No particular ideas in mind for this thread, but figured it might prove an interesting think tank type discussion. And I do like a good think tank.
As you no doubt know, 8th and 9th Ed introduced a variety of what used to be called Force Organisation Charts. From intentionally troop heavy and in theory quite well rounded forces, to super specialist detachments. Each allows different selections, and going Out There has a cost in Command Points.
As a non-active player, I get the impression the effort is appreciated, but the implantation is a bit flawed. And it largely boils down to how an individual’s head canon for a force stands, and not at all Troop options being equal across codexes.
Back in the dim and distant past, we saw different armies having slightly different takes on how you assembled your force. As a loose example, Imperial Guard could take one Support Unit for every Infantry unit. This lead to a different looking force to other Codexes.
In modern 40K, and the conversation which sparked this thread? The Eldar rumours (the veracity of which remains to be seen) are claiming CWE will see no Aspects in Troops, outside of hypothetical at the time of writing shifts from characters and/or stratagems.
Given Aspects are the real fighters of CWE, that doesn’t sit quite right with me. In my head canon (heavily influenced by actual canon), Guardians are more make weight. Citizen Soldiery drafted in certain conflicts, and so they shouldn’t be as common a sight as Aspects working in concert.
Now one could of course do that by choosing the Elites heavy Detachment, but then you’re doing yourself out of Command Points. Which depending how reliant they end up on Stratagems could prove a serious disadvantage.
But what if each army had at the very least variation on the CP costs of more specialist detachments? This could be an army wide rule (so for argument’s sake, CWE get the CP cost of an Elites detachment [Vanguard?] rebate for the first one), or potentially tied to a Character (so again for arguments sake and just an example I’ve not really though through) the same rebate could be gained from heading up that Detachment with an Autarch or Phoenix Lord, to represent that’s their area of tactical expertise.
You can make Deathwing or Ravenwing Detachments, for example, that while retaining the Elite/FA composition, gain most benefits you'd normally have in a Battalion with troops, notably ObSec and a refund on CP costs for the detachment. But it comes with added restrictions to ensure a bit more fluff-adherence.
Same could easily be done with Aspect Warriors, where an "Aspect Host" Vanguard Detachment could grant your Aspect Warriors ObSec and refund you the CP cost for the Detachment if led by a Phoenix Lord, but had some restrictions so you couldn't use it to spam Elite Wraith-constructs with it.
Armies of Renown are also a thing, which could easily be adapted to represent a Windrider Host or some such, while simultaneously ensuring that just randomly throwing Aspects or Bikes into the troop slot becomes a min/max opportunity for people trying to build a completely different army from the archetypes you would envision in a bike-heavy or aspect-heavy army. #
That said, simply having less CP might also be acceptable game-balance. You are taking more efficient "elite" units and save points on maybe less efficient Guardians (especially if Aspects aren't given near-Guardian-statlines/profiles to ensure they remain unproblematic if spammed a lot and instead get better datasheets more inline with the lore). To keep it even, having it cost CP wouldn't be the worst idea to balance different approaches.
see, i'd always understood is as the aspect warriors were the cutting edge, leading the attack and doing the pivotal roles, but the guardians were not just "makeweight", but their to give the eldar the bulk and mass for the aspects to operate around. they tie down the enemy, watch the flanks, hold the terrian the aspects take, etc. in short, they furfill those boring but necessary roles that troops should. They give the eldar the volume to form a battleline, to be more than just raiders.
as to faction specific detachments.....i'm not sure. I feel that if your going to skew hard into a given playstyle their should be consequences, and a reduction of command points, and by extension access to the stratagems a lot of elite units need to be at full efficiency, is a meaningful tradeoff.
lets face it, for many factions, the troop tax is real, they feel their troops are a burden they must pay for to get access to the stuff they want. The single biggest reason for the popularity of scouts in 8th edition was they let you fill out troops slots with a cheaper unit than tac marines, and the second they no longer could do that because they were moved to elites, they plummeted in popularity. (I feel scouts should have been fast attack choice if they cant be troops, with their concealed positions and outflank abilities, but thats a different argument)
Now, to get around that tax, you should be giving something up or else its just a flat upgrade. The specialist detachments make you pay for this.
Also, they enable you "half skew" if you run multiple detachments, as extra HQ choices are rarely a "tax" to most people. for example, a regular battalion for most of your force and a elite detachment for a punching force.
also, the "armies of renown" idea that GW is pushing out in its warzone octarius books is another way of doing what your talking about: creating "fluffly" detachments with non standard army building restrictions.
Isn't this broadly the remit of those Psykick Awakening 2.0 - (Paywall bugaloo) books
I suspect the GW won't push it any further than that. lest those evil TFG players break their slapdash way of doing things, and while the munny rolls in why bother
The easiest way to fix the eldar situation would be to say if you take a Phoenix Lord as your warlord that aspect warrior becomes a troop choice. This is what happens with chaos if you take a particular legion then X elite choice becomes a troop choice. The big change that would have to occur in that Phoenix lords would have to be eligible for warlord traits and should benefit from craftworld traits.
In modern 40K, and the conversation which sparked this thread? The Eldar rumours (the veracity of which remains to be seen) are claiming CWE will see no Aspects in Troops, outside of hypothetical at the time of writing shifts from characters and/or stratagems.
Given Aspects are the real fighters of CWE, that doesn’t sit quite right with me. In my head canon (heavily influenced by actual canon), Guardians are more make weight. Citizen Soldiery drafted in certain conflicts, and so they shouldn’t be as common a sight as Aspects working in concert.
Now one could of course do that by choosing the Elites heavy Detachment, but then you’re doing yourself out of Command Points. Which depending how reliant they end up on Stratagems could prove a serious disadvantage.
Why not take 3 min guardian units and have 6 elite slots with a normal battalion? That's still the ratio you're interested with, majority aspects with a guardian "bulk" if you will.
But what if each army had at the very least variation on the CP costs of more specialist detachments? This could be an army wide rule (so for argument’s sake, CWE get the CP cost of an Elites detachment [Vanguard?] rebate for the first one), or potentially tied to a Character (so again for arguments sake and just an example I’ve not really though through) the same rebate could be gained from heading up that Detachment with an Autarch or Phoenix Lord, to represent that’s their area of tactical expertise.
Any thoughts on this?
They did this in 6th/7th? Wasn't a fan then because it because either a useless tacked on detachment that wasn't better or it was outright better and never worth taking a normal one (assuming formations didn't win out).
And no your not giving up CP by putting your army in a Vanguard detachment, you get 1 detachment for free (the one with your warlord in it).
Not playing a Battalion doesn't cost you anything.
That is outright wrong.
Vanguards, Spearheads and Outriders all cost you 3CP even if your Warlord is in them.
Yes.. going from a full army with an incredible book that basically is the reason why we have army traits and detachments to 1-2 units... yes that is "coming back"
A battlesuit-only T'au force that gets extra benefits for using only battlesuit keyworded units (other than Firewarriors, Devilfish, and HQ's). So basically crisis suits, stealth suits, Ghostkeels, Riptides, Stormsurges, Broadsides. Maybe move Stealth Suits to Fast Attack?
Also I'd like to see different FOC's for the different Imperial Guard regiments. Like Catachans should have a sentinel- and infantry-heavy detachment, whereas Valhallans should have a vehicle-heavy detachment design.
Is that the kind of thing you're talking about? I apologize for not taking the time to flesh out my thoughts and add more details...
Yes.. going from a full army with an incredible book that basically is the reason why we have army traits and detachments to 1-2 units... yes that is "coming back"
This is true enough. I'm not terribly familiar with Corsairs, but I think I would have liked them. I think I'll start a separate thread to get some more info on what was lost, and what could conceivably be coming back.
For what it's worth, I'm not sure whether I entirely trust the rumours at all; they claim that Ynarri, Harlequins, Corsairs and CWE are all in one book, and quite frankly, I don't see how it's possible to do that with GW's current standard for bespoke army content. Like most rumours, I believe this "leak" contains kernels of truth, but I certainly hope they are wrong on some of the details. I think a combined book would be moving the Eldar backwards a good number of years. It might almost make me as angry at GW as everyone else is because of strats.
Funny thing is that since everyone who hates strats is "anti-bloat" they probably think four factions in one book is a great idea.
I'm a fan of the current FOCs. You have a few standard ones everyone can use with no penalty, and then if you choose to specialize you pay the premium. It seems pretty fair.
I never liked the FOC - one of the bad changes when they brought in 3rd. Don't tell me what to bring! I will chose my own army thank you.
I prefer the 8th and 9th system of Detachments over the 3-7th Ed FOCs. Plenty of flexibility, but you pay a price in CPs if you go "skew."
I think it is rather silly to insist on what should be majority "troops" in a force where we have armies made up of super-elite dudes (Grey Knights, Custodes etc). A typical 40K force on a tabletop is something like a Company group. It doesn't have to be scaled down version of what the entire faction "has" in our fictional setting.
I also think the FOC should scale based on game size.
I don't see the difference between this and Patrol/ Battalion/ Brigade. They are basically scaling old-style FOC's.
Certainly the specialist detachments add to that, but in practice, I find they are rarely worth the CP cost, so I generally just stick to the basic three...
And no your not giving up CP by putting your army in a Vanguard detachment, you get 1 detachment for free (the one with your warlord in it).
Not playing a Battalion doesn't cost you anything.
That is outright wrong.
Vanguards, Spearheads and Outriders all cost you 3CP even if your Warlord is in them.
Well that's me looking silly. Was pretty sure it was in all of them. Well easy change then instead of having army specific detachments simply added the command benefit to the 3 specialized detachments. easy, clean. done.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: The easiest way to fix the eldar situation would be to say if you take a Phoenix Lord as your warlord that aspect warrior becomes a troop choice. This is what happens with chaos if you take a particular legion then X elite choice becomes a troop choice. The big change that would have to occur in that Phoenix lords would have to be eligible for warlord traits and should benefit from craftworld traits.
You are making too much sense. I like it. Maybe something like army wide themes a la chapter traits, too?
As I had understood them , guardians might have been aspects but had returned to civilian life, to be recalled when times demanded.
deviantduck wrote: I'm a fan of the current FOCs. You have a few standard ones everyone can use with no penalty, and then if you choose to specialize you pay the premium. It seems pretty fair.
The current FOCs make the FOC meaningless. You can just take whatever you want. Why even have restrictions when you can pay a pittance to get more of any other choice?
PenitentJake wrote: I don't see the difference between this and Patrol/ Battalion/ Brigade. They are basically scaling old-style FOC's.
Because I don't think there should be Patrol/Battalion/Brigades. Just one FOC, no other types of special formations (other than Codex-specific ones), and they scale with game size.
No "I want more Heavy Support choices than the FOC allows, so I'll pay 3 CP and suddenly have a whole bunch more!". Why have limitations if you can just circumvent those limitations for virtually no cost?
Nevelon wrote: Was it 5th that had the second FOC at 2k points? And people playing 1999+1 point games to avoid it.
Which wouldn't be necessary or even desired if the FOC scaled based on points.
The double FOC for 6th (thanks for looking that up) was a form of scaling. At 2k, you had twice the space, if you were willing to pay twice the requirements. Not a very granular scale, but at least it kept the same ratios.
How would you do a scaling FOC that doesn’t end up looking like either the old 2x at 2k or the patrol/battalion/brigade? You could work out some formula, but I think it would probably end up being more complicated then just pick the one that matches the size you want.
I’m torn on the elite/FA/HS ones. They promote skew lists, with minimal drawbacks. On the other hand they are the tool we need to do things like windrider hosts, deathwing armies, etc. Is it better the slot swapping to troops? Which often required specific/named HQs? Pros and cons.
Nevelon wrote: The double FOC for 6th (thanks for looking that up) was a form of scaling. At 2k, you had twice the space, if you were willing to pay twice the requirements. Not a very granular scale, but at least it kept the same ratios.
I suspect the issue is that the requirements ended up being pretty negligible as compared with the rewards. Especially when you remember that there was no rule of 3.
How would you do a scaling FOC that doesn’t end up looking like either the old 2x at 2k or the patrol/battalion/brigade? You could work out some formula, but I think it would probably end up being more complicated then just pick the one that matches the size you want.
I could be wrong, but I think HBMC's point wasn't necessarily that his hypothetical FoC would bear no resemblance to Patrols or Battalions, but rather that you would not have the same plethora of detachments to choose from.
So you could have something like:
500pts:
1-2 HQs 1-3 Troops
0-2 Elites
0-2 Fast Attack
0-2 Heavy Support
1000pts:
1-3 HQs 2-4 Troops
0-3 Elites
0-3 Fast Attack
0-3 Heavy Support
1500pts:
1-4 HQs 2-6 Troops
0-3 Elites
0-3 Fast Attack
0-3 Heavy Support
2000pts:
2-5 HQs 2-8 Troops
0-4 Elites
0-4 Fast Attack
0-4 Heavy Support
(I don't know exactly what HBMC has in mind re numbers, so I'm just taking a rough guess.)
Anyway, I think the point is that you would have the appropriate FoC for your game size and nothing else.
As in, you can't choose between a Battalion or 2-3 Patrols or a Battalion and a Patrol or a Patrol and an Outrider or whatever. You just get a single FoC based on game size and that's your lot.
See, I don't really like the FOC or what we have now. What slot a unit goes into in 40k is really arbitrary. Some armies have "troops" that are packing firepower comparable to a heavy support unit. Some armies have troops that are really cost-inefficient and end up being a "tax". Terminators are an elite unit for most marines, but if you give them even better weapons and psychic powers, they become troops (Grey Knights). So arguing over how many elites or heavy supports an army can have feels sort of pointless.
tldr:
Fluff: Some armies use non "troop" units in a troop-like role. See: Death Wing, Raven Wing, Saim-Hann, etc.
Crunch: What separates a "troop" from a non-troop? Because custodes and heavy intercessors make me think it's not about power. So for armies whose troops aren't great, you're just creating another artificial weakness in the army.
Also, I'm not a huge fan of the way "special detachments" have been done lately. If I could do a fairly significant overhaul, I think I'd get rid of generic detachments entirely and force you to build your army out of codex-level detachment options that come with their own thematic benefits and drawbacks. I might even go so far as to roll chapter tactics into those detachments (and also divorce them from the faction's name). I'd probably expand the chapter/detachment special rules to be more impactful too.
So if I want to play an Ulthwe army, I'd field the "Guardian Host" detachment that requires some guardians but unlocks warlock sergeants for guardian squads. If I want to play a marine bike army, I'd play the "Bike Company" detachment (not a "White Scars" detachment) that enforces a bikes-to-not-bikes ratio but gives my bikes the ability to Jink and treat my bolters as Assault regardless of my paint scheme or fluff. (So an Ultramarines bike company would be totally viable.)
The whole point of detachments is to balance and/or prevent skew and to give you fluffy rules that match your faction. So maybe detachments should actually do that instead of being an awkward one-size-fits-all system.
vipoid wrote: I could be wrong, but I think HBMC's point wasn't necessarily that his hypothetical FoC would bear no resemblance to Patrols or Battalions, but rather that you would not have the same plethora of detachments to choose from.
[SNIP EXAMPLE]
Anyway, I think the point is that you would have the appropriate FoC for your game size and nothing else.
As in, you can't choose between a Battalion or 2-3 Patrols or a Battalion and a Patrol or a Patrol and an Outrider or whatever. You just get a single FoC based on game size and that's your lot.
You got it in one. That's exactly what I was getting at.
My FOC idea includes Flyers, Fortifications, and Lords of War though, negating the need for separate detachments for those as well, making them an organic part of the army (if you want them, that is - never compulsory).
You essentially have something very similar to a Patrol at the lower points level, work your way to something similar to a Brigade at higher points, and then like with CP now, you could gain more slots (and more compulsory slots) the higher you went above that 'max' (ie. +1 HQ slots per 500 points, to pull something out of thin air).
Then your unique formations - Dark Angel Deathwing/Ravenwing, Iyanden Ghost Army, Farsight Conclaves, etc. - would have unique FOCs that allowed them to build their army without changing the basic structure or placement of units. Do everything with the army special rules at the top level.
I really like that soup armies have an HQ dedicated to each soup ingredient, this seems very fluffy to me, other than that I think detachments can help encourage more balanced armies alongside missions. I am not a big fan of the Army-specific detachments like Decurions, changing battlefield roles depending on XYZ or Dark Angels' new ObSec rules. More rules = less balance. I wrote up a ruleset for how to identify which battlefield role a unit should have and I think every unit should be included in the appropriate battlefield role instead of changing battlefield roles to fit with fluff (Troops that cost 10+ pts should be Elites, Dreadnoughts should be Heavy Support...), army-building should then be redesigned and rebalanced around that paradigm. I think the idea that armies without Troops are useless because of the minute CP difference is silly.
dadx6 wrote: Also I'd like to see different FOC's for the different Imperial Guard regiments. Like Catachans should have a sentinel- and infantry-heavy detachment, whereas Valhallans should have a vehicle-heavy detachment design.
Just include Sentinels and Infantry in your Catachan list and vehicles in your Valhallan list, what is stopping you?
Army Specific detachments I'd like to see: A battlesuit-only T'au force that gets extra benefits for using only battlesuit keyworded units (other than Firewarriors, Devilfish, and HQ's). So basically crisis suits, stealth suits, Ghostkeels, Riptides, Stormsurges, Broadsides. Maybe move Stealth Suits to Fast Attack?
You can already make this list, why do you need extra rules for every army archetype? It is too much bloat, like the new Tyranids gak, just balance the damn points argh.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I think army-specific detachments should be the only alternate detachments besides the basic FOC.
You mean something like Decurions or something simpler? What are your thoughts on allies?
Wyldhunt wrote: See, I don't really like the FOC or what we have now. What slot a unit goes into in 40k is really arbitrary. Some armies have "troops" that are packing firepower comparable to a heavy support unit. Some armies have troops that are really cost-inefficient and end up being a "tax". Terminators are an elite unit for most marines, but if you give them even better weapons and psychic powers, they become troops (Grey Knights). So arguing over how many elites or heavy supports an army can have feels sort of pointless.
This. Units' roles are so unbalanced that an arbitrary FOC wouldn't make any sense unless (maybe) re-working lots of units' roles. Ork dreads for example are heavy support instead of being elites, why? Lootas are still heavy support even now that their weapon is not heavy anymore. Meanwhile troops such as heavy intercessors or wyches fire or punch like dedicated elites or heavy supports. Some armies also have a plethora of units in each slot now and limiting to an arbitrary max 3-4 might be too punishing. Some armies can squadron units whose counterparts from other armies are typically one model units, etc...
I'm in favor of making additional detachments cost points instead of CPs though. The thing is CPs are quite expendable, points are not. So if you want to max out your elites, FA, HS, etc you also pay a tax in points. Same for bringing additional relics or warlord traits to the list.
vict0988 wrote: You mean something like Decurions or something simpler? What are your thoughts on allies?
I look at the 7th Ed formations, and the big ones that were formations made up of smaller formations, and if that's what you mean by Decurion, then it's not what I mean by army specific FOCs.
Formations in 7th were all about taking a specific combination of units to get a raft of additional special rules, things that were minor all the way up to 'Free Razorbacks for your whole army!'. That kinda gak basically ruined the game. My goals are far more simplistic; a structure to represent the army, a reason to do so, but some flexibility so you're not stuck with only a few unit types.
So just pulling examples out of nothing, an Iyanden Ghost Army FOC would probably look like (assuming standard 1500-2000 point Battalion level game):
2-3 HQs* 0-4 Troops Choices 3-6 Elite Choices* 2-4 Heavy Support Choices* 0-2 Fast Attack Choices 0-2 Flyers* 0-1 Lords of War* 0-2 Fortifications
*Compulsory units, Flyers and Lords of War must have either the 'Psyker' or 'Wraith Construct' Keywords. Formation Rules: All units with the 'Wraith Construct' keyword gain Objective Secured.
Again, I'm pulling specific numbers out of no where. It's just a concept.
Blackie wrote: I'm in favor of making additional detachments cost points instead of CPs though.
Then you're spending points on nothing, and it starts to become a game where players are playing with different points levels.
The points you spend should go onto the table. No one wants to play a 2000 point vs 1900 point game just because the second guy wanted more Heavy Support choices.
It depends on how many points those detachments cost and how effective some specific units, and all their synergies, are. As long as the game favors MSU armies with cheaper than average models need lots of available slots for some specific roles.
I'd definitely play 1970 points (or even 1900) vs 2000 points if that allows me to bring more powerful lists than the 2000 points ones I could get with a strict FOC. The game already works well players starting with different CPs pools.
An old style FOC could work on an edition that favors mid sized or max sized squads.
And again units roles and squadrons would need a total re-write. It's not fair that AM could bring 9 leman russes as HS or 9 hellhounds as FA, when they could already bring 2 tank HQs, 3 FA tanks, 3 HS tanks, a LoW tank and lots of dedicated transport tanks even with the old FOC limitations. Or that SM can bring heavy firepower just by adding troops.
H.B.M.C. wrote: ...an Iyanden Ghost Army FOC would probably look like (assuming standard 1500-2000 point Battalion level game):
2-3 HQs*
0-4 Troops Choices
3-6 Elite Choices*
2-4 Heavy Support Choices*
0-2 Fast Attack Choices
0-2 Flyers*
0-1 Lords of War*
0-2 Fortifications
*Compulsory units, Flyers and Lords of War must have either the 'Psyker' or 'Wraith Construct' Keywords.
Formation Rules: All units with the 'Wraith Construct' keyword gain Objective Secured.
What's the problem with creating this type of army with a Vanguard Detachment? You seem to argue that the cost of breaking the FOC is too low currently, could that not be fixed by increasing the cost of doing so? Personally I feel like the current cost is super fair, I don't feel the need to ever take anything but a Battalion except when I'm bringing LOW or spamming C'tan and if my opponent pays it I don't think they're at a huge disadvantage for doing so or getting an unfair advantage by paying a pittance.
Are Wraith Constructs pointed as having Objective Secured or no? The only reason to have rules like these (or armies of renown or specialist detachments) is if the standard force org cannot be used to make a balanced version of a thematic lore-friendly army, like if taking 5 Wraithguard is good, but taking 30 Wraithguard is terrible, then extra rules can be added to make a 30 Wraithguard list mediocre without making the 5 Wraithguard overpowered. There is no reason why Wraithlords and Wraithknights need the buff though or become worse when taken together, Wraithknights just need a pts-drop if you wanted them to become top tier competitive (which I guess neither of us want).
Because there shouldn't be a "Vanguard Detachment". There should just be one standard detachment type that scales with points levels.
The FOC was meant to impose restrictions on what you could bring. GW broke this with formations in 7th, and in 8th/9th further broke it with different detatchment types. If you can just pay virtually nothing to bring extra slots, then the slots don't mean anything. The fact that the Rule of 3 exists at all should be more than enough proof that the current system fails on a conceptual as well as a practical level.
But, at the same time, there are formations that don't fit the standard method (armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, Knight armies in general, etc.) and I think it should be the job of the Codex, and not the core rules, to allow for unique formation types. It's about allowing the rules to help represent the fluff, as so often the two do not coincide.
And it ain't got nuthin' to do with being "top tier competitive".
H.B.M.C. wrote: Because there shouldn't be a "Vanguard Detachment". There should just be one standard detachment type that scales with points levels.
The FOC was meant to impose restrictions on what you could bring. GW broke this with formations in 7th, and in 8th/9th further broke it with different detatchment types. If you can just pay virtually nothing to bring extra slots, then the slots don't mean anything.
The fact that the Rule of 3 exists at all should be more than enough proof that the current system fails on a conceptual as well as a practical level.
But, at the same time, there are formations that don't fit the standard method (armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, Knight armies in general, etc.) and I think it should be the job of the Codex, and not the core rules, to allow for unique formation types.
And it ain't got nuthin' to do with being "top tier competitive".
I agree with all of this, a lot of the current game set up is driven by the 1850 American style of play where traditionally having all your cake and eating it was preferable to the hard choices that had to be made by leaving some stuff at home. The current game structure just doubled down on this, you can have 0 weaknesses in drafting a list and have all your toys with none of the tax.
The FOC is a relic of an era in which armies had 3-5 units in each slot, now they can easily have 15.
Bringing 5-6 units from the same limited role on a 30 units roster isn't the same than doing it on a 100+ units roster. It's not spam when you select just a fraction of the available combinations from a specific role while you're also limited by rule of 3.
Take fast attacks from the ork codex: in an optimized list you can have for example a unit of 5 bikes, a unit of 3-5 deffkoptas, a unit of megatrakk scrapjets and a unit of rukkatrukk squigbuggies, and let's even add a single kustom boosta blasta to the lot. 535 to over 1000 points of stuff, depending on how many models the units have. That's not even half of all the possible combinations: you could hadd two additional units of bikes, two additional units of koptas, three squads of stormboyz, three squads of squig riders, and another couple of different squadrons of buggies, other than upping the already taken squads of buggies if they aren't maxed out already. FW stuff not even considered.
It makes sense that bringing up to 8 (patrol + outrider) is not only possible but also easy. It's basically the same ratio of 3rd edition when fast attacks were just three units in total, warbikes, buggies, trukk boyz and FOC allowed 3 of those.
H.B.M.C. wrote: But, at the same time, there are formations that don't fit the standard method (armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, Knight armies in general, etc.) and I think it should be the job of the Codex, and not the core rules, to allow for unique formation types. It's about allowing the rules to help represent the fluff, as so often the two do not coincide.
And if the author of my codex forgot to add rules for constructing a Wraithhost list? What if my personal Dynasty uses more Fast Attack elements? What is the purpose of having such a rigid system that prevents people from building skew lists if you're going to allow it on an individual basis anyway? How about armies with more expensive units, they can spend far more on just a few Heavy Support choices than an army with cheaper units can, I might be able to spend 500 on Heavy Support, while my opponent spends 1500, is it really that bad if I pay 3CP to spend up to 1500 pts on Heavy Support like my opponent?
Codexes never give rules out on a fair and balanced basis, that's why the core rules should create a balanced environment and codexes should have as little power to ruin the game as possible, the only thing that should be in a codex is datasheets, the rest should be handled in Chapter Approved in an equal and fair manner. Handing out specialist detachments like candy was not a good idea because it covered only select playstyles for select armies and never did so to balance otherwise unbalanceable situations (like the one with 5 Wraiths being good 30 being terrible), they were released just for the sake of releasing rules and rules internally and externally less balanced. Your armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, etc. would do the same.
The fact that the Rule of 3 exists at all should be more than enough proof that the current system fails on a conceptual as well as a practical level.
The fact that allowing people to take 4+ Fast Attack/Elites/Heavy Support choices allowed them to take 4+ of the datasheet is the opposite of proof that the current system fails on a practical level since it was fixed on a practical level by the Rule of 3, there is no practical problem, it's entirely conceptual.
When was the last time you played against someone who used a list (without LOW) that spammed too many units from one battlefield role, that you want the game designers to ban permanently? What type of awful lists are you running into? Because the lists I play against and the competitive lists I see being used don't look super terribly stupid. If someone wants to run a Speedwaaagh without Troops and pays 3CP for the privilege then I think that's a totally fair cost for having a specialized army with different and perhaps fewer weaknesses than a regular army. Paying 6CP or 100 pts would be far too much.
Dudeface wrote: I agree with all of this, a lot of the current game set up is driven by the 1850 American style of play where traditionally having all your cake and eating it was preferable to the hard choices that had to be made by leaving some stuff at home. The current game structure just doubled down on this, you can have 0 weaknesses in drafting a list and have all your toys with none of the tax.
Wyldhunt wrote: See, I don't really like the FOC or what we have now. What slot a unit goes into in 40k is really arbitrary. Some armies have "troops" that are packing firepower comparable to a heavy support unit. Some armies have troops that are really cost-inefficient and end up being a "tax". Terminators are an elite unit for most marines, but if you give them even better weapons and psychic powers, they become troops (Grey Knights). So arguing over how many elites or heavy supports an army can have feels sort of pointless.
tldr:
Fluff: Some armies use non "troop" units in a troop-like role. See: Death Wing, Raven Wing, Saim-Hann, etc.
Crunch: What separates a "troop" from a non-troop? Because custodes and heavy intercessors make me think it's not about power. So for armies whose troops aren't great, you're just creating another artificial weakness in the army.
I think this is definitely a fair point.
Honestly, I think the biggest indicator something is wrong is that CORE is not only different from TROOPS, it's also different from mandatory units in detachments (e.g. HQs are mandatory in almost every detachment, yet none of them are CORE units).
But yeah, the fact that we need half a dozen different detachments *and* the rule of 3 would seem to indicate that the system is failing at its intended purpose.
I do wonder if something like the Warmachine system would be better. Basically, each unit would have a maximum number you could take (including Unlimited), and otherwise you're free to do what you want. Could add some caveats (like mandatory units, based on army/army type) but basically the detachment system would be gone.
I don't know if this would be better than, say, HBMC's idea. However, with the current rules, it just doesn't seem like detachments are serving much purpose.
Limiting the max number of a specific unit, from 0-1 to 0-3 for example, is much better than limiting each slot to 0-3 or even 0-4. That is a reasonable way to limit and counter spam, and probaly even the advantage of taking squadrons.
Units that can be fielded in squadrons of expensive models (examples: buggies or leman russes) can easily be limited to 0-1, while similar counterparts that only act as single models (examples: exorcist, ravager, annihilation barge or doomsday ark) can be 0-2 or 0-3. All without affecting anything but extremely skew lists, therefore a good idea.
Or just go to something like this:
No army can spend more than 25% of his points on character units,
No army can spend less than 25% of his points on non-vehicle/non-character units,
No army can spend more than 25% of his points on units on allied units from other codices. (With a list of which codices are eligible to choose from.
This way you have only 3 types of models/units- Characters (which would be unique), vehicles and, non-vehicles. Then everybody can take pretty much whatever they like. I know not every type of list would be allowed with this but I think that most people could live with that. If not then you could come up with some special variant for specific codices (like Knights or armored companies).
Dudeface wrote: I agree with all of this, a lot of the current game set up is driven by the 1850 American style of play where traditionally having all your cake and eating it was preferable to the hard choices that had to be made by leaving some stuff at home. The current game structure just doubled down on this, you can have 0 weaknesses in drafting a list and have all your toys with none of the tax.
9th has a CP tax if you don't take Troops.
3cp is far far easier to swallow than minimum 10% of a force ending up in the troops slot as a default. If you're wanting to play speed Freaks for example, would you rather play 3cp and have no boyz or have to factor in 270 points of boyz?
That's a provocative example due to the state of boyz atm, but the point is there are next to no limits on building an army beyond losing some cp, so you get for example 3 less cp rerolls per game in return for only taking "good stuff".
H.B.M.C. wrote: Because there shouldn't be a "Vanguard Detachment". There should just be one standard detachment type that scales with points levels.
The FOC was meant to impose restrictions on what you could bring. GW broke this with formations in 7th, and in 8th/9th further broke it with different detatchment types. If you can just pay virtually nothing to bring extra slots, then the slots don't mean anything. The fact that the Rule of 3 exists at all should be more than enough proof that the current system fails on a conceptual as well as a practical level.
But, at the same time, there are formations that don't fit the standard method (armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, Knight armies in general, etc.) and I think it should be the job of the Codex, and not the core rules, to allow for unique formation types. It's about allowing the rules to help represent the fluff, as so often the two do not coincide.
And it ain't got nuthin' to do with being "top tier competitive".
So how do you field and army that's half ultramarines and half black templar? Are they all in the same FoC? Good luck sorting out those army rules.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Because there shouldn't be a "Vanguard Detachment". There should just be one standard detachment type that scales with points levels.
The FOC was meant to impose restrictions on what you could bring. GW broke this with formations in 7th, and in 8th/9th further broke it with different detatchment types. If you can just pay virtually nothing to bring extra slots, then the slots don't mean anything. The fact that the Rule of 3 exists at all should be more than enough proof that the current system fails on a conceptual as well as a practical level.
But, at the same time, there are formations that don't fit the standard method (armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, Knight armies in general, etc.) and I think it should be the job of the Codex, and not the core rules, to allow for unique formation types. It's about allowing the rules to help represent the fluff, as so often the two do not coincide.
And it ain't got nuthin' to do with being "top tier competitive".
So how do you field and army that's half ultramarines and half black templar? Are they all in the same FoC? Good luck sorting out those army rules.
Old school solution, a small limited allied detachment, a percentage allowance or simply don't allow it. The layering of multiple rules bonuses for being painted black or w/e is part of the problem.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Because there shouldn't be a "Vanguard Detachment". There should just be one standard detachment type that scales with points levels.
The FOC was meant to impose restrictions on what you could bring. GW broke this with formations in 7th, and in 8th/9th further broke it with different detatchment types. If you can just pay virtually nothing to bring extra slots, then the slots don't mean anything. The fact that the Rule of 3 exists at all should be more than enough proof that the current system fails on a conceptual as well as a practical level.
But, at the same time, there are formations that don't fit the standard method (armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, Knight armies in general, etc.) and I think it should be the job of the Codex, and not the core rules, to allow for unique formation types. It's about allowing the rules to help represent the fluff, as so often the two do not coincide.
And it ain't got nuthin' to do with being "top tier competitive".
So how do you field and army that's half ultramarines and half black templar? Are they all in the same FoC? Good luck sorting out those army rules.
Old school solution, a small limited allied detachment, a percentage allowance or simply don't allow it. The layering of multiple rules bonuses for being painted black or w/e is part of the problem.
Well I used marines for a simple example. An Emperor's champion, for instance, is more than just a paint job. I often run SoB with a knight, or with space wolves. It's very much more than just paint at that point. What about running some Martyred Lady sisters with some Bloody Rose? (even though back to a just paint example) The game is way too layered at this point to be wedged in an outdated FoC.
There is not a single problem in the game the FOC would fix, it never did have a good effect on the game and won't suddenly do so now.
You could get around the FOC in 4th and 5th with moving stuff to troops, dedicated transports and multiple units occupying one slot, you could break it in 6th with CAD and allied detachments and 7th ignored it in pretty much every way possible. And that isn't even taking codices into consideration that could have near identical units in multiple slots.
It didn't prevent skew or spam or hero hammer lists in any of those editions, nor did it create an incentive to run more flavorful lists.
The FOC was a failure that never put real limits on competitive play and power-gaming, but instead put artificial limitation on actually running your guys the way you wanted.
I would really love to see a single advantage of the FOC over the current system of generic detachments, theme detachments (ravenwing, speed mob, transdimensional raid) and armies of reknown.
Automatically Appended Next Post: That all sounds fairly negative, and I'm not really blasting the idea just because HBMC is the one who came up with it.
The suggestion just wants to force people into compulsory slot choices, and there has not been given a reason for why this would be a good idea. Then it goes on to provide loop holes for fluff armies, which then screws over everyone GW forgets about *waves at CSM players reading this*.
The whole thing might work, and actually work well if GW didn't essentially distribute battle roles by throwing darts and if many armies didn't have a single slot cluttered with all their signature units. Not to mention that a lot of codices have just one or two real choices for a slot.
So, I really tried to find something positive about the idea, but it's just not something that would work for Warhammer 40k as it is unless you re-organize all battlefield roles and create dozens of new datasheets for smaller codices.
Jidmah wrote: There is not a single problem in the game the FOC would fix, it never did have a good effect on the game and won't suddenly do so now.
You could get around the FOC in 4th and 5th with moving stuff to troops, dedicated transports and multiple units occupying one slot, you could break it in 6th with CAD and allied detachments and 7th ignored it in pretty much every way possible.
And that isn't even taking codices into consideration that could have near identical units in multiple slots.
It didn't prevent skew or spam or hero hammer lists in any of those editions, nor did it create an incentive to run more flavorful lists.
The FOC was a failure that never put real limits on competitive play and power-gaming, but instead put artificial limitation on actually running your guys the way you wanted.
I would really love to see a single advantage of the FOC over the current system of generic detachments, theme detachments (ravenwing, speed mob, transdimensional raid) and armies of reknown.
I have to agree here. There are several vectors at odds with one another so that there's not really a good solution:
#1 - Broken unit limitation - spamming broken units vs wanting to spam fluffy/for-fun units
#2 - points cost - 1 point difference in models making them go from broken to unplayable
#3 - Army makeup - trying to get a sense of "this is what would comprise a 'normal' army make up" vs let the players just play with what they have
The FOC and RO3 is trying to address #1 and #3, but as we've seen since Rogue Trader, the desire to win pushes people to play whatever is broken, and Tournaments just give people a better sense of what is broken.
I've been loving Crusade lately, as people don't come in with the latest broken-meta list. My IG have an 80% win rate because of the smaller games, and I can take the shiny gubbins that turn an IG squad from nothing-to-something for free. Even still, there is so much variability in what constitutes a PL that it's really not in much better shape than points cost.
Just get rid of the FoC/Detachment system. Let people bring whatever they want, limit the amount of times you can take a datasheet with an indicator ON THE DATASHEET. Have people pay CP if theyre bringing a "detachment" of a faction that isnt the same as the warlord's
I think the truth is that any time GW made something that raised the power creep, players were happy at, bc the majority is formed of nerdy guys who wants their armies being the strongest, the bigger.
No wonder if GW started to broke FOCs with Terminator troops, 4 HQ per army, 6 HS and gak like this
VladimirHerzog wrote: Just get rid of the FoC/Detachment system. Let people bring whatever they want, limit the amount of times you can take a datasheet with an indicator ON THE DATASHEET. Have people pay CP if theyre bringing a "detachment" of a faction that isnt the same as the warlord's
Totally agree. Or maybe just roll Fast Attack, Heavy Support and Elite into one slot - they have lost their meaning a long time ago, don't really do anything outside of game modes like planet strike anyways.
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The Deer Hunter wrote: I think the truth is that any time GW made something that raised the power creep, players were happy at, bc the majority is formed of nerdy guys who wants their armies being the strongest, the bigger.
No wonder if GW started to broke FOCs with Terminator troops, 4 HQ per army, 6 HS and gak like this
You are over a decade too late to complain about this. All of that has been possible in 4th.
Limiting slots will have no noticeable impact on the power of armies. Just look at the state of drukhari or orks after being hit with massive nerfs - with the unprecedented high level of internal balance in 9th's codices competitive people would just shift to the next best thing in a different slot and lose very little. The only thing this does is screwing over people with small collections and narrative players.
There is not a single problem in the game the FOC would fix, it never did have a good effect on the game and won't suddenly do so now.
You could get around the FOC in 4th and 5th with moving stuff to troops, dedicated transports and multiple units occupying one slot, you could break it in 6th with CAD and allied detachments and 7th ignored it in pretty much every way possible.
And that isn't even taking codices into consideration that could have near identical units in multiple slots.
It didn't prevent skew or spam or hero hammer lists in any of those editions, nor did it create an incentive to run more flavorful lists.
The FOC was a failure that never put real limits on competitive play and power-gaming, but instead put artificial limitation on actually running your guys the way you wanted.
I would really love to see a single advantage of the FOC over the current system of generic detachments, theme detachments (ravenwing, speed mob, transdimensional raid) and armies of reknown.
Automatically Appended Next Post: That all sounds fairly negative, and I'm not really blasting the idea just because HBMC is the one who came up with it.
The suggestion just wants to force people into compulsory slot choices, and there has not been given a reason for why this would be a good idea. Then it goes on to provide loop holes for fluff armies, which then screws over everyone GW forgets about *waves at CSM players reading this*.
The whole thing might work, and actually work well if GW didn't essentially distribute battle roles by throwing darts and if many armies didn't have a single slot cluttered with all their signature units. Not to mention that a lot of codices have just one or two real choices for a slot.
So, I really tried to find something positive about the idea, but it's just not something that would work for Warhammer 40k as it is unless you re-organize all battlefield roles and create dozens of new datasheets for smaller codices.
You're not wrong by any stretch, all of the stuff the FOC returning would have quelled in 8th has been squashed by rule of 3 and the umpteen faction rules being layered and made for pure factions. For 9th the FOC would just limit people down from where they are, but I think the context might be the reason both ways here.
There's older players who look back and see how the game spiralled out of "a bit messy/clunky" to pure chaos when allies and formations crept in. Those haven't really gone away as such, people can still ally in stuff that doesn't make sense to make a "better army". My issue with the FOC is remembering when allies came back into the equation in 6th and thinking "oh cool, you can have pdf with marine support", expect that turned into taudar and all the other grossest that didn't have an ounce of fluff in them.
A good chunk of 8ths issues stem down to allies again and the spamming of slots that were previously restricted. Most of 9ths complaints include confusing unnecessary rules layering that's come around as a soft cap on allying and combos of weird picks.
I fall into the category of yes the FOC was a bit dull, yes it wasn't always great for people who wanted to play a certain force, but it stopped more horrendous gamey combos than it punished forces.
I see someone asking how you handle ultramarines and black templars in 1 army, the simple answer is you don't, it goes back to a time when your force was an army of 1 type, with 1 faction, with no layering of crap. What purpose do you have for templars and ultras in 1 army list that can't be handled by running them all under 1 ruleset, because if it even remotely shifts to "I want X unit to do Y as templars" it goes back to being an optimisation for the sakes of it.
brainpsyk wrote: The FOC and RO3 is trying to address #1 and #3, but as we've seen since Rogue Trader, the desire to win pushes people to play whatever is broken, and Tournaments just give people a better sense of what is broken.
It's not just Ro3 and detachments shaping how you build your army, you also have limits on "leader" characters like captains, warbosses, tau commanders and daemon princes, rules in place to prevent spamming cheap troops as well as rewards for using themed detachments. Each problem is addressed separately, which works much better than the sledgehammer approach the FoC is trying to do.
I've been loving Crusade lately, as people don't come in with the latest broken-meta list. My IG have an 80% win rate because of the smaller games, and I can take the shiny gubbins that turn an IG squad from nothing-to-something for free. Even still, there is so much variability in what constitutes a PL that it's really not in much better shape than points cost.
To be fair, what makes crusade work is the group of players wanting to play crusade, not the awesome rules behind it. If approached with a competitive mindset, it completely falls apart.
For those asking for more limitations than are currently offered, how do armies like Knights (either flavour), or even Tyranids work in your systems, and also, what about the Army of Renown system that's getting more and more use as we move forward?
Blndmage wrote: For those asking for more limitations than are currently offered, how do armies like Knights (either flavour), or even Tyranids work in your systems, and also, what about the Army of Renown system that's getting more and more use as we move forward?
Tyranids have been in the game since 2nd and never not worked, I can't see a reason they wouldn't? Knights have had a bespoke army building mechanic since they were introduced, again no change there if you removed allies, the Lance rule is fine.
Army of renown is actually pretty interesting and something they should maybe continue but they need a lot more scrutiny than they seem to receive before being printed. Maybe restrict them from tournaments.
Dudeface wrote: There's older players who look back and see how the game spiralled out of "a bit messy/clunky" to pure chaos when allies and formations crept in. Those haven't really gone away as such, people can still ally in stuff that doesn't make sense to make a "better army". My issue with the FOC is remembering when allies came back into the equation in 6th and thinking "oh cool, you can have pdf with marine support", expect that turned into taudar and all the other grossest that didn't have an ounce of fluff in them.
Yes, in 9th they can ally in things that don't make sense, but in almost all cases it does not make for a better army. When you see allies these days, you mostly see codices that haven't been updated, DG+nurgle daemons, sisters+guard, belakor's merry men or adMech with a Knight of the Cog. Most others avoid allies to not lose their army rules, while our local fluff bunny can still play his DKOK with a knight and a GK witch hunter squad. So I really don't agree with that point of criticism. While complexity is an issue, GW has done a genuinely good job in making armies that make sense the "better army". If you pull up any Competitive Inovations article on goonhammer, you will find very few top placing armies from 9th edition codices that "don't make sense".
I fall into the category of yes the FOC was a bit dull, yes it wasn't always great for people who wanted to play a certain force, but it stopped more horrendous gamey combos [...]
It didn't though? All it ever did was preventing people from bringing the same slot over and over again. Which only prevents those few combos where the problematic units share a battle role and there isn't an easy substitute from another slot, the unit cannot form squadrons, be moved to other slots or already costs 400+ points to begin with. I'd wager that there are almost no combos that the FOC prevented that aren't already caught by the Ro3.
I see someone asking how you handle ultramarines and black templars in 1 army, the simple answer is you don't, it goes back to a time when your force was an army of 1 type, with 1 faction, with no layering of crap. What purpose do you have for templars and ultras in 1 army list that can't be handled by running them all under 1 ruleset, because if it even remotely shifts to "I want X unit to do Y as templars" it goes back to being an optimisation for the sakes of it.
If squashing allies is your goal, you do realize that you can just disallow allies without implementing the flawed FOC system, right?
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Dudeface wrote: Army of renown is actually pretty interesting and something they should maybe continue but they need a lot more scrutiny than they seem to receive before being printed. Maybe restrict them from tournaments.
I don't think that there is any army of reknown causing problems in tournaments, or did I miss something? I have seen them pop up occasional in high positions, but they are a minority. All of them are perfectly in line with regular armies from the same codex.
Which implies that they are actually did see some playtesting.
Dudeface wrote: There's older players who look back and see how the game spiralled out of "a bit messy/clunky" to pure chaos when allies and formations crept in. Those haven't really gone away as such, people can still ally in stuff that doesn't make sense to make a "better army". My issue with the FOC is remembering when allies came back into the equation in 6th and thinking "oh cool, you can have pdf with marine support", expect that turned into taudar and all the other grossest that didn't have an ounce of fluff in them.
Yes, in 9th they can ally in things that don't make sense, but in almost all cases it does not make for a better army. When you see allies these days, you mostly see codices that haven't been updated, DG+nurgle daemons, sisters+guard, belakor's merry men or adMech with a Knight of the Cog. Most others avoid allies to not lose their army rules, while our local fluff bunny can still play his DKOK with a knight and a GK witch hunter squad.
So I really don't agree with that point of criticism. While complexity is an issue, GW has done a genuinely good job in making armies that make sense the "better army". If you pull up any Competitive Inovations article on goonhammer, you will find very few top placing armies from 9th edition codices that "don't make sense".
I fall into the category of yes the FOC was a bit dull, yes it wasn't always great for people who wanted to play a certain force, but it stopped more horrendous gamey combos [...]
It didn't though? All it ever did was preventing people from bringing the same slot over and over again. Which only prevents those few combos where the problematic units share a battle role and there isn't an easy substitute from another slot, the unit cannot form squadrons, be moved to other slots or already costs 400+ points to begin with.
I'd wager that there are almost no combos that the FOC prevented that aren't already caught by the Ro3.
I see someone asking how you handle ultramarines and black templars in 1 army, the simple answer is you don't, it goes back to a time when your force was an army of 1 type, with 1 faction, with no layering of crap. What purpose do you have for templars and ultras in 1 army list that can't be handled by running them all under 1 ruleset, because if it even remotely shifts to "I want X unit to do Y as templars" it goes back to being an optimisation for the sakes of it.
If squashing allies is your goal, you do realize that you can just disallow allies without implementing the flawed FOC system, right?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dudeface wrote: Army of renown is actually pretty interesting and something they should maybe continue but they need a lot more scrutiny than they seem to receive before being printed. Maybe restrict them from tournaments.
I don't think that there is any army of reknown causing problems in tournaments, or did I miss something? I have seen them pop up occasional in high positions, but they are a minority. All of them are perfectly in line with regular armies from the same codex.
Which implies that they are actually did see some playtesting.
I'm not against allies as a concept, but the implementation seems to just be all over the place. Armies of renown are actually a good place to put them ironically, likewise knight of the cog is a good mechanic for including some allies.
As a chaos player I've been hamstrung endlessly by the concept of Daemons in chaos marine armies because the rules for doing it never quite land well within the game mechanics.
Regards complexity, it's a very common complaint expressed on this forum, too many layers of rules and stratagems plus bespoke rules to keep track of is a problem for a fair few it seems.
Im not overly upset with 9th at all, but I do miss the simplicity and choices forced by the FOC and 1500 games, but that's personal preference.
Just for newer players information- Allies were allowed since 2nd edition. At that time they were limited to 25% of your points with no restriction of what you took including other allies as long as the total didn't exceed 25% (there were restrictions on who you could ally with in each codex). So, allies have a well established history in 40K and are not something new to the game.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Just for newer players information- Allies were allowed since 2nd edition. At that time they were limited to 25% of your points with no restriction of what you took including other allies as long as the total didn't exceed 25% (there were restrictions on who you could ally with in each codex). So, allies have a well established history in 40K and are not something new to the game.
Not the case for 3rd-5th where the only allies mechanism was a select process in the witch/daemon hunter codex iirc.
Im not overly upset with 9th at all, but I do miss the simplicity and choices forced by the FOC and 1500 games, but that's personal preference.
It may depend on what armies you used to play. For power armour based ones for example the old FOC didn't force anything, I played SW in 3rd and 5th (I entirely missed 4th due to different interests/priorities in life) and never had to do a single choice about what units needed to stay out of the list due to detachments limitations. With orks however having only 3 FA and 3 HS at most really forced to make decisions, and not easy ones. Same thing in 7th, when actually even elites slots became precious for my orks, but SW still couldn't care less about FOC's limitations. Nor did the third army I played then, dark eldar, although they had their own FOC with 6FA slots, which I always maximized.
Dudeface wrote: As a chaos player I've been hamstrung endlessly by the concept of Daemons in chaos marine armies because the rules for doing it never quite land well within the game mechanics.
Both daemons and CSM are outdated codices which were already flawed to the core in 8th. They aren't really a good example to support any kind of change.
FOC have been proven to be a bad and flawed mechanic, so why should be being able to fit into a FOC be an indicator of quality?
The point we were discussing was whether those armies match the lore - and from what I can see, there is a battalion containing all three DE subfactions, a huge pile of space wolves running at the enemy with chainswords in hand, a pure knight list coming from a single household and a picture-book crusader heavy BT army led by Helbrecht and Gimaldus that falls just one chaplain short of actually fitting in a FOC.
All these lists are obviously highly optimized, but they all fit their respective army's fluff and all of them would have to change next to nothing if forced into a FOC.
Regards complexity, it's a very common complaint expressed on this forum, too many layers of rules and stratagems plus bespoke rules to keep track of is a problem for a fair few it seems.
FOC do not solve single one of those problems, but instead introduce a slew of new problems.
With a FOC you still have 50 stratagems per army, you still have seven layers of rules piled onto every loyalist marine, you still need to check which turn it is to find out how fast or killy your opponent is and you still need to check three books to find out the rules for a Speed Mob Warboss. None of the complaints about complexity stem from the list building phase, but from the complexity layered onto the actual game itself.
Which is exactly what I'm saying - not a single problem that 9th has is solved by re-introducing the FOC.
Dudeface wrote: As a chaos player I've been hamstrung endlessly by the concept of Daemons in chaos marine armies because the rules for doing it never quite land well within the game mechanics.
Both daemons and CSM are outdated codices which were already flawed to the core in 8th. They aren't really a good example to support any kind of change.
FOC have been proven to be a bad and flawed mechanic, so why should be being able to fit into a FOC be an indicator of quality?
The point we were discussing was whether those armies match the lore - and from what I can see, there is a battalion containing all three DE subfactions, a huge pile of space wolves running at the enemy with chainswords in hand, a pure knight list coming from a single household and a picture-book crusader heavy BT army led by Helbrecht and Gimaldus that falls just one chaplain short of actually fitting in a FOC.
All these lists are obviously highly optimized, but they all fit their respective army's fluff and all of them would have to change next to nothing if forced into a FOC.
Regards complexity, it's a very common complaint expressed on this forum, too many layers of rules and stratagems plus bespoke rules to keep track of is a problem for a fair few it seems.
FOC do not solve single one of those problems, but instead introduce a slew of new problems.
With a FOC you still have 50 stratagems per army, you still have seven layers of rules piled onto every loyalist marine, you still need to check which turn it is to find out how fast or killy your opponent is and you still need to check three books to find out the rules for a Speed Mob Warboss. None of the complaints about complexity stem from the list building phase, but from the complexity layered onto the actual game itself.
Which is exactly what I'm saying - not a single problem that 9th has is solved by re-introducing the FOC.
Not as it stands, but if you strip out the layered "pure faction" rules there's a notable volume stripped out immediately. Stratagems are out of hand anyway, I agree there, but my point about those lists is they're not making hard choices, they're getting exactly what they want how they want it.
Again, not too upset with 9th, and likewise a FOC wouldn't "fix" 9th but it might make the next iteration a little more controlled.
Jidmah wrote: Which is exactly what I'm saying - not a single problem that 9th has is solved by re-introducing the FOC.
Sort of. The FOC is essentially a USR to limit spamming of units without a cost (CP/coherency/durability). It's not a great solution, but no USR ever is. Furthermore, the FOC is not there to solve the rules layers, stragegem bloat or any other problem except being a generic guideline for army composition.
There's a big difference between 3x1 Megatrakk scrapjets, 3x1 Rukkatrukks and 3x1warbikers vs. 1x3 Scrapjets, 1x3 Rukkatrukks and 1x3 warbikers. And you have the problem of game size, because there's no reason to limit Scrapjects to one unit in a 500 point game, and still be limited to only 1 unit in a 5000 point game. As soon as you introduce game size scaling, you essentially have a FOC of some flavor. If you don't introduce a limitation, then the game is back to what happened at SoCal.
I think the idea behind the FOC was to make armies feel like "armies" - i.e. that the commander didn't always have access to everything he wanted, and often had access to things he didn't want (because they're so common).
The idea behind troops is "these are always present, want them or not" and the idea behind the 1 HQ was "the commander has himself, obviously - it's you!''
But as 40k moves away from WAR and becomes a GAME I think that's less important.
Jidmah wrote: Which is exactly what I'm saying - not a single problem that 9th has is solved by re-introducing the FOC.
Sort of. The FOC is essentially a USR to limit spamming of units without a cost (CP/coherency/durability).
We have already established that it failed to do that in any edition it existed and that it would never well work for that purpose. If that is its only value, it has no reason to exist.
There's a big difference between 3x1 Megatrakk scrapjets, 3x1 Rukkatrukks and 3x1warbikers vs. 1x3 Scrapjets, 1x3 Rukkatrukks and 1x3 warbikers. And you have the problem of game size, because there's no reason to limit Scrapjects to one unit in a 500 point game, and still be limited to only 1 unit in a 5000 point game. As soon as you introduce game size scaling, you essentially have a FOC of some flavor. If you don't introduce a limitation, then the game is back to what happened at SoCal.
1) The buggy rule is a poorly though out emergency stop-gap and does not follow any established patterns for similar rules.
2) All other datasheet limitations scale with game size, either by detachment count, by points/PL or by explicitly referring to the four game sizes.
3) It's not a FOC at all, and despite its horrible implementation is still superior to it. Which is quite telling IMO.
4) 9 FA slots aren't exactly easy to come by either and will cost the ork player 5-6 CP depending whether he goes for double outriders or two patrols and one outrider.
5) The whole problem only exists to begin with because GW decided to make buggies squadrons to circumvent slot limitations.
Just to show how gakky the FOC is at solving anything, let's apply it to your example:
Codex: Orks currently lists 9 datasheets in the FA slot for orks, five buggies, storm boyz, warbikes, squighog boyz and deff koptas. Technically, there also is the nob on smasha squig, but it becomes slot-free when run along with squighog boyz.
The traditional FOC would still allow players to spam 9 squigbuggies (which were the reason for the emergency stop-gap), the FOC outlined by vipoid on page 1 would even allow players to run 3 scrapjets on top of that. So the FOC is already useless at fixing the one issue it was supposed to fix.
In addition, 7 datasheets (which *all* see competitive play right now) would just disappear from competitive gaming.
Meanwhile, it prevents people from building speed freeks armies or even just running one of every buggy, having three units of warbikers bans your from using koptas and squighogs. Two warbiker mobs, two storm boy mobs and a unit of koptas are now an illegal army.
Jidmah wrote: Which is exactly what I'm saying - not a single problem that 9th has is solved by re-introducing the FOC.
Sort of. The FOC is essentially a USR to limit spamming of units without a cost (CP/coherency/durability).
We have already established that it failed to do that in any edition it existed and that it would never well work for that purpose. If that is its only value, it has no reason to exist.
There's a big difference between 3x1 Megatrakk scrapjets, 3x1 Rukkatrukks and 3x1warbikers vs. 1x3 Scrapjets, 1x3 Rukkatrukks and 1x3 warbikers. And you have the problem of game size, because there's no reason to limit Scrapjects to one unit in a 500 point game, and still be limited to only 1 unit in a 5000 point game. As soon as you introduce game size scaling, you essentially have a FOC of some flavor. If you don't introduce a limitation, then the game is back to what happened at SoCal.
1) The buggy rule is a poorly though out emergency stop-gap and does not follow any established patterns for similar rules.
2) All other datasheet limitations scale with game size, either by detachment count, by points/PL or by explicitly referring to the four game sizes.
3) It's not a FOC at all, and despite its horrible implementation is still superior to it. Which is quite telling IMO.
4) 9 FA slots aren't exactly easy to come by either and will cost the ork player 5-6 CP depending whether he goes for double outriders or two patrols and one outrider.
5) The whole problem only exists to begin with because GW decided to make buggies squadrons to circumvent slot limitations.
Just to show how gakky the FOC is at solving anything, let's apply it to your example:
Codex: Orks currently lists 9 datasheets in the FA slot for orks, five buggies, storm boyz, warbikes, squighog boyz and deff koptas. Technically, there also is the nob on smasha squig, but it becomes slot-free when run along with squighog boyz.
The traditional FOC would still allow players to spam 9 squigbuggies (which were the reason for the emergency stop-gap), the FOC outlined by vipoid on page 1 would even allow players to run 3 scrapjets on top of that. So the FOC is already useless at fixing the one issue it was supposed to fix.
In addition, 7 datasheets (which *all* see competitive play right now) would just disappear from competitive gaming.
Meanwhile, it prevents people from building speed freeks armies or even just running one of every buggy, having three units of warbikers bans your from using koptas and squighogs. Two warbiker mobs, two storm boy mobs and a unit of koptas are now an illegal army.
We evidently have differing stances and I think Unit hit the nail on the head above, but in response to this, that is the point. Those competitive lists avoid troops, they bring more FA slots than used to be allowed. You would be forced into making decisions, not every list would be just taming the best unit to max followed by the next best unit to max, because you can't. Although the speed Freaks side of things would take a knock I agree.
Problem is some armies have troops that are as good as elites.
Also, those decisions might be too penalizing. In 3rd edition orks had 6 troops out of the 23 (+3 slotless retinues) units in their roster. And multiple good options among those 6.
Now they have 3 troops out of 60 datasheets. With one mediocre option that is only worthy if used in a specific way (specialist mobs trukk boyz).
Forcing to take bad units is not a good game design, limiting the spam of specific units is. Bring back 0-1, or even 0-2 limitations to units that are not supposed to be spammed and encourage players to bring troops, not force them. I for example think that current limitation on buggies is a good one, something I wish to be the norm and applied to all factions.
An ork army with lots of FA or HS 100% look like a real army. There's no difference in taking 3+ min squads of troops and then all toys or 3+ min squads of specialists and then all toys.
In the past codexes had like 3 FA and 3 HS in total, and someting like the FOC made sense: you could bring one of each options from the codex. Now codexes have 2x or more the number of datasheets, so the same limitations that "worked" 20 years ago, on codexes that were extremely different than the current ones, can't work anymore.
Some armies with limited model count or limited codex options also work very good with a very strict detachment system, others can't. It's amusing that most of those who advocate for bringing back the FOC are people who play armies that wouldn't care about it. It's not making a decision when the only way to be competitive is to spam the best units available since the detachment system doesn't allow much variety. Going 3x3 squigbuggies since only 3FA are allowed is the exact opposite of forcing people to make decisions.
Dudeface wrote: We evidently have differing stances and I think Unit hit the nail on the head above, but in response to this, that is the point. Those competitive lists avoid troops,
Sorry to interject here, but at this point I'll have to ask to you to provide evidence for this. The overwhelming majority of competitive lists build out of 9th edition codices bring plenty of troops - the article you linked has 3 troops for the first placing drukhari list, 5 troops for the space wolves winner and 2 troops for the BT first place. Which means all the best lists did bring as many troops as the FOC would have forced them to bring.
Almost all 9th edition codices bring 2 or 3 units of troops, with the big exception here being orks - for one because there are no troops that fit with a speed waaagh and because GW went out of their way to ensure that boyz and gretchin are among the worst units in the codex. And despite all that, there are still a few lists from the new pressure/tempo archetype that run two or three units of trukk boyz or beastsnagga boyz.
There is clearly no FOC needed to get people to run troops, and even when the FOC existed people were dodging those requirements by spamming cheap troops or having other units count as troops.
Heck, I can even see some merrit in Unit1126PLL's idea of forcing people to play with a fixed army core of models that are worse than everything else in your army. However, the FOC has never managed to actually do that, because of the reasons Blackie explained. 40k's armies and their troops just vary too much, and current army-specific mechanisms are just way better at tackling these issues.
they bring more FA slots than used to be allowed.
So far, you have failed to provide even a single reason for why this is a problem, despite me asking multiple times about it. Meanwhile, Blackie has provided multiple examples why being able to break out of the strict FOC corset is good for both narrative and competitive play. In addition, the game has continued to develop under the assumption that the FOC is not a hard limit and doubled or tripled the amount of units found in elite, FA or HS slots. Some armies have to run outriders, vanguards or spearheads to play their army true to the lore, and many of those had ways around the FOC back when it still existed. Orks could easily bring 7 HS, 5 elites or 9 FA units during 5th. Why is this suddenly a problem in 9th?
You would be forced into making decisions, not every list would be just taming the best unit to max followed by the next best unit to max, because you can't.
See, and this is where you are just flat out wrong. The FOC doesn't prevent these things at all. They merely change what the best units are, at the cost of internal balance and freedom in building armies. The FOC also doesn't force any decision - you just put the best three things in that slot and forget about every other unit with that battle role until the next balance update. A decision would imply that you could decide one way or the other, but there simply is no reason to not just slam 3 squigbuggies in every one of those slots. There is nothing lost from doing so, and nothing gained from not doing so.
On the flip side you currently make real decisions about having more CP to play more stratagems, get more relics or warlord traits, or to bring better units. There is a real tradeoff here that makes - once again according to the lists found in the goonhammer articles - almost every list from an archetype looks different. While armies tend to have a somewhat fixed core, people take different combinations of units and you often see even powerful units not maxed out because variety and having options is often is just as valuable as raw power.
It's also worth noting that from a purely combinatorical point of view, a FOC will always require less decisions to be made, as it takes away decisions from the player.
To summarize, the FOC seems to serve just two purposes: - force people to take more troops - prevent spam
And it has proven to totally suck at both of those, while also causing tons of negative side-effects on balance and choices. The FOC is a horrible mechanic, that should never be put back into 40k ever again.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think the idea behind the FOC was to make armies feel like "armies" - i.e. that the commander didn't always have access to everything he wanted, and often had access to things he didn't want (because they're so common).
The idea behind troops is "these are always present, want them or not" and the idea behind the 1 HQ was "the commander has himself, obviously - it's you!''
But as 40k moves away from WAR and becomes a GAME I think that's less important.
This for sure is how I see it.
While I do like the idea of structure a lot i am seeing now just how poor the old foc actually was. 6th introduced a means of bringing two of them and from what I remember it was shunned as the collective didn't like it so we saw 1999+1 point tournaments to block it but allies were A-OK! Never mind that some armies were playing as a mono faction and allies weren't really a thing they would use, mostly thinking about Orks. I don't even recall such factions being given an exception to just fill the allied slots with more units from a mono faction list, which might have been a good idea, who knows.
I do feel a bit spoiled by the current army construction rules but would prefer some other means of building a list, like percentages as I personally do not enjoy fielding so many HQ's which I feel are a tax I would rather have the choice to pay or not. Now, I can't say just how much percentages would change my army builds right now but I would hope it would let me put a more THEMATIC army on the table. Tat said I especially didn't like the low model count collection of "op" models people on the internet were taking for "tournaments" while defending it as forge the narrative bro.
Might have been ITC related, no real idea about that. But an army should look like an army right? I get it, people will have their own ideas about just what that means to them and maybe percentages would sort it. But moving back to a limited foc just doesn't sound as fun or flexible. Even with percentages some unit openings could be in some kind of access tree connected to certain characters for flavor, or not. The only other weird thoughts I have on army construction are tournament related, how about tournament foc/army construction rules in event packets. something the rest of us can choose to use or ignore. No idea how that would be accomplished. (Or if it should.)
See, and this is where you are just flat out wrong. The FOC doesn't prevent these things at all. They merely change what the best units are, at the cost of internal balance and freedom in building armies.
The FOC also doesn't force any decision - you just put the best three things in that slot and forget about every other unit with that battle role until the next balance update. A decision would imply that you could decide one way or the other, but there simply is no reason to not just slam 3 squigbuggies in every one of those slots. There is nothing lost from doing so, and nothing gained from not doing so.
On the flip side you currently make real decisions about having more CP to play more stratagems, get more relics or warlord traits, or to bring better units. There is a real tradeoff here that makes - once again according to the lists found in the goonhammer articles - almost every list from an archetype looks different. While armies tend to have a somewhat fixed core, people take different combinations of units and you often see even powerful units not maxed out because variety and having options is often is just as valuable as raw power.
It's also worth noting that from a purely combinatorical point of view, a FOC will always require less decisions to be made, as it takes away decisions from the player.
To summarize, the FOC seems to serve just two purposes:
- force people to take more troops
- prevent spam
And it has proven to totally suck at both of those, while also causing tons of negative side-effects on balance and choices. The FOC is a horrible mechanic, that should never be put back into 40k ever again.
Your argument doesn't show that a FOC is bad, just that there are too many options (like Outrider and Spearheads), and/or the cost of them probably isn't high enough.
You're correct with this statement, but not in the way your thinking:
While armies tend to have a somewhat fixed core, people take different combinations of units and you often see even powerful units not maxed out because variety and having options is often is just as valuable as raw power.
People take different combinations of units because their ability to take raw power is (usually) limited by the RO3 and FOC, and putting that cap on the power curve forces players to make choices on how best to fill in their army. Otherwise people would just take max raw power which would be really bad for the game. You must not remember RTT and 2nd edition, where all you took was models with heavy weapons, and all that mattered was raw power.
Having a FOC absolutely forces taking Troops, and it forces player choices, in points cost, CP cost and unit capability . A FOC in no way changes what's best in a codex, it just changes how many of them you can take. So you take 3 of the best unit in a slot. That's a hell of a lot better than letting people take 20 of them and nothing else. With a FOC, you're forced into decisions about units to take for holding objectives, destroying enemy units, performing actions, being able to even take secondaries for bad matchups.
The only negative effect a FOC has on game balance is limiting options on weaker codexes, but that's a trade-off to limit the stronger codexes. There's no perfect solution here.
But since you say the FOC is horrible, what's the perfect solution to letting players play what they want to play and limits spamming of broken units?
But since you say the FOC is horrible, what's the perfect solution to letting players play what they want to play and limits spamming of broken units?
Limiting those untis to 0-1 or 0-2. Simple. Limit the specific units, not the army roles. Like GW already did with ork buggies and flyers in general.
Take this ork list, which 100% respect the limitations of the old FOC:
2x Warboss on squigosaur
3x10 Beastsnagga boyz
2x5 Kommandos
1x10 Kommandos
2x3 rukkatrukk squigbuggies
3 Kill Rigs
A very competitive 2000 points list that spams a handful of units, 5 datasheets in total. This would be legal under the old FOC limitations, very powerful, super boring to play or to face and nothing close to what an army should look. If flyers slots are added to the FOC it could also replace a unit of beastnagga boyz for a dakkajet.
Ironically I play the same amount of troops now (3) than in 5th (also 3), and even less than in 7th (2, the bare minimum to be legal), when the FOC still existed . Same with my other armies that I play or played until not long ago, SW, Adepta Sororitas and Drukhari. Also Harlequins but they don't count having an extremely limited codex, they bring the very same lists' archetypes in each edition.
Only in 3rd I played more troops, but mostly because troops were 25% of the codex units for orks.
I think the army of renowns can be used quite well to make specific armies without needing to put those rules in the codex. However, they could and probably should also be in a codex.
I think the key factor is to consider ways to limit them without leaving them incompetent.
I know space marines quite well so I'll use these as an example. Devastator companies should be possible, as should assault etc etc.
Now, a Devastator company can be quite the scary prospect in some regards, but also they wouldn't be due to point cost and limitations on what else can be taken. The bonus they get is all troops in the detachment are Obsec, including characters and all get bolter drill etc (yes, even centurions). And obviously a refund on a Spearhead detachment for the warlord.
Great, as they should and would need to be. The downside is you can only take Devastator squads, Devastator Centurions, Hell Blasters, 1 single command squad, 1 single captain (never a chapter master) etc etc etc. Only vehicles are Rhinos, razorbacks, dreadnoughts and repulsers.
This may not seem much of a downside, in some respect, but pt cost will be a factor, as will this next key point... All squad must be max numbers and can never be combat squaded - this is purely to guard against min-maxing and exploitation, it has no lore reason.
Fluffy enough to make them fun and narratively correct, whilst also making them actually playable with obsec, buffing a few units but also providing enough limitation not to be openly abused (plus, they are screwed if close combat happens).
endlesswaltz123 wrote: I think the army of renowns can be used quite well to make specific armies without needing to put those rules in the codex. However, they could and probably should also be in a codex.
They should be in Chapter Approved, that way they can be removed or rebalanced after a year. Codexes should not require errata. The drip-feed of Armies of Renown in campaign supplements is really bad for the balance of the game, it is impossible to balance points and rules separately, they have to be balanced together.
Devastator companies should be possible, as should assault etc etc.
What is preventing you from taking 30 Devastators and 18 Centurion Devastators right now? What makes taking 6 Centurion Devastators good and 18 terrible? Why do you need ObSec?
Spoiler:
++ Spearhead Detachment -3CP (Imperium - Adeptus Astartes - Iron Hands) [113 PL, 7CP, 2,000pts] ++
+ Configuration [9CP] +
**Chapter Selector**: Iron Hands
Battle Size [12CP]: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points) [12CP]
The reason this list is bad is that some of the units are overcosted, when you give this army Renown rules you are limiting the power budget you can use to make them cheaper and better when taken in moderate quantities, this is a terrible thing.
vict0988 wrote: They should be in Chapter Approved, that way they can be removed or rebalanced after a year.
Why? If there's a specific army type that fits my army, why shouldn't it be in my Codex? And why should it be removed after a year? Besides, we don't want more DLC...
Nothing should require errata, but everything does. What that has to do with Armies of Renown doesn't really make much difference.
Blackie wrote: Limiting those untis to 0-1 or 0-2. Simple. Limit the specific units, not the army roles. Like GW already did with ork buggies and flyers in general.
You seem to be suggesting that this is a situation of either/or (if you are not, please correct me).
The FOC plus specific unit limits are things that worked in the past, and should work in the future. What we don't need are blanket solutions to specific problems (ie. Rule of Three, or GW's recent idiotic flyer rule).
Nothing should require errata, but everything does. What that has to do with Armies of Renown doesn't really make much difference.
vict0988 wrote: They should be in Chapter Approved, that way they can be removed or rebalanced after a year.
Why? If there's a specific army type that fits my army, why shouldn't it be in my Codex? And why should it be removed after a year? Besides, we don't want more DLC...
Datasheets should be proof-read to a point that they never require errata and that's the only thing that should be in a codex, this would mean you can actually trust what is in your codex, buying a codex that is instantly invalidated by day 1 errata creates a bad customer experience.
An Army of Renown might turn out to be entirely unnecessary, OP or UP, that is why it might need to change or be removed. Like the Tyranid Monstermash, I don't buy the need for it for a second, what makes moderate amounts of Tyranid Monsters good but a true Monstermash list trash? It is rules for the sake of rules, if points were adjusted then a Nidzilla list would be at least decent.
Blackie wrote: Limiting those untis to 0-1 or 0-2. Simple. Limit the specific units, not the army roles. Like GW already did with ork buggies and flyers in general.
You seem to be suggesting that this is a situation of either/or (if you are not, please correct me).
The FOC plus specific unit limits are things that worked in the past, and should work in the future. What we don't need are blanket solutions to specific problems (ie. Rule of Three, or GW's recent idiotic flyer rule).
Flyers spam is arguably a generic problem, you cannot end your Move within 1" and they cannot be engaged in melee by most units, having a large portion of your army work this way is a generic problem, even if only a few Aircraft were S-tier.
Spamming a single datasheet is definitely a generic problem with the new list-building method, a unit might be balanced if you take 3 but crazy if you take 8, not to mention that it is very boring to look at.
Why should you be able to take 3 of Dreadnought X and 3 of Dreadnought Y because they have been arbitrarily put in different battlefield roles but no more than 3 Annihilation Barges and Doomsday Arks combined because they have been arbitrarily put in the same battlefield role? I acknowledge that there is a benefit to curbing Heavy Support spam and there is generally some relation between battlefield role and what type of unit you are talking about, but using a small-ish CP cost along with RO3 is just a way more fair method of doing it if you acknowledge that battlefield roles are somewhat arbitrary. I think you would have to use a more fair and equal way to assign battlefield roles if you wanted to bring back a FOC.
vict0988 wrote: Datasheets should be proof-read to a point that they never require errata and that's the only thing that should be in a codex, this would mean you can actually trust what is in your codex, buying a codex that is instantly invalidated by day 1 errata creates a bad customer experience.
Ok... but that really doesn't have anything to do with FOC or Armies or Renown, Rule of 3, unit restrictions or anything else. I don't disagree, but it's essentially immaterial to the conversation at hand.
vict0988 wrote: An Army of Renown might turn out to be entirely unnecessary, OP or UP, that is why it might need to change or be removed.
Then you fix them, not remove them.
vict0988 wrote: Like the Tyranid Monstermash, I don't buy the need for it for a second, what makes moderate amounts of Tyranid Monsters good but a true Monstermash list trash? It is rules for the sake of rules, if points were adjusted then a Nidzilla list would be at least decent.
None of it's needed, it's just for fun. You get that, right?
You seem to be suggesting that this is a situation of either/or (if you are not, please correct me).
The FOC plus specific unit limits are things that worked in the past, and should work in the future. What we don't need are blanket solutions to specific problems (ie. Rule of Three, or GW's recent idiotic flyer rule).
Or, I'm against old style FOC limitations.
I've already explained but my point is to make playable generic collections of model with a bit everything and something like the FOC might be too limiting for some armies. Some factions might have 1-2 very good units spread across the codex, some others might have just one section, or two, containing good units.
As I've also already said the FOC was appropriate in a context in which armies had 20-30 datasheets, with 3 units in each non troop slot at most. What worked in the past might not work now, because we're not playing the same game of the past. The current detachment system is actually pretty balanced, all the problems we may discuss about 9th edition of 40k aren't a consequence of lacking the old FOC limitations.
I vastly prefer those "blanket solutions" or "idiotic" rules instead. Spamming the very same OP unit as much as possible has always been an issue, that is something that should be addressed. Fielding multiple units from the same role is not a problem as long as the list overall isn't OP. Being able to bring 9 squigbuggies and 9 scrapjets was iditioc since the begginning while under the current limitations an army that highly relies on buggies is still possible (up to 15 are still allowed) and it's actually much more fun to build, paint, see, play or play against.
It's specific units that might be OP, sometimes even intentionally by GW, hence limiting those can be an appropriate solution. Limitations on flyers or ork buggies might seem arbitrary but they did their job without nerfing the units: people can still field them and are actually encouraged to do so, but spamming tons of those is no longer possible, and I can't possibly understand why that's a bad thing. Those who didn't abuse the rules can still play and have fun with such models, they were not forced to shelve them. And, as even GW said, spamming units that are supposed to be supporting units and not the core of an army is wrong.
vict0988 wrote: Flyers spam is arguably a generic problem, you cannot end your Move within 1" and they cannot be engaged in melee by most units, having a large portion of your army work this way is a generic problem, even if only a few Aircraft were S-tier.
Lots of people taking squadrons of Valks, were there?
The problems with the flyers was't due to the engaging in melee. It was their ability to ignore terrain and just annihilate you with overwhelming firepower, which is what the AdMech and Ork ones were doing. Rather than fixing those, they screwed all flyers. Specific problems should be solved with specific solutions, not blanket approaches.
vict0988 wrote: Spamming a single datasheet is definitely a generic problem with the new list-building method, a unit might be balanced if you take 3 but crazy if you take 8, not to mention that it is very boring to look at.
Spamming a single datasheet wouldn't be a problem if the FOC had any meaning.
vict0988 wrote: Why should you be able to take 3 of Dreadnought X and 3 of Dreadnought Y because they have been arbitrarily put in different battlefield roles but no more than 3 Annihilation Barges and Doomsday Arks combined because they have been arbitrarily put in the same battlefield role?
A more apt comparison would be the Space Marine Gladiator, which rather than just being one unit, is three, so you can bring 9. It's stupid, and shouldn't be, but GW wants to sell more kits, and limiting you to 3 would go against that.
vict0988 wrote: ... but using a small-ish CP cost along with RO3 is just a way more fair method of doing it if you acknowledge that battlefield roles are somewhat arbitrary.
It's a patch on a failed system. It's a sledge hammer attempting to hit a nail.
vict0988 wrote: I think you would have to use a more fair and equal way to assign battlefield roles if you wanted to bring back a FOC.
We don't have to bring back an FOC. We just have to make sure it gets used. In the current system it serves no purpose because you can just bring more FOCs for virtually no cost. If you have limitations that you can ignore just by bringing more slots, they're not actually limitations.
Blackie wrote: I've already explained but my point is to make playable generic collections of model with a bit everything and something like the FOC might be too limiting for some armies. Some factions might have 1-2 very good units spread across the codex, some others might have just one section, or two, containing good units.
I don't think that's a good argument against the FOC. "Some Codices have bad units!" just means you fix the Codex.
Blackie wrote: As I've also already said the FOC was appropriate in a context in which armies had 20-30 datasheets, with 3 units in each non troop slot at most. What worked in the past might not work now, because we're not playing the same game of the past. The current detachment system is actually pretty balanced, all the problems we may discuss about 9th edition of 40k aren't a consequence of lacking the old FOC limitations.
I don't think that the amount of available datasheets plays any role whatsoever. And the current detachment system isn't balanced. It makes a mockery of the FOC. We might as well not have it and just play Open games with the way it works.
Blackie wrote: I vastly prefer those "blanket solutions" or "idiotic" rules instead. Spamming the very same OP unit as much as possible has always been an issue, that is something that should be addressed. Fielding multiple units from the same role is not a problem as long as the list overall isn't OP. Being able to bring 9 squigbuggies and 9 scrapjets was iditioc since the begginning while under the current limitations an army that highly relies on buggies is still possible (up to 15 are still allowed) and it's actually much more fun to build, paint, see, play or play against.
The buggy change was't a blanket change. If GW had said you can't bring more than 1 of each FA slot and applied it to every army as a result of the Buggy spam, that would be akin to GW's blanket change to flyers. The buggy change was a specific change to specific units that were causing an issue. The flyer one was not.
Blackie wrote: It's specific units that might be OP, sometimes even intentionally by GW, hence limiting those can be an appropriate solution. Limitations on flyers or ork buggies might seem arbitrary but they did their job without nerfing the units: people can still field them and are actually encouraged to do so, but spamming tons of those is no longer possible, and I can't possibly understand why that's a bad thing. Those who didn't abuse the rules can still play and have fun with such models, they were not forced to shelve them. And, as even GW said, spamming units that are supposed to be supporting units and not the core of an army is wrong.
Then they should have limited AdMech and Ork flyers, not all flyers.
vict0988 wrote: Flyers spam is arguably a generic problem, you cannot end your Move within 1" and they cannot be engaged in melee by most units, having a large portion of your army work this way is a generic problem, even if only a few Aircraft were S-tier.
Lots of people taking squadrons of Valks, were there?
Ideally, there are many types of fun and effective lists, Valk spam being unfun and ineffective at the moment is not a good thing. Banning Valk spam means that no matter how effective Valks become you will never see an unfun and effective Valk spam list. Flyer spam is toxic whenever it appears.
vict0988 wrote: Spamming a single datasheet is definitely a generic problem with the new list-building method, a unit might be balanced if you take 3 but crazy if you take 8, not to mention that it is very boring to look at.
Spamming a single datasheet wouldn't be a problem if the FOC had any meaning.
So what? RO3 gets the job done.
vict0988 wrote: Why should you be able to take 3 of Dreadnought X and 3 of Dreadnought Y because they have been arbitrarily put in different battlefield roles but no more than 3 Annihilation Barges and Doomsday Arks combined because they have been arbitrarily put in the same battlefield role?
A more apt comparison would be the Space Marine Gladiator, which rather than just being one unit, is three, so you can bring 9. It's stupid, and shouldn't be, but GW wants to sell more kits, and limiting you to 3 would go against that.
Definitely not, that's a problem created by RO3, not a problem with going back to a FOC. I can bring 3 Annihilation barges and 3 Doomsday Arks now, if we went back to a FOC I would be unable to do so, but would still be able to bring 3 Doomsday Arks and 3 Triarch Stalkers because of somewhat arbitrary battlefield role assignments.
If you wanted to make an effective FOC that actually impacted how much of different types of units people can spam and not just be an overly elaborate RO3 you would have to put Doomsday Arks, Triarch Stalkers and Annihilation Barges into the same battlefield role since they are all similar vehicles with Quantum Shielding.
vict0988 wrote: ... but using a small-ish CP cost along with RO3 is just a way more fair method of doing it if you acknowledge that battlefield roles are somewhat arbitrary.
It's a patch on a failed system. It's a sledge hammer attempting to hit a nail.
We see mostly balanced lists but people still have the freedom to go kind of crazy if they wish, the system has succeeded spectacularly.
Blackie wrote: As I've also already said the FOC was appropriate in a context in which armies had 20-30 datasheets, with 3 units in each non troop slot at most. What worked in the past might not work now, because we're not playing the same game of the past. The current detachment system is actually pretty balanced, all the problems we may discuss about 9th edition of 40k aren't a consequence of lacking the old FOC limitations.
I don't think that the amount of available datasheets plays any role whatsoever. And the current detachment system isn't balanced. It makes a mockery of the FOC. We might as well not have it and just play Open games with the way it works.
In open play you can have allies working together willy nilly, instead of each group of allies being led by at least one HQ. In open play bringing allies has no cost. The ability to bring 6 Fast Attack choices is not a huge problem, especially when those Fast Attack choices are very different.
Limiting those untis to 0-1 or 0-2. Simple. Limit the specific units, not the army roles. Like GW already did with ork buggies and flyers in general.
Really? Limiting my IG to 1 TC in a 2000 point game? Take the entire AM army and throw it in the trash, as it's win rate just went to 0%. Or, as an Ork player, I can take 2 kommandos, 3 Scrapjets, 2 Dakkajets and 2 units of trukkboys in a 1000 point game? Take the game and throw it in the trash as the entire game just came down to the single dice roll of who goes first.
What about units fielded in squadrons? Am I limited to 2 normal LRBTs, or 6 of them? 6 of them isn't even that strong.
What is the limit on termagant units? Remember, they are Troops choices, and pretty broken right now. 2? 6? Unlimited as Troops? They are Troops, so why can't I field an entire army of them?
In actuality, your "simple" solution solved nothing. It utterly crippled some armies, did nothing to limit the broken ones, and it stopped players from playing what they wanted to play. Which, BTW, is every complaint about the current FOC. What's worse is that the "simple" solution is really just a subjective limitation based on one player's feelings. It's not even objective, and not by GW.
Limiting those untis to 0-1 or 0-2. Simple. Limit the specific units, not the army roles. Like GW already did with ork buggies and flyers in general.
Really? Limiting my IG to 1 TC in a 2000 point game? Take the entire AM army and throw it in the trash, as it's win rate just went to 0%. Or, as an Ork player, I can take 2 kommandos, 3 Scrapjets, 2 Dakkajets and 2 units of trukkboys in a 1000 point game? Take the game and throw it in the trash as the entire game just came down to the single dice roll of who goes first.
What about units fielded in squadrons? Am I limited to 2 normal LRBTs, or 6 of them? 6 of them isn't even that strong.
What is the limit on termagant units? Remember, they are Troops choices, and pretty broken right now. 2? 6? Unlimited as Troops? They are Troops, so why can't I field an entire army of them?
In actuality, your "simple" solution solved nothing. It utterly crippled some armies, did nothing to limit the broken ones, and it stopped players from playing what they wanted to play. Which, BTW, is every complaint about the current FOC. What's worse is that the "simple" solution is really just a subjective limitation based on one player's feelings. It's not even objective, and not by GW.
I'm not sure you have read that correctly. It is suggesting to cap specific problem units, not wholesale capping.
I don't think that's a good argument against the FOC. "Some Codices have bad units!" just means you fix the Codex.
Which is easy to say. But we all know GW, perfect balance is not even in their agenda and we already have the best internal balance for each codex in the history of 40k. With the current detachment systems things work. Do you really believe we have problems because someone is able to bring more than 3 untis from army roles that in the past were limited to 3?
The buggy change was't a blanket change. If GW had said you can't bring more than 1 of each FA slot and applied it to every army as a result of the Buggy spam, that would be akin to GW's blanket change to flyers. The buggy change was a specific change to specific units that were causing an issue. The flyer one was not.
Then they should have limited AdMech and Ork flyers, not all flyers.
The buggy change was blanket as it affected ALL buggies, not just the 2 of of 5 that were spammed. 3 out 5 weren't causing issues. Flyers were causing issues due to their mechanics other than OP stats. It's the combination of both. The infamous ork list that tabled the famous drukhari dude abused the footprint of his flyers to prevent assault. Flyers have been limited because GW didn't like games with lots of them, not because a couple of them were OP. Otherwise they would have nerfed those specific models, like they always do. As a FOC lover you should praise this.
And you can still play a ton of flyers in open play if you like it, this restriction is meant for competitive play only.
And the current detachment system isn't balanced. It makes a mockery of the FOC. We might as well not have it and just play Open games with the way it works.
A flat FOC for everyone IS a blanket solution. I've already explained why but let's dig even further.
People who advocate for the FOC basically argue for two things:
1) It forces players to make choices
2) We'll finally see more troops
But in real life:
1) Only a few factions will actually have to make choices. I played SW since 3rd and I NEVER had to make choices by using the FOC, nor I do now if I take a single battallion. Units are expensive and good units are spread across different roles. I actually struggle to bring more than 2 FA or HS. Space Marines have Heavy Intercessors as troops which are basically Flash Gitz, heavy support for Orks. Or footslogging Multi melta guys as fast attacks. Now If you really want players to make choices then you should argue for custom FOCs, one for each faction.
So factions with more expensive stuff will have like half the slots available for each army role compared to armies with cheaper models. Then all the armies will have to make choices.
2) Limiting elites, FA and HS doesn't encourage taking troops, but maxing out units from these roles instead. I always just brought two cheap min squads of troops in 7th, never more. If an old style FOC was still in play I'd go with something like that for orks:
Spoiler:
Warboss on squigosaur
Warboss on squigosaur
10 gretchins
10 gretchins
5 kommandos
5 kommandos
10 kommandos
3 sguigbuggies
3 sguigbuggies
2 squigbuggies
3 kill rigs
Dakkajet
Only 100 points invested in troops, pure spam of some of the most effective units in the codex, and an oppressive list for casual games. Nothing that resembles "how an army should look". But hey, it respects the old FOC!!
The real "mockery" is that some armies, starting with the most common one, can 100% ignore the FOC restrictions without losing anything. They always could. That's why I'm glad it's gone.
Limiting those untis to 0-1 or 0-2. Simple. Limit the specific units, not the army roles. Like GW already did with ork buggies and flyers in general.
Really? Limiting my IG to 1 TC in a 2000 point game? Take the entire AM army and throw it in the trash, as it's win rate just went to 0%. Or, as an Ork player, I can take 2 kommandos, 3 Scrapjets, 2 Dakkajets and 2 units of trukkboys in a 1000 point game? Take the game and throw it in the trash as the entire game just came down to the single dice roll of who goes first.
What about units fielded in squadrons? Am I limited to 2 normal LRBTs, or 6 of them? 6 of them isn't even that strong.
What is the limit on termagant units? Remember, they are Troops choices, and pretty broken right now. 2? 6? Unlimited as Troops? They are Troops, so why can't I field an entire army of them?
In actuality, your "simple" solution solved nothing. It utterly crippled some armies, did nothing to limit the broken ones, and it stopped players from playing what they wanted to play. Which, BTW, is every complaint about the current FOC. What's worse is that the "simple" solution is really just a subjective limitation based on one player's feelings. It's not even objective, and not by GW.
Playing what they wanted to play is an issue, there should be limitations. Otherwise someone could just field nothing but a single unit, say an army of all battle tanks.
I advocate for armies that bring a bit of everything. Most things will be cappped to 0-3, others to 0-2, and those that are supposed to be the rarest ones and/or centerpiece of an army just to 0-1. IMHO capping leman russes to 0-1 is not even a problem when you can still bring 3 of them, 5 other tanks from the HS section, an HQ leman russ, a named character leman russ, and tanks from the fast attacks and dedicated transport section. Not to mention the LoW. That's already a massive amount of tanks.
Both limitations on ork buggies and flyers have been a success. People still bring those, even in good numbers. They just don't spam them anymore.
I wouldn't put a cap on troops' datasheets unless it's something really elite oriented from codexes with multiple options, like the aforementioned Heavy Intercessors. The max amount of troop units would be limited to the number of units the detachments in play allow.
TLDR, I don't think current detachment system has a single problem. Actually it has one, no subfaction bonus for single LoW. But I'd like to see limitations, like those that flyers and buggies recently got, applied to all armies as a tool to counter spam.
brainpsyk wrote: Really? Limiting my IG to 1 TC in a 2000 point game? Take the entire AM army and throw it in the trash, as it's win rate just went to 0%.
You wanna bet that tank commanders will be 1 per detachment with your next book?
Or, as an Ork player, I can take 2 kommandos, 3 Scrapjets, 2 Dakkajets and 2 units of trukkboys in a 1000 point game? Take the game and throw it in the trash as the entire game just came down to the single dice roll of who goes first.
1) Dakkajets are limited to 1 in incursion 2) That list is already 50 points over the limit unless you are taking worthless units of 5 kommadoz. 3) You are lacking two mandatory HQs choices clocking in at roughly 200 points because trukkboyz are limited to 1 per detachment and a warboss, beastboss or speedboss is mandatory for orks. Plot twist! 4) I play something roughly resembling that in my current crusade and it's not as powerful as you think.
What about units fielded in squadrons? Am I limited to 2 normal LRBTs, or 6 of them? 6 of them isn't even that strong.
What is the limit on termagant units? Remember, they are Troops choices, and pretty broken right now. 2? 6? Unlimited as Troops? They are Troops, so why can't I field an entire army of them?
In actuality, your "simple" solution solved nothing.
You must have missed the part where he said that his solution applies to broken units only. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
You wanna bet that tank commanders will be 1 per detachment with your next book?
1) Dakkajets are limited to 1 in incursion
2) That list is already 50 points over the limit unless you are taking worthless units of 5 kommadoz.
3) You are lacking two mandatory HQs choices clocking in at roughly 200 points because trukkboyz are limited to 1 per detachment and a warboss, beastboss or speedboss is mandatory for orks. Plot twist!
4) I play something roughly resembling that in my current crusade and it's not as powerful as you think.
You must have missed the part where he said that his solution applies to broken units only.
If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
The proposed solution is just reactive and subjective, not proactive, and relies on GW reacting, and they don't have a particularly great track record. (though if they go to quarterly updates, its a step in the right direction)
The TC is a prediction, which is irrelevant. We're talking about how things stand now. But if you want to talk future, then in theory the guard codex would be brought in line with current codexes (better with codex creep), so in theory we'd have more than 2 units that can kill something, so in theory that limitation would be fine.
on #1 - ya, but the proposed solution is rid of the FOC and RO3. So there would be no limitation in incursion. Or would you introduce scaling thus moving toward a FOC?
2 - yes, it was 2 units of 5 Kommandos, just to hold a couple objectives. And you are referring to these "worthless" kommandos, right?
Jidmah wrote: The poll is over, these are the results:
Elites: Kommadoz are the obvious king here, MANz and burnas follow behind. Nobz and tank bustas are still surprisingly well received, everything else is bad.
3 - that forces me to take HQs I don't want (like the complaint how FOCs mandate Troops). And the restriction placed on any unit (including HQs!) is 0-X, so I'm not required to take one! Plot Twist! If we are mandated to take a HQ, then we have a FOC! So again, we've gained nothing.
4 - It's a heck of a lot better than equivalent guard units. 8PL (110pt) dakkajet vs. a 10PL (200pt) vulture gunship?
So really, the FOC does serve its purpose, but it could use some improvement (like making dedicated flyers 0-1 in patrols, 0-2 in Batts/SH/OR/etc., and increasing costs for other detachments). But problem #1 is unit balance, and problem #2 even with approximately equal unit balance, there will still be a "best" unit, and you need some way of limiting spamming of that "best" unit. The proposed solution accomplishes neither, and to fix the proposed solution you move toward a FOC.
brainpsyk wrote: The proposed solution is just reactive and subjective, not proactive, and relies on GW reacting, and they don't have a particularly great track record. (though if they go to quarterly updates, its a step in the right direction)
Isn't a reactive solution with regular updates superior? The track record of GW writing perfect codices that did not need any updated is even worse
It's also not purely reactive, as you already have the Ro3 doing a rather good job as a catch-all.
The TC is a prediction, which is irrelevant. We're talking about how things stand now. But if you want to talk future, then in theory the guard codex would be brought in line with current codexes (better with codex creep), so in theory we'd have more than 2 units that can kill something, so in theory that limitation would be fine.
That is kind of the point. The guard codex is an 8th edition codex, and it wasn't that great of a codex even in the edition it was written in. Every 9th edition codex has made a huge leap in regards to internal balance - there are still bad units, but the amount of decent datasheets tends to outnumber those of the previous five editions combined.
on #1 - ya, but the proposed solution is rid of the FOC and RO3. So there would be no limitation in incursion. Or would you introduce scaling thus moving toward a FOC?
I'm fairly sure that blackie didn't propose getting rid of the Ro3. There also is a new rule, following exactly what blackie is suggesting, limiting AIRCRAFT units to 1 for combat patrol and incursion, 2 for strike force and 3 for onslaught.
2 - yes, it was 2 units of 5 Kommandos, just to hold a couple objectives. And you are referring to these "worthless" kommandos, right?
I worded that poorly. Since you were talking about getting first turn deciding the game, you'll need those kommadoz do be part of your alpha-strike. At 5 models, they are too few and can't take any options to perform that role, since those are gated behind having at least 10 models. After all, without a Waaagh! to support them, 5 kommadoz will bounce off even the most basic infantry. Of course, units of 5 kommadoz by themselves are not useless, but their job is to hide, perform actions and occupy table quarters/deployment zones.
3 - that forces me to take HQs I don't want (like the complaint how FOCs mandate Troops). And the restriction placed on any unit (including HQs!) is 0-X, so I'm not required to take one! Plot Twist! If we are mandated to take a HQ, then we have a FOC! So again, we've gained nothing.
Well, you are free to do that, but no warboss means no Waaagh! or Speedwaaagh!, no relics and no clan stratagems. Which also means no damage and therefore invalidating your argument of the game being decided in turn one.
4 - It's a heck of a lot better than equivalent guard units. 8PL (110pt) dakkajet vs. a 10PL (200pt) vulture gunship?
If you need to pull out a FW unit to make a point, it's most likely invalid Dakkajet is 120 by the way, you pay 10 for each of the extra shootas. And yes, it's fairly cheap, but I'd say a valk with heavy bolters/laser/rockets (150) is not that far behind, and the dakkajet is neither a transport nor can it hover, has less wounds, a worse save and needs to be within 18" to shoot better than a valk at 36".
even with approximately equal unit balance, there will still be a "best" unit, and you need some way of limiting spamming of that "best" unit.
Why aren't the lists winning large events spamming the best unit as often as they can then? How about addressing the proof that the FOC failed to prevent spam in any edition it existed?
Jidmah wrote: How about addressing the proof that the FOC failed to prevent spam in any edition it existed?
I haven't seen any proof presented in this thread that FOCs never did anything to curb spam in prior editions. I don't think anyone would argue that FOCs fully prevented spam, only that they made it harder.
Even if that were the case that FOCs were worthless in prior editions, it only needs to be shown that it would disallow army builds that have been overpowered in modern tournaments to demonstrate that the FOC could have value in ninth.
Lots of mechanics can offer benefits without being silver bullet solutions. Points costs have consistently failed to prevent overpowered lists in any edition, but I wouldn't call that 'proof' that points are a bad mechanic and we should all switch to PL.
Jidmah wrote: How about addressing the proof that the FOC failed to prevent spam in any edition it existed?
I haven't seen any proof presented in this thread that FOCs never did anything to curb spam in prior editions. I don't think anyone would argue that FOCs fully prevented spam, only that they made it harder.
Even if that were the case that FOCs were worthless in prior editions, it only needs to be shown that it would disallow army builds that have been overpowered in modern tournaments to demonstrate that the FOC could have value in ninth.
Lots of mechanics can offer benefits without being silver bullet solutions. Points costs have consistently failed to prevent overpowered lists in any edition, but I wouldn't call that 'proof' that points are a bad mechanic and we should all switch to PL.
Banning ranged units would nerf some OP units, it would not make the game better.
Jidmah wrote: How about addressing the proof that the FOC failed to prevent spam in any edition it existed?
There is a difference in certain units being spammed and any unit you want. Old FoC still allowed Carnifex's, certain tanks, etc.. to be spammed for sure, but not 5 Dreads in any SM army list. Not 4 DEHQ's with 6 Talos, 3 Cronos, 2 Ravagers. Not 30 VGV's with Dreads either with 5 characters. Not 4 Flyers with Mek guns and 9 Buggies.
It did heavily limit the spam compare all of 8th and 9th.
Jidmah wrote: How about addressing the proof that the FOC failed to prevent spam in any edition it existed?
I haven't seen any proof presented in this thread that FOCs never did anything to curb spam in prior editions. I don't think anyone would argue that FOCs fully prevented spam, only that they made it harder.
Even if that were the case that FOCs were worthless in prior editions, it only needs to be shown that it would disallow army builds that have been overpowered in modern tournaments to demonstrate that the FOC could have value in ninth.
Lots of mechanics can offer benefits without being silver bullet solutions. Points costs have consistently failed to prevent overpowered lists in any edition, but I wouldn't call that 'proof' that points are a bad mechanic and we should all switch to PL.
Banning ranged units would nerf some OP units, it would not make the game better.
I guess it's a good thing the FOC mechanic was nothing like that ridiculous strawman you just concocted, then? Talk about a false equivalency.
catbarf wrote: I haven't seen any proof presented in this thread that FOCs never did anything to curb spam in prior editions. I don't think anyone would argue that FOCs fully prevented spam, only that they made it harder.
Australian 40K scene used to have this comp system (universally mocked pretty much everywhere else) that punished you for spamming the 'wrong' units (which was the problem, it was often picked by people who had no idea how army plays/why unit X is good/soft on their own army/on looks basis so was laughably easy to dodge and 90% of the time really ineffective). Unless you postulate they were idiots clinging to pointless system for 10+ years spam had to be issue serious enough back then to warrant it.
H.B.M.C. wrote: A more apt comparison would be the Space Marine Gladiator, which rather than just being one unit, is three, so you can bring 9. It's stupid, and shouldn't be, but GW wants to sell more kits, and limiting you to 3 would go against that.
Nice conspiracy theory, but if they wanted to sell more of them, they would make them OP like eldar/de units, not overpriced junk they are. See also reivers (and pretty much half of the rest of primaris range). Hell, funnily enough, when they finally made a primaris unit good by accident (bladeguard and melta dudes) they were big box only (so impossible to buy directly from GW, ebay only) and the nerf came before separate box was released
Also, if that was their goal, why isn't Redemptor two sheets? It's much better vehicle, you'd think GW would want to encourage sales of it, but somehow it's much more restricted, go figure...
H.B.M.C. wrote: Then they should have limited AdMech and Ork flyers, not all flyers.
They did, in 8th edition. With Tau commander, unit that according to fluff was beyond dumb to spam (1 per planet, if not sector). Remember years of crying broken toy was capped and GW bashing it caused, a lot of it here? Gee, I wonder why they wanted to avoid repeat of that one
Irbis wrote: Australian 40K scene used to have this comp system (universally mocked pretty much everywhere else) that punished you for spamming the 'wrong' units (which was the problem, it was often picked by people who had no idea how army plays/why unit X is good/soft on their own army/on looks basis so was laughably easy to dodge and 90% of the time really ineffective). Unless you postulate they were idiots clinging to pointless system for 10+ years spam had to be issue serious enough back then to warrant it.
Oh, another 'if it wasn't perfect it must have been useless' post. Always good to have more of those.
I mean, seriously, if you apply this logic to any other balance mechanic it's ridiculous. ITC scoring didn't stop certain lists from overperforming, but we're still using secondaries in 9th. Some armies have overperformed despite the existence of points as a balancing factor since the start of 40K, but here we are still using points because it's better than the alternative. 'Imperfect' is not synonymous with 'worthless'.
I have never heard anyone say the FOC was perfect and completely prevented spam and ensured balanced armies. Never. GTFO with that straw man. The argument is that the constraints it imposed were better at curbing abuse than the current system, which I'm inclined to agree with given that it basically was the current system with RO3 extended to all units within a slot, not just of one specific datasheet. It addressed one very specific form of imbalance, which was force org skew.
Was it perfect? No. Nobody's said that. I don't even know if I'd want it back as it was; there are more elegant ways to shape army composition. But this idea that it must have been an ineffective mechanic if it didn't 100% unequivocally forever solve balance in 40K is really dumb.
"it only needs to be shown that it would disallow army builds that have been overpowered in modern tournaments to demonstrate that the FOC could have value in ninth."
"The argument is that the constraints it imposed were better at curbing abuse than the current system..."
"the change only needs to be shown to disallow army builds that have been overpowered in modern tournaments to demonstrate the change could have value in ninth."
I chose a change that fulfils your ridiculously low standard to highlight how low it is. Your have to show that your rules change makes the game so much better that it is worth having everyone change the way they build lists. Banning allies and taking 4+ Heavy Support choices is a downside for anyone who wants to bring them. Matched play is not just for tournaments, it's for people who want moderately balanced easily organized pick-up games as well.
It's not really much of a difference whether I bring 3 Annihilation Barges + 3 Doomsday Arks or 3 Triarch Stalkers + 3 Doomsday Arks, you are just putting an arbitrary limitation on people and not really touching most OP lists.
RO3 already prevents spamming a single datasheet. Big Game Hunter etc. already curbs skew. Bringing back the FOC would have no positive effect on the game as most competitive armies need little to nothing to fit, while a lot of fun or thematic lists that are already uncompetitive become impossible to play.
Jidmah wrote: How about addressing the proof that the FOC failed to prevent spam in any edition it existed?
There is a difference in certain units being spammed and any unit you want. Old FoC still allowed Carnifex's, certain tanks, etc.. to be spammed for sure, but not 5 Dreads in any SM army list. Not 4 DEHQ's with 6 Talos, 3 Cronos, 2 Ravagers. Not 30 VGV's with Dreads either with 5 characters. Not 4 Flyers with Mek guns and 9 Buggies.
It did heavily limit the spam compare all of 8th and 9th.
Why should Tyranids spam Carnifexes but Orks be unable to spam buggies? Ironclad Dreadnoughts (and some FW Dreadnoughts) were Heavy Support, so people could take 6 Dreadnoughts. This was arbitrary and has now been changed, I didn't even know and how would I know? There is no set rule for how battlefield roles are assigned.
Jidmah wrote: How about addressing the proof that the FOC failed to prevent spam in any edition it existed?
There is a difference in certain units being spammed and any unit you want. Old FoC still allowed Carnifex's, certain tanks, etc.. to be spammed for sure, but not 5 Dreads in any SM army list. Not 4 DEHQ's with 6 Talos, 3 Cronos, 2 Ravagers. Not 30 VGV's with Dreads either with 5 characters. Not 4 Flyers with Mek guns and 9 Buggies.
It did heavily limit the spam compare all of 8th and 9th.
9 buggies were legal since 3rd, don't know about older editions. Although pre-8th edition buggies were a completely different and much weaker unit. Basically single shot vehicles with no CC ability and paper things.
The point of the FOC being bad, obsolete, unfair and clunky is that it REMOVES choices. If I have 5-6 units from the same role but I'm limited to 3 then I'd never field the sub optimal ones but I'd still max out points from specialists roles, avoiding to invest in trash troops. Which one of those list's archetypes is the most oppressive one?
Easy answer, case B is the closest thing to something that breakes the game and yet it 100% respects the old FOC. Case A is still an example of an optimized list but unlike Case B is also much more oriented to hobbysts rather than meta chasers.
The new detachment system allows for much more variety. Drukhari are a bad example because they don't have variety. With just 3 proper FA (+ beasts) and 3 HS in total, they'd spam the same things anyway, FOC or not. The old FOC limited the spam in a very unfair way, as even you pointed out before, it didn't prevent some armies to spam units like tanks or monsters while others couldn't. Units for some armies also cost a lot of points, so they wouldn't get more than 3 units for each role anyway.
If spamming talos or dreads becomes a problem, just cap those specific units in competitive gaming, like GW already did with flyers and buggies.
vict0988 wrote: I chose a change that fulfils your ridiculously low standard to highlight how low it is.
I never even came close to suggesting that any mechanic that meets that low bar is a good one and should be implemented. That's beyond straw man, that's bad reading comprehension.
'Could have value (in response to a post explicitly saying it did not)' does not mean 'is a good change that should be put in the game immediately with no further thought'. I don't feel like I should have to explicitly say that, but here we are.
vict0988 wrote: It's not really much of a difference whether I bring 3 Annihilation Barges + 3 Doomsday Arks or 3 Triarch Stalkers + 3 Doomsday Arks, you are just putting an arbitrary limitation on people and not really touching most OP lists.
It's not really much of a difference whether I bring 9 Carnifexes + 9 Thornbacks or 18 Carnifexes, but 9th Ed says the first is totally fine and the second is unfair skew. Still seems pretty arbitrary to me. And I've definitely seen OP lists that wouldn't fit the old FOC.
What you're really pointing out is the limitation of slot assignment in the old FOC. There are other ways to constrain listbuilding more strongly than the current approach without running into that particular issue. But every listbuilding constraint is fundamentally 'arbitrary'. RO3 is arbitrary. Battalions giving you your CP back but Spearheads not is arbitrary. Having to eat CP in order to build a Spearhead of underperforming Guard tanks and not being allowed to take more than three units of them definitely sucks for someone who just wants to play a fun and thematic list. Want to play a Veteran-based Guard army? Can't, RO3 says no.
It's wrong to talk like the FOC was unique in imposing arbitrary constraints on listbuilding that penalized or banned thematic lists while implying the current system does not. It's a matter of degrees, and there has to be a trade-off between maximum listbuilding flexibility and balance in random pick-up games.
Yeah, the thread can indeed be summarized as "people ignoring overwhelming proof that the FOC was a failure, while failing to provide any proof themselves".
And no, catbarf did not address that argument at all. He merely denied it without proof.
You are also wrong on the second one, but you haven't provided proof of 9th edition codices systematically maxing out "the best" units, so there is that.
Arguments made without proof can be denied without proof.
Ignoring the silliness with buggies, it would seem to me that "you can have 3 heavy support units the end" is rather more limiting than "you can only have 3 of the same unit".
By degree the FOC obviously did limit spam in the old days - because (for example) you couldn't turn up with say 4 (or 10) Wraithlords (ignoring whether or not you'd ever want to). But equally, if you had 3 Wraithlords, you couldn't bring any war walkers, or dark reapers, or fire prisms or falcons. Which looking back seems kind of lame.
It was sort of okay in a world of White Dwarf, quasi-highlander style collections (which were perhaps collected that way in part to fit with the FOC limitations), but that's not really how people play these days. And not I suspect how most people want to play or collect.
For the OP - it just comes down to a clash of "what should an army look like". I tend to think Eldar players should be able to run all Aspect Armies if they want to - and that's sort of Biel Tan's whole schtick. But it really isn't how I see all Eldar Fluff and so would be really opposed to applying to all Craftworlds.
Arguably this goes back to how "Chapter Tactics" should be about facilitating different and deeper ways of playing - as it sort of was 20ish years ago. So you like Aspects? Go Biel Tan. You like Jet Bikes? Go Saim-Hann etc. But that seems to have been essentially abandoned for "here's a grab bag of rules, some of which are more overpowered than the others, chuck whatever you want with to get the most out of it."
Jidmah wrote: How about addressing the proof that the FOC failed to prevent spam in any edition it existed?
There is a difference in certain units being spammed and any unit you want. Old FoC still allowed Carnifex's, certain tanks, etc.. to be spammed for sure, but not 5 Dreads in any SM army list.
A master of the forge allowed you to bring 6 dreads in a single FOC. BA could even go up to 9 depending on how many death company models they brought.
Not 4 DEHQ's with 6 Talos, 3 Cronos, 2 Ravagers.
They also weren't allowed to bring leaders for a their 3 subfactions. On the flip side, there is no reason why 6 talos, 3 cronos and 2 ravagers should be disallowed when 6 LRBT, 3 hellhounds, 3 basilisks and 2 vendettas or 3 baal predators, 3 furioso dreadnaughts, 3 regular dreadnaughts and pair of landraiders are a legal army?
Not 30 VGV's with Dreads either with 5 characters.
Maenus Calgar allowed you to run 3 honor guard squads without taking up HQ slots, and you could which were functional identical to VGV. Pedro Cantor allowed you to field and army of 30 sternguard veterans as troops.
Not 4 Flyers with Mek guns and 9 Buggies.
Uhm, outside of fliers already being limited to 2 now, what exactly is the FOC going to do about that? Mek guns are heavy support, buggies come in squadrons of 3 and are fast attack. Just another example of the FOC failing at its most basic function. Oh, fun fact - one of the most efficient necron army that ever fit inside a FOC was actually running up to 12 fliers.
It did heavily limit the spam compare all of 8th and 9th.
Jidmah wrote: How about addressing the proof that the FOC failed to prevent spam in any edition it existed?
There is a difference in certain units being spammed and any unit you want. Old FoC still allowed Carnifex's, certain tanks, etc.. to be spammed for sure, but not 5 Dreads in any SM army list.
A master of the forge allowed you to bring 6 dreads in a single FOC.
However, the overall number of non-transports you could bring was 0, because the dreadnoughts took up those slots. Nowadays? You could have an army of 6 dreadnoughts, 3 Gladiators, and 3 Warsuits if you wanted.
They also weren't allowed to bring leaders for a their 3 subfactions.
On the flip side, there is no reason why 6 talos, 3 cronos and 2 ravagers should be disallowed when 6 LRBT, 3 hellhounds, 3 basilisks and 2 vendettas or 3 baal predators, 3 furioso dreadnaughts, 3 regular dreadnaughts and pair of landraiders are a legal army?
Comparing what is possible in 2k to what is possible in 3k or bigger wouldn't work in earlier editions either because of duplicating FOC.
Maenus Calgar allowed you to run 3 honor guard squads without taking up HQ slots, and you could which were functional identical to VGV.
Yep, and severely constrained your army in the process (UM only, had to be the warlord). Not like today where basically anyone can do it.
Pedro Cantor allowed you to field and army of 30 sternguard veterans as troops.
He made them scoring, not Troops. Still had to bring 2 Tac squads or 2 scouts.
Does either of those lists look like heavily limited spam to you?
Yes? The only one that is questionable is 6 preds. They both "spam" troops, which is fine (troops are the core of an army). 3 devastator squads is standard for an SM line company.
Also don't mash 8th and 9th together, they differ as much in list building as 5th and 7th did.
Then why are you mashing "all FOC" together?
Your examples only work in 5th or later, for example.
Master of the Forge did not exist before 5th edition.
Characters (Calgar) required asking before they could be brought before 5th edition.
Baal Predators were HS in 5th edition (iirc).
@Jidmah, could you remind me what you're actually arguing *for*?
I understand that you think the old FoC was largely or wholly useless but there have been so many posts just debating that point that I've lost track as to what you would actually prefer instead.
Unit1126PLL wrote: However, the overall number of non-transports you could bring was 0, because the dreadnoughts took up those slots.
Those dread spam lists aren't bringing any other vehicles, which means the FOC wouldn't be fixing the problem.
There is no real argument in favor of the FOC besides it making competitive list building more trivial, though IMO that is not a good thing.
Nowadays? You could have an army of 6 dreadnoughts, 3 Gladiators, and 3 Warsuits if you wanted.
How is the option of being able to bring gladiators and warsuits a problem? Especially since no one seems to be doing it?
It's also whataboutism what you are doing here, his argument in favor of the FOC has been debunked, and you aren't providing a new one.
Comparing what is possible in 2k to what is possible in 3k or bigger wouldn't work in earlier editions either because of duplicating FOC.
Eh, remembered the points for LRBT wrong. Replace the basilisks with a manticore then then, and you still end up with FOC-approved heavy armor spam at 2k. Which kind of was one of the tournament dominating builds at that time.
The BA example fits into 2k points perfectly. So feel free to address why IG got a free pass for spamming any amounts of armor or infantry, while DE were not allowed to bring three melee monsters and two gunboats.
Yep, and severely constrained your army in the process (UM only, had to be the warlord). Not like today where basically anyone can do it.
There wasn't really a downside to making him warlord in 5th though. I also went to dig for this fabled list and where it was causing problems... and it turns out to be a UM list with Tigurius and Gulliman! The irony.
However, it was an 8th edition list and the player brought plenty of troops to gain extra CP. Outside of having an extra elite slot for an apothecary and an extra HQ, it would even have fit into a FOC.
Everything else is pretty much click-baity articles from the usualy suspects like SpikeyBits or BLOS which tell you that even you can easily win with veteran vanguards, click the article to find out how. Any serious lists have no more than one or two units.
Another case where there isn't actually a problem, that a FOC also wouldn't solve anyways.
Pedro Cantor allowed you to field and army of 30 sternguard veterans as troops.
He made them scoring, not Troops. Still had to bring 2 Tac squads or 2 scouts.
True, I actually remember my regular CF opponent always having a pair of landspeeder storms on the board. Probably confused him with Belial.
Yes? The only one that is questionable is 6 preds. They both "spam" troops, which is fine (troops are the core of an army).
But isn't that backwards? In 5th having 6 red units of assault marines with razorbacks is fine, but having 6 units of assault marines with razorbacks in 9th is spam that needs to be limited? Was the 8th edition Gulliman razorback parking lot not spam because razorbacks are dedicated transports? Was the 90 intercessors lists not spam because the were troops?
IMO it doesn't stop being spam just because of a battle role shift.
3 devastator squads is standard for an SM line company.
Do you have any reasoning why this kind of army is fine, while current armies need to be limited by a FOC? I mean, having 18 buggies and four planes is standard for mob of speed freeks, isn't it?
How about the 45 lootas lists in 5th? Also not spam?
If fielding 3 identical identical units with maxed out identical weapons isn't spam, I don't know what is. If that isn't spam then there would be no spam at all in the game, we do have the Ro3 after all.
Which would be quite paradoxal, because then there would be no need to implement the FOC, as there is nothing for it to fix
Also don't mash 8th and 9th together, they differ as much in list building as 5th and 7th did.
Then why are you mashing "all FOC" together?
Apples to oranges. While both 8th and 9th have detachments, there is a huge and important difference:
In 8th detachments gave you rewards in forms of CP, and most armies could directly translate CP into damage. Which means having more detachments was a no-brainer, troops were happily taken as tax to gain more CP and there was zero downside to mixing in units from an allied army. More detachments = more damage, slots were an afterthought.
In 9th you get one free detachment if it has mandatory troops, and everything else requires you to spend non-trivial amounts of CP. You aren't getting extra slots for free anymore, and extra detachments are a trade-off, as is skipping troops. If your troops and stratagems are terrible, players are more likely to take that trade-off, but that is mostly an issue of unit balance, not of slot availability. Most armies with decent troops like drukhari, necrons, space marines or death guard are taking them, and not just as minimum tax.
Comparing 8th to 9th is like comparing 5th edition's FOC to 7th's decurions.
Your examples only work in 5th or later, for example.
Master of the Forge did not exist before 5th edition.
Characters (Calgar) required asking before they could be brought before 5th edition.
You are missing the point. The burden of proof is on the people claiming that the FOC would solve spam or at least improve problems of the present. A single counter-example is sufficient to debunk an argument.
FOC prevented dread spam - no it didn't.
FOC prevented veteran spam - no, it didn't.
FOC prevented people skipping troops - no, it didn't.
Also 5th was the final iteration of the FOC, so it should be the "best" one, right? GW clearly thought that those loopholes to override the FOC's limitations were necessary to preserve army flavor.
In any case, I'm fairly sure that I can find spammy lists for 4th edition as well - eldar grav tanks and tripple BT landraiders come to mind.
Baal Predators were HS in 5th edition (iirc).
Baal predators were fast attack, one of the reasons by BA were seen as Space Marines +1. The book essentially gave them permission to spam the heck out of everything, as long as you told your opponent that your army was actually painted red.
I'd also like to point out that I put some effort into addressing all your points, so if you feel like I skipped over one of your arguments, say so.
Jidmah wrote:Catbarf, don't you see that the FOC also causes a lot of harm to the game? It's not all upside.
When did I ever say it was 'all upside'? I outright said I don't think I'd want it to come back as it was.
What is it about this topic that draws out all the straw men? Christ alive, every single reply to my posts is just stuffing words in my mouth.
Jidmah wrote:And no, catbarf did not address that argument at all. He merely denied it without proof.
Jidmah wrote:Arguments made without proof can be denied without proof.
I mean, I haven't seen any proof that the FOC did nothing to address spam, so by that metric no proof is needed to refute it.
I see evidence that spam still existed under the FOC. But that doesn't mean that the FOC was wholly ineffective at combating spam- for the same reason that imbalance existing in spite of points is not evidence that points are worthless at preventing imbalance and should be thrown out entirely.
You're basically holding up the fact that the FOC wasn't perfect as evidence that it was ineffective, and that doesn't follow. You'd need to demonstrate that the game sans FOC would be no more breakable than one with it, and that doesn't seem like a provable proposition. On the contrary, I think that it stands to reason that a game with no FOC restrictions would be easier to break than one with them.
The real question should be whether the side effects of heavy constraints on listbuilding are worth the improvement to balance.
vipoid wrote: @Jidmah, could you remind me what you're actually arguing *for*?
I understand that you think the old FoC was largely or wholly useless but there have been so many posts just debating that point that I've lost track as to what you would actually prefer instead.
Sure. I think the current system is doing pretty well in regards to how armies are built and should be tweaked rather than tossed out with the bathwater.
Which means:
- The detachment containing your warlord is free, if it is a patrol, battalion or brigade.
- Every other detachment costs non-trivial amounts of CP.
- "Special" detachments attached to extra limitations can also be free to enable flavorful armies like ravenwing, deathwing, the speed mob or even rogue traders. Things like the aspect host could also be solved through this.
- Heavily limited armies of reknown for super-specialized forces like the speed mob, Belakor's disciples or Typhus' plague zombie horde. This would be a good solution for phantom-focused armies.
- Detachment rules rewarding pure armies to make taking allies a trade-off instead of a no-brainer.
- Free passes for flavorful allies like assassins, inquisitors or knights of the cog. This might also be the solution for summoning daemons or corsairs.
- Rewards for less detachments are roughly equal to rewards for having more detachments for most armies.
- Good internal balance in codices actually reduces spam and makes people bring multiple different units to have more options on the tabletop.
- Fliers rule is fine. Every time any army had good fliers, they have ruined the game. Limiting them allows them to be good without breaking the game - twice as important with eldar getting their new codex soon.
- Secondary Objectives and Agendas punish skew lists, making people actively seek to diversify their defensive profiles.
- Limiting the use of cheap troops like pox walkers, cultists, scouts and gretchin while giving better tools to signature troops is a good thing. Armies feel more "real" because of that.
- Many (sub-)faction benefits are tied to your warlord's faction.
What's not so hot currently:
- LoW that aren't supreme commanders suck to play. Just kill the SHA and add a LoW slots to battalions and two to brigades. Or at least remove the "can't have detachment rules" part.
- Too many layers of rules make those detachment rules feel like a burden instead of a blessing. It's a good thing that they exist, but complexity needs to go down.
- Having a different sub-factions on every detachment is too easy for some armies.
- There aren't enough incentives to take battalions. Two patrols or a patrol and an outrider/vanguard/spearhead are superior to one battalion in many cases.
- There is no incentive to ever run a brigade.
- Squadrons should go away for everything that has more than 6 wounds. These just cause skew lists, and it would also fix the buggy issue.
- One Commander/Chaos Lord/Warboss/Hive Guard per detachment feels bad. On the one hand, limiting them is a good for balance and flavorful, on the other, you have like ten warboss datasheets in the ork codex and can only run one, while the Legion of He-Who-Hates-Psykers is forced to run a psyker in battalions because all their other HQ choices are lords of chaos.
Jidmah wrote: - Fliers rule is fine. Every time any army had good fliers, they have ruined the game. Limiting them allows them to be good without breaking the game - twice as important with eldar getting their new codex soon.
Meanwhile my fluffy airmobile Scions army is going on indefinite hiatus, as it is no longer Matched Play legal, until either I rework it to be land-based (and, I dunno, sell my Valkyries on eBay or something) or GW revises the flier restriction.
Jidmah wrote: - Squadrons should go away for everything that has more than 6 wounds. These just cause skew lists, and it would also fix the buggy issue.
Poof, there go the armored companies too.
I'm not trying to cherry-pick your points, but these are a microcosm of why I am thoroughly unconvinced that 8th/9th Ed's system is really much different in practice from the old FOC. It seems to me more like it promises greater freedom (and was genuinely more open-ended to start with), but has had all these crude and artificial limitations instated to prevent the inevitable abuse. Want to make an army of Veterans, since the Vanguard detachment allows you to take as many Elites choices as you want? Nope, people spammed non-Troops units, so there's Rule of 3. Airmobile Scions? Nope, people spammed fliers, now only 1 per 1K points. Four or five 5-man units of Pathfinders? No, once again, Ro3 forces you to max out three units rather than take more, smaller ones. Elite Crisis Suit army led by a cadre of skilled officers? Commanders are one-per-detachment, sucks to suck (And I will be fair and acknowledge that you listed this as a negative).
If we want to talk about artificial restrictions on listbuilding, those are all pretty damn artificial. And then depending on how many points you have to work with, you may wind up with issues filling slots or fitting within your chosen detachments anyways. The only significant thing you can do under the current system that you couldn't under the old FOC is take multiple different units from the same slot. Which is cool, but I've seen more lists use this for exploitative purposes than for fluffy themes.
Retaining the slots of the old FOC feels like an atavism rather than a mechanic that adds any real depth. At this point I'd rather see WHFB's Core/Special/Rare breakdown to more abstractly (and directly) represent rarity and constrain army composition; at the very least it'd be easier to have characters or subfactions switch around what counts as Core and thus facilitate alternative army composition. Let GW- at least for Matched Play*- curate which units are allowed to make up the mainstay of your army.
* And on this note, I think this would be a much easier discussion if Matched Play were actually treated as a tighter tournament ruleset rather than the de facto way to play. Trying to make a ruleset that provides good balance at the top tables and fun options for Garagehammer is a Sisyphean proposition. I'd be fine with tighter restrictions for tournament play and just acknowledging that my Scions list is not GW Tournament Approved and leaving it at that, but having it be disallowed by the rules that most pick-up players are using at my local shop is frustrating.
I think it is pretty clear that Mortarion got over his hatred of psykers when he himself became one. I still dislike the max 1 Commander/Detachment rules because it signifies OP units that are worth bringing as beasticks and get free support rules as well. Buggies are still unbalanced, the issue has just been swept under the rug.
"You're basically holding up the fact that the FOC wasn't perfect as evidence that it was ineffective, and that doesn't follow. You'd need to demonstrate that the game sans FOC would be no more breakable than one with it, and that doesn't seem like a provable proposition."
The current system works, you want to change the system, the burden of proof is on you to prove the change would be positive. Not just positive in the sense that it removes one OP list from the equation, positive in the way that it is worth implementing despite forcing everyone who plays matched play to never spam Elites/FA/HS.
Showing the FOC's imperfections shows that it is not worth bringing back. I played Necrons in 5th/6th, there were no Heavy Support choices I wanted to bring other than Annihilation Barges, the rest of my good units were Troops, Dedicated Transports or took up no force org slots (Stormteks). The only thing the FOC did was act as a RO3 for Annihilation Barges and limited me to 6 Troops, which was more than enough anyway.
Warhammer World GT
1st place: 1 Warboss in Mega Armour, 1 Big Mek in Mega Armour, 3 Kill Rigs, 2 Squighog Boys, 1 Meganobs.
Spamming the same datasheet is hardly an issue in 9th, people don't even strain against the RO3, the 4th place was almost a highlander list. The harlequin 2nd place spammed dedicated transports and troops, maybe there needs to be a RO6 for Troops/Dedicated Transports so people don't go too overboard with one of these datasheets.
Some datasheets that are super similar need to fall under the same datasheet, the Gladiators are too similar to have different datasheets I agree, but they are overcosted at the moment so nobody brings them in high numbers anyway.
All those who defend the old FOC are players that didn't have to make hard choices in listbuilding in older editions and they wouldn't make them either in the current edition assuming the old style FOC were coming back.
They don't see the issues of the FOC because their armies were never truly affected by the the FOC's limitations.
Note that the same posters aren't against spam, in fact they hate what GW did to flyers and ork buggies. They'd all be in favor of things like 9 leman russes + 2-3 HQ leman russes just because the FOC would be respected.
Basically they're players that want and like to spam stuff but for some reason they don't like how other armies can make good use of several units from the same army roles, even if they don't spam anything.
Blackie wrote: All those who defend the old FOC are players that didn't have to make hard choices in listbuilding in older editions and they wouldn't make them either in the current edition assuming the old style FOC were coming back.
I'm not even sure what this means. With the current FOC structure there are no 'hard choices', as you can just add more slots.
The old FOC was all about hard choices, as it imposed actual limitations on what you could take, something that, outside of a few exceptions, simply don't exist in current 40k. Back then you couldn't just take another FOC with lots and lots of Heavy Support choices because you'd reached your limit of 3 already. You can do that now though. So much for 'hard choices'.
Blackie wrote: They don't see the issues of the FOC because their armies were never truly affected by the the FOC's limitations.
The old FOC was all about hard choices, as it imposed actual limitations on what you could take, something that, outside of a few exceptions, simply don't exist in current 40k. Back then you couldn't just take another FOC with lots and lots of Heavy Support choices because you'd reached your limit of 3 already. You can do that now though. So much for 'hard choices'.
No it wasn't. It imposed actual limitations on SOME armies. Others couldn't care less as they had ways to counter those limitations: squadrons, high points costs, good units spread across all army roles, etc... even actual special rules that allowed a faction to flat out break the FOC.
And those limitations did nothing else than forcing players to spam the best units for each slot. I've already provided multiple examples why the FOC took choices away. If you really want to make choices bring 0-1 or 0-2 limitations on specific units. If I can bring one Kill Rig I have to think of a list that provides all the required synergies, if I can bring 3 I'm not making any actual choice, let alone hard ones. I'm maxing them out as long as they are the best unit in that army role.
It's not a choice when I can bring 3 OP models and nothing else since I'm limited to 3 slots in that army role. If I could take 4 or 5 maybe I could choose some of the sub optimal units instead. Take Mek gunz, they're ok as solo units AS LONG AS they don't eat precious HS slots. Being cheap means that I may be forced to bring trash units if I add one or two of those to my list, like more troops to complete the army. So if I can bring multiple HS I'd definitely take mek gunz, if i can't... nope, I'd just spam the 3 best HS I can field. Same for any other different role. 5 man squads of stormboyz? Good, as long as bringing them doesn't prevent me from bringing the most performing unit(s) for that army role and it doens't force me to add trash troops. 2x5 Stormboyz in an outrider detachment combined with 4-5 shooty FA units? Why not? They're a legit option. With only 3 FA available? Not a chance, I'm maxing out the best options I have without making any choice.
It's the current detachment system that actually let players make choices. If you want to make even more choices cap the specific units.
Jidmah wrote: - Fliers rule is fine. Every time any army had good fliers, they have ruined the game. Limiting them allows them to be good without breaking the game - twice as important with eldar getting their new codex soon.
Meanwhile my fluffy airmobile Scions army is going on indefinite hiatus, as it is no longer Matched Play legal, until either I rework it to be land-based (and, I dunno, sell my Valkyries on eBay or something) or GW revises the flier restriction.
I understand that this is a problem, but ever since fliers have become a regular part of the game, them ignoring large parts of the game has been an issue. This is an issue with aircraft rules, not the list building mechanics - with how planes have work your air cavalry will doomed to always be a terrible army, because once valks enter "good" territory, there will be a guard player spamming *reads notes* up to 18 of them on top of a bunch of LoS ignoring artillery to create the exact same type of problem as we had with the ork freebootas list.
As I pointed out, highly specialized forces should be addressed through heavily limited armies of reknown, your army (as well as the very similar elysian drop troops) seem like perfect candidates for that.
Jidmah wrote: - Squadrons should go away for everything that has more than 6 wounds. These just cause skew lists, and it would also fix the buggy issue.
Poof, there go the armored companies too.
Same as above. Armored companies can be a specialist detachment akin to deathwing, allowing you to bring more than the basic number of LRBT. Because honestly, I can't of a single other tank that should be able to break the Ro3, and even if there are some that I missed, how many datasheets are we talking about, two? Three?
What this is supposed to prevent is units like basilisks, ATVs, deff dreads or buggies diving under the Ro3. A unit should not be able to be squadroned unless fielding 9 of them is actively encouraged. Buggies have shown how dangerous squadrons are to game balance.
If we want to talk about artificial restrictions on listbuilding, those are all pretty damn artificial. And then depending on how many points you have to work with, you may wind up with issues filling slots or fitting within your chosen detachments anyways. The only significant thing you can do under the current system that you couldn't under the old FOC is take multiple different units from the same slot. Which is cool, but I've seen more lists use this for exploitative purposes than for fluffy themes.
The big difference is that the FOC blanket-limited everything. The new system only limits things which have been proven to be a problem.
spamming the same unit 5+ times has been a problem, that's why the rule of 3 was introduced
spamming commanders, hive tyrants, captains and daemon princes was a problem, that's why those were limited
spamming necrons, eldar, space marines, admech and orks fliers has been a problem, so they are limited now
spamming 9 of the best buggies have been a problem, so they are limited now
Elite armies flooding the board with super-cheap troops has been a problem, so they were limited
Some of those limits worked better than others, but they aren't arbitrary like the FOC is. The highlander army I'm going to play today will be running 8 fast attack choices, not doubling up on a single one of them. Armies like that have never been a problem, though this is the kind of thing that the FOC is explicitly trying to prevent.
The best system is that which is giving as much freedom as possible, applying limits only where necessary.
Retaining the slots of the old FOC feels like an atavism rather than a mechanic that adds any real depth. At this point I'd rather see WHFB's Core/Special/Rare breakdown to more abstractly (and directly) represent rarity and constrain army composition; at the very least it'd be easier to have characters or subfactions switch around what counts as Core and thus facilitate alternative army composition. Let GW- at least for Matched Play*- curate which units are allowed to make up the mainstay of your army.
100% agree. The differentiation between FA/Heavy Support/Elite is a relic of the past when armies only had a hand full of data sheets and is my main reason for why the FOC is a horrible idea.
It's limits for the sake of having limits, which then screw over armies which aren't getting "ignore the FOC"-handouts from GW.
* And on this note, I think this would be a much easier discussion if Matched Play were actually treated as a tighter tournament ruleset rather than the de facto way to play. Trying to make a ruleset that provides good balance at the top tables and fun options for Garagehammer is a Sisyphean proposition. I'd be fine with tighter restrictions for tournament play and just acknowledging that my Scions list is not GW Tournament Approved and leaving it at that, but having it be disallowed by the rules that most pick-up players are using at my local shop is frustrating.
It's anecdotal, but my experience is that most garagehammer people actually see Matched Play/GT as a burden because secondaries.are difficult to wrap your head around when you don't play regularly and feel too gamey. It's also very repetitive, and it's no fun for them. Most of those people have moved to open war or crusade, but still use the balance patches and rules of matched play.
But I understand your issue and think that there should be a solution for it - but that solution should not be enabling the next flier spam army once valks hit the magic spot.
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vict0988 wrote: Buggies are still unbalanced, the issue has just been swept under the rug.
Game stats say otherwise. It's perfectly possible for a unit to be fine when brought 3 times and game breaking at 9. The squigbuggy and planes were such a units, because there is a huge difference between a sixth of my shooting you turn 1 no matter what and two thirds my shooting doing so.
Warhammer World GT
1st place: 1 Warboss in Mega Armour, 1 Big Mek in Mega Armour, 3 Kill Rigs, 2 Squighog Boys, 1 Meganobs.
Spamming the same datasheet is hardly an issue in 9th, people don't even strain against the RO3, the 4th place was almost a highlander list. The harlequin 2nd place spammed dedicated transports and troops, maybe there needs to be a RO6 for Troops/Dedicated Transports so people don't go too overboard with one of these datasheets.
Some datasheets that are super similar need to fall under the same datasheet, the Gladiators are too similar to have different datasheets I agree, but they are overcosted at the moment so nobody brings them in high numbers anyway.
Agree with all of the above, thanks for providing data.
vipoid wrote: @Jidmah, could you remind me what you're actually arguing *for*?
I understand that you think the old FoC was largely or wholly useless but there have been so many posts just debating that point that I've lost track as to what you would actually prefer instead.
Sure. I think the current system is doing pretty well in regards to how armies are built and should be tweaked rather than tossed out with the bathwater.
Which means:
- The detachment containing your warlord is free, if it is a patrol, battalion or brigade.
- Every other detachment costs non-trivial amounts of CP.
- "Special" detachments attached to extra limitations can also be free to enable flavorful armies like ravenwing, deathwing, the speed mob or even rogue traders. Things like the aspect host could also be solved through this.
- Heavily limited armies of reknown for super-specialized forces like the speed mob, Belakor's disciples or Typhus' plague zombie horde. This would be a good solution for phantom-focused armies.
- Detachment rules rewarding pure armies to make taking allies a trade-off instead of a no-brainer.
- Free passes for flavorful allies like assassins, inquisitors or knights of the cog. This might also be the solution for summoning daemons or corsairs.
- Rewards for less detachments are roughly equal to rewards for having more detachments for most armies.
- Good internal balance in codices actually reduces spam and makes people bring multiple different units to have more options on the tabletop.
- Fliers rule is fine. Every time any army had good fliers, they have ruined the game. Limiting them allows them to be good without breaking the game - twice as important with eldar getting their new codex soon.
- Secondary Objectives and Agendas punish skew lists, making people actively seek to diversify their defensive profiles.
- Limiting the use of cheap troops like pox walkers, cultists, scouts and gretchin while giving better tools to signature troops is a good thing. Armies feel more "real" because of that.
- Many (sub-)faction benefits are tied to your warlord's faction.
What's not so hot currently:
- LoW that aren't supreme commanders suck to play. Just kill the SHA and add a LoW slots to battalions and two to brigades. Or at least remove the "can't have detachment rules" part.
- Too many layers of rules make those detachment rules feel like a burden instead of a blessing. It's a good thing that they exist, but complexity needs to go down.
- Having a different sub-factions on every detachment is too easy for some armies.
- There aren't enough incentives to take battalions. Two patrols or a patrol and an outrider/vanguard/spearhead are superior to one battalion in many cases.
- There is no incentive to ever run a brigade.
- Squadrons should go away for everything that has more than 6 wounds. These just cause skew lists, and it would also fix the buggy issue.
- One Commander/Chaos Lord/Warboss/Hive Guard per detachment feels bad. On the one hand, limiting them is a good for balance and flavorful, on the other, you have like ten warboss datasheets in the ork codex and can only run one, while the Legion of He-Who-Hates-Psykers is forced to run a psyker in battalions because all their other HQ choices are lords of chaos.
Thank you, that's very helpful.
I get where you're coming from. I don't think the old FoC was all that bad but I also don't think it would work with the current game - some armies (naming no names ) have expanded so much as to make it rather impractical.
However, I also can't say I like the current system. I believe Catbarf has already pointed out various instances where the restrictions needlessly hamper many fluffy armies and builds.
For me, though, I just feels a bit of a mess. You've got this whole, elaborate detachment system with all the different combinations of mandatory and allowed units and associated CP costs . . . and yet they keep having to tack on extra rules to actually make it work. So we also have the rule of 3. Except in the case of some Commanders, where it's the rule of 1. Except that that's per detachment whereas the rule of 3 is per army. Oh, and then there are fliers which are 1 per 1000pts and . . . do you see what I mean?
The entire system is so awful at it's job (and it only had one bloody job to begin with!) that it's basically being held together with bandages and sticking plasters.
At this point, I honestly think you could largely do away with the detachment system altogether and instead just give each unit in an army a limit as to how many of them you can take (this could be an absolute limit - e.g. all special characters would be 'up to 1', or it could be based on points e.g. 'no more than 2 per 1000pts' etc.). With a little refinement, I think that would make for a far better (and simpler) system than the bloated, overcomplicated mess we currently have.
H.B.M.C. wrote: The old FOC was all about hard choices, as it imposed actual limitations on what you could take, something that, outside of a few exceptions, simply don't exist in current 40k. Back then you couldn't just take another FOC with lots and lots of Heavy Support choices because you'd reached your limit of 3 already. You can do that now though. So much for 'hard choices'.
What army were you playing in 5th, what hard choices did you have?
At least for orks there wasn't really a lot of choice, especially not hard ones. Once you had decided which archetype to run, you had nearly identical units across players and choice mostly revolved around whether your unit of nobz was riding a battlewagon or bikes, whether you wanted more lootas in your mobs or a unit of trukkboyz or whether you wanted more grotzookas or rokkits on your kanz. Slots were merely filled to the brim with the most efficient options you owned, no real choice here.
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vipoid wrote: At this point, I honestly think you could largely do away with the detachment system altogether and instead just give each unit in an army a limit as to how many of them you can take (this could be an absolute limit - e.g. all special characters would be 'up to 1', or it could be based on points e.g. 'no more than 2 per 1000pts' etc.). With a little refinement, I think that would make for a far better (and simpler) system than the bloated, overcomplicated mess we currently have.
In theory, yes, but I somehow doubt that GW (or anyone) would be able to do a good job at huge task of setting a sensible number of units for every datasheet and every game mode.
Plus you always have the issue of units that did need to be addressed as a group, like planes or daemon princes.
In technical terms, a blacklist is easier to maintain than whitelist, though the whitelist will fail less often.
I think in this case addressing problems as they come up is the way to move forward, as it's nigh impossible to get things right on the first try.
You also can make decisions to limit things based on data, but you can't get data to support taking data off the "whitelist".
Yeah, what really breaks the game is something like the chance of bringing 9 pain engines and up to 18 grotesques, which perfectly fits the old FOC limitations.
At this point, I honestly think you could largely do away with the detachment system altogether and instead just give each unit in an army a limit as to how many of them you can take (this could be an absolute limit - e.g. all special characters would be 'up to 1', or it could be based on points e.g. 'no more than 2 per 1000pts' etc.). With a little refinement, I think that would make for a far better (and simpler) system than the bloated, overcomplicated mess we currently have.
Exactly, that would be my favorite system to do listbuilding.
Sure. I think the current system is doing pretty well in regards to how armies are built and should be tweaked rather than tossed out with the bathwater.
Which means:
- The detachment containing your warlord is free, if it is a patrol, battalion or brigade.
- Every other detachment costs non-trivial amounts of CP.
- "Special" detachments attached to extra limitations can also be free to enable flavorful armies like ravenwing, deathwing, the speed mob or even rogue traders. Things like the aspect host could also be solved through this.
- Heavily limited armies of reknown for super-specialized forces like the speed mob, Belakor's disciples or Typhus' plague zombie horde. This would be a good solution for phantom-focused armies.
- Detachment rules rewarding pure armies to make taking allies a trade-off instead of a no-brainer.
- Free passes for flavorful allies like assassins, inquisitors or knights of the cog. This might also be the solution for summoning daemons or corsairs.
- Rewards for less detachments are roughly equal to rewards for having more detachments for most armies.
- Good internal balance in codices actually reduces spam and makes people bring multiple different units to have more options on the tabletop.
- Fliers rule is fine. Every time any army had good fliers, they have ruined the game. Limiting them allows them to be good without breaking the game - twice as important with eldar getting their new codex soon.
- Secondary Objectives and Agendas punish skew lists, making people actively seek to diversify their defensive profiles.
- Limiting the use of cheap troops like pox walkers, cultists, scouts and gretchin while giving better tools to signature troops is a good thing. Armies feel more "real" because of that.
- Many (sub-)faction benefits are tied to your warlord's faction.
- There aren't enough incentives to take battalions. Two patrols or a patrol and an outrider/vanguard/spearhead are superior to one battalion in many cases.
- There is no incentive to ever run a brigade.
Do you not feel the CP cost is an incentive?
Two patrols or a patrol + outrider/ vanguard/ spearhead will almost always be at a CP deficit. Depending on game size, that isn't always a deal breaker, but it is always a disadvantage. Do you think the CP penalty should be higher?
In theory, yes, but I somehow doubt that GW (or anyone) would be able to do a good job at huge task of setting a sensible number of units for every datasheet and every game mode.
Okay but we literally already have that problem in the form of the Rule of 3 (the fact that it's a blanket rule doesn't mean it's automatically appropriate for all factions and units) and, in a few cases, individual restrictions - e.g. for fliers, hive tyrants etc..
Plus you always have the issue of units that did need to be addressed as a group, like planes or daemon princes.
Sure. But not only do we already have rules for that, said rules are entirely independent of the entire detachment system. Hence, I don't see why removing the detachment system would make one iota of difference here.
I think in this case addressing problems as they come up is the way to move forward, as it's nigh impossible to get things right on the first try.
You also can make decisions to limit things based on data, but you can't get data to support taking data off the "whitelist".
I'm not sure what you mean here. It seems you could easily change unit limits the same way you change unit costs, wargear costs and, as we've seen, unit limits.
To clarify, I'm not claiming that this would be a perfect system, just a much cleaner one. Yes, GW can (and probably would) feth it up but you could just as easily apply that argument to any and every rule change. It might also help us move away from the godawful Stratagem mindset that currently hangs over every aspect of 9th like a putrid stench. As the current system is literally how CPs are determined and the only penalty for taking multiple (or just "wrong") detachments is in how many CPs you get.
vict0988 wrote: "it only needs to be shown that it would disallow army builds that have been overpowered in modern tournaments to demonstrate that the FOC could have value in ninth."
"The argument is that the constraints it imposed were better at curbing abuse than the current system..."
"the change only needs to be shown to disallow army builds that have been overpowered in modern tournaments to demonstrate the change could have value in ninth."
I chose a change that fulfils your ridiculously low standard to highlight how low it is. Your have to show that your rules change makes the game so much better that it is worth having everyone change the way they build lists. Banning allies and taking 4+ Heavy Support choices is a downside for anyone who wants to bring them. Matched play is not just for tournaments, it's for people who want moderately balanced easily organized pick-up games as well.
It's not really much of a difference whether I bring 3 Annihilation Barges + 3 Doomsday Arks or 3 Triarch Stalkers + 3 Doomsday Arks, you are just putting an arbitrary limitation on people and not really touching most OP lists.
RO3 already prevents spamming a single datasheet. Big Game Hunter etc. already curbs skew. Bringing back the FOC would have no positive effect on the game as most competitive armies need little to nothing to fit, while a lot of fun or thematic lists that are already uncompetitive become impossible to play.
Jidmah wrote: How about addressing the proof that the FOC failed to prevent spam in any edition it existed?
There is a difference in certain units being spammed and any unit you want. Old FoC still allowed Carnifex's, certain tanks, etc.. to be spammed for sure, but not 5 Dreads in any SM army list. Not 4 DEHQ's with 6 Talos, 3 Cronos, 2 Ravagers. Not 30 VGV's with Dreads either with 5 characters. Not 4 Flyers with Mek guns and 9 Buggies.
It did heavily limit the spam compare all of 8th and 9th.
Why should Tyranids spam Carnifexes but Orks be unable to spam buggies? Ironclad Dreadnoughts (and some FW Dreadnoughts) were Heavy Support, so people could take 6 Dreadnoughts. This was arbitrary and has now been changed, I didn't even know and how would I know? There is no set rule for how battlefield roles are assigned.
Why should Marines get to combat squad their units and no one else? Bc different armies has some focus on different things. Just like DE can take 9 Talos but only 3 Ravagers while IG can take 9 LRBT, Wyvern's, and other tanks but only 3 Heavy weapon teams.
Two patrols or a patrol + outrider/ vanguard/ spearhead will almost always be at a CP deficit. Depending on game size, that isn't always a deal breaker, but it is always a disadvantage. Do you think the CP penalty should be higher?
At least for my armies (DG and Orks), I often want to have a fourth slot of something, or I don't want to bring three units of troops because they are expensive, boring and not great units. Spending 2 or 3 CP to skip bringing more troops is a good deal most of the time. With 9th there is no more need to maximize your CPs for turn one, and you still have sufficient CP for utility/defensive stratagems.
In incursion games (in combat patrol you have to take a patrol), battalions waste almost all of your points on the three mandatory troops and HQs and never result in a decent army unless you have great troops and HQs like drukhari or marines.
For strike force, a brigade only makes sense if you were planning to bring all of those slots anyways. However, many army themes tend to be lacking in at least one slot (no elite speed freeks, for example) or the units are too expensive to actually get that many into 2k points. Not having to pay CP is not enough of an incentive to jump through all of the hoops to get all the mandatory troops.
I'm not sure what a good solution would be, combat patrols work well as they are but battalions and brigades just have too many mandatory slots and too few optional slots to be worth fielding. I wouldn't use CP to fix this issue, but shift around the slots instead. For example, if a battalion would unlock as many slots as an outrider+patrol would, that might be an incentive to actually bring 3 troops.
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vipoid wrote: Okay but we literally already have that problem in the form of the Rule of 3 (the fact that it's a blanket rule doesn't mean it's automatically appropriate for all factions and units) and, in a few cases, individual restrictions - e.g. for fliers, hive tyrants etc..
Those changes were added through iteration. The whitelist approach does not allow iteration, it needs to be implemented in one go. I also don't think that the rule of 3 has caused any problems for the game so far.
I'm not sure if I got you right... are you suggesting to just drop the entire detachment structure and just have the Ro3 (+other limits)?
Jidmah wrote: Sure. But not only do we already have rules for that, said rules are entirely independent of the entire detachment system. Hence, I don't see why removing the detachment system would make one iota of difference here.
Ah, I understand. I thought you were implying that 0-1 for daemon princes would replace the current system as a whole. Yeah, that way is fine.
In technical terms, a blacklist is easier to maintain than whitelist, though the whitelist will fail less often.
Perhaps, but if a company is going to charge ~£30 for its rules then it can damn well go to the trouble of doing the "difficult" route.
When I say difficult, it means that their process is more likely to fail and will cost additional resources. It does not mean that it's a task that can easily be overcome with a good result if you put some effort into it. In other words, the whitelist approach is guaranteed to suck, since GW can't and won't increase the resources allocated to writing rules.
In general, you can only justify the costs and effort of whitelist approaches if even a single failure would be catastrophic. This is not the case for 40k, if something goes south really badly they can just issue an emergency patch like they did for buggies.
I think in this case addressing problems as they come up is the way to move forward, as it's nigh impossible to get things right on the first try. You also can make decisions to limit things based on data, but you can't get data to support taking data off the "whitelist".
I'm not sure what you mean here. It seems you could easily change unit limits the same way you change unit costs, wargear costs and, as we've seen, unit limits.
Currently, they can look at the data they and others like goonhammer collect, do surveys and read social media so pinpoint problems and address them. Because people are playing the game unlimited, the entire community is collecting data for them. With the whitelist approach, there is no way to find out which units need less limits, so you can't know which limits should be increased and which shouldn't be.
To clarify, I'm not claiming that this would be a perfect system, just a much cleaner one. Yes, GW can (and probably would) feth it up but you could just as easily apply that argument to any and every rule change.
That is not true though - some processes are easier to feth up than others. Any process that requires you to "get it right" on the first try has high effort and high chances of failure attached to it. Multiple small steps are less likely to fail and easier to fix when they do fail.
It might also help us move away from the godawful Stratagem mindset that currently hangs over every aspect of 9th like a putrid stench. As the current system is literally how CPs are determined and the only penalty for taking multiple (or just "wrong") detachments is in how many CPs you get.
The current system is weighting troops and HQ tax against CP. While the amount of stratagems is too damn high, it's not a bad system in general. If you would take away CP as a balancing mechanism, what else would you put as counterweight to HQ and troops tax? Points is kind of a bad idea, as wouldn't create decisions, but just basic math. Where you would always opt for the option which costs the least points.
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Amishprn86 wrote: Why should Marines get to combat squad their units and no one else? Bc different armies has some focus on different things. Just like DE can take 9 Talos but only 3 Ravagers while IG can take 9 LRBT, Wyvern's, and other tanks but only 3 Heavy weapon teams.
Why are scouts elite, but eliminators are heavy support?
Why are tank bustas with heavy weapons elite, but lootas with dakka weapons are heavy support?
Why are nobz with kombi shootas elite, but heavy support when they put on pirate hats?
Why are myphitic blight-haulers fast attack, but a helbrute elite and defilers heavy support when they all can have roughly the same guns?
Why are chaos spawn fast attack, but possessed are elite?
Why are assault intercessors troops, but assault marines are fast attack?
There is absolutely no logic or reason behind battle roles outside of some designer thinking "that sounds about right" when the codex was written.
That is the very definition of "arbitrary", and it's also the one big reasons why a FOC wouldn't work.
. Same with my other armies that I play or played until not long ago, 
