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HoundsofDemos wrote:
It's a hammer solution to a problem that really required a scalpel solution. I wish GW would have reintroduced the 0-1 or 0- whatever limit for individual units rather than an across the board only 3 of any one thing, a restriction that some factions can make a mockery of.

You see if maybee certain sheets had a limit.
But that would not be good for the bottom line now would it.

Also rip veterans.

ValentineGames wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
You're the only person mentioning a gaming group as far as I've seen. OP simply said that "someone accused him" of breaking the rule and that it was a Matched Play rule.

Simply put:
Matched Play != Rule of 3. It's an optional rule.

Cool story bro. Optional rule it may be, but it is a de facto real rule amongst multiple play groups across the world. You can stomp your feet all you want, but all it will get you is no opponents.

Or maybe they should play by the rules instead...

I challenge you to find me a single gaming group that plays 100% by the rules, nothing optional. You won't. Because it's impossible. Many "optional" rules in games are adopted by playerbases and become de facto rules, this phenomenon is not just limited to 40k; you can find a whole gamut of games that have this. You can ask if you want to waive them but coming in stomping your feet declaring "bUt It'S nOt A rUlE!!!" when the vast majority of the community abides by it will not get you many games.

There are people who legitimately believe that it is a 100%, RAW rule. Because people have told them that...because other people have told them that, and so on and so forth.

It's a legitimate problem exacerbated by the belief of 'everyone does it'. It's one thing for a gaming group to actually say "We usually use the Rule of 3 for pick-up games"--it's another thing entirely for a few individuals who always happen to be around to proclaim that it is/isn't in play.

TLDR version? It will always come down to "Talk to your opponent unless you're in a group that actually has set in stone rules".

You... you, know what de facto means, right?

It is a rule in all but a name. You can be all king Canute on it all you want, but it will achieve nothing. We have 2 FLGSs, 1 GW and a gaming club all in the city I am in. Guess what- they all use the rule of 3. Nobody says they are using it, but everyone builds their army with the assumption it is in effect as it almost always is.

 Kanluwen wrote:
My Phobos Raven Guard lists would be "invalid" because until we get the Codex, the Phobos Lt is 1 per slot not 2. Hell--the sheer number of Reivers(REIVERS!) would be invalid unless I'm Combat Squadding given what I can run.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yes, how dare I field four squads of Reivers!

I am going to call foul here and ask who exactly fields more than 30 reivers. Might I ask for a list, because it doesn't exactly seem real to me?

redboi wrote:
Dread lists, terminator wings, biker armies, bully boyz nob lists, etc. None of which are even remotely competitive or OP but are impossible when using this "rule"

Standard codex SM terminator list can fit 130 of them even with rule of 3, costing over 5000 points. If you're playing DA, it will be twice that. Care to repeat 'no terminator wings' with straight face, again?

Ditto with dreadwings, even without reaching for FW dreads or using BA, you can field 18 of them straight out of Codex: SM (add 4 more if you take HQ dreads). That is again, well over 2500 points. I have no idea why you'd need more, except, oh wait, you're not trying to spam the broken garbage that is only technically dread and even more technically an SM unit, are you?

 Grimtuff wrote:
You... you, know what de facto means, right?

It is a rule in all but a name. You can be all king Canute on it all you want, but it will achieve nothing. We have 2 FLGSs, 1 GW and a gaming club all in the city I am in. Guess what- they all use the rule of 3. Nobody says they are using it, but everyone builds their army with the assumption it is in effect as it almost always is.

Your attitude is so hilariously over the top and confrontational.

Take a deep breath, relax, and remember that playing the game is meant to be about having fun, not weaponising rules for point scoring or using it as a venue for demonstrating your superiority.

I don't play by the rule of three. My friends don't play by the rule of three. If someone asks to play that way, fine.

 Irbis wrote:
Standard codex SM terminator list can fit 130 of them even with rule of 3, costing over 5000 points. If you're playing DA, it will be twice that. Care to repeat 'no terminator wings' with straight face, again?

At 5,000 points, it is no longer a rule of 3 - I *think* it would scale to a rule of 6, though I don't have the appropriate FAQ to hand to check.

 Sentineil wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
You... you, know what de facto means, right?

It is a rule in all but a name. You can be all king Canute on it all you want, but it will achieve nothing. We have 2 FLGSs, 1 GW and a gaming club all in the city I am in. Guess what- they all use the rule of 3. Nobody says they are using it, but everyone builds their army with the assumption it is in effect as it almost always is.

Your attitude is so hilariously over the top and confrontational.

Take a deep breath, relax, and remember that playing the game is meant to be about having fun, not weaponising rules for point scoring or using it as a venue for demonstrating your superiority.

I don't play by the rule of three. My friends don't play by the rule of three. If someone asks to play that way, fine.

To be fair, Grimtuff's message was in response to the same person who said to "be hard" on people for using the Rule of Three. Which is equally "over the top and confrontational."

 flandarz wrote:

 Sentineil wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
You... you, know what de facto means, right?

It is a rule in all but a name. You can be all king Canute on it all you want, but it will achieve nothing. We have 2 FLGSs, 1 GW and a gaming club all in the city I am in. Guess what- they all use the rule of 3. Nobody says they are using it, but everyone builds their army with the assumption it is in effect as it almost always is.

Your attitude is so hilariously over the top and confrontational.

Take a deep breath, relax, and remember that playing the game is meant to be about having fun, not weaponising rules for point scoring or using it as a venue for demonstrating your superiority.

I don't play by the rule of three. My friends don't play by the rule of three. If someone asks to play that way, fine.

To be fair, Grimtuff's message was in response to the same person who said to "be hard" on people for using the Rule of Three. Which is equally "over the top and confrontational."

I understand that, and I don't agree with being hard on anyone for getting a rule wrong. I just disagree with patronising and aggressive statements like "Cool Story bro" and "bUt It'S nOt A rUlE!!!".

It takes a lot less effort to be civil to someone than trying to be clever and cruel.

We're all here because we enjoy the hobby, well, most of us, so let's talk as though we're enthusiasts who disagree rather than polarised factions deriding eachother with snide remarks.

 flandarz wrote:

To be fair, Grimtuff's message was in response to the same person who said to "be hard" on people for using the Rule of Three. Which is equally "over the top and confrontational."

And to be more fair, my response was because the OP said that someone accused him of breaking a rule that might not necessarily have actually been assumed to be in play.

I know that if I go to play at my local GW? I don't have to worry about the Rule of 3.
If I go, say, to one of the local independents where there's a gaming group? I probably will have to--but I can always ask in advance.
If I go to a tournament, I'm going to just assume it's in effect and go from there.

 Irbis wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
My Phobos Raven Guard lists would be "invalid" because until we get the Codex, the Phobos Lt is 1 per slot not 2. Hell--the sheer number of Reivers(REIVERS!) would be invalid unless I'm Combat Squadding given what I can run.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yes, how dare I field four squads of Reivers!

I am going to call foul here and ask who exactly fields more than 30 reivers. Might I ask for a list, because it doesn't exactly seem real to me?

Oh hell no I don't run 31+ Reivers. They suck.

The point is that, though-they suck. Why restrict them? And yet units like Plaguebearers, that are good, are unlimited.

"It's an optional rule. Wait, why are you putting 7 Calladius Grav Tanks on the table?" -Casual Gamers, probably

 Irbis wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
My Phobos Raven Guard lists would be "invalid" because until we get the Codex, the Phobos Lt is 1 per slot not 2. Hell--the sheer number of Reivers(REIVERS!) would be invalid unless I'm Combat Squadding given what I can run.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yes, how dare I field four squads of Reivers!

I am going to call foul here and ask who exactly fields more than 30 reivers. Might I ask for a list, because it doesn't exactly seem real to me?

redboi wrote:
Dread lists, terminator wings, biker armies, bully boyz nob lists, etc. None of which are even remotely competitive or OP but are impossible when using this "rule"

Standard codex SM terminator list can fit 130 of them even with rule of 3, costing over 5000 points. If you're playing DA, it will be twice that. Care to repeat 'no terminator wings' with straight face, again?

Ditto with dreadwings, even without reaching for FW dreads or using BA, you can field 18 of them straight out of Codex: SM (add 4 more if you take HQ dreads). That is again, well over 2500 points. I have no idea why you'd need more, except, oh wait, you're not trying to spam the broken garbage that is only technically dread and even more technically an SM unit, are you?

3x10 terminators is only around 1000 pts. 3x dreads and 3x venerable is only around 800. Stop being intentionally dishonest.

Funny you bring up the OP forgeworld dreads, because if you want to run a dread list you are pretty much required to use them to fill out a list. Again, what is more cheesy; running 6x dreads or 3x dreads and 3x leviathans?

It's a tournament rule that people somehow assumed was a matched play rule and now it's considered to be a universal rule because people think anything that is good for tournaments should be adopted in every game. SO you see horsegak like people asking for list advice for non-tournament games being told they "can't" have more than 3 of a datasheet when that is NOT the case, and half the time people don't even mention that it's in effect.

People are just morons and assume that it's always something that's played, becasue everyone else thinks it's always something that's played.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
There are people who legitimately believe that it is a 100%, RAW rule. Because people have told them that...because other people have told them that, and so on and so forth.

It's a legitimate problem exacerbated by the belief of 'everyone does it'. It's one thing for a gaming group to actually say "We usually use the Rule of 3 for pick-up games"--it's another thing entirely for a few individuals who always happen to be around to proclaim that it is/isn't in play.

TLDR version? It will always come down to "Talk to your opponent unless you're in a group that actually has set in stone rules".

Baically this. People think it's a matched play rule because everyone else thinks it's a matched play rule because some group somewhere was mostly tournament guys and use organized play rules, and that spread like an infection to everywhere else.

 Grimtuff wrote:

ValentineGames wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
You're the only person mentioning a gaming group as far as I've seen. OP simply said that "someone accused him" of breaking the rule and that it was a Matched Play rule.

Simply put:
Matched Play != Rule of 3. It's an optional rule.

Cool story bro. Optional rule it may be, but it is a de facto real rule amongst multiple play groups across the world. You can stomp your feet all you want, but all it will get you is no opponents.

Or maybe they should play by the rules instead...

I challenge you to find me a single gaming group that plays 100% by the rules, nothing optional. You won't. Because it's impossible. Many "optional" rules in games are adopted by playerbases and become de facto rules, this phenomenon is not just limited to 40k; you can find a whole gamut of games that have this. You can ask if you want to waive them but coming in stomping your feet declaring "bUt It'S nOt A rUlE!!!" when the vast majority of the community abides by it will not get you many games.

Yet weirdly if you suggest house ruling something to cancerous communities such as DakkaDakka or changing a rule or if you interpret something different to the 'elite' you'll get your head ripped off and you'll be the only one to blame.

Which would suggest offline these people must force the same standards on others in the real world.

Wayniac wrote:Baically this. People think it's a matched play rule because everyone else thinks it's a matched play rule because some group somewhere was mostly tournament guys and use organized play rules, and that spread like an infection to everywhere else.

Or more charitably, people generally like to play the same game that is being played competitively. Even if they aren't playing anywhere close to that standard, it is seen as the 'real' game to many people.

Sometimes its easier to stick to the facts of the situation and present the most commonly accepted situation and not try to impose ones will or ideals on another club where one is only speaking to a single person from the group and has no means to "enforce" a change.

Any club is free to follow or add any rules to the game; heck any individual game between two or more players is free to do whatever they want.

By all means its good to show what are rules and what are guidlelines; what the difference is and also what the practical uptake on them is in general. To advise people that a rule or advisory note is generally used or is not; and for what reasoning.

Otherwise the OP and his opponent are free to talk about the game and come to their own conclusion on if they include the rule or not. Maybe they agree, maybe they agree to disagree - whatever. It's not about scoring points being right; this game has enough rules that we've ALL broken and twisted and forgotten them over time

redboi wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
My Phobos Raven Guard lists would be "invalid" because until we get the Codex, the Phobos Lt is 1 per slot not 2. Hell--the sheer number of Reivers(REIVERS!) would be invalid unless I'm Combat Squadding given what I can run.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yes, how dare I field four squads of Reivers!

I am going to call foul here and ask who exactly fields more than 30 reivers. Might I ask for a list, because it doesn't exactly seem real to me?

redboi wrote:
Dread lists, terminator wings, biker armies, bully boyz nob lists, etc. None of which are even remotely competitive or OP but are impossible when using this "rule"

Standard codex SM terminator list can fit 130 of them even with rule of 3, costing over 5000 points. If you're playing DA, it will be twice that. Care to repeat 'no terminator wings' with straight face, again?

Ditto with dreadwings, even without reaching for FW dreads or using BA, you can field 18 of them straight out of Codex: SM (add 4 more if you take HQ dreads). That is again, well over 2500 points. I have no idea why you'd need more, except, oh wait, you're not trying to spam the broken garbage that is only technically dread and even more technically an SM unit, are you?

3x10 terminators is only around 1000 pts. 3x dreads and 3x venerable is only around 800. Stop being intentionally dishonest.

Funny you bring up the OP forgeworld dreads, because if you want to run a dread list you are pretty much required to use them to fill out a list. Again, what is more cheesy; running 6x dreads or 3x dreads and 3x leviathans?

You checked the codex before posting this as their is 4 terminator squad datasheets so that's 3x4 x10 thats way over the point at which rule of 3 becomes 4,5 etc
Their is also more than dread and venerable their is contemptor and redemptor and then if your struggling the new not a dreadnaught honest.
It's more often than not that people won't run into fielding 4+ of the same datasheet for people to even have to ask them to comply, but also if it's clealry not a cheeser move to spam a powerful unit most casual environments will be ok aslong as you have that conversation before the game starts.

Ice_can wrote:

You checked the codex before posting this as their is 4 terminator squad datasheets so that's 3x4 x10 thats way over the point at which rule of 3 becomes 4,5 etc
Their is also more than dread and venerable their is contemptor and redemptor and then if your struggling the new not a dreadnaught honest.
It's more often than not that people won't run into fielding 4+ of the same datasheet for people to even have to ask them to comply, but also if it's clealry not a cheeser move to spam a powerful unit most casual environments will be ok aslong as you have that conversation before the game starts.

What if I don't want incoherent mishmash of different styles? It is completely bonkers to think that four normal terminator squads is somehow a problem but two normal and two cataphrachtii is not.

The 'rule' is just plain stupid. Overwhelming majority of units it restrict do not need such a restriction, and those which do should be handled by tweaking their point costs as they're obviously too good for their points. It favours armies which have a large selection of nominally different units that fulfil the same role. Like how marines have seven thousand different versions of Captains and special character Captains but the Dark Eldar have just one Archon datasheet. Super fair guys!

 Crimson wrote:
What if I don't want incoherent mishmash of different styles? It is completely bonkers to think that four normal terminator squads is somehow a problem but two normal and two cataphrachtii is not.

The 'rule' is just plain stupid. Overwhelming majority of units it restrict do not need such a restriction, and those which do should be handled by tweaking their point costs as they're obviously too good for their points. It favours armies which have a large selection of nominally different units that fulfil the same role. Like how marines have seven thousand different versions of Captains and special character Captains but the Dark Eldar have just one Archon datasheet. Super fair guys!

That argument has been proven wrong so many times, don't you ever get sick of repeating it?
1) Having unlimited amounts of a single game piece in any kind of game that allows you to build your deck/army/dice pool/characters has been proven to be a terrible idea with many examples and studies. Google it.
2) Some units become better when you spam them. Your average army can handle one PBC. It can usually handle two. It will struggle to handle three and horribly fail to handle 8.
3) Considering how slow GW's response time is, a white-list attempt at keeping the game non-toxic is preferable over a black-list attempt. Thanks to the rule of 3, SAG spam has never become an issue, and that's a good thing.

Also an anecdote from one of the stores near me:
The players there have usurped the rule of 3 for non-tournament games (as they are not "organized") and their meta has deranged into "who brings the most foetid bloat drones", with the gaming nights bleeding players and struggling to get new people to come. Who would have guessed.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
What if I don't want incoherent mishmash of different styles? It is completely bonkers to think that four normal terminator squads is somehow a problem but two normal and two cataphrachtii is not.

The 'rule' is just plain stupid. Overwhelming majority of units it restrict do not need such a restriction, and those which do should be handled by tweaking their point costs as they're obviously too good for their points. It favours armies which have a large selection of nominally different units that fulfil the same role. Like how marines have seven thousand different versions of Captains and special character Captains but the Dark Eldar have just one Archon datasheet. Super fair guys!

That argument has been proven wrong so many times, don't you ever get sick of repeating it?
1) Having unlimited amounts of a single game piece in any kind of game that allows you to build your deck/army/dice pool/characters has been proven to be a terrible idea with many examples and studies. Google it.
2) Some units become better when you spam them. Your average army can handle one PBC. It can usually handle two. It will struggle to handle three and horribly fail to handle 8.
3) Considering how slow GW's response time is, a white-list attempt at keeping the game non-toxic is preferable over a black-list attempt. Thanks to the rule of 3, SAG spam has never become an issue, and that's a good thing.

Also an anecdote from one of the stores near me:
The players there have usurped the rule of 3 for non-tournament games (as they are not "organized") and their meta has deranged into "who brings the most foetid bloat drones", with the gaming nights bleeding players and struggling to get new people to come. Who would have guessed.

This "rule of 3" AKA the OG FOC was never a problem in earlier editions. Why is it all of a sudden a problem now? Unless you're going to spam the hell out of something then it should never really be an issue given the sizes of games and the points you're sinking in. Those 3 squads of Termies are a good chunk of a 2k list.

 Jidmah wrote:

That argument has been proven wrong so many times, don't you ever get sick of repeating it?
1) Having unlimited amounts of a single game piece in any kind of game that allows you to build your deck/army/dice pool/characters has been proven to be a terrible idea with many examples and studies. Google it.
2) Some units become better when you spam them. Your average army can handle one PBC. It can usually handle two. It will struggle to handle three and horribly fail to handle 8.
3) Considering how slow GW's response time is, a white-list attempt at keeping the game non-toxic is preferable over a black-list attempt. Thanks to the rule of 3, SAG spam has never become an issue, and that's a good thing.

This would be valid if the rule restricted units by roles, but it doesn't. 'Datasheet' is a terrible basis for such restrictions. One army has one unit with OP doom guns, another army has three marginally differnt units with OP doom guns, and third can sqadron their OP doom gun units. The latter two can still bring obscene amount of OP doom guns, whilst the first one can't. Oh, unless you soup, then you take different OP doom gun units from several armies. It is just an utterly gakky way to resolve this issue.

To be fair, the FOC could make certain iconic units spam-able though by shifting them to troops or dedicated transport

You also need to keep in mind that a large portion of the posters here has not played before 6th.

 Grimtuff wrote:

This "rule of 3" AKA the OG FOC was never a problem in earlier editions. Why is it all of a sudden a problem now? Unless you're going to spam the hell out of something then it should never really be an issue given the sizes of games and the points you're sinking in. Those 3 squads of Termies are a good chunk of a 2k list.

FOC was way more logical and fairer way to do this. The limit applied to the role instead of individual units. (Granted, some units being classified weirdly could mess it up a bit.) Like an army with several viable heavy support units didn't have a massive advantage over an army that had just one.

 Crimson wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

That argument has been proven wrong so many times, don't you ever get sick of repeating it?
1) Having unlimited amounts of a single game piece in any kind of game that allows you to build your deck/army/dice pool/characters has been proven to be a terrible idea with many examples and studies. Google it.
2) Some units become better when you spam them. Your average army can handle one PBC. It can usually handle two. It will struggle to handle three and horribly fail to handle 8.
3) Considering how slow GW's response time is, a white-list attempt at keeping the game non-toxic is preferable over a black-list attempt. Thanks to the rule of 3, SAG spam has never become an issue, and that's a good thing.

This would be valid if the rule restricted units by roles, but it doesn't. 'Datasheet' is a terrible basis for such restrictions. One army has one unit with OP doom guns, another army has three marginally differnt units with OP doom guns, and third can sqadron their OP doom gun units. The latter two can still bring obscene amount of OP doom guns, whilst the first one can't. Oh, unless you soup, then you take different OP doom gun units from several armies. It is just an utterly gakky way to resolve this issue.

You are wrong. None of your (rightfully) criticized points make any of my points invalid.
You points in detail:
Different but same datasheets - this seems to be an intended way of GW to get around the rule of three, allowing certain units like carnifexes or battlewagon to be taken in larger numbers. They have put a limit on this where deemed it necessary, like commanders and daemon princes.
Squadrons - yeah, GW has not given this any thought, and now it seems like pure luck that it didn't blow up in their face. However, they still took away the "unlimited" part, allowing them to balance against a maximum of 3 squadrons.
Soup - is there an actual example of this besides that axed daemon princes? Even so, this is no different from usual souping.

So in general, I agree that the rule of 3 could have been implemented better if it were connected to some sort of unit keyword, but they simply missed that chance. The rule we have right now does its job just fine.
Removing the current rule of 3 has no advantage over keeping it, while an unlimited access to all units almost certainly would ruin the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

This "rule of 3" AKA the OG FOC was never a problem in earlier editions. Why is it all of a sudden a problem now? Unless you're going to spam the hell out of something then it should never really be an issue given the sizes of games and the points you're sinking in. Those 3 squads of Termies are a good chunk of a 2k list.

FOC was way more logical and fairer way to do this. The limit applied to the role instead of individual units. (Granted, some units being classified weirdly could mess it up a bit.) Like an army with several viable heavy support units didn't have a massive advantage over an army that had just one.

Unless one unit was essential to your army strategy, and simply removed everything else in that slot from the game

The issue is that the "Rule of 3" is a bandaid fix because GW is unwilling to do the real solution, which is to bring back limitations for certain things. If something is meant to be rare, then make it fething rare. But no, they won't do that so we have a half-assed solution which was fine in the days of one FOC, and not in the day of being able to take multiple detachments. If we only had Patrol/Battalion/Brigade as a choice and not the other options, then the rule of 3 would make sense.

Game with intentionally undefined sense of scale and scope so people can buy and play with whatever they want, where sneaky stabby assassins and ICBM's are lined up on a football field for pitched battles, implements hamfisted uneven approach to major balance issue, news at 11

 Jidmah wrote:

You are wrong.

No I'm not.

Different but same datasheets - this seems to be an intended way of GW to get around the rule of three, allowing certain units like carnifexes or battlewagon to be taken in larger numbers. They have put a limit on this where deemed it necessary, like commanders and daemon princes.

It is not intended at all! Are you high? Most of the datasheets were designed befor RO3 existed, and units themselves were designed maybe even decades ago.

Squadrons - yeah, GW has not given this any thought, and now it seems like pure luck that it didn't blow up in their face. However, they still took away the "unlimited" part, allowing them to balance against a maximum of 3 squadrons.

Right. So here again it randomly affects certain armies disproportionately.

Soup - is there an actual example of this besides that axed daemon princes? Even so, this is no different from usual souping.

I am a huge supporter of soup, but this is exactly the sort of stupid gamist advantage it shouldn't have.

As someone who is in the leadership of a local club I think the rule of 3 is a good rule. Yes it is not internally balanced well, for example the pt jump for admech between a tech priest and an enginseer is so high for limited utility that it can be frustrating, but at the end of the day it limits skew.

I find it weird that people have said that it limits thier ability to bring themed lists and therefore should be removed. There are three types of play, open, narrative, and matched play. Matched play favors balance over fluff, if you want to bring a themed spam list play narrative.

When you have casual players come in and dedicate 4 hours to playing a game, it can be incredibly frustrating to go against skew lists where they have lost from the start bc they didnt take triple the normal amount of counter weapons. Mass infantry and Knight builds are especially egregious in this regard.

Reminds me of when Flyrant spam was a thing.