building minigame, use the strat then discard the card. Now you have to plan ahead rather than just spamming your best strats.
2. Strats that give out boosts should also contain a negative aspect to represent the risk/reward of doing unusual actions. A units statline is meant to represent how effective they are at certain tasks, it is silly that there are stratagems that massively boost effectiveness with no downside (as it begs the question, why can a chaos marine only get veterans of the long war while you have CP left - do they forget how to fight effectively when you run out?). An example of an upside/downside style strat could be "veterans of the long war - disregarding their personal safety, the chaos marine unleashes a brutal assault - get +1 to wound this phase, but for the remainder of the battle round they cannot benefit from cover". Now you have to ask yourself, is it worth it?
I like the idea of them, just that extra little surge at a key moment, like a shield wall of Spartans yelling 'PUSH'.
However, there are too many of them, too many of them are overcosted and far too many of them are undercosted/or and OP. IIRC a stratagem was supposed to be about 20-30 points, but there's too many that turn a cheap unit into a blender, and then used turn after turn. (AdMech MW strat that could 1-shot Mortarion...)
A bunch need to be made once-per-game (not all of them) and some twice-per-game, that would curb basing entire units (and potentially armies) around them, but still allow fluffy things. Strats like fight twice, put units into reserve and strategic ploys should be once per game. They're supposed to be strategic after all. Battle tactics twice per game.
Then it would make the use of them actually count, and require thinking rather than spamming.
I like the idea of stratagems in theory, I just really don't like the implementation.
What I like about them is that units can take specific actions sometimes to do special things. However I don't think it should be implemented in the way it is, either from a design or lore standpoint.
Here's a popular example of one that I like, Branched Nova Charge. It enables you to choose two options from the Nova reactor instead of one. However instead of a strat, this could just be a thing you could do on the model, with a downside, say on a 4+ you take a second MW from the Nova Reactor. (Or maybe, you just take a second mortal period, it would need to be balanced correctly obviously.)
Here's a popular one I dislike, Transhuman Physiology. This isn't something that should be able be turned on and off. Space Marine's by their nature have Transhuman physiology, it's not like that can concentrate harder to make themselves more resistant to Lascannons or anything. This should be something that's always on, but is less effective, maybe like 1-2's always fail.
You can go through most of the strats like this, either make them an ability that the unit can use by default and balance appropriately, or make them passives, and again balance appropriately. This also means that players will have access to a wide variety of creative ways to use their units, instead of thinking, "oh man, it would be really cool to have my Reiver's stop them from performing an action, but I really need to save that CP for Transhuman. It just funnels you into only using the same strats 95% of the time when there's no reason if a unit could do their special thing, they shouldn't be able to because some other unit on the other side of the table decided to do their special thing.
Vankraken wrote: Gives me MtG flashbacks of "I'm attacking with my creature and will tap a forest to play giant growth". I got into 40k to get away from that mess so anything that feels like it is automatically sapping a lot of the fun from the hobby. Needing to memories a bunch of faction specific stratagems feels a lot worse than trying to remember all the USRs and unit type rules back in past editions.
That said I also dislike taking unit functionality and attaching them to the whole stratagem system. Shouldn't need to use command points to throw an EMP grenade and apparently the Tau only have 1 EMP grenade available per turn (logistical drone has to deliver it I guess). This sort of "use a resource to do an ability" also feels like Company of Heroes with using munitions to pull a panzerfaust out of thin air. It works fine in that game but I don't like it in a table top game, especially when said game involves list building where your equiping your models before the battle.
I still like to play MtG. Important thing is that 40K & MtG don´t share mechanics otherwise you will get a messy game. Imagine to have the following requirement in MtG:
"In order to play the Lord of the Pit you also need to place a fully painted resin model of it (size of new Bloodthirster, cost 150 pounds, comes unpainted) at your table edge."
People would go nuclear. But in 40K anything goes.
I think many of them are flavorful and add a lot but it's just way too much to keep track of and play to be fun. In my opinion these should get incorporated into army and unit special rules, and all the +1/-1/re-roll strats should get dumpstered like the shoot/fight twice strats mostly did.
They're awful. 80% shouldn't even exist. The rest could be USR or artifacts. It's wayyy too much stuff to memorize if you're trying to play competitively and it's too hard to balance. If an artifact is too powerful you can just bump the points up, same with a unit getting a powerful USR. If they went away, I would go back to playing 40k. As is, 95% of my games nowadays are from the specialist range.
When I play friendly games, I hardly use my CPs. Some pre game relics, and then rerolls for whatever. I kinda hate how any competitive list needs a set order of Stratagems to unlock some hidden potential game killer.
Nightlord1987 wrote: When I play friendly games, I hardly use my CPs. Some pre game relics, and then rerolls for whatever. I kinda hate how any competitive list needs a set order of Stratagems to unlock some hidden potential game killer.
I always want to max out relics and warlord traits.
No, I don't like them. Most of the reasons have already been covered by other people already. I far preferred it when you knew what a unit could do just from looking at its datasheet. And if you wanted to make it better you spent points on wargear, or things like Veteran Skills, Marks, Biomorph Enhancements, or Exarch Abilities, which your opponent knew about because they were on your army list. So they knew which unit could do what, instead of any unit being capable of getting a boost at any time because you spent some nebulous resource points on it.
A set of generic command abilities that can be applied to any unit (if in range of a character/leader), that offer tactical flexibility, at a cost. Everyone shares the abilities, they offer play and counterplay. Not reliant on memorising pages of them.
AoS did for sure hit it out of the park with their CP system. But it would be very hard to do that to 40k.
It wouldn't, at all. How in the world would it be hard?
There's a much smaller pool of command points on a per turn basis, and plenty of characters and unit leaders to spend them. Make them appropriate to the units rather than massive game changing stuff like fight twice or shoot twice (or stupid gotcha crap), and its just a matter of tweaking specific mechanics at a cost.
Slightly annoyed that things that should be general wargear/upgrades (melta-bombs etc), general abilities (overwatch for ex), or unit specific abilities take tge form of strats,
Otherwise I don't really feel one way or another about them.
ccs wrote: Slightly annoyed that things that should be general wargear/upgrades (melta-bombs etc), general abilities (overwatch for ex), or unit specific abilities take tge form of strats,
Otherwise I don't really feel one way or another about them.
Wait, even melta bombs are strats now? I'm lost for words...
A set of generic command abilities that can be applied to any unit (if in range of a character/leader), that offer tactical flexibility, at a cost. Everyone shares the abilities, they offer play and counterplay. Not reliant on memorising pages of them.
AoS did for sure hit it out of the park with their CP system. But it would be very hard to do that to 40k.
It wouldn't, at all. How in the world would it be hard?
There's a much smaller pool of command points on a per turn basis, and plenty of characters and unit leaders to spend them. Make them appropriate to the units rather than massive game changing stuff like fight twice or shoot twice (or stupid gotcha crap), and its just a matter of tweaking specific mechanics at a cost.
Well for 1, pregame strats, you will have to still have the full pool from building to start playing.
I am not a fan of Stratagems. I end up just unlocking warlord traits and relics , junk like that. I would gladly trade all the CP left over after building a list for more units during the army building phase.
40K isn't 40K any more and I don't like that.
Really would prefer something like 1 or two strats available to play per 500 points, one use only and all the unit costs lowered.
ccs wrote: Slightly annoyed that things that should be general wargear/upgrades (melta-bombs etc), general abilities (overwatch for ex), or unit specific abilities take tge form of strats,
Otherwise I don't really feel one way or another about them.
Wait, even melta bombs are strats now? I'm lost for words...
Yes, the strat only works with a few units that have the Melta-bomb keyword. I think that's only5 or so SM units.
I don't like how stratagems are implemented, I'm against CPs as wel. I'd remove the whole CP/stratagem system simply by making detachments and pre-game abilities and bonuses (such as additional traits or relics, deep strike for units that don't have it natively, etc..) cost points.
Then some of the stratgems would simply be special rules for the specific units that can use them or flat bonuses to their native stats. Some other stratagems would be army-wide special rules instead. Ork staratgem "Ramming Speed" could be an army-wide ability that can be used once per turn on any vehicle for example, or a special ability only available on a few specific vehicles (which can be used multiple times in the same turn then) instead.
the_scotsman wrote:they make me feel like Im playing a game of yu-gi-oh with EXTREMELY expensive cards.
The general lifespan of units that i spend 40+ hours painting that then get removed in a single volley of shooting also helps to enhance that "this is an extremely extremely expensive CCG with unnecessary props" feeling.
Vankraken wrote:Gives me MtG flashbacks of "I'm attacking with my creature and will tap a forest to play giant growth". I got into 40k to get away from that mess so anything that feels like it is automatically sapping a lot of the fun from the hobby. Needing to memories a bunch of faction specific stratagems feels a lot worse than trying to remember all the USRs and unit type rules back in past editions.
That said I also dislike taking unit functionality and attaching them to the whole stratagem system. Shouldn't need to use command points to throw an EMP grenade and apparently the Tau only have 1 EMP grenade available per turn (logistical drone has to deliver it I guess). This sort of "use a resource to do an ability" also feels like Company of Heroes with using munitions to pull a panzerfaust out of thin air. It works fine in that game but I don't like it in a table top game, especially when said game involves list building where your equiping your models before the battle.
^ This. i absolutely hate where the game has gone. If i wanted this type of game i would have played something other than 40K.
The current people running/writing and managing 40K do not even understand their own universe.
The game was meant to be a silly fun place to play with friends where your dudes did the things they would do in the universe. . this is why our group has gone back to playing 5th ed with a few house rules so the game can be fun again. it is no surprise that many of our favorite codexes come from 3rd, 4th or 5th editions.
Like others have said- a couple pages of 20 or so USRs=good, built-in unit special rules=good.
As for the stratagem/resource mechanics question-i despise them with a passion.
Some make me feel good, generally ones that are a little bit silly and not particularly effective. Things like orbital bombardment or that battle sisters one where you can make an immolator automatically explode in a ball of flame. But to be fair, those still don't really NEED to be strategems.
The stratagems that you get the most use of tend to make me feel dirty, like some combo I ran on a squad of rubrics which ended up with me hitting on 2's rerolling 1s and wounding on 2s against necron warriors. Granted a good chunk of this combo wasn't even stratagems, but it still pushed me right into "your necron warriors are dead and you can't do anything about it" territory.
AOS does it better with command abilities. There are limitations on how many you can use at once, you need a commander to give the command, and the abilities are pretty tame. It might seem a little bit dull in comparison, but hey, my units get to do a few more things before they meet their inevitable demise, which I think ends up being way more cinematic than units evaporating in a storm of fire because their enemies remembered to put the super ammo in their guns.
Equipment ones are kinda weird, so they aren't perfect. But I think they allow you to really express the character of the army over time.
I do understand people's concerns. I feel like GW should perhaps set limits on how strats work in matched, because most of the people who hate them feel that way because of the impact they have on Matched play.
Restricting these strat limits to Matched play would make all the Matched players happy without raining on the parade of all the people who see these as part of their army's identity and use them to drive narratives.
Equipment ones are kinda weird, so they aren't perfect. But I think they allow you to really express the character of the army over time.
I do understand people's concerns. I feel like GW should perhaps set limits on how strats work in matched, because most of the people who hate them feel that way because of the impact they have on Matched play.
Restricting these strat limits to Matched play would make all the Matched players happy without raining on the parade of all the people who see these as part of their army's identity and use them to drive narratives.
Question would then be, Would you like strats more/less if they were datasheet abilities?
That's a weird thing to say, I get that, but that is truly how they make me feel.
They seem like this extra layer of nonsense heaped upon the game, most of which was either stuff that was Wargear (and should be again), or special rules that should be inherent to units (or whole armies).
The anxiety comes from the fact that there are just so damned many of the things (DG have, what, nearly 40 of them that Jid put into 7 categories... that's heaps for one army!!! ) that it's just too much to have on top of an already needlessly complicated (and yet somehow still shallow) game. They're counter intuitive, especially reactionary ones like Transhuman. It, and any strat like it, are the ones I hate the most: "This squad is somehow strangely more resistant to damage because I, as the commander of this force, expended an abstracted strategic resource, but only for this turn!"
And they're frustrating because they represent the classic excess of GW and their continued ability to take fantastic concepts and feth up its execution.
Strats are a good idea. Their implementation is not.
Seeing as you asked:
It made me feel like GW reworked their rules at the core and had a fresh start to make a good game on a solid set basic mechanics... and then immediately went back to piling on a load of bloat in a way that was easy to shake up.
That, the obvious lack of balance in the new codexes (including errata sent out between printing and release) and GW's continued gakky business practices to (that makes me feel like the games, lore and their fans are being taken advantage of).
40k 8th edition was my first major edition change since I stared with GW games (what AoS was doing was... not that) and I was thoroughly disillusioned.
Despite my starry eyed hopes it was clear that GW had no intention of making a good game.
I sold my armies, gave away my books and stopped playing GW games.
Never had a reason to regret this and plenty of confirmation (like this thread) that it was a good decision.
Stratagems do make me feel. Exasperation is most common.
The thing that I dislike most about stratagems is how they obfuscate unit capabilities behind special powers that are not on the datasheet, instead buried in the back of the book in a giant list with no apparent order. In order to know what a unit can do (other than asking someone who knows the army inside and out) you've got to scour that list to find the relevant stratagems. It's a lot more work than when you could just look at a unit entry and flip to the weapon reference in the back if needed.
The thing I dislike second-most is that the one-per-turn limit makes for weird scaling effects. I'm incentivized to take a unit of Hive Guard to benefit from Single-Minded Annihilation, but not two units because I can only use the stratagem once, and a single unit of 6 is far more useful than 2 units of 3. That's the sort of mechanic that gets in the way of my immersion and doesn't feel like a wargame.
The core concept of resource-based abilities is reasonable enough, and fairly common in wargames nowadays, but the implementation in 40K is totally incoherent. Stratagems are a mix of command abilities, out-of-battle resources and support, special abilities for your units, and wargear, leaving it totally up in the air as to what a CP actually represents. Requesting orbital bombardment for some reason leaves your troops unable to shoot a charging enemy. Only one unit is allowed to use meltabombs per turn no matter how dire the situation. Units stop being able to perform their signature abilities if their compatriots elsewhere on the battlefield go all-out. In many cases, it feels like GW uses the CP cost and once-per-turn just to balance out abilities that are too powerful to have always on, regardless of whether those restrictions make logical sense in context. The whole system needs a re-work.
ccs wrote: Slightly annoyed that things that should be general wargear/upgrades (melta-bombs etc), general abilities (overwatch for ex), or unit specific abilities take tge form of strats,
Otherwise I don't really feel one way or another about them.
Wait, even melta bombs are strats now? I'm lost for words...
A strat they didn’t even bother adding to the chaos space marine codex. I wonder if any of this is them trying to set a precedent for some weird bypass of no models no rules by tacking the rules onto a strat rather than a hypothetically nonexistent model?
DarkBlack wrote: Seeing as you asked:
It made me feel like GW reworked their rules at the core and had a fresh start to make a good game on a solid set basic mechanics... and then immediately went back to piling on a load of bloat in a way that was easy to shake up.
That, the obvious lack of balance in the new codexes (including errata sent out between printing and release) and GW's continued gakky business practices to (that makes me feel like the games, lore and their fans are being taken advantage of).
40k 8th edition was my first major edition change since I stared with GW games (what AoS was doing was... not that) and I was thoroughly disillusioned.
Despite my starry eyed hopes it was clear that GW had no intention of making a good game.
I sold my armies, gave away my books and stopped playing GW games.
Never had a reason to regret this and plenty of confirmation (like this thread) that it was a good decision.
GW does that constantly.
I can't remember what edition it was, but GW started writing very basic minimalistic codexes as a new direction. That lasted for 2 or 3 books and then it was back to bloat and those unlucky few that got a minimalist book were stuck with it for years.
DarkBlack wrote: Seeing as you asked:
It made me feel like GW reworked their rules at the core and had a fresh start to make a good game on a solid set basic mechanics... and then immediately went back to piling on a load of bloat in a way that was easy to shake up.
That, the obvious lack of balance in the new codexes (including errata sent out between printing and release) and GW's continued gakky business practices to (that makes me feel like the games, lore and their fans are being taken advantage of).
40k 8th edition was my first major edition change since I stared with GW games (what AoS was doing was... not that) and I was thoroughly disillusioned.
Despite my starry eyed hopes it was clear that GW had no intention of making a good game.
I sold my armies, gave away my books and stopped playing GW games.
Never had a reason to regret this and plenty of confirmation (like this thread) that it was a good decision.
GW does that constantly.
I can't remember what edition it was, but GW started writing very basic minimalistic codexes as a new direction. That lasted for 2 or 3 books and then it was back to bloat and those unlucky few that got a minimalist book were stuck with it for years.
The 4th ed dark angels book was a glaring example of this. It was the first official codex release for 4th. GW had declared they were going in a more streamlined simple direction.....it lasted for like 2 codexes and then it went the other way
Voss wrote: (...)Make them appropriate to the units rather than massive game changing stuff like fight twice or shoot twice (or stupid gotcha crap), and its just a matter of tweaking specific mechanics at a cost.
that's pretty much the key point I'd say. doesn't matter if it's the current 40k system or AoS version, just get rid of the massive game changer and gotcha bs.
I have the Ork and Imperial Guard codexes from that edition and they're slim softcovers.
More like the second half of 4th ed. After putting get you by army lists in the 3rd ed rulebook, GW released a full round of those slim codices (though Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves just got a supplement to use with Codex Space Marines). After that, select codices got a second book for that edition and together with Witch Hunters and Daemon Hunters that started bringing back large fluff sections to codices and provided a lot more wargear choices. This continued into 4th ed until GW swung around again and made a batch of blanderized books that sat between the old, decent ones and the new, more powerful ones that came with 5th ed and offered more options again.
The books here should be Dark Angels, Chaos Marines and Eldar, all of which did not get a warm reception at the time, as well as Codex Orks which while not amazing was not such a dire step down from the 3rd ed one, and Codex Chaos Daemons that existed because Daemons got kicked out of the Chaos Marine codex. That should be all of them, but my memory is a little hazy considering that was fifteen years ago. It was luckily only a brief period but sucked pretty bad for players of those armies, and is a case study for how GW has trouble going for half an edition before changing design paradigms.
Geifer wrote: Stratagems are dreadful for the reasons that have been amply mentioned already. They're a large part of the reason why I don't play 40k anymore.
I have the Ork and Imperial Guard codexes from that edition and they're slim softcovers.
More like the second half of 4th ed. After putting get you by army lists in the 3rd ed rulebook, GW released a full round of those slim codices (though Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves just got a supplement to use with Codex Space Marines). After that, select codices got a second book for that edition and together with Witch Hunters and Daemon Hunters that started bringing back large fluff sections to codices and provided a lot more wargear choices. This continued into 4th ed until GW swung around again and made a batch of blanderized books that sat between the old, decent ones and the new, more powerful ones that came with 5th ed and offered more options again.
The books here should be Dark Angels, Chaos Marines and Eldar, all of which did not get a warm reception at the time, as well as Codex Orks which while not amazing was not such a dire step down from the 3rd ed one, and Codex Chaos Daemons that existed because Daemons got kicked out of the Chaos Marine codex. That should be all of them, but my memory is a little hazy considering that was fifteen years ago. It was luckily only a brief period but sucked pretty bad for players of those armies, and is a case study for how GW has trouble going for half an edition before changing design paradigms.
My friends and I (the ones having gone back to 4th edition anyways) are letting players choose what codices they want to use.
For example, I'm playing Chaos Daemons whilst a buddy is using the 3.5 dex for his 1k sons.
To add on to my previous thoughts on Stratagems. I do wish we had a deck of universal stratagems, more than we got from the main rule book. and only a few more but faction specific in every codex. I think something like this would support playing with CP's or as I had wished , just drawing a few at random for once per game plays. If I were smarter I'd sort that out. But I also used to enjoy Maelstrom of war cards, which I felt really spiced up 7th and was my go to.
I keep thinking about how 9th reminds me of 2nd, and with my lack of winning a single game it really reminds me of 2nd...
I'm sure more competitive players would find it too "dull" though.
Geifer wrote: Stratagems are dreadful for the reasons that have been amply mentioned already. They're a large part of the reason why I don't play 40k anymore.
I have the Ork and Imperial Guard codexes from that edition and they're slim softcovers.
More like the second half of 4th ed. After putting get you by army lists in the 3rd ed rulebook, GW released a full round of those slim codices (though Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves just got a supplement to use with Codex Space Marines). After that, select codices got a second book for that edition and together with Witch Hunters and Daemon Hunters that started bringing back large fluff sections to codices and provided a lot more wargear choices. This continued into 4th ed until GW swung around again and made a batch of blanderized books that sat between the old, decent ones and the new, more powerful ones that came with 5th ed and offered more options again.
The books here should be Dark Angels, Chaos Marines and Eldar, all of which did not get a warm reception at the time, as well as Codex Orks which while not amazing was not such a dire step down from the 3rd ed one, and Codex Chaos Daemons that existed because Daemons got kicked out of the Chaos Marine codex. That should be all of them, but my memory is a little hazy considering that was fifteen years ago. It was luckily only a brief period but sucked pretty bad for players of those armies, and is a case study for how GW has trouble going for half an edition before changing design paradigms.
My friends and I (the ones having gone back to 4th edition anyways) are letting players choose what codices they want to use.
For example, I'm playing Chaos Daemons whilst a buddy is using the 3.5 dex for his 1k sons.
Nothing wrong with that. As bad as those 4th ed Chaos codices were in isolation, when combined with the 3.5 one and Eye of Terror you may perhaps get the most comprehensive depiction of Chaos you can get for any single set of core rules thanks to the relative stability and compatibility of the rules in 3rd, 4th and 5th ed. Old legions, new renegades, pure Daemons and Lost and Damned. Anything Chaos got after that pales in comparison.
Pancakey wrote: Does the mechanic of activating a strategem in game make you feel?
I voted no for the sole purpose of them slowing the pace of the game.
I'd like to see all stratagems moved to pregame before totally removing them, and maybe leaving in the reroll one since it's not too bad I guess. But still.
Some armies have borderline broken strats that are used every single game, some armies have garbage.
As an example, my Ork army uses predominantly pre-battle strats. And those are allowing me multiple warlord traits and relics. After that I occasionally use maybe 3-4 strats depending on circumstance. I use the 3D6 charge strat, I use Tankbusta bomb strat, I might use fight after death on a warboss if he gets killed before swinging. After that...there isn't much I spend CP on.
So yeah, some armies have broken Strats, some are just left with situational strats or abilities that were turned into strats.
I personally think that stratagems are okay on paper, but mishandled in practice.
Each army should get some pre-game ones. Upgrades to your list, redeploy some units, reserves, etc.
Then get rid of all of the other strats and make them part of the data sheets either as once per game abilities or as toned down versions if they're able to be used more than once.
No bonkers powerful ones either, it ruins the game. Want to have a unit fight twice? Best take another one of that unit then.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah I just don't get the narrative logic of stratagems.
Despite disliking 40K's stratagems as they currently exist, I really liked Warmachine's analogous mechanic, because it was mechanically clean and it made sense.
Your spellcasters generate focus points each turn, ie magic. You spend focus to cast spells (all on the stat card, no book-flipping), to boost the spellcaster's combat ability, to boost the combat ability of magic-golem-robots under their command, or to command those magic-golem-robots to do special actions. This is all stuff that is done with magic in-universe and your spellcaster only has so much magic to spread around at any given time, so it makes sense. Your basic troops don't need (and can't get) focus, they do their own thing.
Meanwhile in 40K, if the structural composition of your army is too atypical then you'll have to choose between getting rewarded by the gods or firing smoke launchers, you are encouraged to blow these abilities on turn 1 to maximize damage, and it's really not clear what any of this represents.
AoS gets it more right, IMO, in that stratagems are mostly command abilities that are either universal or provided by specific characters. CP is generated per-turn, so it's more overtly a command mechanic, and super special abilities on units tend to be once-per-game rather than tied to the same resource. Less to remember, less alpha-strike-y, more logically consistent.
Despite disliking 40K's stratagems as they currently exist, I really liked Warmachine's analogous mechanic, because it was mechanically clean and it made sense.
Your spellcasters generate focus points each turn, ie magic. You spend focus to cast spells (all on the stat card, no book-flipping), to boost the spellcaster's combat ability, to boost the combat ability of magic-golem-robots under their command, or to command those magic-golem-robots to do special actions. This is all stuff that is done with magic in-universe and your spellcaster only has so much magic to spread around at any given time, so it makes sense. Your basic troops don't need (and can't get) focus, they do their own thing.
Meanwhile in 40K, if the structural composition of your army is too atypical then you'll have to choose between getting rewarded by the gods or firing smoke launchers, you are encouraged to blow these abilities on turn 1 to maximize damage, and it's really not clear what any of this represents.
AoS gets it more right, IMO, in that stratagems are mostly command abilities that are either universal or provided by specific characters. CP is generated per-turn, so it's more overtly a command mechanic, and super special abilities on units tend to be once-per-game rather than tied to the same resource. Less to remember, less alpha-strike-y, more logically consistent.
As bad as they are in 9th they are still miles better than in 8th. My go to example of how bad strats were is my Ork Lootas.
In 8th Lootas were garbage tier. They did too little dmg, had too little durability and were overly expensive. As an example, 25 lootas in 2 mobz averaged 50 shots and if you were badmoonz they averaged 22(ish) hits. 25 Lootas is 425pts. 22 Autocannon hits for 425pts was...yeah, bad. However! if you buffed them with a lot of CP this changed. 1st off, 1CP Mob Up, you could combine the 2 mobz of 15 and 10 lootas into 1 massive mob of 25, Next, exploding 5s, instead of just 6s giving you an extra shot you could buff this to be 5s as well (2CP) NEXT you spend 3CP on shoot twice, and finally you have 1 CP for a re-roll on # of shots and 1CP for grot shields when your opponent inevitably targets them for destruction.
So how many CP does it cost? 7-8CP turn 1 and 6-7CP Turn 2, at that point you were out of CP so don't worry about turn 3, so what do you get from that?
So before 425pts of Lootas = 22ish hits. With all that CP investment it went to about 50. 50 S7 AP-1 2DMG HITS was pretty good for 425pts (+ 90-120pts of grots)
So were Lootas good in 8th? Nope, they sucked horribly, but when you buffed them with your entire CP stash they became one of the best units in the game. And as such, GW priced them as if they were ALWAYS shooting twice, always had grot shields and always had exploding 5s.
Sadly, this mindset of Lootas being too good has persisted into 9th which is why Lootas are too my knowledge the worst Auto-cannon unit in the entire game.
SemperMortis wrote: So were Lootas good in 8th? Nope, they sucked horribly, but when you buffed them with your entire CP stash they became one of the best units in the game. And as such, GW priced them as if they were ALWAYS shooting twice, always had grot shields and always had exploding 5s.
That, I think, is a major core issue with stratagems- even with the worst offenders (shoot-twice/fight-twice) toned down, the fact that you get nearly all your CP up-front and have no limit to how many stratagems can apply to one unit really lets you stack on the buffs, and that's enormously difficult to balance around, particularly in a game where a unit receiving a 1CP stratagem could be six Guardsmen or a superheavy tank.
At the very least, I think shifting CP to explicitly per-turn generation would both curb the worst abuses (no blowing 7-8 CP in one turn) and create a strong tradeoff where putting all your CP into one unit means nothing else is getting buffed.
I like what they are doing with the different CP costs depending on the value of the unit. I just don't think they've managed to do it very well in general. Another good example of that mindset is the ork vehicle upgrades. You can give "more Dakka" to a Scrapjet AND a Dakkajet for 15pts.
"Each time this model shoots, roll a D6. On a 4+ make 1 additional attack with each dakka weapon this model is equipped with. On a 6, make 2 additional attacks with each Dakka weapon this model is equipped with"
Scrapjet has 4 Big shootas, so on a 4+ thats 4 extra shots...for 15ps....at best its 8 extra shots, or less than 3 max range big shootas but for the same price. why on gods green earth would i ever take that, but on a Dakkajet it has 6 Supa Shootas which cost 10pts each, so 15pts for 6 (Possibly 12) extra shots is almost about the same cost as just adding 1 additional Supa Shoota. Realistically it should have been a FREE or 5pt upgrade but because GW...yeah.
GW really needs better play testers who are army specific. A Space Marine testing an Ork army isn't very useful, likewise an Ork player play testing an Eldar army isn't going to yield as useful results as an eldar player would.
I think stratagems they way they are devalue the character aspect of units. Unit choice has less to do with the units stats, abilities, battlefield rolls and it’s cool factor and much more to do with how well the plug into a formula to achieve a massively over powered unit for the points price.
I think stratagems should A) be actually about battlefield strategy… when and how you can call in your reserves, teleport strikes or flying units for example. And B) should be liked to characters so your choice of warlord starts to have a much bigger affect on the performance of your army rather than radius buffs. They can then also reflect the tactic and character of the army
SemperMortis wrote: So were Lootas good in 8th? Nope, they sucked horribly, but when you buffed them with your entire CP stash they became one of the best units in the game. And as such, GW priced them as if they were ALWAYS shooting twice, always had grot shields and always had exploding 5s.
That, I think, is a major core issue with stratagems- even with the worst offenders (shoot-twice/fight-twice) toned down, the fact that you get nearly all your CP up-front and have no limit to how many stratagems can apply to one unit really lets you stack on the buffs, and that's enormously difficult to balance around, particularly in a game where a unit receiving a 1CP stratagem could be six Guardsmen or a superheavy tank.
At the very least, I think shifting CP to explicitly per-turn generation would both curb the worst abuses (no blowing 7-8 CP in one turn) and create a strong tradeoff where putting all your CP into one unit means nothing else is getting buffed.
I think that's a pretty smart thing to do. You could also make it harsher as an incentive for Battleforged and keeping your Warlord alive too. If, say, an army with a Warlord gets 1 CP per turn (so every army gets some by default). But then a Battleforged (any combo of Detatchments) army gets an additional 1 per turn, but an army that uses just a Battalion/Brigade generates 2 additional, per turn. (for plus 3 total, Warlord and Battalion). And if your Warlord dies you lose the +1.
You could also limit the available Strat pool, so even if you saved up, you could never have more than 4 CP or something.
I'd still cut like 80% of the Strats tho. And then re-price the remaining ones for the above paradigm.
Insectum7 wrote: I think that's a pretty smart thing to do. You could also make it harsher as an incentive for Battleforged and keeping your Warlord alive too. If, say, an army with a Warlord gets 1 CP per turn (so every army gets some by default). But then a Battleforged (any combo of Detatchments) army gets an additional 1 per turn, but an army that uses just a Battalion/Brigade generates 2 additional, per turn. (for plus 3 total, Warlord and Battalion). And if your Warlord dies you lose the +1.
The thing I don't like there (specifically the Battalion/Brigade bonus) is that it reinforces how your pre-game administrative organization affects the ability of your commanders to lead their armies. I mean, in a historical wargame I'm all for armies with significant administrative friction having more trouble leading their troops, but a Marine Captain having a harder time inspiring his men because there's also a Spearhead of tanks in the next city block over seems weird to me. It's still maintaining the same conceptual overlap between pre-game administrative abilities and in-game command abilities.
If I were given free rein to overhaul the stratagem system, as a starting point I'd probably divide pre-game CP in half and double per-turn CP generation, then go and separate all existing stratagems into four categories:
1. Administrative/logistical- all the pre-game stratagems. Have these be paid for exclusively with pre-game CP, as determined by your army composition. Not much of a change from current, but with starting CP cut in half it would make for harder choices. I also like the idea of expanding the universal stratagems; maybe pay CP to infiltrate a unit, or start with prepared positions like in 8th, or potentially (if we want to get really crazy) change up your roster pre-game. Any leftover CP just goes into your pool for the first turn.
2. Command- things relating to leaders directing their troops to perform better. I'd tie these stratagems to characters (no more than 2-4 each), which would both reinforce the value of leaders and provide a mechanism to distinguish them. For example, you could give Tau both Mont'ka and Kauyon officers who otherwise have very similar profiles, but totally different sets of stratagems they could use to benefit troops around them. Make armies feel like their leaders are directing and guiding the troops around them, not just emitting bland auras. If you embrace the idea of 0CP stratagems, you could even roll mechanics like Astra Militarum Orders into this system.
3. Unit abilities- things that aren't commands and are more like special abilities, but not on the datasheet. These I'd give a long and hard look, and for unit-specific ones mostly change to either innate always-on abilities or once-per-game abilities (on the relevant unit datasheet either way). For the ones that are generic, it's a tougher question. I'm convinced there's got to be a better way to represent 'transhuman physiology' than a once-per-turn gotcha moment where suddenly lascannons only wound on 4s, and a better way to represent Drukhari speed than having one unit (and only one unit) per turn able to move after shooting.
4. Wargear- self-explanatory. Nix the smoke launcher and meltabomb stratagems, bring back smoke launchers and meltabombs as either freebie equipment or paid with points. This is a wargame.
Anyways, my axe is plenty sharp now. I'm hoping the 40K development team is at least aware of the grumbling; stratagems and bloat (of which stratagems are a form, really) are the two most common complaints I see about 9th in the wild, not just on Dakka.
Insectum7 wrote: I think that's a pretty smart thing to do. You could also make it harsher as an incentive for Battleforged and keeping your Warlord alive too. If, say, an army with a Warlord gets 1 CP per turn (so every army gets some by default). But then a Battleforged (any combo of Detatchments) army gets an additional 1 per turn, but an army that uses just a Battalion/Brigade generates 2 additional, per turn. (for plus 3 total, Warlord and Battalion). And if your Warlord dies you lose the +1.
The thing I don't like there (specifically the Battalion/Brigade bonus) is that it reinforces how your pre-game administrative organization affects the ability of your commanders to lead their armies. I mean, in a historical wargame I'm all for armies with significant administrative friction having more trouble leading their troops, but a Marine Captain having a harder time inspiring his men because there's also a Spearhead of tanks in the next city block over seems weird to me. It's still maintaining the same conceptual overlap between pre-game administrative abilities and in-game command abilities.
. . .
Understandable. The reason I went that way with it is because really what CPs achieve is a mechanic that endorses detatchment organization, while not actually making it mandatory. My route is aimed at encouraging ye-olde FOC. The idea being a "typical" force org is more routine and operates more smoothly in battle. I'll grant you that it could be somewhat artificial in the nitty gritty, but abstracted a bit I think it's fine.
Rest of your post is good stuff, although maybe too complicated? There's always the push and shove between what I personally like, but the sort of accessibility targets of 40k.
Insectum7 wrote: I think that's a pretty smart thing to do. You could also make it harsher as an incentive for Battleforged and keeping your Warlord alive too. If, say, an army with a Warlord gets 1 CP per turn (so every army gets some by default). But then a Battleforged (any combo of Detatchments) army gets an additional 1 per turn, but an army that uses just a Battalion/Brigade generates 2 additional, per turn. (for plus 3 total, Warlord and Battalion). And if your Warlord dies you lose the +1.
The thing I don't like there (specifically the Battalion/Brigade bonus) is that it reinforces how your pre-game administrative organization affects the ability of your commanders to lead their armies. I mean, in a historical wargame I'm all for armies with significant administrative friction having more trouble leading their troops, but a Marine Captain having a harder time inspiring his men because there's also a Spearhead of tanks in the next city block over seems weird to me. It's still maintaining the same conceptual overlap between pre-game administrative abilities and in-game command abilities.
If I were given free rein to overhaul the stratagem system, as a starting point I'd probably divide pre-game CP in half and double per-turn CP generation, then go and separate all existing stratagems into four categories:
1. Administrative/logistical- all the pre-game stratagems. Have these be paid for exclusively with pre-game CP, as determined by your army composition. Not much of a change from current, but with starting CP cut in half it would make for harder choices. I also like the idea of expanding the universal stratagems; maybe pay CP to infiltrate a unit, or start with prepared positions like in 8th, or potentially (if we want to get really crazy) change up your roster pre-game. Any leftover CP just goes into your pool for the first turn.
2. Command- things relating to leaders directing their troops to perform better. I'd tie these stratagems to characters (no more than 2-4 each), which would both reinforce the value of leaders and provide a mechanism to distinguish them. For example, you could give Tau both Mont'ka and Kauyon officers who otherwise have very similar profiles, but totally different sets of stratagems they could use to benefit troops around them. Make armies feel like their leaders are directing and guiding the troops around them, not just emitting bland auras. If you embrace the idea of 0CP stratagems, you could even roll mechanics like Astra Militarum Orders into this system.
3. Unit abilities- things that aren't commands and are more like special abilities, but not on the datasheet. These I'd give a long and hard look, and for unit-specific ones mostly change to either innate always-on abilities or once-per-game abilities (on the relevant unit datasheet either way). For the ones that are generic, it's a tougher question. I'm convinced there's got to be a better way to represent 'transhuman physiology' than a once-per-turn gotcha moment where suddenly lascannons only wound on 4s, and a better way to represent Drukhari speed than having one unit (and only one unit) per turn able to move after shooting.
4. Wargear- self-explanatory. Nix the smoke launcher and meltabomb stratagems, bring back smoke launchers and meltabombs as either freebie equipment or paid with points. This is a wargame.
Anyways, my axe is plenty sharp now. I'm hoping the 40K development team is at least aware of the grumbling; stratagems and bloat (of which stratagems are a form, really) are the two most common complaints I see about 9th in the wild, not just on Dakka.
I agree with almost all of this but do we really need pre-game stratagems at all?
Most of them seem like stuff that should be purchasable with points (artefacts, warlord traits) or stuff that should really be wargear, unit abilities, or even just basic game rules.
I agree with almost all of this but do we really need pre-game stratagems at all?
Most of them seem like stuff that should be purchasable with points (artefacts, warlord traits) or stuff that should really be wargear, unit abilities, or even just basic game rules.
The new people do not know anything different, those of us who play different game systems and can make a comparison or played other editions of 40K understand the difference.
Some people like the changes, many do not, as shown by the explosion of players going for oldhammer/prohammer where the things you want were the way things worked.
4. Wargear- self-explanatory. Nix the smoke launcher and meltabomb stratagems, bring back smoke launchers and meltabombs as either freebie equipment or paid with points. This is a wargame.
Well, it used to be. i would call it more of a strategy game or a board game with movable pieces with 9th ed than a wargame. as one of the old topics here on the forum pointed out the difference between a WARgame and a warGAME, emphasis on the part of the system it is focused on.
Insectum7 wrote: Rest of your post is good stuff, although maybe too complicated? There's always the push and shove between what I personally like, but the sort of accessibility targets of 40k.
Well, I'm more or less just suggesting paring down the entire stratagem list per faction to a couple of pre-game ones and then character-specific stratagems on the datasheets. I'd wager the significantly reduced cognitive burden (fewer stratagems to begin with, having them on relevant datasheets, and only the ones on currently-living characters being relevant to turn-to-turn play) would offset the marginal increase in gameplay complexity. It seems to work for AoS.
vipoid wrote: I agree with almost all of this but do we really need pre-game stratagems at all?
Most of them seem like stuff that should be purchasable with points (artefacts, warlord traits) or stuff that should really be wargear, unit abilities, or even just basic game rules.
To be clear, I don't think things that could easily be costed (relics, warlord traits, unit upgrades like Veteran Intercessors) should be pre-game stratagems, and agree that those should just be paid for with points. I was pleasantly surprised that the new synapse creature abilities in Octarius have points costs rather than CP costs.
I'm not wedded to pre-game stratagems, but I think a crucial difference is that pre-game stratagems can be chosen when your opponent is known, rather than being yet more options baked into your army list with no flexibility. I'm not sure how it works in Dust 1947, but in Dust Warfare, you had a number of points to bid pre-game on battlefield conditions or objectives, which you could use to favor your army or counteract a bad matchup. If you were a short-ranged army against a long-ranged gunline, for example, you could push for night fighting, or for an objective that will require the enemy to approach the middle of the table. It made for more interesting matchups than armies where you basically know how they're going to play at the listbuilding stage. I really like the idea of Strategic Reserves in 40K because it leans in that direction, and wouldn't mind seeing pre-game options expanded, but I'd also be fine with just ditching that altogether and scaling back stratagems to just command abilities a la AoS.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah I just don't get the narrative logic of stratagems.
My chaos character killed your astropath with a single punch, so I use Chaos Boon.
What's that? Later my mook lieutenant solo'd Guilliman in an epic, totally unexpected result?
Too bad. The gods were too busy rewarding the other guy for smacking a blind nerd around.
To me it's as bad as 7th psykers who learned powers at random the morning of the battle and then immediately forgot them as soon as it was over. Like...what?!
Unit1126PLL wrote: Yeah I just don't get the narrative logic of stratagems.
My chaos character killed your astropath with a single punch, so I use Chaos Boon.
What's that? Later my mook lieutenant solo'd Guilliman in an epic, totally unexpected result?
Too bad. The gods were too busy rewarding the other guy for smacking a blind nerd around.
To me it's as bad as 7th psykers who learned powers at random the morning of the battle and then immediately forgot them as soon as it was over. Like...what?!
warhead01 wrote: But I also used to enjoy Maelstrom of war cards, which I felt really spiced up 7th and was my go to.
Yea it really spices up combat when your commander on the radio is changing your mission objective every 5 minutes.
"Quick kill their psyker!"
"Uh sir, they don't have one. That race isn't even capable of using psychic powers"
"Belay that order, actually we need you to kill their monstrous creature"
"uh sir, about that, they don't appear to have one of those either"
For those bemoaning the one per turn thing:
That's a Matched Play rule.
I've been playing only using PL, and the Open Play missions, we rarely use strats, but for the games we decide to, there's no limits, summon what you can, awesomeness, and it's makes games amazing and memorable.
Like, it's it smart to burn all my CP to blow up an entire squad of Scarabs? Probably not, but when it takes out a Monolith, or when you need something dead, it's glorious.
Blndmage wrote: Doesn't Crusade work like that, kinda?
*Has never fully read the Crusade rules*
No. You might be thinking of the universal honors/upgrades/scars from the BRB. But as soon as you use a 9e Codex things become non-universal. You gain access to stuff unique to your faction.
DarkBlack wrote: Seeing as you asked:
It made me feel like GW reworked their rules at the core and had a fresh start to make a good game on a solid set basic mechanics... and then immediately went back to piling on a load of bloat in a way that was easy to shake up.
That, the obvious lack of balance in the new codexes (including errata sent out between printing and release) and GW's continued gakky business practices to (that makes me feel like the games, lore and their fans are being taken advantage of).
40k 8th edition was my first major edition change since I stared with GW games (what AoS was doing was... not that) and I was thoroughly disillusioned.
Despite my starry eyed hopes it was clear that GW had no intention of making a good game.
I sold my armies, gave away my books and stopped playing GW games.
Never had a reason to regret this and plenty of confirmation (like this thread) that it was a good decision.
GW does that constantly.
I can't remember what edition it was, but GW started writing very basic minimalistic codexes as a new direction. That lasted for 2 or 3 books and then it was back to bloat and those unlucky few that got a minimalist book were stuck with it for years.
I had my suspicions, tried not to think about it. 8th was going to fix things!
When 8th came it became clear that "The Fix" is always coming in the next FAQ/codex/chapter approved/edition, but never arrives.
As soon as I realised that and that the last argument (it's popular and opponent's are easy to find) was true of Infinity too I left to spend my time, money and emotional investment on companies/indie writers who respect that their product is a hobby that I invest myself in.
warhead01 wrote: But I also used to enjoy Maelstrom of war cards, which I felt really spiced up 7th and was my go to.
Yea it really spices up combat when your commander on the radio is changing your mission objective every 5 minutes.
"Quick kill their psyker!"
"Uh sir, they don't have one. That race isn't even capable of using psychic powers"
"Belay that order, actually we need you to kill their monstrous creature"
"uh sir, about that, they don't appear to have one of those either"
Super immersive and fun! /s
More immersive than you'd expect. We never actually even considered "our commanders" changing their minds or anything like that we were too busy puzzling out the turns. We'd been playing book missions for so long it was a good change of pace for us. My Orks stood a chance of winning a game, which for 7th was what I needed to keep playing. Worst Ork codex ever, so far.
We had a good time with those cards.
Toofast wrote: Yea it really spices up combat when your commander on the radio is changing your mission objective every 5 minutes.
"Quick kill their psyker!"
"Uh sir, they don't have one. That race isn't even capable of using psychic powers"
"Belay that order, actually we need you to kill their monstrous creature"
"uh sir, about that, they don't appear to have one of those either"
Super immersive and fun! /s
I'll take that over the drudgery of 9th's missions.
I actually like stratagems a lot when they are done right.
To me, stratagems should represent something that would be too much on the baseline data sheet, but add an element of play and abilities that is overall good. A few examples of this would be the -1 damage for Tsons in shooting, the -1 to wound for Skorpekhs.
I don't think stratagems should replace datasheet abilities that should already be included. For instance, there is no reason for Hexmark and Deathmarks to have to use a stratagem for interception when it should be on their base datasheet. There are quite a few examples of this.
Overall, I do actually like them a lot, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
Strategems feel like "gotchas" when I play them on people. And the number of them that exist out there just makes me not want to try and get into 9th edition at all.
I wish everything was just on the data sheet. There's just too many different rules and sub-rules and extra rules, and yadda yadda.
DarkBlack wrote:
I had my suspicions, tried not to think about it. 8th was going to fix things!
When 8th came it became clear that "The Fix" is always coming in the next FAQ/codex/chapter approved/edition, but never arrives.
As soon as I realised that and that the last argument (it's popular and opponent's are easy to find) was true of Infinity too I left to spend my time, money and emotional investment on companies/indie writers who respect that their product is a hobby that I invest myself in.
Herion hero sucks, try rehab hero...
/S
I still love my Salamanders, Metallica, Flawless Host/Emperors Children. But I don't love playing the game and with each ebb & flow of the game it makes me actively not give a flying feth about it. The models are why I have the armies I have, it most certainly is not the sheissenshoen that the game has become since I've been back(8th was first I'd played 40k since 2nd). Luckily I play in a very permissive environment locally and we can adjust the game to our preferences. But that has its limitations and unless I preplan a game with one of our more like-minded players(which are numerous but schedules change and life happens), I'd almost rather just build/paint.
Cuz I sure as gak don't play 40k for the balance.....I kinda hope nobody does, since it's unbalanced at the very core.
Cuz I sure as gak don't play 40k for the balance.....I kinda hope nobody does, since it's unbalanced at the very core.
Careful. This is how you summon Blackie and PenitantJake to come tell you that the game is balanced, you just aren't playing the one highly specific way that makes it so.
OT: Stratagems are a good idea, poorly implemented. If they worked more like Warcaster spells from Warmachine I think they'd work better, by which I mean they should overall be more expensive to use and and require you to be within a certain range of an HQ unit.
Ahahah lol. To be honest the most balanced 40k is the version I don't play at all, the overly competitive one. Looking at tournament stats the game definitely looks pretty balanced. It isn't for those who refuse to adapt their armies to current metas or have already started, which in my opinion is perfectly reasonable in both cases.
IMHO stratagems were a terrible idea from the beginning, they were probably the consequence to answer to those people complaining that during the opponent's turn they were doing nothing else than rolling for saves. I never minded the IGOUGO turn based game instead, and never felt the need to be more involved during the opponent's turn.
IMHO stratagems were a terrible idea from the beginning, they were probably the consequence to answer to those people complaining that during the opponent's turn they were doing nothing else than rolling for saves. I never minded the IGOUGO turn based game instead, and never felt the need to be more involved during the opponent's turn.
I disagree (surprise). I think stratagems have a place because too often I've played or watched games where the player who is having down time almost completely disengages from the game during the opponents turn, effectively leaving the opponent to play a solitaire game until he informs his opponent that he has to roll some saves now. GW will probably never abandon IGOUGO but turning strats into a way to react to an opponents actions would be the way to go IMO. Overwatch is already in the game but I think there could be more charge reactions such as falling back or setting a defence. There could also be reactive moves, counter charges and ducking for cover.
However these would all be once per turn and should probably (based on the current economy) start at 3cp and get more expensive from there. It would add a layer of decision making to stuff if you actually had to be wary of consequences. If someone parks their bloodthirster or whatever 6" from an objective you need to start to think about whether or not moving to that objective is really worth it if the opponent might have put it there because he's going to dump 5cp on a counter charge when you move into range or if he's just doing it to mess with you.
I think a strategem deck that was the same for every army in the game, and actually involved strategies, would be far better than what we have now.
No common stratagem deck will equally well for tau, marines, custodes, orks and knights at the same time. Previous editions of 40k have sufficiently proven that.
With the broad spectrum of armies and units that 40k has, you can't really make a one-size-fits-all solution. Something that would work just fine on a knight might be worthless on a squad of guardsmen, something that works great for a unit of terminators might become completely insane if dropped on a unit of boyz or gaunts.
From a recent thread I did, it seems fairly apparent that even 9th edition codices which heavily rely on stratagems like DG could easily be trimmed down to just 9 stratagems plus 1 per subfaction without really affecting game balance or army flavor.
I could go into more detail, but my experience with these kinds of thread is that it would be a waste of time anyways. The "stratagems bad!"-choir will shout down any contradicting opinion anyways.
IMHO stratagems were a terrible idea from the beginning, they were probably the consequence to answer to those people complaining that during the opponent's turn they were doing nothing else than rolling for saves. I never minded the IGOUGO turn based game instead, and never felt the need to be more involved during the opponent's turn.
I disagree (surprise). I think stratagems have a place because too often I've played or watched games where the player who is having down time almost completely disengages from the game during the opponents turn, effectively leaving the opponent to play a solitaire game until he informs his opponent that he has to roll some saves now. GW will probably never abandon IGOUGO but turning strats into a way to react to an opponents actions would be the way to go IMO. Overwatch is already in the game but I think there could be more charge reactions such as falling back or setting a defence. There could also be reactive moves, counter charges and ducking for cover.
However these would all be once per turn and should probably (based on the current economy) start at 3cp and get more expensive from there. It would add a layer of decision making to stuff if you actually had to be wary of consequences. If someone parks their bloodthirster or whatever 6" from an objective you need to start to think about whether or not moving to that objective is really worth it if the opponent might have put it there because he's going to dump 5cp on a counter charge when you move into range or if he's just doing it to mess with you.
In my experience detachment like that increased the more GW turned 40k into listhammer and the actual "game" into a dice rolling simulator. If you don't have the means to turn around the game through use of tactics, you don't need to pay attention to how the situation develops. Knowing your influence is minimal at best, a lot of people can think of a better way of spending their time during the opponent's turn.
That's not an inherent flaw of IGOUGO and stratagems are at best a band-aid for that. The way GW implements them however, the way GW has implemented pretty much everything for a good while now, stratagems are more often than not designed to double down on a near-certain development instead of supporting a continued back and forth.
Stratagems should never have involved mathematical benefits (such as re-rolls, bonuses to hit/wound etc.) or the ability to attack twice, or just replaced wargear.
They should have been limited options to allow you to execute a manoeuvre on the battlefield.
What form this would take, I am not sure. It would likely require changes to the core rules of 40k to allow for more tactical depth and to reward positioning beyond just having line of sight (such as mechanics representing and rewarding establishing overlapping fields of fire, pinning enemies in place and flanking etc.).
An example off the top of my head:
Clear The Way Select a vehicle with the <Tank> keyword. This vehicle may move through terrain so long as it does not have the <Impassable> keyword, however it may not fire any weapons this player turn or move on your next player turn. Any other units which move through terrain that the vehicle passed through after the vehicle has finished its move ignore the effects of that terrain until this players next turn.
So you sacrifice the firepower and movement of your tank in order to allow for a fast advance behind it by your other units, representing the first tank clearing out the path in front of it (smashing trees, blowing holes through buildings etc.) for the other forces to follow behind. This would allow you to emulate, for example, the German tank advance through the Ardennes on the tabletop. It also has a potential catch that it can be exploited by your opponent, by denying cover saves for units in the terrain or allowing them to quickly counter attack through the terrain.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Stratagems should never have involved mathematical benefits (such as re-rolls, bonuses to hit/wound etc.) or the ability to attack twice.
They should have been limited options to allow you to execute a manoeuvre on the battlefield.
What form this would take, I am not sure. It would likely require changes to the core rules of 40k to allow for more tactical depth and to reward positioning beyond just having line of sight (such as mechanics representing and rewarding establishing overlapping fields of fire, pinning enemies in place and flanking etc.).
AL stratagems come to mind, being more maneuvre orientated.
in general i agree with the sentiment, and in the case of former "equipment" options now being stratagems are just garbage.
I think a strategem deck that was the same for every army in the game, and actually involved strategies, would be far better than what we have now.
No common stratagem deck will equally well for tau, marines, custodes, orks and knights at the same time. Previous editions of 40k have sufficiently proven that.
With the broad spectrum of armies and units that 40k has, you can't really make a one-size-fits-all solution. Something that would work just fine on a knight might be worthless on a squad of guardsmen, something that works great for a unit of terminators might become completely insane if dropped on a unit of boyz or gaunts.
From a recent thread I did, it seems fairly apparent that even 9th edition codices which heavily rely on stratagems like DG could easily be trimmed down to just 9 stratagems plus 1 per subfaction without really affecting game balance or army flavor.
I could go into more detail, but my experience with these kinds of thread is that it would be a waste of time anyways. The "stratagems bad!"-choir will shout down any contradicting opinion anyways.
This specifically would not work for 40k, but Infinity has a stratagem like system, where you have 4 command tokens that can do various things. One is to change an irregular order into a regular order, meaning that you can have someone go from contributing their order to themselves to giving it to others. Another is a reroll for engineers/doctors. Another is having multiple models act with one order, but at a limited capacity. Another is to remove 2 orders from your enemy's order pool. I might be remembering some wrong, and there's more than what I mention, and if you know about Infinity, I'm sorry for explaining this. But a reasonable list of stratagems could work out pretty well for all armies. Similar to how USRs used to exist. But I do think a few army specific ones is better than only having a basic list for 40k.
The reason it works for infinity is that there is no bloat-
You have 4 tokens total for the entire game, you never get them back and they can be used for only 7 (IIRC) very specific things, and they are the same things for every faction in the game. no matter the unit/model involved. special skills for unit abilities are still built into their rules.
So, it is quite a different animal than what GW has done.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: This specifically would not work for 40k, but Infinity has a stratagem like system, where you have 4 command tokens that can do various things. One is to change an irregular order into a regular order, meaning that you can have someone go from contributing their order to themselves to giving it to others. Another is a reroll for engineers/doctors. Another is having multiple models act with one order, but at a limited capacity. Another is to remove 2 orders from your enemy's order pool. I might be remembering some wrong, and there's more than what I mention, and if you know about Infinity, I'm sorry for explaining this. But a reasonable list of stratagems could work out pretty well for all armies. Similar to how USRs used to exist. But I do think a few army specific ones is better than only having a basic list for 40k.
Don't know infinity (like at all), but just looking at pictures judging, it doesn't seem that units vary as much as they do in 40k.
When units range from 50 to 800 points, unit sizes vary from one to 30 and single models range from gretchin to castellan knights it's hard to make stratagems that can cover all that.
And speaking of USR - at least those from 6-7th did a very poor job covering anything that wasn't marines or craftword eldar, for precisely those reasons.
Cuz I sure as gak don't play 40k for the balance.....I kinda hope nobody does, since it's unbalanced at the very core.
Careful. This is how you summon Blackie and PenitantJake to come tell you that the game is balanced, you just aren't playing the one highly specific way that makes it so.
OT: Stratagems are a good idea, poorly implemented. If they worked more like Warcaster spells from Warmachine I think they'd work better, by which I mean they should overall be more expensive to use and and require you to be within a certain range of an HQ unit.
Read my posts Sim. I usually don't claim the game is balanced,
I tell people that balance is not and never has been my priority. This version of the game is closer to an RPG than it has ever been, which is why I like it.
If you like competitive wargames, you probably won't like it. The vast majority of my post on Dakka express these sentiments in one way shape or form. It does frequently bother me that Matched players want the whole game overhauled, not just the matched play part of it, but I'm not sure that translates into something that could be misinterpreted as saying the game is balanced.
I may once or twice have said something along the lines of "the game is balanced enough for people like me, whose primary interest is narrative and storytelling" but if you can find a post of mine that goes any further than that, I'd be surprised.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: This specifically would not work for 40k, but Infinity has a stratagem like system, where you have 4 command tokens that can do various things. One is to change an irregular order into a regular order, meaning that you can have someone go from contributing their order to themselves to giving it to others. Another is a reroll for engineers/doctors. Another is having multiple models act with one order, but at a limited capacity. Another is to remove 2 orders from your enemy's order pool. I might be remembering some wrong, and there's more than what I mention, and if you know about Infinity, I'm sorry for explaining this. But a reasonable list of stratagems could work out pretty well for all armies. Similar to how USRs used to exist. But I do think a few army specific ones is better than only having a basic list for 40k.
Don't know infinity (like at all), but just looking at pictures judging, it doesn't seem that units vary as much as they do in 40k.
When units range from 50 to 800 points, unit sizes vary from one to 30 and single models range from gretchin to castellan knights it's hard to make stratagems that can cover all that.
And speaking of USR - at least those from 6-7th did a very poor job covering anything that wasn't marines or craftword eldar, for precisely those reasons.
The units vary in special skills, but the entire type of game is different. it is a pure skirmish rection system with d20s. every model gets 2 short or a single long action (there is a list) when they activate.
The average game consists of only 10 models and as normal with skirmish systems because less models are involved it has very complex rules. including different levels of defensive cammo penalties, range brackets for every weapon type that gives bonuses and penalties to hit etc... weapons are standardized across all factions. a heavy machinegun used by one faction has the same stats as one used by any other faction. the unit equipped with it has the special rules.
I love infinity but it is not an army/squad battle game scale like 40K
I won't claim that the rules for Infinity need to be brought to 40k, it was just my example for command points. And there can be a lot of variety. My list contains both 14 point models that have advance move, extra orders for just themselves, and a flamethrower like gun to make up for their bad gun skill while being able to dish out the hurt in CC, and a 136 point monster that is the Avatar, which focuses on being a giant model that can both take the hits and give them back.
Infinity also manages to have a lot of unit diversity and different factions with USRs and specific stratagems, but it's a very different game. I just want to use it as proof that it is possible for USRs and only generic Stratagems to work, though bespoke rules and stratagems in addition to universal would be best for a codex by codex approach like 40k. Universal for things like deepstrike, feel no pain, invulnerable saves.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: I won't claim that the rules for Infinity need to be brought to 40k, it was just my example for command points. And there can be a lot of variety. My list contains both 14 point models that have advance move, extra orders for just themselves, and a flamethrower like gun to make up for their bad gun skill while being able to dish out the hurt in CC, and a 136 point monster that is the Avatar, which focuses on being a giant model that can both take the hits and give them back.
Infinity also manages to have a lot of unit diversity and different factions with USRs and specific stratagems, but it's a very different game. I just want to use it as proof that it is possible for USRs and only generic Stratagems to work, though bespoke rules and stratagems in addition to universal would be best for a codex-by-codex approach like 40k. Universal for things like deepstrike, feel no pain, invulnerable saves.
I understand what you were getting at. as an old school player i know the game was fine without them. USRs and unit special rules worked just fine. there was just always something in the edition of the main rules that GW usually screwed up in every edition. unfortunately, the best rules tended to get smattered across multiple editions instead of all being in the same one.
It doesn't help that the current staff at GW does not understand their own game or their own universe. all the original creators have long since left. Now (say the last 3 editions) the marketing department is driving the game more than they had in the past That and the current GW actions against the fan community have driven many people to play old editions or just stop playing all together (a boon for classic battletech fans though) many of the "hardcore" 40K players i know in fact have switched to other games. i see them playing infinity, flames of war, classic battletech and at my store a variety of indie games.
For an idea of what kind of fusion, you are thinking about i suggest you just look through the core miniature terrain rules for DUST tactics (battlefield) or 1947(the last updated rule set) as they are something of a mix between the infinity system at the scale of the 40K game type. they were written by Andy Chambers the lead game designer for GW from 1990-2004 who gave us everything (40K, blood bowl, BFG, space hulk, WHFB, etc... ) GW game wise up to that point. It will give you an idea of the game design strategy that could work at the scale you are looking for.
I don't really hold much hope out for GW at this point though. they have proven time and again that they are incredibly capable at taking a workable idea and totally screwing the implementation. But hey if it drives model sales do they really care all that much?
I quite like the idea of stratagems and I don't mind having a number of them in the codices to choose from, but perhaps it would be better if you had to select only a few you were allowed for your army before the battle, a bit like psychic powers, perhaps you could have 2 or 3 stratagems per 1k pts, or maybe a number of stratagems depending on the number of commanders/characters in the army?
Right now it's far too much of an ordeal trying to remember all the stratagems in the various books you can play in any given situation for an army. I haven't played that many games of 9th and I only played on of 8th but I find I am frequently burning through CP very quickly. I had a game a few nights ago and both me and my opponent were almost out of CP by turns 2, partly because it is effective to use stratagems to gain an advantage early on. I feel like there must be a better way to implement stratagems
) that it's just too much to have on top of an already needlessly complicated (and yet somehow still shallow) game. They're counter intuitive, especially reactionary ones like Transhuman. It, and any strat like it, are the ones I hate the most: "This squad is somehow strangely more resistant to damage because I, as the commander of this force, expended an abstracted strategic resource, but only for this turn!"
