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PenitentJake wrote:

I think realistically, most players do this anyway, without being asked to.

Seriously, who hasn't gone through their strat list and compiled a favourites list?

I mean, I wouldn't say I have a "favourites list" so much as a shortlist of stratagems I can be arsed remembering.

They're bad and there are too many. And mostly, they're boring, which is baffling.

Strats give me something to do as a player. In the editions before 8th I always had the feeling that 40K is more like watching a movie than actively playing. You built your list and then the game played itself with phases where you did nothing (opponent's turn, fight phase). Now with strats there's often something you can do and some ressource management. Strats also add some fluffy rules that would be broken if they were active all the time (as they were in 7th formations).
So, alternative activations would be better, but with strats there's at least one tactical Element in 40k, which I missed in prior editions.

Having stratagems be directly associated with hqs and warlords who depending on the model / unit have access to different ones, would at least make the system interesting rather than essentially playing a card on the table.

I mean, take a page from LOTR and look at how heroes, heroic actions, and might works.

Pancakey wrote:
Strats are a plague that highlights how shallow the design of the game has become.

“Spend two wombo points to play the game”

The lack depth is shocking.

If you had played 9th you'd realize this is far less of a thing.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
Strats are a plague that highlights how shallow the design of the game has become.

“Spend two wombo points to play the game”

The lack depth is shocking.

If you had played 9th you'd realize this is far less of a thing.

Please elaborate how planning your order and roll out of strategems is less of a thing.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Strats give me something to do as a player. In the editions before 8th I always had the feeling that 40K is more like watching a movie than actively playing. You built your list and then the game played itself with phases where you did nothing (opponent's turn, fight phase). Now with strats there's often something you can do and some ressource management. Strats also add some fluffy rules that would be broken if they were active all the time (as they were in 7th formations).
So, alternative activations would be better, but with strats there's at least one tactical Element in 40k, which I missed in prior editions.

This is the one thing I really like Stratagems for, but I also think they're kind of the sloppiest, dumbest way to handle that solution.

just allowing basic reaction actions during an opponent's turn is generally the simplest, easiest way to introduce this if you want to maintain the igo-ugo structure.

just incredibly simple spitballing here:

Set Overwatch: instead of attacking on your turn, have a unit assume a fixed stance and directional facing and get ready to take shots at a penalty on your opponent's turn.

Duck and Cover: When targeted by an attack, a unit can choose to give up their next turn to move up to their movement towards the nearest terrain piece and become voluntarily pinned, receiving an extra bonus to their defenses over regular cover.

Retreat: When an enemy unit completes a charge move within engagement range of a friendly unit, that unit may choose to give up their next turn to attempt to run away. Roll 1d6 and add the unit's movement statistic, if the defending unit's total exceeds the charging unit's total, the defending unit may move up to their movement away and become pinned.

Give Chase: When an enemy unit makes a Fall Back move, each enemy unit they were in Engagement Range of may choose to give up their next turn's movement to roll-off, adding the movement characteristic of each unit. If the chasing unit's total exceeds the falling back unit's total, the chasing unit may move up to their movement characteristic towards the falling back unit.

Stuff like this.

Slipspace wrote:


We never needed strats for that before. I don't think Blood Angels gained much extra character or narrative weight thanks to Forlorn Fury, for example. Nor did Necrons greatly benefit in background terms from Disintegration Capacitors. There are so many ways to make an army characterful and match its background without stratagems I can't see the argument for including them for that reason.

The Blood Angels are a poor example, since, as Space Marines of Codex of a flavour that has had it's own Dex since 3rd (and shared with only one other chapter and 2nd), they've always received flavour goodies from GW.

I was thinking more of SoB who have existed as a faction since 2nd, but who's subfactions always played identically on the table for six editions.
It is really, really nice that at last Bloody Rose doesn't feel identical to OoOML or Valorous Heart. Strats are a part of the package that distinguishes them.

RE: Necrons- I don't have the Dex, but I'm assuming every subfaction (dynasty?) has it's own bespoke relic, strat, WL Trait and Dynasty ability. Doubt that they did before 8th. So the question is do all the Dynasties feel the same like they would have before they had that stuff?

Distinguishing between factions has never been a problem, you're right- I think they've always felt different. But with the exception of Marines, no other faction has had distinct rules for its subfactions in every edition since 3rd. Yes, in some editions, some factions had distinct subfaction traits. But nothing like we see now.

They're bad and there's far to many.

There should be a core set that can be used multiple times, but all faction specific strats should be one use only.

They should be tactical, no weapon or damage buffs.

Sim-Life wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
The poll is really missing an option for the people that want Stratagems gone altogether.

I thought about it but GW has you build armies around CP, added a whole phase for CP management and have numerous rules in codexes that reference CP so I don't think we'll be rid of them any time soon unless GW thinks of another use for CP.

crappy mechanic that is unnecessary.

Nightlord1987 wrote:I havent played any 9th edition armies because I don't want to have to re-learn all these stupid Stratagem synergies all over again.

Stratagems are a crutch. They should have been left for Narrative games. They slow the game down. They give unfair advantages. If a unit should have a special rule, give it a special rule. Don't leave info scattered over multiple pages and books.

Umm, no. Strats by design are non-narrative. That level of gaminess belongs in feth you style of play, i.e. Tourneys.

Lord Clinto wrote:Way too many "necessary" strats and way too many in general.

Grimtuff wrote:They are bad and whoever's idea it was to implement them into 40k should feel bad.

I signed up to play a wargame, not MTG with toy soldiers.

very much this. If I wanted to play MTG, I would, but I don't, so I wont.


All the damn strats that used to be unit abilities baked into their datasheet need to go back to whence forth they came.

 Vankraken wrote:
I hate the concept for the most part. It shifts a lot of unit abilities to strats which greatly limits the number of units that can do a certain action and ties it to some sort of resource (makes me think of munitions in Company of Heroes).

This is a pretty good analogy. Also, now I'm sad and nostalgic about CoH.

 deviantduck wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
I hate the concept for the most part. It shifts a lot of unit abilities to strats which greatly limits the number of units that can do a certain action and ties it to some sort of resource (makes me think of munitions in Company of Heroes).

This is a pretty good analogy. Also, now I'm sad and nostalgic about CoH.

You can still play COH. I played through all the campaigns a little while ago, the game holds up pretty solidly tbh.

 the_scotsman wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
I hate the concept for the most part. It shifts a lot of unit abilities to strats which greatly limits the number of units that can do a certain action and ties it to some sort of resource (makes me think of munitions in Company of Heroes).

This is a pretty good analogy. Also, now I'm sad and nostalgic about CoH.

You can still play COH. I played through all the campaigns a little while ago, the game holds up pretty solidly tbh.

I played it... a lot. Me and my buddy played under the names Romeo and Juliet. We had most allied wins in 2v2 matched. Our record streak was 120 before he messed up a Brit truck rush. We did the math on his 18th birthday and determined he'd spent 3% of his life playing CoH. But anyway... stratagems!

I also love how munitions worked in CoH (2, for me).

Stratagems in 40k, they're cool, but there are way too fething many.

Voted "they're ok" and "there should be less of them". The concept is ok, but too many of them are things that should just be an ability that the units already have or something you should be paying points for. Also too many are just "auto-use every turn".

I like them. However I think that the main problem with them is that you can stack them. I think a lot of the most obnoxious issues would be resolved if a unit could only be subject to one friendly and one opposing stratagem at a time, i.e., not VotLW and re-roll to hits.

Also 12 is to many command points at 2000. It should start at 9. (One thing I love about 1000 points games is the 6 CP really limits relying on strats as a full on tactic.)

Edit: Oh and get rid of command re-roll. Being able to re-roll any dice once per phase is also an issue in my opinion. Maybe limit it once per turn?

My issue is not their cost. My issue is their power level.

IMO - stratagems should not be doubling/tripling the damage output of a unit. They are way to strong in general. Also - no unit should be able to be under the effect of any 2 stratagems at once from a single player.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 xeen wrote:
I like them. However I think that the main problem with them is that you can stack them. I think a lot of the most obnoxious issues would be resolved if a unit could only be subject to one friendly and one opposing stratagem at a time, i.e., not VotLW and re-roll to hits.

Also 12 is to many command points at 2000. It should start at 9. (One thing I love about 1000 points games is the 6 CP really limits relying on strats as a full on tactic.)

Edit: Oh and get rid of command re-roll. Being able to re-roll any dice once per phase is also an issue in my opinion. Maybe limit it once per turn?

I think a single reroll per turn would be good.

Stratagems help the game include concepts that are too abstract to include in the more traditional mechanics like information warfare or intelligence.

Best examples being smart characters like Zahndrekh, or weirder stuff like eating the information out of your opponent's skull, that allow to mess with Stratagems and/or Command Points

As for wargear stratagem, they help with wargear that is too situational or weak to warrant points, but you cannot give as free. Best example being Tyranid Feeder Tendrils, no one used them as an upgrade (or at the very least I didn't), and now they are an occasional source of CP if the Genestealers eat a character.

The mechanic isn't bad, it is just that GW's implementation was poor in many occasions.

Stratagems are great for things that you only want a player to do once. Overwatch is a good example of this, previous editions overwatch was a slog through wasteful rolling that would under very rare occasions completely ruin the experience of a melee player, now its something that you only see rolled when it actually matters.

Strats are non narrative?

"In the clangour of battle the worshippers of Slaanesh hear sweet music, and they compete to be the loudest in this deafening chorus."

"A sudden, lethal beam of magic is released from a Silver Tower."

"Wave after wave of Orks overwhelm the enemy's defense lines."

Stratagems are supposed to represent turn of the battle events.

I get it. Some gamers like book keeping. I've been trying to teach new players at my club 40k and between Detachment bonuses, stratagems, faction traits, and every entries special rules, it's been a nightmare to navigate.

I'd prefer a system like Adeptus Titanicus, where you purchase stratagems before the game (and have far fewer at your disposal). The current system isn't horrible but there are far too many.

This thread is wearing out my exalt button. Scotsman had same nice ideas e.g. overwatch and fall back and duck and cover etc. But this is exalted for poetic brevity -


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
They're bad and there are too many. And mostly, they're boring, which is baffling.

Perfect.

Marshal Loss wrote:I'd prefer a system like Adeptus Titanicus, where you purchase stratagems before the game (and have far fewer at your disposal). The current system isn't horrible but there are far too many.

Titanicus is their best game...ever.

I've been toying about with strats purchased before game on each unit you want to use them on. If we aren't getting rid of them at least make them require forethought. Not just oh I have this special strat for just this very situation.....aha Gotcha.

It makes them known to the person you're playing with so no "buhackshualyy" pulling a strat outta yo ass.

Personally I think stratagems are slow and clunky. I don't like CP or the deck of cards approach to strategems.

I think it would be a better system if the strategems were baked to the legion/chapter traits. Each legion/chapter would have a single strategem that can be used once per turn.

Stratagems are fine. Most of 9ths over complexity comes from other army rules.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And there should be in-game ZERO equipment strats (smoke launchers, tankbusta bombs, etc.). Those should remain wargear upgrades you pay points for.

Everyone had smoke in 8th. Nobody used it. In what form do you think people would use smoke as gear without it either being useless or auto-take ( illusion of choice )?

That doesn't really answer the point.

And no one used it? No one? Not ever?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That doesn't really answer the point.

And no one used it? No one? Not ever?

In all my games played, no. Which is much less than I've seen smoke activated. -1 was less useful in 8th with the reroll negating the effect. -1 now can't stack so the usefulness is entirely situational.

Under core rules where you get a 4++, but can only shoot one gun or less then, sure, but in this set of rules? Not so sure.

And why can't that just be the rule for Smoke Launchers, rather than a strat?

It creates a scenario where vehicles with smoke can roll up as fast as possible and shoot. They become the haves and anyone without smoke is a have-not.