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When 7th Edition was first released there was only the basic Combined Arms Detachments, Allied Detachments and Unbound available for army building. While the Command Benefit offered by the two Detachments is useful in some situations, it is very generic and does not compare to the 'benefit' granted by going Unbound. The longer 7th Edition proceeds the more this changes however, as we now we have a whole bunch of Formations and Detachments to choose from. Not only are many of the Command Benefits and Special Rules granted by these Formations and Detachments more filling then those for the basic Combined Arms Detachment, as they are written for the Faction in question and not just generic, they have reached levels of power that many consider to be 'broken' in it's own right.

With more and more powerful Formations and Detachments, I am curious if people view on Unbound lists has also changed.

Unbound was, is, and always will be, an utterly terrible idea which has no place whatsoever within the game.

It will, however though, quite sadly stay as it basically means that little Timmies from all over the world will flock to purchase lots of the biggest, most expensive kits that they can.

Unbound is fine, especially for trying out units that don't fit in a standard formation or CAD (I have 3 Ork HQ's I wanna try, but only 2 Troops, etc.).

Compared with some of the broken formations I've seen (RW formations, Cult&AdMech + a Knight) Unbound really doesn't scare me.

Could your friend be a dick and bring 5 Knights? Sure. Will you play him again? Unlikely.

Here is a recent 1500 point Unbound army I saw at a tournament:

Draigo
Tigerius + 2x Level 2 biker Librarians (Conclave)
3x Devcent
Riptide
Riptide
2x Tetra
2x Tetra

He was daemon summoning on top of all that as well.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Unbound was, is, and always will be, an utterly terrible idea which has no place whatsoever within the game.

It will, however though, quite sadly stay as it basically means that little Timmies from all over the world will flock to purchase lots of the biggest, most expensive kits that they can.

Please provide proof of this. It's tiring after 2 years this hardly ever comes up. Like really. Almost everyone complains about over powered codices and formations, but never someone bringing a cheesy unbound list.

So where is your proof of Unbound causing terrible problems for everyone? It seems the problems comes from the new formations and CADs, not unbound.

With the current formations all day, every day format of most armies, unbound is just a bunch of detachments without benefits. As in, a bit underpowered.

SJ

 master of ordinance wrote:
Unbound was, is, and always will be, an utterly terrible idea which has no place whatsoever within the game.

It will, however though, quite sadly stay as it basically means that little Timmies from all over the world will flock to purchase lots of the biggest, most expensive kits that they can.

I'll 2nd the call for any proof. I've yet to have any issues with unbound, literally never came up with my gaming group or LGS. The only overpowered shenanigans I've seen stem more from formations than anything else.

Unbound gives you the *option* to make weird fluffy lists or mess around with unit combos. Not mandatory, rarely seen.

The last time I played with my orks I played unbound. It wasn't all loota's or Warbosses on bikes or somthing like that. It was just to be able to get a few more slots without having to buy a tax of more HQ's and troops. I like to heavy support use alternatives for trukks and my speed cult army tends to use too much fast attack slots. I like to believe that it made the game more balanced and my opponent did not mind..

With unbound you will end up with stupid gak like having 26 individual weirdboyz all summoning daemons or 37 individual piranhas with fusion blasters and each one dropping off their two gun drones. Its way too easy to create stupid cluster f's that turn the game into an MSU nightmare. And these examples aren't even something that would win tournaments but they would be a pain to play against. Its just easier to say no unbound and cut out a huge amount of idiotic games or having to negotiate how much is too much for an unbound army.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Here is a recent 1500 point Unbound army I saw at a tournament:

Draigo
Tigerius + 2x Level 2 biker Librarians (Conclave)
3x Devcent
Riptide
Riptide
2x Tetra
2x Tetra

He was daemon summoning on top of all that as well.

A) Doubtful he has any friends left. B) I'd take that versus most of the RW/SM or Eldar shenanigans I've seen. Hell, I bet an Eldar tourney list could table that, considering a lot of that is Allies of Convenience.

I couldn't say. Never seen an event allow it. Ever. I mean, it has the potential for abuse (100 one man Ur Ghul squads in a 1500 list, f'rex), but I'd like to see at least one TO give people the benefit of the doubt rather than assume the moon is going to fall from the sky.

 Vankraken wrote:
With unbound you will end up with stupid gak like having 26 individual weirdboyz all summoning daemons or 37 individual piranhas with fusion blasters and each one dropping off their two gun drones. Its way too easy to create stupid cluster f's that turn the game into an MSU nightmare. And these examples aren't even something that would win tournaments but they would be a pain to play against. Its just easier to say no unbound and cut out a huge amount of idiotic games or having to negotiate how much is too much for an unbound army.

Proof? The fact someone has that many Piranhas/Weirdboyz AND demon models is doubtful.

Can Unbound be used for stupid gak? Sure, but guess what ? Most people won't replay that individuals.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Unbound was, is, and always will be, an utterly terrible idea which has no place whatsoever within the game.

It will, however though, quite sadly stay as it basically means that little Timmies from all over the world will flock to purchase lots of the biggest, most expensive kits that they can.

Curious if you've ever played against Unbound actually. I've been playing against a SOB/Inquisition/Guard Unbound list, and if you say that's big, expensive kits or has no place in the game, that's ludicrous. It's fluffy as hell. I've played against Space Marines that use Skyhammer, Scouts and TFC, which also isn't game breaking any more than Skyhammer is normally. I'm thinking about building an Unbound Tyranid list because I need four Heavy Support slots for Nidzilla the way I want it. Is that crazy too? How about a Chaos list that uses Huron, Chosen, Plague Marines and Noise Marines but no actual Troops because the appropriate Lords aren't there since too many points went into the Renegades and Heretics? That game breaking as well?

 Vankraken wrote:
With unbound you will end up with stupid gak like having 26 individual weirdboyz all summoning daemons or 37 individual piranhas with fusion blasters and each one dropping off their two gun drones. Its way too easy to create stupid cluster f's that turn the game into an MSU nightmare. And these examples aren't even something that would win tournaments but they would be a pain to play against. Its just easier to say no unbound and cut out a huge amount of idiotic games or having to negotiate how much is too much for an unbound army.

How many times have you played against this? How many times have you seen someone try this? Again, funny I haven't read ANY stories of this kind on the internet. The way people cry about Necron Decurion formations and other formations, I find it funny I don't see any crying of people actually playing against this.

So how many times have you seen 26 individual weirdboyz all summoning daemons or 37 individual piranhas with fusion blasters? How many times have this happened?

 Vankraken wrote:
With unbound you will end up with stupid gak like having 26 individual weirdboyz all summoning daemons or 37 individual piranhas with fusion blasters and each one dropping off their two gun drones. Its way too easy to create stupid cluster f's that turn the game into an MSU nightmare. And these examples aren't even something that would win tournaments but they would be a pain to play against. Its just easier to say no unbound and cut out a huge amount of idiotic games or having to negotiate how much is too much for an unbound army.

Let me say this about those lists.

Yes I have seen a few unbound horrors, but I have seen way more battle forged horrors. Some players like to build abominations and stomp your head in with it. Will unbound give those players the option to make even harder lists. Yes of course it will. But here is the thing, it doesn't matter at all. I don't care if the player against me tables me with a screamer star of if he has a screamer star + some tau + eldar + Space marine cheese. Both lists would be no fun to play against. I'm quite certain that all casual players who would not want to build a stomp my head in list with a bound list would also not want to build one with a unbound list. And players who would abuse unbound would also be no fun to play against in casual battle forged.

Its an example of something that could happen. If something OP is made then there are those out there that will buy up what they can to make that happen.

The issue is about where do you draw the line. Is the Ork player taking 5 painboyz abusing unbound (what ork player wouldn't want to take 5 painboyz)? What about an army of all bullyboyz, trukks, and painboyz only? What about somebody bringing 17 deffdreads because they want to play with a better dread mob? The problem with a "bring whatever you want" format is that you can exploit MSU to untold levels. Again looking at Orks (a rather weak codex in the grand scheme of things) solo deffkoptas are a fairly standard tactic and not cheese BUT if you brought a ton of solo deffkoptas then your being cheesy. At what point does it go from ok to broken? Unbound is the Pandora's box of 7th edition and many people are very reluctant to open it to legitimate games (games ranging from tournaments to pick up games).

Those no fun to play against list can already be build in Battle forged.

MSU nightmare -> Company of the wolf.
Cheap HQ
Servitor Elite
Iron priest Elite
+ 100+ slotless servitors

Power die hell
Just go for deamons or librarian conclaves they summon better and are cheaper. Wierdboyz are really bad at summoning and generating cheap power dice.

Melta msu hell
-> Just only buy inquisitors in detachments of 1 inquisitor.
You could even put them all in a extra bloody taxi drop pod.

Other nasty stuff
-> The 500+ points for free formations
-> Wraithlord spam
-> 1 inquisitor + Flyer formation spamm
-> The power tournaments lists
-Titan + min troops + HQ

If you have players who do this in bound, unbound is not something for your group. If there are no players who like to do this, then unbound could just be something for you.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Here is a recent 1500 point Unbound army I saw at a tournament:

Draigo
Tigerius + 2x Level 2 biker Librarians (Conclave)
3x Devcent
Riptide
Riptide
2x Tetra
2x Tetra

He was daemon summoning on top of all that as well.

A) Doubtful he has any friends left. B) I'd take that versus most of the RW/SM or Eldar shenanigans I've seen. Hell, I bet an Eldar tourney list could table that, considering a lot of that is Allies of Convenience.

I forgot to mention he also had a GK Libby Level 2 and two squads of horrors for more warp charge.

Screw all the world, 450 Zombie Cultists. Not even bothering with anything else. You can win by being a douche and playing Eldar with your Double WKs all you want, but my turns will take me 2 hours and Ill enjoy every minute of you wanting to go cry in a corner as I intricately recall how I painted each freaking zombie.

I dont think Unbound was or is as bad an idea as people say. I think it gives an element of flexibility and "ah sure, I'll try something different for a change" to 40k.
Sure you can obviously face the guy that brings 6 WKs. But you can also face the guy using a standard CAD Cron decurion or Scatspam list.
Each is likely as unfun as the next.
However if you go into Unbound with the mentality of trying something different and having a bit of fun, it definitely works.
I rememeber running a Nidzilla unbound list (4 carnis, 2 tfexes, 2 tervis, swarmlord, 2 mawlocs and a HT) which even on a basic level just looked awesome and was very cinematic.

Or do we not do cinematics anymore in 40k?

Ultimately, Unbound can be horrific but so can bound armies. The Mechanicus combined Cult/Skitarii/Knight detachment provides an 1875 point army with >400 points of free wargear and the canticles of the omnissiah rule (which is ridiculously good) onto units who don't have that rule included in their points cost.

Yes, 100 solo ur-ghuls, or 50 solo mutilators or whatever could work. But is that really worse than a lot of the lists you see anyway?

I'm currently thinking about how to do an unbound pure sorceror list. It'll be about 9-10 chaos sorcerors and that's it. No summoning, no supporting units. Will it work? No idea. Will it be fun to try? I hope so.

Equally, 5 Knights is a perfectly acceptable battleforged army. Is a guard player who wants to field a superheavy tank company of 3 Baneblades somehow worse? I know which one I'd rather face.

I don't see Unbound as a problem, it's really a chance to try experimental lists. No one ever seems to play the same Unbound list twice, at least at my FLGS.

It seems like the people who don't like unbound have rarely played any unbound lists. All I see is exaggerated and hypothetical lists that *could* happen, and even then there's more powerful stuff in the game that's in formations or CAD can do.

 clamclaw wrote:
It seems like the people who don't like unbound have rarely played any unbound lists. All I see is exaggerated and hypothetical lists that *could* happen, and even then there's more powerful stuff in the game that's in formations or CAD can do.

But, but, the sky is falling!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dozer Blades wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Here is a recent 1500 point Unbound army I saw at a tournament:

Draigo
Tigerius + 2x Level 2 biker Librarians (Conclave)
3x Devcent
Riptide
Riptide
2x Tetra
2x Tetra

He was daemon summoning on top of all that as well.

A) Doubtful he has any friends left. B) I'd take that versus most of the RW/SM or Eldar shenanigans I've seen. Hell, I bet an Eldar tourney list could table that, considering a lot of that is Allies of Convenience.

I forgot to mention he also had a GK Libby Level 2 and two squads of horrors for more warp charge.

Again, I'd still take that over some CAD Eldar lists. Plus, deployment will be hell for him and I can kick his teeth in.

All he has to do is hide the star and reserve everything else. It is easy to say you can kick its teeth in but I have to say I doubt it.

I feel fairly confident that even a DE tourney list could mop the floor with that. Unless there's some aspect I'm missing, it doesn't look that impressive.

 Vankraken wrote:
Its an example of something that could happen. If something OP is made then there are those out there that will buy up what they can to make that happen.

Oh come on. It's been over 2 years. These were the debates and arguing 2 years ago about "something that could happen."


Don't worry about what can happen, worry what is happening NOW. As was mentioned, there is more abuse fielding CAD armies than there is Unbound. Don't worry about Unbound, worry about what people are doing with CAD and formations.

You are worrying for nothing. Unless you are seeing it, it doesn't matter "what can happen" because it's NOT happening to you. So don't worry. Play and have fun.

That's some good advice .

Eldar: Craftworlds is why you don't play Unbound.

No one wants to fight 6 Wraithknights with Jump packs, Strength D weapons and Str 10 stomping. On top of their nearly unkillable stats.

Yet in a Bound army, it's a Lord of War... you either can't bring it at all (tourney rules) or you're only allowed to bring one. And in most games even that "solo WK" is still alive at the end.

 Arkaine wrote:
Eldar: Craftworlds is why you don't play Unbound.

No one wants to fight 6 Wraithknights with Jump packs, Strength D weapons and Str 10 stomping. On top of their nearly unkillable stats.

Yet in a Bound army, it's a Lord of War... you either can't bring it at all (tourney rules) or you're only allowed to bring one. And in most games even that "solo WK" is still alive at the end.

You can fit 5 Wraithknights AND a windrider host in to a 1850pt battleforged list. 6 isn't possible, by 5 is.
Likewise, 5 Imperial Knights is minimum 1625 and fits in a battleforged Household Detachment.



There are some really really stupid things you can do with Unbound. Mostly things like spamming 36 drop pods, or 120 scarab swarms, all Lone Wolves (do they still exist? the ones that give the owning player a victory point when they die?)... but 90% of the time, any 'omg uber' armies people can make eg Dozer Blades underwhelming Tau/DK army above... you can make far better Battleforged armies comprising nearly the same units and taking advantage of Detachment benefits.