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blaktoof wrote:

so you feel new codexes should have less powerful free things than about the 4 other codexes that have been put out recently? BA/Necrons/Eldar/Daemonkin

Yes. Perpetuating the nonsense only leads a power curve that will break the game, or encourage a pay-to-win environment. Neither are healthy for the game. Then again, its not healthy for the game we have the likes of Eldar and Decurion, but the solution is not to continue handing out free bonuses everywhere.

and you think getting special bonuses that affect the game is of a lesser value than not getting special bonuses and then being given free points?

I think both scenarios are bad. I dislike the Decurion as much as I do the Ad Mech formation. Handing out free points is as bad for balance as handing out significant bonuses to all units.

The upgrades are wargear items only, the base cost of the models and additional models have to be paid for. any character upgrades have to be paid for.

I'm aware of that.

people say the min cost for a knight with no ranged for this is 1330 but keep in mind you get less free bonuses by going the min cost as you are not hitting break points in unit size for certain models, and honestly a lot of the skitarii/admech models do not have a lot of upgrades. its no where the same as say giving unlimited wargear/relic upgrades to a sm army.

The break even point is arguably fairly high, but even at 2000pts, you'd be functionally playing with an additional ~500+ points over an opponent not using an equivalent formation.

To make it abundantly clear; I am opposed to the general power level of some of the top tier formations/army buffs some recent books have received. This is just another poor decision on GW's part, and I worry it sets a bad precendence for future books where handing out free upgrades formation wide is seen as normal, acceptable, or balanced.

A riding tide may lift all boats, but eventually it just causes flooding and damages everything. Or something more eloquent than that. Paging the English majors.

The problem is it is not easy to go back. Most of the 'top tier' armies, and recent codexes will not be reprinted for some time most likely. GW does have a pretty quick release schedule recently but how long before there is a new eldar / necron codex?

Probably 2-4 years. So either new codexes come out at the same 'power level' or new codexes come out and there is no real draw to collect an army from them or play them because they are not as good as codex x,y,or z and we will most tournaments only playing 3-4 codexes among 20-100+ people.

Who cares about tourney n power? Gw admits it's a miniatures company first, entertainment second.. and competetivness is the least of their worries. The tourney scene is slowly dying and maybe... Just maybe one day.. it'll completely die.

You know being a good unit is tied strong to how much enteraiment can someone get from a unit. If that isn't there the chance that people will be buying a given unit is low. And I doubt GW wants to sell less models.

blaktoof wrote:The problem is it is not easy to go back. Most of the 'top tier' armies, and recent codexes will not be reprinted for some time most likely. GW does have a pretty quick release schedule recently but how long before there is a new eldar / necron codex?

Probably 2-4 years. So either new codexes come out at the same 'power level' or new codexes come out and there is no real draw to collect an army from them or play them because they are not as good as codex x,y,or z and we will most tournaments only playing 3-4 codexes among 20-100+ people.

Its about as easy to go back as it is to keep going forward with this. Don't forget the theoretical power of a good FAQ/Errata.

I know that GW is going to power on with its unpredictable power curve, and never issue a free FAQ/Errata that actually addresses OP/UP units. A man can dream.

Pain4Pleasure wrote:Who cares about tourney n power? Gw admits it's a miniatures company first, entertainment second.. and competetivness is the least of their worries. The tourney scene is slowly dying and maybe... Just maybe one day.. it'll completely die.

And?

Balance issues affect non tournament players too.

Only if you care about winning and not fun. if you don't have fun in this game, win or lose, even against a stranger.. you're doing something horribly wrong

Pain4Pleasure wrote:
Only if you care about winning and not fun. if you don't have fun in this game, win or lose, even against a stranger.. you're doing something horribly wrong

?

What if I care about both? Personally, I'd much prefer a game where the outcome was decided by how well myself or my opponent played, not decided by what lists we brought to the table.

I think everyone is having fun playing this game. Otherwise they wouldn't be playing it.

Pain4Pleasure wrote:
Only if you care about winning and not fun. if you don't have fun in this game, win or lose, even against a stranger.. you're doing something horribly wrong

there are some people who play and tourneys and have fun doing so....just saying

NO! People need to stop enjoying things in ways that are not the way I enjoy them.

This is a game. We aren't forced to play it. Why's everyone mad?

^^ this guy gets it

Pain4Pleasure wrote:
Only if you care about winning and not fun. if you don't have fun in this game, win or lose, even against a stranger.. you're doing something horribly wrong

Most people don't enjoy 1v1 games where they know they will lose horribly before even starting, much less play said game over and over. For some bizarre reason, Warhammer 40K is a game where trying to win is considered by some to be "Bad"...no one gets called TFG for putting a hotel on the Boardwalk in Monopoly.

As far as the formation goes, it should probably be banned by tournaments; there are still other ways to use those models and other formations for admech in the book. Easy fix.

If you're gonna ban this formation, is the entire eldar codex also banned?

Pain4Pleasure wrote:
If you're gonna ban this formation, is the entire eldar codex also banned?

If you post one nonsensical thing, are all your posts therefore nonsensical?

Pain4Pleasure wrote:
Who cares about tourney n power? Gw admits it's a miniatures company first, entertainment second.. and competetivness is the least of their worries. The tourney scene is slowly dying and maybe... Just maybe one day.. it'll completely die.

If the rules don't matter, then why charge so much for them?

 Blacksails wrote:

Pain4Pleasure wrote:
If you're gonna ban this formation, is the entire eldar codex also banned?

If you post one nonsensical thing, are all your posts therefore nonsensical?

The entire eldar as a whole are scarier than this formation. Please don't cry to hard about something other than eldar having something good.

Pain4Pleasure wrote:


The entire eldar as a whole are scarier than this formation. Please don't cry to hard about something other than eldar having something good.

How mature of you.

And what relevance does the Eldar being strong have to my dislike of another formation that is still powerful compared to much of what's in the game?

Seriously, if you don't have something useful to contribute, don't bother. That goes doubly for childish remarks about crying.

Eh the formation is on the cheap side, but does have some big unit taxes so it wont be used at less than 2000 probably.

I'd rather run a CAD cult mechanicus with allied in BA drop pods ( or SM ones if they get it in the next codex). Than run this formation.

Besides I've always wanted to run a fluffy Iron Hands + cult mechanicus army list.

I don't think its a good idea to give 'free' points to units just because you took them in a formation. Sure its fluffy that they have the good stuff, but it doesn't seem fair. Plus the value of the formation actually gets larger the more units you take. So a 2500 points list could have something like a 1000 points of weapon upgrades.(pulling numbers out of the air here) That's crazy.

People need to actually try this formation more and get less caught up with the fact it is a formation and it gives free wargear rather than rules.

This formation takes an army style that if you have actually played against it, ie non spam foot skitarii, was very weak and brings it on par with Drop Pod space marines, DE venom spam, and CWE aspect armies. Which is to say just good enough to threaten a top tier list but still an uphill fight.

As for formations in general. The only formation I have seen so far with both a very high win rate and a higher win rate than taking CAD or other non formation detachments for that codex is Decurion. The CWE are significantly more powerful in a CAD. BA primary purpose in power builds has been for drop pods. Ad lance actual has a performance ceiling as it is such an extreme build a competent player with a tactically flexible ends up beating it most of the time.

Formations also have a positive aspect in that they give new players a model list of things they should buy. They also give the new player tactics and rules to help them get into the game. There must be at least a dozen threads every day on dakkadakka where a new player is asking what they should buy, lamenting that they bought unit X as it is useless and lacks synergy, or talking about how they cannot even have a decent game. Most of these problems stem from the large amount of list building freedom offered by even a CAD. If you take a random smattering of units in a CAD you will have an awful list no matter what codex and how powerful the individual units. Formations at least help to curve the worst of these mistakes. Formations however have a high minimum performance but tend to have a low maximum performance. ie in the hands of a low skill and high skill player the gap is smaller between two formation based armies and than between two CAD based armies. This is an overall trend which is true for the majority of formations (this one included). The only formations that I can think of where this is not true is a seer council and some of the harlie formations where they are hard to use but when used right can bring the pain.

The other positive that formations brings is they are a way to expand the play styles of armies without having to buy more models. This is a positive as it allows for more variety in how you play the game and what you play against. I don't know about you but after 2-3 games against the same person with mostly the same model collection back in 5ed and to a large degree in 6ed I knew exactly what that person would do almost down to the turn they would do it in. There wasn't even a chance for the person to significantly change their list without new purchases. Now I can completely change my play style by bringing my CWE army as a craftworld warhost or as a CAD, there is a significant difference in how units operate due to the difference in rules.

In competitive play? Ban all formations. I don't care if some of them are 3 units of terminators and the only bonus they get is that they can battle focus the turn they deep strike in. That's what I'd consider necessary collateral damage to get rid of things like decurions, first turn no scatter deep strike assaults, and a bunch of bs5 eldar.

Then the only thing really sticking out as OTT ridiculous would be eldar. Apply a bit of nerfage and bam, we have a tourney playable game again.

niv-mizzet wrote:
In competitive play? Ban all formations. I don't care if some of them are 3 units of terminators and the only bonus they get is that they can battle focus the turn they deep strike in. That's what I'd consider necessary collateral damage to get rid of things like decurions, first turn no scatter deep strike assaults, and a bunch of bs5 eldar.

Then the only thing really sticking out as OTT ridiculous would be eldar. Apply a bit of nerfage and bam, we have a tourney playable game again.

I don't know man, I guess that could work. Or maybe just make it so that every army has to take a minimum of 1 CAD, and 1 ally detachment before they are allowed to take formations in comp settings. Alot of the formations are pretty tame especially if you have to take a minimum of 2hqs and 3 troops as tax like I proposed you can before you can start taking units for the formation in it.

I think NOVA has something like this with a cap of 2 detachments/ formations, but you have to take 1 cad and no super heavy or gargantuan low are allowed, but it allows regular low. Very much closer to a comp environment, and personally I like it.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:
In competitive play? Ban all formations. I don't care if some of them are 3 units of terminators and the only bonus they get is that they can battle focus the turn they deep strike in. That's what I'd consider necessary collateral damage to get rid of things like decurions, first turn no scatter deep strike assaults, and a bunch of bs5 eldar.

Then the only thing really sticking out as OTT ridiculous would be eldar. Apply a bit of nerfage and bam, we have a tourney playable game again.

I don't know man, I guess that could work. Or maybe just make it so that every army has to take a minimum of 1 CAD, and 1 ally detachment before they are allowed to take formations in comp settings. Alot of the formations are pretty tame especially if you have to take a minimum of 2hqs and 3 troops as tax like I proposed you can before you can start taking units for the formation in it.

I think NOVA has something like this with a cap of 2 detachments/ formations, but you have to take 1 cad and no super heavy or gargantuan low are allowed, but it allows regular low. Very much closer to a comp environment, and personally I like it.

I hate to break it to you guys, but formations are here to stay. Like I've said before, 7th edition was made to be "formation edition" from the start. I can agree on a limit of two formations per detachment, including the Decurion-style "formation of formations", but if you get rid of formations, you also have to get rid of alternate FOCs. That would end up penalizing Imperium armis just as badly IMO.

I acknowledge that the Eldar codex has OP units, but their formations are fine, and no worse than the new Skitarii/AdMech/Knight formation. The Decurion is only nasty because of RP Wraiths; everything else is more than capable of being handled with some smart play on the tabletop.

The reason people are complaining about formations is because their codexes haven't been updated to include them yet. It doesn't help that because of the pace of the releases lately people haven't yet had time to figure out counters to the new formations yet.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 lazarian wrote:
In a world with scatbikes daemon summon factories and rp wraiths is it really really broken? This army can't take as much of a punch.

Well, 500+ points off free gear (basically a Knight and a half for free) at 1500 pts. got to have some impact. Is another 33% of army-size on top.

Either Skitarii/CM without the free gear are balanced, in which case the Formation is OP, or the Formation is fine, in which case the books are significantly under-powered without this formation.

Can't be both.

how much of those 500 points is actually useful? A lot of the 500 is very suboptimal build.

Sure those plasma calivers on the vanguard are great. So are the aquebuses on the rangers. but does the melta gun and Icarus Autocannon on the knight break it? Infiltrators and Ruststalkers are a tax, a tax that doesnt get any better with free upgrades. Do a few extra relics break the skitarii side?

For cult mech. They dont have that many upgrades to take. So the Destroyers can have flamers instead of phosphor. I think phosphor is better, if squishies are getting into flamer range, something has gone very wrong.

Sicarians are from what I hear, much better on paper.

I think this formation has potential. If interested, check out my army list I made for it. It's in the army list section of the forum.

So which of you have played against this "broken" and "unbeatable" formation?

It's good yeah, but it's nowhere near Eldar or Necrons. I guess it's the new subject of a cryout for this month, the abovementioned being the ones for previous months. I don't find it broken at all, and on paper it can be taken out quite easily. Practical results remain to be seen, but I'm quite confident this will get you nowhere in tournaments, with friends you can always agree on things, and with no-communication-beforehand pickup games playing an uncompetitive list is a conscious choice, and a risk these days when there is a lot of powerful stuff around, unfortunately.

Alas, nothing different from anything else that is powerful but not tournament dominating and nothing new in Warhammer 40,000.

 Elemental wrote:

Pain4Pleasure wrote:
Who cares about tourney n power? Gw admits it's a miniatures company first, entertainment second.. and competetivness is the least of their worries. The tourney scene is slowly dying and maybe... Just maybe one day.. it'll completely die.

If the rules don't matter, then why charge so much for them?

Yeah, why would they sell a badly-made product that people buy for inflated prizes? I can't imagine why anyone would want to do such a thing, especially not a for-profit company!



/s

£.

 Runic wrote:
So which of you have played against this "broken" and "unbeatable" formation?

It's good yeah, but it's nowhere near Eldar or Necrons. I guess it's the new subject of a cryout for this month, the abovementioned being the ones for previous months. I don't find it broken at all, and on paper it can be taken out quite easily. Practical results remain to be seen, but I'm quite confident this will get you nowhere in tournaments, with friends you can always agree on things, and with no-communication-beforehand pickup games playing an uncompetitive list is a conscious choice, and a risk these days when there is a lot of powerful stuff around, unfortunately.

Alas, nothing different from anything else that is powerful but not tournament dominating and nothing new in Warhammer 40,000.

There's a difference between complaining about an unbalanced formation and claiming something is unbeatable. I don't think anyone in the thread has said its unbeatable. And just because the game is already unbalanced, that doesn't mean it's okay for every release to be so. That just perpetuates the balance issues.

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but I've seen a fair few posts stating a "standard" 1850 point list... You guys are aware that GW prime work on a 250 scale right? Their general standard is 1500 point lists, and more likely a 1750 than 1850.

Sudowoodo1 wrote:
I'm not sure how relevant this is, but I've seen a fair few posts stating a "standard" 1850 point list... You guys are aware that GW prime work on a 250 scale right? Their general standard is 1500 point lists, and more likely a 1750 than 1850.

GW doesn't work on any one scale, nor in mandatory 250pts increments.

1850 has been a popular and common point level for tournaments and casual games alike for years now.

I dunno man, I always thought that 1850 was a US thing. I've never seen anyone playing 1850 in the UK (granted I've been out for a couple of years). Even when playing at warhammer world, and against GW employees, 1500 has been the standard. I'm not saying that the rest of the world is wrong, just that maybe GW hasn't got with the times. It'd hardly be the first time they've been wilfully ignorant.