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tneva82 wrote:

 Captain Joystick wrote:
Does the restriction also apply to things like transports?

Everything. Max 2 chimera,max 2 russ, max 2 ork warboss. Well at least tank commander is separate to russ so pask, 2 tank commander and 2 russ legal. Seems to be tailor made touney rules to force ig play tank army.

Technically, you could bring 2 LR battletanks, 2 LR Exterminators, 2 LR Vindicators, 2 LR Executioners, 2 LR Demolishers, ect, ect, ect. I would argue each tank variant is a separate unit from the next one. Same thing for the Hellhound varients, the Sentinel/Armored Sentinel.

 Infantryman wrote:
When did the old 0-X limits disappear? I remember 4e having certain units that could only be taken up to a certain number.

M.

Relatively recently when GW Rewrote the rules system so that 'Rules' and 'Balance' didn't get in the way of buying models.

0-1 Baneblade in your Codex? Well that'll discourage you from buying that second Baneblade.
Only allowed one Assassin of any type in your army? Well that'll put people off buying our new shiny boardgame assassin boxed set.

Etc.

The new detachments, and so on are very clearly written from the perspective of a company that doesn't want you to put a fluffy warhammer setting army on the table, but rather whats to provide a ruleset that's as permissive as possible for you using whatever models you own, regardless of sanity. Want to bring an army of nothing but space marine captains? Now you can! An Army with 18 Astropaths? Go for it! An Army of all Space Marine Captains and Astropaths accompanied by two squads of Fallen Dark Angels? Yes Sir!

SYKOJAK wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Captain Joystick wrote:
Does the restriction also apply to things like transports?

Everything. Max 2 chimera,max 2 russ, max 2 ork warboss. Well at least tank commander is separate to russ so pask, 2 tank commander and 2 russ legal. Seems to be tailor made touney rules to force ig play tank army.

Technically, you could bring 2 LR battletanks, 2 LR Exterminators, 2 LR Vindicators, 2 LR Executioners, 2 LR Demolishers, ect, ect, ect. I would argue each tank variant is a separate unit from the next one. Same thing for the Hellhound varients, the Sentinel/Armored Sentinel.

It would depend if the rule was datasheet (1-3 Leman Russ), Model (1 Leman Russ) or slot (1-3 Leman Russ)

AdmiralHalsey wrote:

 Infantryman wrote:
When did the old 0-X limits disappear? I remember 4e having certain units that could only be taken up to a certain number.

M.

Relatively recently when GW Rewrote the rules system so that 'Rules' and 'Balance' didn't get in the way of buying models.

0-1 Baneblade in your Codex? Well that'll discourage you from buying that second Baneblade.
Only allowed one Assassin of any type in your army? Well that'll put people off buying our new shiny boardgame assassin boxed set.

Etc.

The new detachments, and so on are very clearly written from the perspective of a company that doesn't want you to put a fluffy warhammer setting army on the table, but rather whats to provide a ruleset that's as permissive as possible for you using whatever models you own, regardless of sanity. Want to bring an army of nothing but space marine captains? Now you can! An Army with 18 Astropaths? Go for it! An Army of all Space Marine Captains and Astropaths accompanied by two squads of Fallen Dark Angels? Yes Sir!

That's depressing, when you put it like that.

M.

It is sad, but extraordinarily obvious when you look at the rules. The saddest part is that the real customers actually do keep buying models anyway, so it's not actually an effective tactic. A typical gamer would take the money he or she would have spent on "another" Land Raider (or whatever's restricted) and they'd just buy more different things or more models for a second army.

AdmiralHalsey wrote:

 Infantryman wrote:
When did the old 0-X limits disappear? I remember 4e having certain units that could only be taken up to a certain number.

M.

Relatively recently when GW Rewrote the rules system so that 'Rules' and 'Balance' didn't get in the way of buying models.

0-1 Baneblade in your Codex? Well that'll discourage you from buying that second Baneblade.
Only allowed one Assassin of any type in your army? Well that'll put people off buying our new shiny boardgame assassin boxed set.

Etc.

The new detachments, and so on are very clearly written from the perspective of a company that doesn't want you to put a fluffy warhammer setting army on the table, but rather whats to provide a ruleset that's as permissive as possible for you using whatever models you own, regardless of sanity. Want to bring an army of nothing but space marine captains? Now you can! An Army with 18 Astropaths? Go for it! An Army of all Space Marine Captains and Astropaths accompanied by two squads of Fallen Dark Angels? Yes Sir!

Problem with 0-1 restrictions though is those are also unfluffy. Or you think in 40k there never ever ever is 2 baneblades at the same time on battlefield? Despite fluff describing such battles.

I was being silly with my 0-1 restriction on Baneblades. To the best of my knowledge, that specifically has never been a thing. Back in my day you never actually saw them because they had no place in a platoon skirmish game, and then only appeared in Apocalypse games where everyone felt they belonged.

Once again however, the rules system has changed. Want to play titans? In an infantry platoon skirmish! Yes Sir, you can do that now too. What's that you say? Those are for large engagements? Ha, don't be so silly.

The orginal deployment limitations were included primarily for fluff, and occasionally for balence. Both concepts I am 100% behind. But unfortunately now Fluff/Balance<Sales.

Much like, 'You can only use special characters with opponents permission.' What? Your opponent might say no, so you can't play them, so you might not buy them? We can't have that!

The final causality of this mindset was the CAD. Whadda you mean, at 2,000 points people are only able to buy and field three heavy support/elites choices? That's silly. Now you can field 18! Quick everyone, go rebuy your armies to allow for the vast expansion in different types of unit you can field at once.

Huh? Imperial Guard companies now need to be lead by a dozen officers/lord commissars to even be legal? That's not realistic? ... Oh, but the rules are really good and competitive? Sweet, carry on then...

I think the only time I've seen anyone advocate using an IG Junior officer is as a lone ally in another faction list for the sole reason of giving him the AM Relic of moar command points.



Anywayy... Back on topic. GW is pushing duplicate units for duplicate sales, and TO's are pushing less duplicate units because they make for exceptionally dull games, particularly when spread across the entire event.>

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Right, I think when she said roleplay game, she meant something different than actually roleplaying as your army.

Roleplaying as any army anywhere will usually involve spam, since that's how armies do.

I would like to see this Highlander crowd in historical wargames though. "Oh, your Ranger battalion that has to scale the cliffs to spike the enemy artillery? Yeah it didn't include enough tanks, towed artillery, and very heavy weapons. It's not a real force."

"I'm sorry but you're not allowed that many tanks in this battle"
"But we're recreating the Battle of Kursk...?"
"Well you'll have to do it with less tanks, you're only allowed two."

 deviantduck wrote:
Trilander isn't nearly as restrictive as Highlander. Outside IG, how many people take more than 3 of the same unit? Have it exclude troops and it's not too unreasonable.

My SoB might get around that, barely - but only because I have Immolator kits instead of bare-bones Rhinos so I can have a few of each. And it will leave me short on bodies if it does include troops as I only have one choice to choose from.

It's very fluffy to have a SoB force drown you in power-armored bodies while the specialist units hammer your support into oblivion.

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
I was being silly with my 0-1 restriction on Baneblades. To the best of my knowledge, that specifically has never been a thing. Back in my day you never actually saw them because they had no place in a platoon skirmish game, and then only appeared in Apocalypse games where everyone felt they belonged.

Once again however, the rules system has changed. Want to play titans? In an infantry platoon skirmish! Yes Sir, you can do that now too. What's that you say? Those are for large engagements? Ha, don't be so silly.

The orginal deployment limitations were included primarily for fluff, and occasionally for balence. Both concepts I am 100% behind. But unfortunately now Fluff/Balance<Sales.

Much like, 'You can only use special characters with opponents permission.' What? Your opponent might say no, so you can't play them, so you might not buy them? We can't have that!

The final causality of this mindset was the CAD. Whadda you mean, at 2,000 points people are only able to buy and field three heavy support/elites choices? That's silly. Now you can field 18! Quick everyone, go rebuy your armies to allow for the vast expansion in different types of unit you can field at once.

Huh? Imperial Guard companies now need to be lead by a dozen officers/lord commissars to even be legal? That's not realistic? ... Oh, but the rules are really good and competitive? Sweet, carry on then...

I think the only time I've seen anyone advocate using an IG Junior officer is as a lone ally in another faction list for the sole reason of giving him the AM Relic of moar command points.



Anywayy... Back on topic. GW is pushing duplicate units for duplicate sales, and TO's are pushing less duplicate units because they make for exceptionally dull games, particularly when spread across the entire event.>

But again those restictions leads to LESS fluffy armies. Also remember 40k battles are highlight parts of bigger battles with more stuff going on around.

If you want balance fix rules rather than make extra restrictions and if you do restrictions do them unit by unit basis on problem units rather than blanket restrictions that not only hinder making fluffy armies just screw balance more.

Imposing general restrictions (especially old ones like CAD) hurts different armies to different degrees and fixes nothing.

At the start of 8th one of the most OP things was a basic troops+elite choice: Conscripts backed by a commisar. No soup shenaniagans or strange rule stacking needed, just conscripts and their babysitter.

Yes there is imbalance in bringning 3 superheavies but as Unit can attest it's rolling the dice that your opponent doesn't use the counters more so then genuine invincibility.

Wich stands in stark contrast with Alpha legion Khorne berzerkers. it'(s a very specific combination of rules and abilities that make them OP to the point of near invincibilty.

All 3 examples are not fun to play against and feel really OP if you're on the wrong side of them.

CAD based restrictions, do nothing to the conscripts, outright outlaw the superheavies, and inflict a minor inconveniece on the berzerkers.

Highlander has almost the same effect on the first 2 lists, it is a bigger inconvenience to the berzerkers but only limits their effectiveness.

All these cases (and others ) need to be adressed individually and every issue fixed seperately. This is the main advantage of getting rid of USR, a chance to Eldar never direclty effects SM or vice-versa.

For every Op FW choice there are underpowered, correclty powered,highly situationally powered (see the three superheavey example above). So blanket banning them isn't getting rid of OP gak. It's just getting rid of variables.

TLDR:universal fixes don't fix balance, they break as much as they fix.

There was a time in 8th edition Warhammer where this sort of thing was quite prevalent and it was a terrible idea then just as it is now. The problem with any blanket restriction is that it affects different armies in different ways. Necrons and Dark Eldar, for example, have very few Troops options so you make taking Battalions very difficult.

In WH, the restrictions were trying to prevent specific armies taking specific units (Hydras and Hellpit Abominations in most cases). The real problem was that TOs were reluctant to single those units out so used a blanket restriction. If there's a problem with certain armies spamming certain things and you want to stop that then you need to do it specifically, otherwise you end up with unintended consequences.

The highlander format may work at 1000 points or lower games. In standard games several armies can't really play without duplicating some units.

 Elbows wrote:
It's not a crap rule, at all.

Why? Because it's their event. You don't like it? Don't attend. Send them a polite message letting them know that. End of story.

If a rule is bad or design is bad, the opinion is gonna be out there. For example, Highlander is one of the laziest excuses for an attempt at balance that has ever been created, and anyone encouraging that should be ashamed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Highlander is for people who want to play a roleplay game, not a wargame.

It's not even good for roleplaying. Lots of fluff-accurate lists have to have duplicate units to be fluffy.

If you want role playing, use a Supreme Command Detachment and run wild with upgrades.

tneva82 wrote:

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
I was being silly with my 0-1 restriction on Baneblades. To the best of my knowledge, that specifically has never been a thing. Back in my day you never actually saw them because they had no place in a platoon skirmish game, and then only appeared in Apocalypse games where everyone felt they belonged.

Once again however, the rules system has changed. Want to play titans? In an infantry platoon skirmish! Yes Sir, you can do that now too. What's that you say? Those are for large engagements? Ha, don't be so silly.

The orginal deployment limitations were included primarily for fluff, and occasionally for balence. Both concepts I am 100% behind. But unfortunately now Fluff/Balance<Sales.

Much like, 'You can only use special characters with opponents permission.' What? Your opponent might say no, so you can't play them, so you might not buy them? We can't have that!

The final causality of this mindset was the CAD. Whadda you mean, at 2,000 points people are only able to buy and field three heavy support/elites choices? That's silly. Now you can field 18! Quick everyone, go rebuy your armies to allow for the vast expansion in different types of unit you can field at once.

Huh? Imperial Guard companies now need to be lead by a dozen officers/lord commissars to even be legal? That's not realistic? ... Oh, but the rules are really good and competitive? Sweet, carry on then...

I think the only time I've seen anyone advocate using an IG Junior officer is as a lone ally in another faction list for the sole reason of giving him the AM Relic of moar command points.



Anywayy... Back on topic. GW is pushing duplicate units for duplicate sales, and TO's are pushing less duplicate units because they make for exceptionally dull games, particularly when spread across the entire event.>

But again those restictions leads to LESS fluffy armies. Also remember 40k battles are highlight parts of bigger battles with more stuff going on around.

If you want balance fix rules rather than make extra restrictions and if you do restrictions do them unit by unit basis on problem units rather than blanket restrictions that not only hinder making fluffy armies just screw balance more.

The issue with trying to fix armies without restrictions of some kind is that you cannot have units that feel appropriate, allow for unrestricted army build, and have balanced gameplay. If you allow for all tank armies you are specifically allowing skew lists which are inherently unbalanced, unless tanks don't function like tanks on the table. If matched play is supposed to be the balanced, "competitive" way to play the game restrictions of some kind should be put into the game.

My personal preference would have been for GW to have gone back to percentage based force org, and restructured battlefield roles to fit into such a system. This will restrict some fluffy armies, but if we acknowledge that recreating battles is part of narrative or open play and not competitive gaming, that would not matter. You cannot both have balance and the ability to make whatever army you want on the table, those ideas are mutually exclusive.

I really like highlander armies as a way to balance things. I also feel like making a battalion a requirement for any army besides knights would be a good thing. Lower points values for tournaments too would be nice. 1750 or 1500.

 sennacherib wrote:
I really like highlander armies as a way to balance things. I also feel like making a battalion a requirement for any army besides knights would be a good thing. Lower points values for tournaments too would be nice. 1750 or 1500.

The problem for ideas like this is the large difference in both cost and effectiveness of troop choices. For instance Orks don't really care about needing to take 3 troop units because boyz are an excellent choice, but Marines may not want to put many points into troops. Also some armies can fill their 3 troops for less points than one troop choice for other armies. This is why I like the percentage idea as everyone ends up spending the same amount of points on "core choices" though I feel like the Troop slot needs to be expanded for many armies for this to make for a good idea.

 sennacherib wrote:
I really like highlander armies as a way to balance things. I also feel like making a battalion a requirement for any army besides knights would be a good thing. Lower points values for tournaments too would be nice. 1750 or 1500.

Highlander has been tried for balance for 2 decades. Never worked and indeed has just worsened balance. What would make it work now? Hell Imperium soup would now benefit from it even more than before so rather than 8th ed making it suddenly highlander=balance it makes it even worse than before...

 ChargerIIC wrote:

I'll play variants like 2vs2 or apoc, but don't force me to deal with your armchair game design that secretly benefits you and your friends.

Exactly. I clearly remember the slowed house ruled restrictions heavily biased against Tau. Was it NOVA or ETC?

 Zewrath wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:

I'll play variants like 2vs2 or apoc, but don't force me to deal with your armchair game design that secretly benefits you and your friends.

Exactly. I clearly remember the slowed house ruled restrictions heavily biased against Tau. Was it NOVA or ETC?

Those restrictions basically got hoisted into the official rules with 8th, what with loads of our units jumping up in cost whilst decreasing in effectiveness.

Question- In highlander where you require 3 troops but no duplication how do you play a GK army? GK only have 2 troop choices. Same with Sisters, IIRC, they only have 1 troop choice.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Question- In highlander where you require 3 troops but no duplication how do you play a GK army? GK only have 2 troop choices. Same with Sisters, IIRC, they only have 1 troop choice.

Sometimes the Highlander restriction doesn't apply to units with the Troops battlefield role.

Otherwise, you can either stick to Patrol detachments, or play soup.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
House Rules should have no place in a tournament. They were exactly why I played WM/H instead up until eighth dropped and I learned that the house rules were being dropped in my meta.

I'll play variants like 2vs2 or apoc, but don't force me to deal with your armchair game design that secretly benefits you and your friends.

Yeah, this. You wanna play 40k, particularly in a tournament format? Then you use the official rules and nothing more. Rules are rules, and this isn't brikwars so you don't have some "well, I can change the rules if I want to do something else" concept the game allows. If that means one side has an edge.....yeah, welcome to 40k. 40k has never been perfectly balanced, and while 8th still has flaws, it's a decent effort over the past. If you want to try to bring it into full and proper balance, get a job at GW and start working on 9th edition.

 Battlegrinder wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
House Rules should have no place in a tournament. They were exactly why I played WM/H instead up until eighth dropped and I learned that the house rules were being dropped in my meta.

I'll play variants like 2vs2 or apoc, but don't force me to deal with your armchair game design that secretly benefits you and your friends.

Yeah, this. You wanna play 40k, particularly in a tournament format? Then you use the official rules and nothing more. Rules are rules, and this isn't brikwars so you don't have some "well, I can change the rules if I want to do something else" concept the game allows. If that means one side has an edge.....yeah, welcome to 40k. 40k has never been perfectly balanced, and while 8th still has flaws, it's a decent effort over the past. If you want to try to bring it into full and proper balance, get a job at GW and start working on 9th edition.

Except most Tournaments use there own house rules.

specifically in there own formatted missions.

Rules are rules, and this isn't brikwars so you don't have some "well, I can change the rules if I want to do something else" concept the game allows

The GW rules pretty much openly encourage you to houserule. Their devs tell you to do it. The warhammer community page will tell you to do it.

Its pretty much a given that the game should be houseruled if you don't like things about it.

 auticus wrote:

Rules are rules, and this isn't brikwars so you don't have some "well, I can change the rules if I want to do something else" concept the game allows

The GW rules pretty much openly encourage you to houserule. Their devs tell you to do it. The warhammer community page will tell you to do it.

Its pretty much a given that the game should be houseruled if you don't like things about it.

Especially as game literally cannot function sensibly without them.

But there's limits to those and the highlander is taking things way too far. Especially when it's on one of the biggest tournaments of year in the country...It's simply too unbalanced rule for such a tournament.

 deviantduck wrote:
Trilander isn't nearly as restrictive as Highlander. Outside IG, how many people take more than 3 of the same unit? Have it exclude troops and it's not too unreasonable.

My inquisition army

 Jaxler wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:
Trilander isn't nearly as restrictive as Highlander. Outside IG, how many people take more than 3 of the same unit? Have it exclude troops and it's not too unreasonable.

My inquisition army

Its not a real army. not since it was combined together and had parts of it ripped out into other half armies.

but then with the way building a list work its still possible to make a 100% highlander army. you just lose your bonuses(?)

 Desubot wrote:

 Jaxler wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:
Trilander isn't nearly as restrictive as Highlander. Outside IG, how many people take more than 3 of the same unit? Have it exclude troops and it's not too unreasonable.

My inquisition army

Its not a real army. not since it was combined together and had parts of it ripped out into other half armies.

but then with the way building a list work its still possible to make a 100% highlander army. you just lose your bonuses(?)

My inquisition army is inquisition, grey Knights and scions. It is fluffy, but my troop choices and such are rather restricted. If I wanted to keep things fluffy, the limitations that were stated would screw me.

Also is telling people they can’t use more than 3 of the same transport, when some armies only have one, a good idea?

These restrictions always penalise the armies that are already struggling with a poor selection of viable units and then compound it by making the slot those units occupy really important.

If you've got plenty of good units to choose from then you pick your strongest elite, FA HS and take 3x each. No worries.

If you've got a poor selection of good units and all of your elites are garbage? (just for example) Sucks to be you.