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It lets me do things with Harlequins that aren't feasible in Bound armies. Its not all bad. But its much easier to ensure the other guy has fun when following the CAD.

Its not just fear of the unknown. Part of it may be, but there are many other reasons.

Again, consult your meta. If your meta is small/starting, you have to build the meta. If so, I'd suggest casual, bound armies. At least to start. Preferably with one codex/CAD per player, again at least to start.

Ever since the BL supplement enabled Chosen troops, Unbound has ceased to attract me.

morgoth wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

morgoth wrote:
The main reason people dislike unbound is that they're afraid of the unknown.

No, people don't like it because it's basically GW saying "well, we don't know how to structure and balance our game, so we'll just throw out anything that looked like we were even trying in favour of removing any barrier to buying more plastic crack!"

And you would know because you asked GW personally and they told you with those exact words that it was their intent ?

I used the qualifier "basically", which colloquially was meant to imply they didn't actually say it, but rather it's the intent that it portrays to me.

I don't dislike unbound as a concept, I just don't think it should be part of the core rules, but I also think the core rules should be tighter. The coming of unbound has largely shifted the focus from how poorly structured the army building system is even if you stick to battle forged.

Unbound is just gw way of players supper abuse tjr game . also what makex me mad is there's only one good way to build armies. sm bikers only eldar wave serpent spam ig vetarmy tau max riptides and missile said ther really no flavor tp armies ther all same

zilka86 wrote:
Unbound is just gw way of players supper abuse tjr game . also what makex me mad is there's only one good way to build armies. sm bikers only eldar wave serpent spam ig vetarmy tau max riptides and missile said ther really no flavor tp armies ther all same

Look at the t8 from LVO (since I assume you are talking about competitive tournament lists).

Plenty of variety there.

SM can run bikes, drop pods, scouts. I agree on the wave serpents, but what do you expect? when there is a clear best unit in the codex it makes sense to run it.

The 'good/bad' unit thing is an essential part of competitive game design. It's called a 'skill-tester'. If everything is the same power level you have no metagame to attack.

Much of what unbound offers can be found elsewhere, such as the Leviathan detachment from 30k which allows 1-3 Lords of War as a primary detachment.

zilka86 wrote:
Unbound is just GW's way to let players super abuse their game . Also what makes me mad is there's only one good way to build armies. SM bikers only, Eldar wave serpent spam, IG veterans, Tau max riptides and missile- sides. There's really no flavor to armies, they're all the same.

Indeed, my brain almost crashed trying to read that post by zilka.

The lack of variety stems from the fact that despite what some will say, most people just can't create new and good lists, leaving them to copy/paste existing concepts.

Time and time again, people have come up with new concepts that got great results within an already stale meta, because they believed that something else could work, and they made it work.

 the_kraken wrote:

Raven Cowl wrote:
Unbound also let's you *ahem* forge the narrative. If you say wanted to run a game with a squad of Pathfinders trying to escape enemy Ork territory, or stealth teams scouting an objective etc. Unbound lets you do just those kind of games.

I can see how that would be fun, but competitively, it seems rather moot.

I don't think Unbound is intended to be competitive. I think as other posters have said it's a way for newer players to just play what they have, and older players to take a fresh look at a 20+ year old game.

Raven Cowl wrote:

 the_kraken wrote:

Raven Cowl wrote:
Unbound also let's you *ahem* forge the narrative. If you say wanted to run a game with a squad of Pathfinders trying to escape enemy Ork territory, or stealth teams scouting an objective etc. Unbound lets you do just those kind of games.

I can see how that would be fun, but competitively, it seems rather moot.

I don't think Unbound is intended to be competitive. I think as other posters have said it's a way for newer players to just play what they have, and older players to take a fresh look at a 20+ year old game.

That makes sense as well. Someone else (maybe you) said it was good for narrative campaigns.

They're both terrible.

 Crablezworth wrote:
They're both terrible.

Thank you for your contribution.

Unbound is a red herring, a sideshow, something to distract away from just how bad the core army building mechanic really is, it's so you can look at your collection of knights, sicarans, wave serpents and sky shields that we're all still apparently going to pretend is an army (collection) and say "well at least we're not playing unbound".

 Crablezworth wrote:
Unbound is a red herring, a sideshow, something to distract away from just how bad the core army building mechanic really is, it's so you can look at your collection of knights, sicarans, wave serpents and sky shields that we're all still apparently going to pretend is an army (collection) and say "well at least we're not playing unbound".

It feels like most people seem bitter about Unbound (maybe a bad experience in a past game) and that's why they don't like it.

I think Crablez has a point, unbound is often stigmatized as "the wrong way to build your army", in opposition with something with so little structure (bound) that it might as well be unbound, and often would be if you just changed Codex (like the 3X Lynx example).

 the_kraken wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Unbound is a red herring, a sideshow, something to distract away from just how bad the core army building mechanic really is, it's so you can look at your collection of knights, sicarans, wave serpents and sky shields that we're all still apparently going to pretend is an army (collection) and say "well at least we're not playing unbound".

It feels like most people seem bitter about Unbound (maybe a bad experience in a past game) and that's why they don't like it.

Because it always ends up with I took my normal army and cut of the stuff which is tax and spamed more of the good stuff.

Except it isn't 'always' that. I'm actually going to point to Xeno Vids channel where they commonly use Unbound. Know what they do? Four Heavy Support slots. Specifically their Tyranid list was three Carnifexen in a single brood, two Mawlocs and a brood of Biovores. That's an Unbound army. They still had Warriors, two broods of Hormagaunts and only two Flyrants, but they played Unbound because there just weren't enough Heavy Support choices.

Honestly, saying that it 'always' ends up as a spamfest is so close to zilka's babble. It's ridiculous to generalize so broadly. The game has changed, players have calmed down and it is time to judge Unbound on a case by case basis. Unbound can be done modestly and unless you sit back and count the slots, you'd never notice the game is not using a Battleforged format.

Some PLAYERS abuse it, but some players also abuse other aspects of the game. Does not mean that Unbound itself is the devil to be avoided like the plague.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Except it isn't 'always' that. I'm actually going to point to Xeno Vids channel where they commonly use Unbound. Know what they do? Four Heavy Support slots. Specifically their Tyranid list was three Carnifexen in a single brood, two Mawlocs and a brood of Biovores. That's an Unbound army. They still had Warriors, two broods of Hormagaunts and only two Flyrants, but they played Unbound because there just weren't enough Heavy Support choices.

Honestly, saying that it 'always' ends up as a spamfest is so close to zilka's babble. It's ridiculous to generalize so broadly. The game has changed, players have calmed down and it is time to judge Unbound on a case by case basis. Unbound can be done modestly and unless you sit back and count the slots, you'd never notice the game is not using a Battleforged format.

Some PLAYERS abuse it, but some players also abuse other aspects of the game. Does not mean that Unbound itself is the devil to be avoided like the plague.

Well said.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Except it isn't 'always' that. I'm actually going to point to Xeno Vids channel where they commonly use Unbound. Know what they do? Four Heavy Support slots. Specifically their Tyranid list was three Carnifexen in a single brood, two Mawlocs and a brood of Biovores. That's an Unbound army. They still had Warriors, two broods of Hormagaunts and only two Flyrants, but they played Unbound because there just weren't enough Heavy Support choices.

Honestly, saying that it 'always' ends up as a spamfest is so close to zilka's babble. It's ridiculous to generalize so broadly. The game has changed, players have calmed down and it is time to judge Unbound on a case by case basis. Unbound can be done modestly and unless you sit back and count the slots, you'd never notice the game is not using a Battleforged format.

Some PLAYERS abuse it, but some players also abuse other aspects of the game. Does not mean that Unbound itself is the devil to be avoided like the plague.

Here's why I play unbound: I'd rather have 9 individual Vypers than lose 3 Vypers in one lucky volley because of the vehicle squadron rules.

That way I can play a Saim Hann list that is both fluffy and not sucky.

Anyway, people talk about unbound, but if you can make a screamerstar + triple Flyrant in bound, who cares ?

morgoth wrote:


Here's why I play unbound: I'd rather have 9 individual Vypers than lose 3 Vypers in one lucky volley because of the vehicle squadron rules.

That way I can play a Saim Hann list that is both fluffy and not sucky.

Anyway, people talk about unbound, but if you can make a screamerstar + triple Flyrant in bound, who cares ?

So you play unbound solely to min max your army? That is the reason people don't like unbound. All that it does is promote making lists as power gamey as possible.

At least with battle-forged you have to spend point on not-so broken units to take the broken stuff. I'd rather see a person have their list be 90% cheese and 10% fine, then see the unbound list that is just 100% cheese.

 CrownAxe wrote:

morgoth wrote:


Here's why I play unbound: I'd rather have 9 individual Vypers than lose 3 Vypers in one lucky volley because of the vehicle squadron rules.

That way I can play a Saim Hann list that is both fluffy and not sucky.

Anyway, people talk about unbound, but if you can make a screamerstar + triple Flyrant in bound, who cares ?

So you play unbound solely to min max your army? That is the reason people don't like unbound. All that it does is promote making lists as power gamey as possible.

It promotes nothing, it just gives you another approach. I'm playing unbound to make some armies enjoyable. This is not about min-maxing, it's about bringing Vypers to the tabletop.

 CrownAxe wrote:

At least with battle-forged you have to spend point on not-so broken units to take the broken stuff. I'd rather see a person have their list be 90% cheese and 10% fine, then see the unbound list that is just 100% cheese.

Like for example, nothing but Imperial Knights, or 45 points of Mucolid Spores ? Hell, even in unbound I might take the spores for their Deep Strike ability.

The reality is that Battle Forged does not prevent cheese and hasn't done that for a long time now, all it does is create more inequalities whereby some armies get to feth the system and others not.

At least unbound is fair.

Unbound really isn't all that bad. It is hilarious when someone who is playing 5 flyrants and four mucaloid spores looks up from his obviously bound and fair army, and says "Unbound is for powergamers."

Excuse me. That's THREE Mucaloids and two Ripper Swarms with Deep Strike. Because, ya know, Objectives. Four Mucaloids is just wasted points and excessive.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Excuse me. That's THREE Mucaloids and two Ripper Swarms with Deep Strike. Because, ya know, Objectives. Four Mucaloids is just wasted points and excessive.

Sorry, sorry. My mistake - I forgot how important the Objective Secured benefit is. What with all the talk about how Unbound (which doesn't have it at all) is ridiculous super-cheese.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Unbound really isn't all that bad. It is hilarious when someone who is playing 5 flyrants and four mucaloid spores looks up from his obviously bound and fair army, and says "Unbound is for powergamers."

If you're a competitive player it's possible to dislike the poor balance in 40k but still use it to your advantage because you don't want to lose.

There can be a difference between what you like and what you actually bring to the table for a game. It's not even like it just applies to 40k. I don't like that online scrabble has certain words that aren't real words, but I still use them to win

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I don't like that online scrabble has certain words that aren't real words, but I still use them to win

This.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Best example of an Unbound army: an Eldar army with a Harlequin Solitaire. The new Harlequins are so restrictive about what you can take, forcing you to take over 750pts of crap if you want a Solitaire. Unbound let's you say 'feth that', call it an Unbound army and just take that one model you actually want. I'm also desperately trying to shoehorn three HQs into my new Astral Claw army but it's friggin difficult taking two CADs without using up so many points...

But apart from cases like that, it's not difficult to stay Battleforged. but, read up on zilka's posts and you'll see (if you can read his gibberish) how people take advantage of Unbound to just spam stupid things. Three Riptides, two Dreadknights, two Wraithknights and a Hive Tyrant, army done. But, people that do that usually aren't the people you want to play with anyway and it's an extreme example. Things are much calmer now and most players that see it calming down will atleast ask what unbound list you want to try before yelling 'heresy' at you and trying to burn you at the stake. Not as big of a stigma anymore.

I mean. There is a formation that's just a Solitaire, Death Jester and Shadowseer. So it's not THAT restrictive.


Anyway, the reason unbound is popular is that you totally CAN mix and match with battle forged. Any army may ally with any other army as long as you use detachments. Unbound is pretty much just in there because GW likes to sell to people who want to just spam stuff.

morgoth wrote:
I think Crablez has a point, unbound is often stigmatized as "the wrong way to build your army", in opposition with something with so little structure (bound) that it might as well be unbound, and often would be if you just changed Codex (like the 3X Lynx example).

Exactly, both methods allow you to turn your local meta into apocalypse... they're both terrible.



But then again I'm a fan of 40k, not apoc, that's probably why I'm so bitter about 7th edition.

How does Apocalypse differ from Standard? I haven't had a chance to get my hands on a rulebook for it yet.

 the_kraken wrote:
How does Apocalypse differ from Standard? I haven't had a chance to get my hands on a rulebook for it yet.

Apocalypse was initially supposed to be the "big battle" supplement where you got to play with superheavies and flyers and all sorts of ridiculous strategic assets and play at gigantic points levels for games lasting an entire day. Flyers and Superheavies at this time were not incorporated into the core rules.

It quickly turned into "bring whatever you want, doesn't matter if it makes sense, line up gigantic parking lots 12" apart and go at it". Very quickly necessitating lots of house rules and self-restrictions to prevent games from turning into one-sided massacres that simply took all day to play out.

Before 6th edition, flyers weren't included in the core rules nor were allies, what flyers there were started to be introduced as Fast Skimmers instead. 6E introduced those. Towards the end of 6th GW introduced Escalation and 7th came out about 8 months later fully incorporating Superheavies into normal games, along with multiple multiple detachments and formations and Unbound and all that jazz. effectively turning every game into an Apocalypse game, just without necessarily the same scale.