Should the Imperium be separated?

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**ERJAK**

Oh no, whatever will we do if multiple armies take an objectively worse version of another army's unit. How could we possible survive.

**Galas**

The Keyword system for buffs and auras on HQ evades the Azrael making a concripst horde stubborn. So for now, having allies isn't a real issue.

When everybody has codex and they need all of their detachment (Or maybe even army) to share the most concrete keyword (Like a Chapter, or a Imperial Guard Regiment) then theres gonna be even less incentives to bring a min max of units.

The allies sistem of 8th is perfect. The solution is to make more allies to other factions.

**BrianDavion**

Dionysodorus wrote:
BrianDavion wrote:

Perhaps you could start by naming some of these power combinations you keep alluding exist but never naming?

I literally can't think of many game breaking combinations, certainly not ala 7th edition super friends.

I'm not sure that people are complaining about power combinations. But the different Imperium subfactions have different strengths such that it's just kind of stupid not to take certain specific things from each of them, unless you're aiming at a very particular sort of spam list or one where you're planning on packing absolutely everything into the 6" around Guilliman or Azrael. I feel like many of these were obvious to everyone as soon as we saw the indices, but certainly we all know about them now that we've played a few games. Here are some that I think should be pretty uncontroversial; to the extent that most players are not taking advantage of the below, when applicable, it's because they're aiming at a very particular kind of cheese or because they don't want to feel dirty, or because they're bad:

1) Scion and Elysian command squads are completely broken. They bring fantastic anti- heavy infantry and anti-tank firepower to any Imperium list. Basically every Imperium list that isn't just Stormraven spam should include several of these. Certainly nobody should be taking lots of special weapons on tactical marines with these around.
2) Ratlings and Elysian sniper squads are by far the best snipers in the game. There is really no reason to take Space Marine Scouts with these available.
3) A unit of Conscripts is the best protection you can get for your gunline.
4) It is pretty much a no-brainer to slot Celestine and maybe a unit of Sisters into almost any Imperium army, because Acts of Faith are a fantastic force multiplier and operate at full efficiency on just those 2 units, and Celestine herself is significantly undercosted.
5) Several of the Assassins are extremely competitive choices in many lists. The Eversor and Culexus stand out as valuable inclusions in basically any Marine or Guard list. The Eversor in particular is an extremely reliable way to tie something up, and he does very well against infantry.
6) Space Marines themselves don't actually have a whole lot that everyone else wants, although their flyers outclass Guard flyers and a Guard list would have a lot of reason to take Xiphons or Contemptor Mortis Dreadnoughts if they want to shoot Lascannons at long range.

With the exception of command squads, none of these are really that bad as strong in-faction choices, although some could probably stand to be toned down. Acts of Faith add to the Sisters' identity. Guard should have lots of bodies protecting their guns. Marines should have really high-quality fire. But when you destroy all real distinctions between factions, except for some 6" auras, you destroy factions' identities. Acts of Faith are actually better for other Imperium armies that include just a couple Sisters than they are for Sisters armies. Everyone has access to cheap bodies to guard their guns. Everyone has access to ancient dreadnoughts that fire BS2+ lascannons. Obviously some of these are supposed to be showing up in other armies -- there's no other way to use Assassins. Likewise I really only want to see the occasional Knight in another army rather than lots of all-Knight armies. You've got to at least allow for these minor factions to show up somehow. But it's a problem when the clearly correct choice, other than obviously unintended things like Stormraven spam, is to play Imperial Soup. If the game is to be balanced then that has to work out to be about as good as what other factions can bring. Either Imperial Soup ends up being way overpowered or the individual subfactions like Space Marines end up being way underpowered.

Like I said, I don't think that fixing this requires saying that Marines can never be in the same army as Guard. But it does require that you give people a reason to take an army entirely from one subfaction. Detachment restrictions like Adeptus Mechanicus have don't really cut it -- detachments just aren't very limiting. They're definitely not very restrictive if it's only some of your units that need to be in pure detachments -- come the Marine codex you're still going to be able to take Celestine and command squads and Assassins in the same detachment no problem, and it's still going to be kind of stupid not to do this if you can get your Chapter Tactics and stratagems just by having your other 1 or 2 detachments be pure Marine. As well, like I said earlier I'm concerned about the potential for Marine stratagems and Tactics to actually favor mostly-Guard lists over pure Marine lists. I think most Marine players want to be playing Marine armies, and they should be meaningfully rewarded for forgoing the other Imperium options.

well right now we've not got special chapter tactics etc for the IoM factions and that'll make a differance I think. for example Scout Marines may swing ahead with raven gaurd CT and stratigiums. (Scouts are also troops, and I suspect getting lots of command points is suddenly going to be a lot more important when you have a codex) over all these power combinations aren't. certainly not nearly as bad as compared to the super friends age of 7th edition.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Galas wrote:
The Keyword system for buffs and auras on HQ evades the Azrael making a concripst horde stubborn. So for now, having allies isn't a real issue.

When everybody has codex and they need all of their detachment (Or maybe even army) to share the most concrete keyword (Like a Chapter, or a Imperial Guard Regiment) then theres gonna be even less incentives to bring a min max of units.

The allies sistem of 8th is perfect. The solution is to make more allies to other factions.

I agree. I'm just not seeing the problem here. and 90% of the issues are eaither issues with a particular unit, (if Imperial assasins, for example, are too good they're too good) or simply mild quirks that will be ironed out in time as we go into "phase 2" of 8th edition.

**Galas**

Yeah. This is the same as the Spam problem.

If every Imperial army brings 50 conscripts+Commisar or 5 Tempestus Scions command squads the problem is with those troops, not with the allies system.

Plus, saying that the Assasins are good and fit in every Imperial List... yeah. Thats how Assasins are supposed to work. Did anyone want a 100% Imperial Assasin army? If you want a Vindicare in your Imperial Guard, Sororitas, or Space Marines force, you bring one because they are the definition of "auxiliary Imperial" made unit. Just make them balanced for their point costs.

**Dionysodorus**

Galas wrote:
Yeah. This is the same as the Spam problem.

If every Imperial army brings 50 conscripts+Commisar or 5 Tempestus Scions command squads the problem is with those troops, not with the allies system.

Plus, saying that the Assasins are good and fit in every Imperial List... yeah. Thats how Assasins are supposed to work. Did anyone want a 100% Imperial Assasin army? If you want a Vindicare in your Imperial Guard, Sororitas, or Space Marines force, you bring one because they are the definition of "auxiliary Imperial" made unit. Just make them balanced for their point costs.

This seems to badly misunderstand the way different factions work. They're good at different things. It is a good thing that Tyranids have some of the most efficient CC units around. That's part of faction identity. Sure, command squads are overpowered, but a lot of this stuff isn't, particularly. It's just that Marines are good at certain things and Guard are good at certain things and Sisters are good at certain things, and Sisters additionally have a weird rule where the fewer of them you have the more efficient they are. If you can freely sample from each of these then there are going to be obvious things to take if each faction has distinct advantages and disadvantages.

**Melissia**

Actually, larger Sisters squads benefit more from acts of faith than smaller ones. It's just that acts of faith don't scale well with army size-- the only way to make it scale is to include celestine and/or add in 40-point elite options known as Imagifiers (banner-carriers to everyone else), and the latter are only a 50% chance each turn of getting another act of faith to a single sisters squad within 6".

**Dionysodorus**

Melissia wrote:
Actually, larger Sisters squads benefit more from acts of faith than smaller ones. It's just that acts of faith don't scale well with army size-- the only way to make it scale is to include celestine and/or add in 40-point elite options known as Imagifiers (banner-carriers to everyone else), and the latter are only a 50% chance each turn of getting another act of faith to a single sisters squad within 6".

Right, this is what I meant. They're more efficient the fewer units of them you have, but you're right that you want the units themselves to be big.

**ERJAK**

Dionysodorus wrote:
Melissia wrote:
Actually, larger Sisters squads benefit more from acts of faith than smaller ones. It's just that acts of faith don't scale well with army size-- the only way to make it scale is to include celestine and/or add in 40-point elite options known as Imagifiers (banner-carriers to everyone else), and the latter are only a 50% chance each turn of getting another act of faith to a single sisters squad within 6".

Right, this is what I meant. They're more efficient the fewer units of them you have, but you're right that you want the units themselves to be big.

In practice...not really, SoB are primarily a MSU mech army believe it or not. AoFs are more for seraphim+Celestine movement shenanigans than use on footsloggers. Until the late game where you start AoFing people who have disembarked.

Also the whole 'it doesn't scale' thing is something that is carried over from when the indexes were leaked and actually is only true for 3000+ point games. At 2k it's pretty rare to actually have 2 valid targets until things start dying.

**Galas**

Dionysodorus wrote:
Galas wrote:
Yeah. This is the same as the Spam problem.

If every Imperial army brings 50 conscripts+Commisar or 5 Tempestus Scions command squads the problem is with those troops, not with the allies system.

Plus, saying that the Assasins are good and fit in every Imperial List... yeah. Thats how Assasins are supposed to work. Did anyone want a 100% Imperial Assasin army? If you want a Vindicare in your Imperial Guard, Sororitas, or Space Marines force, you bring one because they are the definition of "auxiliary Imperial" made unit. Just make them balanced for their point costs.

This seems to badly misunderstand the way different factions work. They're good at different things. It is a good thing that Tyranids have some of the most efficient CC units around. That's part of faction identity. Sure, command squads are overpowered, but a lot of this stuff isn't, particularly. It's just that Marines are good at certain things and Guard are good at certain things and Sisters are good at certain things, and Sisters additionally have a weird rule where the fewer of them you have the more efficient they are. If you can freely sample from each of these then there are going to be obvious things to take if each faction has distinct advantages and disadvantages.

Oh, I can understand this. Thats why I think the form to balance this isn't just banning allies for factions that are fluffy and coherent to be allied. Is to make "faction bonuses" that are lost if you mix different factions.
This way you can play in two ways: You min-max for the better units but lose the sinergies, or you take a specific faction and you are better at something at the expense of loosing flexibility.
Like AoS.
The tricky balancing factor is to make those bonus good enough to make playing a single faction competitively worthwile, but not so good that a mixed faction army just can't compete. Or so useless that theres no reason to have an army of only one faction.

For example, if Taus with their special rules are the best shooting army, ok, they are much less flexible than a Imperium army that mixes Imperial Guard artillery and chaff with Space Marine Elite Units, some Assasins and Sisters of Battle. In a ideal system, the special rules of the Tau should be good enough to have a balanced game agains't that varied Imperial army.

**Dionysodorus**

Galas wrote:

Oh, I can understand this. Thats why I think the form to balance this isn't just banning allies for factions that are fluffy and coherent to be allied. Is to make "faction bonuses" that are lost if you mix different factions.
This way you can play in two ways: You min-max for the better units but lose the sinergies, or you take a specific faction and you are better at something at the expense of loosing flexibility.
Like AoS.
The tricky balancing factor is to make those bonus good enough to make playing a single faction competitively worthwile, but not so good that a mixed faction army just can't compete. Or so useless that theres no reason to have an army of only one faction.

For example, if Taus with their special rules are the best shooting army, ok, they are much less flexible than a Imperium army that mixes Imperial Guard artillery and chaff with Space Marine Elite Units, some Assasins and Sisters of Battle. In a ideal system, the special rules of the Tau should be good enough to have a balanced game agains't that varied Imperial army.

To be clear, this sounds like exactly what I was proposing earlier in the thread. I think it's fine that Marines can take Guard allies. I just think there should be some reward for taking a pure Marine army. Supposedly Chapter Tactics only work if you have a pure Marine detachment, but I don't think that the detachment system is very limiting and so I doubt this meaningfully addresses the issue. I was suggesting that you should only get Chapter Tactics if the whole army is from the same Chapter, and then likewise for Regiments and everything else. So I'm even fine with Assassins being really appealing as individual units, but including Assassins or Knights or Conscripts in your Marine army, and benefiting from being able to find these synergies across the entire Imperium, means you're giving up a rule like 6+ FNP on all your infantry.

**Melissia**

ERJAK wrote:
In practice...not really, SoB are primarily a MSU mech army believe it or not. AoFs are more for seraphim+Celestine movement shenanigans than use on footsloggers. Until the late game where you start AoFing people who have disembarked.

And that logic is why you and numerous other Sisters players are really not using acts of faith to their fullest potential.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Melissia wrote:
ERJAK wrote:
In practice...not really, SoB are primarily a MSU mech army believe it or not. AoFs are more for seraphim+Celestine movement shenanigans than use on footsloggers. Until the late game where you start AoFing people who have disembarked.
And that logic is why you and numerous other Sisters players are really not using acts of faith to their fullest potential.

To be fair, the best thing about them last edition was cheap to acquire Special Weapons. Load those Elites with like 4 Melta Guns and a Combi, your minimum troops with a Heavy Flamer and regular and Combi, and then buy as many Exorcists as you can. I proxied it to excellent effect. The army didn't run like it had the option for Acts Of Faith haha!

Kinda ran more like a pure Scion army but with Exorcists instead of something else. And more expensive but less offensive transports.

**Melissia**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
To be fair, the best thing about them last edition was cheap to acquire Special Weapons. Load those Elites with like 4 Melta Guns and a Combi, your minimum troops with a Heavy Flamer and regular and Combi, and then buy as many Exorcists as you can. I proxied it to excellent effect. The army didn't run like it had the option for Acts Of Faith haha!

Kinda ran more like a pure Scion army but with Exorcists instead of something else. And more expensive but less offensive transports.

And this edition the cheapest special weapons are storm bolters, which are super-cheap and super-efficient. For the cost of a flamer you could instead add another battle sister.

But think about it this way. In another thread, I calculated that a 15-girl battle sister squad could get around 72 bolter rounds off in a single turn. Now, most situations won't allow them to get this many shots off of course. But it still shows you the offensive potential of large sisters squads over smaller ones, when you use acts of faith on them. A ten-girl squad in a rhino could output a LOT of firepower on the turn they disembark-- more than a 5-girl squad of dominions with storm bolters, in fact.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Melissia wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
To be fair, the best thing about them last edition was cheap to acquire Special Weapons. Load those Elites with like 4 Melta Guns and a Combi, your minimum troops with a Heavy Flamer and regular and Combi, and then buy as many Exorcists as you can. I proxied it to excellent effect. The army didn't run like it had the option for Acts Of Faith haha!

Kinda ran more like a pure Scion army but with Exorcists instead of something else. And more expensive but less offensive transports.

And this edition the cheapest special weapons are storm bolters, which are super-cheap and super-efficient. For the cost of a flamer you could instead add another battle sister.

But think about it this way. In another thread, I calculated that a 15-girl battle sister squad could get around 72 bolter rounds off in a single turn. Now, most situations won't allow them to get this many shots off of course. But it still shows you the offensive potential of large sisters squads over smaller ones, when you use acts of faith on them. A ten-girl squad in a rhino could output a LOT of firepower on the turn they disembark-- more than a 5-girl squad of dominions with storm bolters, in fact.

I'd rather Melta Guns on Dominions, but I understand the point.

**Melissia**

Meltaguns on dominions are nice, but only really useful against big multi-wound models. If you need to chew through a horde, you call upon the Bolter Brigade.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Melissia wrote:
Meltaguns on dominions are nice, but only really useful against big multi-wound models. If you need to chew through a horde, you call upon the Bolter Brigade.

My friend has Flamers on all his models, but I'm used to trying to run those up the field so I'll stick with them in the meantime.

**Melissia**

Flamers... eh. I'm really not sold on them, given that they're nine points each for 8" range, compared to two points for storm bolters for 24" and getting better at 12".

**Slayer-Fan123**

Melissia wrote:
Flamers... eh. I'm really not sold on them, given that they're nine points each for 8" range, compared to two points for storm bolters for 24" and getting better at 12".

Don't forget though it DOES force shooting, as when some people are super aggressive and want to really off a unit they didn't kill, they'll charge. Flamers might cause 1-2 more wounds that way.

I am imagining the Storm Bolter is gonna go back to 5 points again, but at least it's worth it this time.

**Jaxler**

Talamare wrote:
List of Major Factions in Imperium
Space Marines/Ultra Marines
Blood Angels
Dark Angels
Space Wolves
Grey Knights
Imperial Guard
Skitarii
Sisters of Battle
Inquisition

List of Minor Factions
Imperial Knights
Assassins
Custodes
Sisters of Silence
Death Watch

Am I missing anything?
Any in the wrong place?

List of Major Factions in Eldar
Eldar
Drew Carey

List of Minor Factions in Eldar
Ynnari
Harlequins

List of Major Factions in Chaos
Chaos Space Marines
Daemons

List of Minor Factions in Chaos
Chaos Knights

Sorry but inquisition is basically 4 units and some characters. If anything Knights deserve to be major more than them because of forge world support and Knights can field an army that actually does something unlike inquisition army which beyond inquisitors only has 8 point gaurdsmen.

**Talamare**

Jaxler wrote:

Sorry but inquisition is basically 4 units and some characters. If anything Knights deserve to be major more than them because of forge world support and Knights can field an army that actually does something unlike inquisition army which beyond inquisitors only has 8 point gaurdsmen.

I mean, I was asking because I straight up wasn't sure. I'll put Inquisition as a Minor.

Any other changes?

**vipoid**

I would like to see the Imperium split into 3:
1) All the Space Marine armies.
2) Imperial Guard, SoB, Telepathica and the like.
3) Knights and Assassins (which can be used by either of the above.)

Space Marines alone already have more units than any other amry even before you factor in the more specialised SM units from DAs, BAs, SWs, GKs etc. I don't think it's unreasonable to limit their choices to allies from other SM armies.

I wouldn't really want to split up SoB, Inquisition and IG. SoB include Priests and Celestine (both of which have buffd for the guard, which would seem reason enough to let them ally). Inquisition seems in dire need of allies given how few units it has. And really, SoB and/or Inquisition commanding IG units just seems very fluffy in general.

The only tricky one is GKs - which seems like it should have access to Inquisition stuff. Maybe have an exception for that?

**Talamare**

vipoid wrote:
I would like to see the Imperium split into 3:
1) All the Space Marine armies.
2) Imperial Guard, SoB, Telepathica and the like.
3) Knights and Assassins (which can be used by either of the above.)

Space Marines alone already have more units than any other amry even before you factor in the more specialised SM units from DAs, BAs, SWs, GKs etc. I don't think it's unreasonable to limit their choices to allies from other SM armies.

I wouldn't really want to split up SoB, Inquisition and IG. SoB include Priests and Celestine (both of which have buffd for the guard, which would seem reason enough to let them ally). Inquisition seems in dire need of allies given how few units it has. And really, SoB and/or Inquisition commanding IG units just seems very fluffy in general.

The only tricky one is GKs - which seems like it should have access to Inquisition stuff. Maybe have an exception for that?

You can have SoB and Inquisition have the same primary keyword, let's say Inquisition for now.

Space Marines will have the Space Marines Keyword
Grey Knights will have the Space Marine and the Inquisition Keyword
Imperial Guard would have Imperial Guard Keyword
We can even make standard Imperial Guard, but not Tempests, have the Inquisition Keyword

Hell, we could have like a Space Marine Chapter like maybe Iron Hands that has Imperial Guard Keyword
We could also have maybe Black Templars have Inquisition.

The Keyword system has so many robust, easy to understand options for creating intricate webs of Alliances...

**vipoid**

Talamare wrote:

You can have SoB and Inquisition have the same primary keyword, let's say Inquisition for now.

Space Marines will have the Space Marines Keyword
Grey Knights will have the Space Marine and the Inquisition Keyword
Imperial Guard would have Imperial Guard Keyword
We can even make standard Imperial Guard, but not Tempests, have the Inquisition Keyword

Hell, we could have like a Space Marine Chapter like maybe Iron Hands that has Imperial Guard Keyword
We could also have maybe Black Templars have Inquisition.

The Keyword system has so many robust, easy to understand options for creating intricate webs of Alliances...

I think that's a good idea, though I'd actually use 'Imperium' for the Inquisition, SoB and IG ('Inquisition' is a bit too narrow and giving it to IG just feels wrong).

I'm also not sure about separating Scions from the Inquisition and SoB. Does their authority not extend to Scions?

**Talamare**

vipoid wrote:

I think that's a good idea, though I'd actually use 'Imperium' for the Inquisition, SoB and IG ('Inquisition' is a bit too narrow and giving it to IG just feels wrong).

I'm also not sure about separating Scions from the Inquisition and SoB. Does their authority not extend to Scions?

Yea, Imperium would work
As far as Tempest are concerned it was a bit of an example, it might have been a poor example.

However it might be good balance?
As in you can go in different direction when list building
IG and Imperium to use God as Aid
IG and Tempest to use Elites as Support
IG and ... Auxiliary to use "mutants" as Support

Aye aye, on the Aux! Just another example* I threw out XD

*bad

**Breng77**

I would be tempted to just have a blanket rule for matched play that states, all units in a detachment must share their most specific keyword.

This would still allow Marines to mix with other marines or guard, etc. But each faction would need to be in its own detachment.

This is not a huge restriction, but it helps a bit.

Then if needed certain factions could be allowed to ignore this restrictions, maybe things like assassins.

**Melissia**

Eh. I'm okay with how it currently is. Actually I think other factions need to be able to ally easier.

Orks need a Freebooter detachment that can be allied to just about anyone (even genestealers cults!), with say 1 hq, 1 elite, 2 troops, 1 fa, 1 hs available to it. Eldar need a Corsair Mercenaries detachment that can do the same. And so on. Maybe if you want them to have a price, have them cost 1cp, similar to an auxiliary detachment.

**Talamare**

Breng77 wrote:
I would be tempted to just have a blanket rule for matched play that states, all units in a detachment must share their most specific keyword.

This would still allow Marines to mix with other marines or guard, etc. But each faction would need to be in its own detachment.

This is not a huge restriction, but it helps a bit.

Then if needed certain factions could be allowed to ignore this restrictions, maybe things like assassins.

I think that would be too much

I would be cool if it was they must share -2- Keywords.

Edit - Okay, I can see how 2 would be less of a problem than most specific. So, nevermind this whole post. Yours was better

**BaconCatBug**

Breng77 wrote:
I would be tempted to just have a blanket rule for matched play that states, all units in a detachment must share their most specific keyword.

This would still allow Marines to mix with other marines or guard, etc. But each faction would need to be in its own detachment.

This is not a huge restriction, but it helps a bit.

Then if needed certain factions could be allowed to ignore this restrictions, maybe things like assassins.

Now go ahead and define what "Most specific" means. You'd need a table a mile long.

**Melissia**

Suddenly you can't take anything but infantry.

**phydaux**

Peregrine wrote:
Yes. We need to go back to the pre-6th way of doing it. You have one FOC, taken from one codex, period. No allies, no mixing armies in a single detachment, you pick your faction and play that faction.

Except that the current philosophy at GW is to allow players to buy whatever models that want, and then be able to field whatever models that have as a valid army.

Seriously, 10 years ago if I had told my buddies at my FLAGS "I'm going to play an army made up of nothing but two HQs and six Devestator squads" then would have laughed at me. A few of them would have thrown dice at me. Now, it's a valid army.