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ERJAK wrote:


7th edition had full subfaction rules for marines. White scars on bikes and in vehicles could scout move. Ultramarines got combat doctrines.

Also, in practice, not having any kind of internal faction rules variation means you're relying entirely on GW's datasheet balancing. Which as we can see from the most recent CA is utter garbage.

That's actually something I've been thinking about a lot lately. GW needs their games to be highly complex with as many moving parts as possible. Why?

So that they can get enough right accidentally to create something usable. GW isn't competent enough to handle a simple game. The last time they tried to make a simple game, they ended with rules about losing if you knelt on the floor and rerolls based on if you had a mustache.

Don't forget in 5th?? 6th?? You could put Sammael as the HQ in a Detach and all Ravenwing Assault Squads (6 Bikes, an Attack Bike, and a Speeder _____) counted as a troop choice (thus getting ObSec in addition to other benefits. You could put Belial in a Detach and all Terminator _____ were troops. I suspect they had similar list building shenanigans/swaps for Saim-Hann Wind Rider squadrons.

PenitentJake wrote:

 Insularum wrote:

No more Imperial soup - but also no more Imperial Agents (funny given there is a new Inquisitor model about to be released, that no one can use without a mono-ordo 1k+ Inquisition army).

Have you seen a leak that I haven't?

These rules don't seem to interfere with Imperial Agents, as their selectable keyword (Ordo) will not match the selectable Keyword of the host army (Chapter, Order, Regiment etc.)- in the same way the rules prevent DE armies from taking two different Kabal Patrols, but not from taking one Kabal Patrol and one Cult Patrol.

Unless you've seen the rules and he doesn't have the Imperial Agent Keyword, or he has specific datacard restrictions.

Rules screenshot is in spoilers on page1.

To be compliant with new rules you must:
1. Pick the same <FACTION> on selectable options (you are correct here that an Imperial Agent is not affected).
2. You must also share a faction keyword accross your entire army, that is not one like Imperial - this is what bans Assassins and the like as it the only point in common.

 deviantduck wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
In competitive Tournament play, with an entry fee and prizes that have monetary value?

Force WYSIWYG or else refund-and-refuse.

Before you try enforcing paint schemes, let's get "bringing the actual rules for your army, via first-party sources" enforced by TOs, shall we?

ERJAK wrote:
Matt Root won the LVO with an Ork Admech army.

(Which is its own kettle of fish. Multiple people accused him of using it to obfuscate and that his printed guide to the army was done as a 'see guys, I'm NOT modeling for advantage, wink:wink:nudge:nudge)

Got a link to any pictures of this army, ERJAK? Sounds an interesting counts-as piece, but I'm curious how far he went with making it feel suitable.

I was at that LVO and played a game 2 tables down. There's no way I would have known what was what.

At the same LVO, my first opponent proxied these as Magnus and Lord o' Change.

Spoiler:

This reminded me of the one time in 8th edition (where you actually could and wanted to have as many souped detachments as possible for additional CP) where my opponent turned up with a 2000 points army of uniformly painted Cadians and was like "these models and vehicles are Cadians, those models and vehicles are Catachans and finally that bunch of units over there is Armageddon".

Though the example in the quote is probably still worse.

 wuestenfux wrote:
In view of GK, a GK army will consist of only one detachment in the future.
This is really a downside.
So you need to play at least GK Strike units.

What prevents you from having two GK Detachments or using Terminators as Troops?

deviantduck wrote:I was at that LVO and played a game 2 tables down. There's no way I would have known what was what.

At the same LVO, my first opponent proxied these as Magnus and Lord o' Change.

Spoiler:

Assuming the proxies are the right way around, I sort of see Magnus' wings on the first one, but they're not clear at all. I'd've been reluctant to approve them if I were the TO, though I appreciate the effort/thought someone seems to have put into that force (especially if the rest of the army was converted as well).

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Before you try enforcing paint schemes, let's get "bringing the actual rules for your army, via first-party sources" enforced by TOs, shall we?

People using printouts and Battlescribe really annoys you for some reason.

It's a weird pet-peeve.

Having a problem with widespread piracy - and using either of those two without owning the appropriate sources yourself would be piracy - makes me weird? Good to know.

So it wouldn't be a problem for you if they had proof of purchase on their phone?

 Dysartes wrote:

Having a problem with widespread piracy - and using either of those two without owning the appropriate sources yourself would be piracy - makes me weird? Good to know.

Won't someone please think of the billion pound profit company?!

Seriously if some people using pirated/printed rules bothers you that much I suggest you find some real problems to get upset about.

Pot. Kettle. Have you met?

 Esmer wrote:
This reminded me of the one time in 8th edition (where you actually could and wanted to have as many souped detachments as possible for additional CP) where my opponent turned up with a 2000 points army of uniformly painted Cadians and was like "these models and vehicles are Cadians, those models and vehicles are Catachans and finally that bunch of units over there is Armageddon".

Though the example in the quote is probably still worse.

I think its always going to depend on your motivation.

I wouldn't complain - but in some ways I'm much more hostile to people playing scarcely battle ready painted models with different coloured base rims to indicate their special rules than a fully converted army.
Mainly because with the former, at some point you might as well just be playing with tokens. Any illusion of magic is sort of left behind.

But yeah, I feel in any half serious tournament people should be able to identify what is what at a glance.
I think you can find Root's army online. From a glance you'd have no idea what faction he was playing never mind what any models were meant to be.

 Galef wrote:
I'm with Crimson on this. Having played since 4th ed, subfaction RULES are still relatively new and unnecessary.
Back in the day, if you wanted a Salamanders army, just take plenty of Flamers and meltas.
You want a Saim-hann Eldar list? Jetbikes, jetbikes everywhere!

Having played in 3rd(starting in 2nd), back in the day both of those armies had their own supplement rules. Salamanders had their own psychic power, their own wargear(including one that let them ignore Instant Death), I3, and a couple other rules(IIRC, they could force opponents to play one more round beyond the random roll). Saim-hann as well had a number of rules that differentiated them from "normal" Eldar including moving Jetbikes to Troops.

Subfaction rules are way older than you think.

Here's a picture of Root's "Ad mech" army from the LVO:

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Matt-Roots-army.jpg

All I can say is, "WTF!? If I had to face that there's no way I could decode which model is what and still concentrate on my own tactics and the time I had to play. This would slow my play to a crawl. And the worst part is I don't really play a lot, I can only imagine how off putting this would be for a "serious" competitor.

So the Knight is surely a Knight, right? The rest of that is so clearly Orks. If someone plopped that in front of me and said it was a Mechanicus army I'd laugh.

Yeah it looks nicely converted, but yeah its orks. I don't see enough "mechanicus" design elements to make it easy to tell what is what as a mechanicus.


Now I've seen people take totally daft converted armies to events like My Little Pony in Warmachine and such - however they are so "far out there" that it sort of works. But a converted ork appearing army in a game that has orks which is then a mechanicus army kinda just seems "wrong".

Perhaps its easier to tell in person, but eh I have to somewhat agree its not something I'd expect to see at a tournament as a counts-as force. Casual play sure, but at a competitive event perhaps its pushing things a bit too far.

Why is there a Space Marine with some Gors in the corner? The more I look at this the worse it gets knowing its supposed to be an Admech army.

 Dysartes wrote:
Having a problem with widespread piracy - and using either of those two without owning the appropriate sources yourself would be piracy - makes me weird? Good to know.

Calling Battlescribe 'piracy' is a bit of a stretch.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Having a problem with widespread piracy - and using either of those two without owning the appropriate sources yourself would be piracy - makes me weird? Good to know.

Calling Battlescribe 'piracy' is a bit of a stretch.

Wonder how Dysartes feels about how Wolflair makes its money.

I don't really understand stuff like the Ad Mech Ork proxies shown above. If you want to play Orks with a tech bent, make a list around big meks, stompas, gorkanauts, dreads and kans and lootas and all that. Orks have loads of options for a scrap-tech army.

Ad Mech to Dark Mech makes sense to me, because that's a background faction that has no representation in the rules, but tech-orks absolutely do have representation in the rules.

Seems like this only happens because Ad Mech are really strong rules wise?

My opinion just based on first impression is that the reason he was allowed to use that proxy army is that he is friends with/or aquainted with some if not all of the people at Frontline Games. It's really shameful that that sort of army was allowed to be used the way it was. It certainly turned me off from wanting to play at the LVO even though I had considered it for a few years before all this Covid.

 Insularum wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:

 Insularum wrote:

No more Imperial soup - but also no more Imperial Agents (funny given there is a new Inquisitor model about to be released, that no one can use without a mono-ordo 1k+ Inquisition army).

Have you seen a leak that I haven't?

These rules don't seem to interfere with Imperial Agents, as their selectable keyword (Ordo) will not match the selectable Keyword of the host army (Chapter, Order, Regiment etc.)- in the same way the rules prevent DE armies from taking two different Kabal Patrols, but not from taking one Kabal Patrol and one Cult Patrol.

Unless you've seen the rules and he doesn't have the Imperial Agent Keyword, or he has specific datacard restrictions.

Rules screenshot is in spoilers on page1.

To be compliant with new rules you must:
1. Pick the same <FACTION> on selectable options (you are correct here that an Imperial Agent is not affected).
2. You must also share a faction keyword accross your entire army, that is not one like Imperial - this is what bans Assassins and the like as it the only point in common.

Your parse is not what the Muster Armies portion says in the spoiler.

The statement "All of the units in each Detachment in your Battle-Forged army must have at least one Faction keyword in common, and this keyword cannot be Chaos, Imperial etc" is unchanged since the 9th Edition Matched Play Mission Pack in the BRB. It does not mean that all of the units in your army must have at least one Faction keyword in common that cannot be Chaos, Imperial etc; it means that the units in each detachment must have more than Imperial etc. Way back at the start of 8th you could have Soup Detachments where the Detachment itself could be mixed: this rule prevents that and has been in effect for some time in various guises. It has been the same since the start of 9th.

In accordance with the 9th ed original BRB Battle Forged rules (which are not reprinted in the Mission Packs but must be read in conjunction with them), all of the units in your army must share one Faction keyword (page 245). So you could have had a Detachment of Ultramarines, a Detachment of Cadians and a Detachment of Catachans. They shared a Faction keyword to be in the same army, and each Detachment has a common keyword that is more than just Imperium. The same principle extended to Eldar armies etc.

With the GT 2022 Mission Pack you can still have an army with a Detachment of Ultramarines and two Detachments of Cadians (not that you would). What you cannot do now is have a Detachment of Cadians and a Detachment of Catachans in the same army.

Its a bit convoluted!

So if you want to bring your favourite army from your favourite BL book that has Space Marines and Imperial Guard fighting together you can do it (not that you would to be competitive). What you cannot do now is cherry pick sub-faction Detachments from the same faction to put together a "dream team."

(edited last line for clarity!)

Adding to what TangoTwoBravo noted, there are many units that come with their own rules that allow them to be taken within a detachment despite not having the normally required matching keyword. Thus Agents of the Imperium and Ynnari are still completely legal per those rules.

 Arbitrator wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

Having a problem with widespread piracy - and using either of those two without owning the appropriate sources yourself would be piracy - makes me weird? Good to know.

Won't someone please think of the billion pound profit company?!

Seriously if some people using pirated/printed rules bothers you that much I suggest you find some real problems to get upset about.

It's rare for me to actually audibly laugh at something I read on the interwebs, but this got me. Have an exalt, whatever those do.

ERJAK wrote:

Unless you don't care about theme?

Your enjoyment of play in 40k is absolutely NOT any more valid or righteous because you focus on narrative, presentation, and/or lore more than you focus on gameplay.

People in the 40k community get this insane idea that enjoying the game FOR the game is this inherently inferior level of participation than narratively focused play. As if you bringing poorly constructed armies and giving your Characters names makes you a more enlightened being.

It doesn't, it's just another (perfectly valid) way to play.

The only time this becomes a problem is when the two groups are forced to intermix. Narrative players forced to play competitively minded players and vice versa frequently ends in frustration for both parties. Good, interesting, friendly games can be had but it can go badly, fast.

When narrative players walk away with a sour taste its because they believe that their opponent was behaving in an exploitative way. Which is true in some cases but the majority of the time it comes down to their own deliberate choice to favor theme over efficiency, which is NOT the competitive player's fault.

When competitive players walk away from negative games like this, the feeling is often that their time was wasted. That the narrative player didn't "try". Or in more extreme cases it can be a sense that the opponent brought it on themselves. A sort of 'well what did you expect?' They went into the game with different goals.

To be fair, 40k is a genuinely gakky game for competition.

40k is more like an MMO than it is like StarCraft, Counter-Strike or League of Legends (in that achieving competitive balance is a fairly low priority compared to other things for the game designers). When was the last time you saw an MMO competitive PVP tournament with prize money?

From this narrative player's perspective, competitive players feel a bit like they are trying to do competitive PVP in D&D 3.5. talk about a waste of time!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

Unless you don't care about theme?

Your enjoyment of play in 40k is absolutely NOT any more valid or righteous because you focus on narrative, presentation, and/or lore more than you focus on gameplay.

People in the 40k community get this insane idea that enjoying the game FOR the game is this inherently inferior level of participation than narratively focused play. As if you bringing poorly constructed armies and giving your Characters names makes you a more enlightened being.

It doesn't, it's just another (perfectly valid) way to play.

The only time this becomes a problem is when the two groups are forced to intermix. Narrative players forced to play competitively minded players and vice versa frequently ends in frustration for both parties. Good, interesting, friendly games can be had but it can go badly, fast.

When narrative players walk away with a sour taste its because they believe that their opponent was behaving in an exploitative way. Which is true in some cases but the majority of the time it comes down to their own deliberate choice to favor theme over efficiency, which is NOT the competitive player's fault.

When competitive players walk away from negative games like this, the feeling is often that their time was wasted. That the narrative player didn't "try". Or in more extreme cases it can be a sense that the opponent brought it on themselves. A sort of 'well what did you expect?' They went into the game with different goals.

To be fair, 40k is a genuinely gakky game for competition.

40k is more like an MMO than it is like StarCraft, Counter-Strike or League of Legends (in that achieving competitive balance is a fairly low priority compared to other things for the game designers). When was the last time you saw an MMO competitive PVP tournament with prize money?

From this narrative player's perspective, competitive players feel a bit like they are trying to do competitive PVP in D&D 3.5. talk about a waste of time!

So they are trying to have fun wrong? I think that it is up to them to decide if they are wasting their time. Maybe people enjoy playing "competitively", and unless they are busting into your narrative game I don't see the problem.

Narrative works great when you have two like-minded players. I tend to find, though, that there are barriers to this. People have a different narrative vision, which make it hard, but not impossible, to find common ground. The more specific the narrative requirements of a player the harder it is to find that common ground. I can have great "narrative games" with my son or close friends. At the FLGS on 40K Saturday, though, it is Matched Play under GT conditions unless otherwise specified. Various narrative campaigns have begun with great intentions and foundered after two weeks at my FLGS over the years. Pick-up games under tourney (Matched Play) conditions, though, have been the staple of our games.

Competitive matched play, for all of its flaws and imperfections, does provide a common framework, a lingua franca, for gamers to play without having to work too hard finding that common ground. A stranger and I may have different views on what makes a good game of 40K, but we can meet at the FLGS and have a game of Matched Play without too much negotiation. Matched Play bridges our vision of the game with an attempt at fairness at the core. It is not always successful, but at least we can blame the game designers instead of each other if there is a problem!

 Galef wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Like I said in the edit there could be stuff like some bespoke units characters, relics and stratagems, but there doesn't need to be subfaction trait to be applied to every unit.

And for several editions most armies didn't have subfaction rules. People still played different hive fleets, craftworlds etc, they just chose the units they felt were appropriate for the army's theme, and painted them in correct colours. And it was perfectly fine. More than fine; it was preferable to the current layered rules bloat and balancing nightmare.

Well there are consolidationists, and then there's you I guess.

Your ideas are anti-choice and anti-fun.

I'm with Crimson on this. Having played since 4th ed, subfaction RULES are still relatively new and unnecessary.
Back in the day, if you wanted a Salamanders army, just take plenty of Flamers and meltas.
You want a Saim-hann Eldar list? Jetbikes, jetbikes everywhere!

-

It seems there was a 3rd edition subfaction list for Salamanders and entire lists for Chaos, Eldar, and some others like some Imperial Guard. Funny that! It seems like 4th edition was just a mistake that curtailed a lot of fun rules.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
When was the last time you saw an MMO competitive PVP tournament with prize money?

From this narrative player's perspective, competitive players feel a bit like they are trying to do competitive PVP in D&D 3.5. talk about a waste of time!

I'll just go ahead and put this here. https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/esports/arena

Fair enough! You can compete in anything, it is true.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
From this narrative player's perspective, competitive players feel a bit like they are trying to do competitive PVP in D&D 3.5. talk about a waste of time!

We actually did that for a while... when you're a teenager this stuff makes more sense lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
It seems there was a 3rd edition subfaction list for Salamanders and entire lists for Chaos, Eldar, and some others like some Imperial Guard. Funny that! It seems like 4th edition was just a mistake that curtailed a lot of fun rules.

While the 3.5 Chaos codex had some balance issues, it was amazing for customizability and flavor.

Hecaton wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
From this narrative player's perspective, competitive players feel a bit like they are trying to do competitive PVP in D&D 3.5. talk about a waste of time!

We actually did that for a while... when you're a teenager this stuff makes more sense lol

I have done it before as well, also as a teenager. It is why I chose that example - turned out to be a colossal waste of time when the "best build" was found. All the skill in the world meant nothing against a stealth-wizard.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

 Verthane wrote:
This change is fine for armies like Grey Knights where all of the subfactions look the same, but really sucks for Space Marines...I have over 3000 points of Space Marines, but because I chose for artistic reasons to paint up different chapters, I now have an illegal army. I'm not going to say "those models that are clearly Space Wolves are pretending to be Salamanders". I'm sure some folks would though - if that works for you and your opponents then great.

Illegal how? Just tell your opponent 'my whole army uses Salamander rules'. There, simple, case closed. Much easier for your opponent too.

If I roll up with what a 13th Company of Space Wolves painted and modeled by 'Eavy Metal, such that every model is using SW-unique bits throughout, not a single bit of generic SM anywhere to be seen, then my opponent has every right to expect it to play as 13th Company. When the models are that distinctive, saying 'my Space Wolf army counts as Salamanders' is a clear violation of both the spirit and letter of WYSIWYG, and no different than saying 'my Eldar army counts as Salamanders.'

It's not easier for the opponent, because they are playing against a proxy army when they shouldn't have to. It's a visual misdirection and confusion for those players who are invested into the interaction of lore and rules, knowing in detail what 13th Company looks like and how it's supposed to play. Such misdirection is a bigger harm to high level players and has absolutely no place in any tournament setting. At a minimum, such players should be ZERO'd for painting (not WYSIWYG) and potentially sanctioned on the tabletop when they do something that doesn't match how the model would perform. As an opponent, I do not want to play against an army that forces me to remember that it's not what it looks like. If were still playing competitively, and I had to play against such an army, I would automatically ZERO their Sports and Painting scores.

GW really should force players to play as what they've painted. If someone paints as Blood Angels, then they need to play as Blood Angels, simple as that. If they want to play as something else, and don't want to buy a a new army, then they can repaint their army.

I agree, it absolutely shouldn't be done. Which is why I'm so pissed that my army is now illegal. There wasn't anything cancerous about using tactical marines and terminators from two or three different chapters together (tacticals aren't competitive in any chapter at all, and terminators only in Dark Angels, of which I have zero!), but 'ere we go lad your army can't be used. Hope you buy our Chapter Approved book!

That moment when you realize that people are complaining about building lists in the same way I have since 3rd.