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Danny slag wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Danny slag wrote:

The allies are an issue, as is being able to confer special rules to others via independent characters. But in every formation discussion it seems that 99% of what's listed as issues with formations are actually issues with other things in the game and instead of addressing those or fixing formations, which is a cool feature, the answer is to blame formations and throw out the whole concept instead of fixing it.

If I may ask, what, in my post there, was actually an issue with other things in the game instead of being an issue with formations? Extra unit allowance not available to other armies? Abilities that are not paid for?

when you referenced unintended synergies as the issue with formations. That in my opinion doesn't come from formations, that comes from the awful allies matrix making cheesy combinations possible. Those unintended synergies are almost never intra-army, they're caused when you ally.

Ok, in some ways I could accept that, though the nature of Formations not being complete armies in many/most instances and the resulting need for multiple formations to make an army can result in issues as there are instances where intra-army problems result as well, such as the Decurion with the Canoptek Harvest for example.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Rules on a detachment often take no account of either unit or model count or unit type, and rules on a unit can be directly costed and attributed in a far more appropriate fashion and attributed directly where most appropriate. Even in places where there is very explicit unit type and count, free bonuses still are just bad game design, there's no trade-off for those gains.

Likewise, themed armies existed just fine before Formations. Ravenwing and themed Legion armies were played through many editions before Formations ever appeared. The idea that themed armies will die with no Formations is, well, ridiculous.

Formations were both bad and lazy game design, a marketing sales mechanism to push bundles to the lowest common denominator through free stuff and power creep under the guise of "theme", nothing more.

I'm not saying themed armies are going to die and I'm fine with no formations whilst better balance can be achieved. However, in my post I am saying a grand total of FIVE formations were broken in any way, shape, or form.

Hrm, I would argue that we could add more to that list (Skyhammer, Decurion (seriously...when was the last time you saw a non-Decurion Necron army?), Librarian conclave, etc.)

Ultimately however, the "buy X, get free Y", coupled with the issues of multiple detachments and allies, unintended synergies, etc, really just makes the entire fundamental concept way uglier than it's worth. That's really the big issue.

They were not bad in 6th where you got one to the CAD. I think that's the way it should've stayed but I didn't care about taking multiples now.

IIRC only one formation actually came out in 6th, and very late in 6th, just six months or so before 7E, the Tau firebase cadre thing if I'm not mistaken (I could be, if so, feel free to correct me). Even that was an issue, getting a number of special rules while paying nothing for them and getting access to extra Riptides and Broadsides (essentially offering addiitonal HS/FA slots) over opponents that didn't have that option.

1. Skyhammer isn't broken if you learn how to do a mild amount of Null Deployment. It's definitely got some bonkers benefits, but some of them ultimately fixes one of the issues everyone has with those units (stupidly limited mobility and tons of crap range weapons, and Assault Marines not being just bad Vanguard).
You also see non-Decurion armies for Necrons for variants of Lychstars/Wraithstars and then Sentrystars. In terms of a regular army, when your offensive output is actually scarce (anyone who plays Necrons can tell you how badly Gauss scales as an AT weapon, but don't tell anyone else that), the losing of OS for Relentless and the improved FNP is worth it at times. Otherwise, some people rather just pay the minimal troop tax to get the tools they want for their deathstars and get the improved FNP from a Cryptek. You'll see a small variety with the winning lists (not that there's too many now. Wonder why that is...)
Librarius Conclave isn't even really used for its benefit. It's used to get Librarians without any taxes (but I'm not a fan of formations with just one type of unit out of principle as that doesn't show synergy of different units working together). That's ultimately its downfall, but with the FAQ I didn't see anyone complaining.
I also know you have an issue with the Buy X Get Y out of principle (and it's a mindset I understand), it makes sense to have. The main issue comes from that you can take any number of them at the moment, which makes them less special. It's one thing to have Gorepack in a 6th edition mindset, but it's another thing when you can just take multiple Gorepacks and wonder why you'd ever bother with the regular Bikers and Fleshhounds in the first place.

That's my take on it. Formations didn't become special and instead became a norm.

2. As far as I can remember , the MT ones existed when their codex (if you can call it that) came out and we also had the Helbrute ones I believe. My memory is pretty fuzzy on that though.

No cost formations were a terrible mechanic.

Either you have a unit that is balanced, and then give it extra stuff and remove typical detachment taxes making it broken.

Or you have a unit that is trash, and you add just the right stuff to make it balanced. Which means the unit isn't playable outside the formation.

There is no other possible result without making the formations cost something.

And then they're unevenly distributed across the factions, and have VERY different power levels of upgrades, and you get 90% of what's wrong with 7e.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
No cost formations were a terrible mechanic.

Either you have a unit that is balanced, and then give it extra stuff and remove typical detachment taxes making it broken.

Or you have a unit that is trash, and you add just the right stuff to make it balanced. Which means the unit isn't playable outside the formation.

There is no other possible result without making the formations cost something.

And then they're unevenly distributed across the factions, and have VERY different power levels of upgrades, and you get 90% of what's wrong with 7e.

And almost nobody took the cost formations in Apocalypse. I remember when it first came out and I thought to myself how in almost every situation I was just better off taking more models.

I think formations were largely a good thing. The problem with them was that there was no way to redesign or update a formation once it was released. Most of the formations GW released worked more-or-less as intended, to reward players with special rules for taking fluffy combos of units. The problem comes when a rules writer badly misjudged the power of a formation - the single worst example being riptide wing in my book. This formation could now let players spam a powerful unit for no 'tax units' and even powerfully rewarded them for doing so. As they never updated their supplements, they couldn't retcon the formation or tone it down. This led to an ever-increasing power spiral as they struggled to give each race more and more powerful tools to counter the other races cheese, and layers upon layers of special rules develop. until certain factions are literally ignoring the normal game turn rules (Ynari). The only way to put some proper brakes on this was to rescind all formations at once and try and make a newer, more balanced, version of them. I'm very pleased that they did this personally.

In short, I beleive the whole 'formations' system was only as good as its weakest links. The weakest links being formations that are obviously stronger than the general power curve and make everything else obselete (ynari, riptde wing, gladius, war convo etc.)

I think the crazy train will gradually start again, however. They will release new army books aimed to have just *slightly* stronger rules to encourage sales. I'm fine with this provided everything maintains some semblence of viability. I just hope they don't go to crazy with shiny new rules too quickly as it will break the matched-play game for everything else, just like it did in seventh.

I think the formations were largely awful: Overly rigid, stifling creativity. Terrible balance, overly dominant or punishingly unplayable.

Apocalypse pre-formations were better, with a narrower, better defined set of benefits, at a token cost.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I think the formations were largely awful: Overly rigid, stifling creativity. Terrible balance, overly dominant or punishingly unplayable.

Apocalypse pre-formations were better, with a narrower, better defined set of benefits, at a token cost.

Quoted for the truth

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I think the formations were largely awful: Overly rigid, stifling creativity. Terrible balance, overly dominant or punishingly unplayable.

Apocalypse pre-formations were better, with a narrower, better defined set of benefits, at a token cost.

Its sad, but yeah. I agree.

No Formations? Well then how will GW price gouge their immbecile customers. How is GW going to make bank when they cant make up some rules that favor certain models to sell at astronomical prices. Like if they want to sell boat loads of razorbacks and drop pods and marines by exploiting their customers desperate need to power game hence the Gladius formation?

How ever will GW exploit their unbalanced rules to sell more models?

Is GW going to just let people buy what they want and play what they want? I dont think so!

These command points will urge competitive collectors to buy more of the same junk because its so broken and powerful.

Relax everyone, its still pay to win.

 CadianGateTroll wrote:
No Formations? Well then how will GW price gouge their immbecile customers. How is GW going to make bank when they cant make up some rules that favor certain models to sell at astronomical prices. Like if they want to sell boat loads of razorbacks and drop pods and marines by exploiting their customers desperate need to power game hence the Gladius formation?

How ever will GW exploit their unbalanced rules to sell more models?

Is GW going to just let people buy what they want and play what they want? I dont think so!

These command points will urge competitive collectors to buy more of the same junk because its so broken and powerful.

Relax everyone, its still pay to win.

Show us on the doll where GW touched you.


And are you SURE you weren't leading them on?

I got excited at the idea of a FoC that allows more than 2 HQs. Now that is fun!

I don't think there was anything inherently wrong with the idea of formations. If GW had stuck to incentivizing army composition that represented the typical fighting forces of their factions, no one would be complaining about them.

Where GW dropped the ball is in formations like the Riptide Wing and the Librarius Conclave, where the player could just drop a bunch of power into their lists without any kind of drawback.

I"m not necessarily sorry to see formations go, but I'm reserving judgment till I see 8th in it's entirety. For all the hate the Gladius gets, before it came about a SM army comprised of largely Tac, Dev, and Assault Squads would never have been competitive in tournament play. Gladius brought actually faction-thematically-fluffy army lists to the tournament, and that is not all bad.

ERJAK wrote:

 CadianGateTroll wrote:
No Formations? Well then how will GW price gouge their immbecile customers. How is GW going to make bank when they cant make up some rules that favor certain models to sell at astronomical prices. Like if they want to sell boat loads of razorbacks and drop pods and marines by exploiting their customers desperate need to power game hence the Gladius formation?

How ever will GW exploit their unbalanced rules to sell more models?

Is GW going to just let people buy what they want and play what they want? I dont think so!

These command points will urge competitive collectors to buy more of the same junk because its so broken and powerful.

Relax everyone, its still pay to win.

Show us on the doll where GW touched you.


And are you SURE you weren't leading them on?

They put their hands down my pants. They reached deep inside the moist folds of my...wallet...and their dirty fingers touched my...credit card... And i told them to stop but they kept swiping it up and down until the...receipt discharged out of the register.

When the traumatic experience was over, the clerk said, "Thank you! Come again"