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I understand the MTG style wombo combos might be a selling point for many. However, it's been one of the reasons that has made it harder for me to fully commit to 40k. It's not my jam, I just want to move (vehicle) minis, throw some dice, and have tactical movement be the focus. I do enough book-keeping at work; less in my free time would be appreciated.

With that said, there are a lot of good ideas here that sound very intriguing. Please feed me more!

TreeSparr wrote:
I understand the MTG style wombo combos might be a selling point for many.

I don't think that a single person in this thread actually enjoyed the silly combo-stacking of 8th for more than a few games. It's even worse for those who still have to depend on that gak, like CSM.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
I'd rather have many of the other ideas honestly.

Idea 1) you have to pick 10 stratagems to put on your roster and you can only use those during game (excluding pre-game ones that is) now there is no gotcha's bc you know what ones are going to be used and you can make more tactical choices within all the 100's "What ifs?" You use them like normal, just only from this list (and the core rules ones)

Idea 2) You spend all your CP pre game on stratagems you want and you can use those stratagems, the CP you get per turn is used for the Core stratagems, whatever CP you not spend pre-game you can also use those for Core stratagems.

EDIT: Made more clear.

The issue for me (which the AoS system largely fixes) is that Stratagems seem entirely disconnected from the rest of the game.

With the occasional exception of relics or warlord traits, Command Points are generated completely independently of anything happening on the actual table. Notwithstanding CPs spent on stratagems during the list-building phase, you start the game with the same number of CPs regardless of how many HQs you have, the rank of said HQs, or really anything relating to command structure at all.

You also then get a CP each turn, again regardless of anything happening on the table. It doesn't matter if your Warlord and other HQs (i.e. your entire command structure) are all still alive, whilst your opponent's HQs are all dead, you both still get 1 CP each.

Even in terms of using Stratagems, there's no requirement that you have an HQ anywhere near the target to actually issue the order, or even that you have an HQ still alive somewhere on the table.

At least to me, it just ends up feeling like a player has walked into the game with a Yugioh deck and asked if he can use the spell and trap cards for in-game effect.

Hence, I think having stratagems as HQ abilities (and returning others to unit abilities, wargear or whatever as appropriate, or just ditching them entirely) would go a long way to making them feel actually connected to what's happening on the table.