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 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Great was the woe when all of the Guard Players taking Iron Discipline couldn't take Priests or Ogryns...

Precisely.

I loved my Doctrine Guard, but I'm not about to pretend that the stuff you "gave up" in any way balanced out the massive advantages you got from the stuff you did get.

"Oh no! I can't take the things I wasn't going to take anyway. Whatever shall I do!!!" *clutches pearls*

The idea of "here is a bonus for a themed army, and the drawback is you have to stay in theme" isn't fundamentally wrong and I have no idea why people think it is.

Because those drawbacks aren't really drawbacks.

For example I don't think Lirbrarians are that reliable unless you go all in to setting their powers off. So while I go with Black Templars, what exactly did I lose?
At least the Vow system currently has SOME drawbacks even if they aren't super severe overall. Saying "don't take a unit you didn't want anyway" is not a drawback, especially when it's a loose restriction. Remember the 4th edition Marine codex where one of the downsides was "You can't take allies"? LOL who the feth wrote that?

EviscerationPlague wrote:
For example I don't think Lirbrarians are that reliable unless you go all in to setting their powers off. So while I go with Black Templars, what exactly did I lose?

Literally the same thing as taking a drawback for units you weren't gonna use anyway. The difference is the book you bought.

At least the Vow system currently has SOME drawbacks even if they aren't super severe overall. Remember the 4th edition Marine codex where one of the downsides was "You can't take allies"? LOL who the feth wrote that?

So the same thing as the minimal drawbacks of the Black Templars vows? Things you probably weren't gonna do anyway? Remember that there were also extreme drawbacks you could take, that prevented you from taking an Iron Halo, an Adamatine Mantle (ignore Instant Death) and Terminators. Were there alot of people that took that? No, just like there are some vows I've not seen people use for your Templars.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
For example I don't think Lirbrarians are that reliable unless you go all in to setting their powers off. So while I go with Black Templars, what exactly did I lose?

Literally the same thing as taking a drawback for units you weren't gonna use anyway. The difference is the book you bought.

At least the Vow system currently has SOME drawbacks even if they aren't super severe overall. Remember the 4th edition Marine codex where one of the downsides was "You can't take allies"? LOL who the feth wrote that?

So the same thing as the minimal drawbacks of the Black Templars vows? Things you probably weren't gonna do anyway? Remember that there were also extreme drawbacks you could take, that prevented you from taking an Iron Halo, an Adamatine Mantle (ignore Instant Death) and Terminators. Were there alot of people that took that? No, just like there are some vows I've not seen people use for your Templars.

Well let's take a look at those drawbacks for the Vows:
1. Mini-Transhuman and a 5++ locks you out of any benefit from cover. That can be significant sometimes.
2. 6s to hit in melee against anything not a vehicle automatically wounding locks you from choosing your charge targets effectively. That's pretty significant
3. The Anti-Psyker one locks you from actions when close enough to a Psyker. VERY significant.

The only one without a real downside is the permanent Shock Assault and Assault Doctrine, because you don't want to fall back out of melee, but half of the perk matters a lot less as long drawn melee doesn't happen terribly often, ergo needing Shock Assault on all the time is unnecessary.

So where were these things you weren't going to do? Were you refusing to perform actions near Psykers?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

At least the Vow system currently has SOME drawbacks even if they aren't super severe overall. Saying "don't take a unit you didn't want anyway" is not a drawback, especially when it's a loose restriction. Remember the 4th edition Marine codex where one of the downsides was "You can't take allies"? LOL who the feth wrote that?

I would like to refer you to the first post in this thread

There are actually quite a lot of allies you can take. You lose access to some fun stuff, especially in very large games. It does specifically say that it's a minor drawback, as well. Now that I know how many options there are for allies there are I'd say that drawback is balanced against the others, except Death Before Dishonour, which has the potential to randomly lose you the game.
Personally, I really like mechanics that restrict your options. Especially since the format here is that you essentially swap your default options for others. It actually changes what you can do, rather than giving you a bonus or penalty to the things you were already capable of. And while you can work around that sort of disadvantage, the same is true of almost any mechanical disadvantage: even something as dramatic as 'all your marines have -1S' can be mitigated by building your army around vehicles and staying at long range.

But if you were never going to take those options in the first place, is it really a restriction?

antia wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

At least the Vow system currently has SOME drawbacks even if they aren't super severe overall. Saying "don't take a unit you didn't want anyway" is not a drawback, especially when it's a loose restriction. Remember the 4th edition Marine codex where one of the downsides was "You can't take allies"? LOL who the feth wrote that?

I would like to refer you to the first post in this thread

There are actually quite a lot of allies you can take. You lose access to some fun stuff, especially in very large games. It does specifically say that it's a minor drawback, as well. Now that I know how many options there are for allies there are I'd say that drawback is balanced against the others, except Death Before Dishonour, which has the potential to randomly lose you the game.
Personally, I really like mechanics that restrict your options. Especially since the format here is that you essentially swap your default options for others. It actually changes what you can do, rather than giving you a bonus or penalty to the things you were already capable of. And while you can work around that sort of disadvantage, the same is true of almost any mechanical disadvantage: even something as dramatic as 'all your marines have -1S' can be mitigated by building your army around vehicles and staying at long range.

That's......not how it works.

The default to build an army is the sole composition of the one codex. As well, you can say there's "lots of allies" all you want, but when the allies don't fill roles Marines couldn't fill to begin with, what exactly is the restriction? A different color in your army?

You're not restricting options when said options aren't even in your codex to begin with. An actual restriction would be, say, losing access to Flamers for example (as niche as they are sometimes).

H.B.M.C. wrote:But if you were never going to take those options in the first place, is it really a restriction?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

antia wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

At least the Vow system currently has SOME drawbacks even if they aren't super severe overall. Saying "don't take a unit you didn't want anyway" is not a drawback, especially when it's a loose restriction. Remember the 4th edition Marine codex where one of the downsides was "You can't take allies"? LOL who the feth wrote that?

I would like to refer you to the first post in this thread

There are actually quite a lot of allies you can take. You lose access to some fun stuff, especially in very large games. It does specifically say that it's a minor drawback, as well. Now that I know how many options there are for allies there are I'd say that drawback is balanced against the others, except Death Before Dishonour, which has the potential to randomly lose you the game.
Personally, I really like mechanics that restrict your options. Especially since the format here is that you essentially swap your default options for others. It actually changes what you can do, rather than giving you a bonus or penalty to the things you were already capable of. And while you can work around that sort of disadvantage, the same is true of almost any mechanical disadvantage: even something as dramatic as 'all your marines have -1S' can be mitigated by building your army around vehicles and staying at long range.

That's......not how it works.

The default to build an army is the sole composition of the one codex. As well, you can say there's "lots of allies" all you want, but when the allies don't fill roles Marines couldn't fill to begin with, what exactly is the restriction? A different color in your army?

You're not restricting options when said options aren't even in your codex to begin with. An actual restriction would be, say, losing access to Flamers for example (as niche as they are sometimes).

I think you're both making incorrect assumptions, which were proven wrong when we found out earlier in the thread how easy it is to get a wide variety of allies.
Regarding it being worthwhile to take allies: Some of the allies can do things SM can't: they have access to different psychic powers and vehicles, they have cheap light infantry, and they have specialists for dealing with certain kinds of enemy. Also, many of the allied troops are cheaper than the SM who fill the same role.
Regarding losing access to units not being a restriction: I don't like building vehicles so I pretty much never used any. You don't like the idea of using allies so you never used any. (I didn't use allies because at the time I had, like, £30 a year to spend on models and codexes, didn't have the internet to scour for sourcebooks, and didn't play games big enough to need multiple detachments.) Losing access to vehicles is still a drawback for me! You lose the option of using them.
Regarding using allies not being the 'default assumption': I'm not sure I follow your logic, actually. Are you saying it would be bad manners to use them? It's not like they're 'requires the opponent's consent' rules, they're a core part of various codexes.

I'd also like to reiterate what I said earlier: it's balanced against the other minor drawbacks. The others are, respectively: no drop pods; one fewer elite, fast attack, and heavy support slots; no librarians; effectively no scouts. Plus Death Before Dishonour, which I think should definitely have been a major drawback. None of these things are crucial to a normal SM army, unless you specifically want to build around them.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But if you were never going to take those options in the first place, is it really a restriction?

Not at all. I have lots of reasons to hate 4th but "Mutable Genus for ALL!!!!!1!!!@!" is pretty much the top.

antia wrote:
... proven wrong...

Well... no.

antia wrote:
Regarding it being worthwhile to take allies: Some of the allies can do things SM can't: they have access to different psychic powers and vehicles, they have cheap light infantry, and they have specialists for dealing with certain kinds of enemy. Also, many of the allied troops are cheaper than the SM who fill the same role.

You're kinda missing the point. The argument isn't whether allies are useful. The argument is that if you were never planning on taking them in the first place, and by not taking the thing you weren't going to get in the first place you get a bonus, is that in any way balanced?

It'd be like if someone said I could have all the chocolate I wanted, but I wasn't allowed to see a movie I had no interest in seeing anyway. Sure, others might find the movie interesting, but I was never going to see it, but because of that now I get a bonus?

antia wrote:
Regarding losing access to units not being a restriction: I don't like building vehicles so I pretty much never used any. You don't like the idea of using allies so you never used any. (I didn't use allies because at the time I had, like, £30 a year to spend on models and codexes, didn't have the internet to scour for sourcebooks, and didn't play games big enough to need multiple detachments.) Losing access to vehicles is still a drawback for me! You lose the option of using them.

I can't even follow that logic. I don't even think it is logic.

antia wrote:
I'd also like to reiterate what I said earlier: it's balanced against the other minor drawbacks. The others are, respectively: no drop pods; one fewer elite, fast attack, and heavy support slots; no librarians; effectively no scouts. Plus Death Before Dishonour, which I think should definitely have been a major drawback. None of these things are crucial to a normal SM army, unless you specifically want to build around them.

Most of those suffer from the same problem.

"I can't take Librarians!", and what if I was never intending to take Librarians. What have I given up for this bonus? Nothing! I'm getting the bonus for free.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

antia wrote:
... proven wrong...

Well... no.

antia wrote:
Regarding it being worthwhile to take allies: Some of the allies can do things SM can't: they have access to different psychic powers and vehicles, they have cheap light infantry, and they have specialists for dealing with certain kinds of enemy. Also, many of the allied troops are cheaper than the SM who fill the same role.

You're kinda missing the point. The argument isn't whether allies are useful. The argument is that if you were never planning on taking them in the first place, and by not taking the thing you weren't going to get in the first place you get a bonus, is that in any way balanced?

It'd be like if someone said I could have all the chocolate I wanted, but I wasn't allowed to see a movie I had no interest in seeing anyway. Sure, others might find the movie interesting, but I was never going to see it, but because of that now I get a bonus?

antia wrote:
Regarding losing access to units not being a restriction: I don't like building vehicles so I pretty much never used any. You don't like the idea of using allies so you never used any. (I didn't use allies because at the time I had, like, £30 a year to spend on models and codexes, didn't have the internet to scour for sourcebooks, and didn't play games big enough to need multiple detachments.) Losing access to vehicles is still a drawback for me! You lose the option of using them.

I can't even follow that logic. I don't even think it is logic.

antia wrote:
I'd also like to reiterate what I said earlier: it's balanced against the other minor drawbacks. The others are, respectively: no drop pods; one fewer elite, fast attack, and heavy support slots; no librarians; effectively no scouts. Plus Death Before Dishonour, which I think should definitely have been a major drawback. None of these things are crucial to a normal SM army, unless you specifically want to build around them.

Most of those suffer from the same problem.

"I can't take Librarians!", and what if I was never intending to take Librarians. What have I given up for this bonus? Nothing! I'm getting the bonus for free.

To explain my vehicle example: When (many years ago) I used these rules I decided to make an infantry-based army with a camo aesthetic, because I didn't want vehicles and liked the idea of 'stealthy' marines clumping about in their power armour. I did this in the knowledge that I could make a divergent chapter where my tactical marines could infiltrate and I was limited in my tank choices.

The 'what if I didn't intend to take it anyway' argument makes the assumptions that (1) you made the correct choice (for whatever sense of 'correct' you prioritise) and (2) that you won't change your mind. It also, obviously, assumes that you didn't intend to take it, which I'm pretty sure is not technically true, because it implies that you planned the units you will take without knowledge of chapter you were choosing them for. I.E. if my concept of the army I'm building is that they're marines from a chapter that particularly hates witches because of long campaigns against the Eldar, I obviously won't take any psykers in my army. Is it then unfair for me to take the chapter disadvantage that says I can't take psykers? I'm sure if you think about it for a little while you'll work the logic out

What would you consider a real penalty? I find it hard to imagine many things that couldn't be worked around that could be considered 'minor' penalties. Restricting list-building choices seems like a pretty solid disadvantage to me, especially since it's symmetrical with the benefit you get (i.e. gaining an option you can buy).

antia wrote:
The 'what if I didn't intend to take it anyway' argument makes the assumptions that (1) you made the correct choice

Not relevant. You're taking specific advantages that the army offers and in doing so are being forced to give up other aspects of the army. If those aspects were never something you intended to take, you have not given anything up. This isn't a difficult concept.

antia wrote:
(2) that you won't change your mind.

That doesn't even make any sense. You can't suddenly go "Oh no I want allies!". Lists are static. Once they're prepared for a game, they're done. You can't change them during a game. You might go "Oh, having that unit might've been useful", but you can say that about anything.

antia wrote:

What would you consider a real penalty?

Well I just described how the Templar vows (besides one) have penalties.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
For example I don't think Lirbrarians are that reliable unless you go all in to setting their powers off. So while I go with Black Templars, what exactly did I lose?

Literally the same thing as taking a drawback for units you weren't gonna use anyway. The difference is the book you bought.

At least the Vow system currently has SOME drawbacks even if they aren't super severe overall. Remember the 4th edition Marine codex where one of the downsides was "You can't take allies"? LOL who the feth wrote that?

So the same thing as the minimal drawbacks of the Black Templars vows? Things you probably weren't gonna do anyway? Remember that there were also extreme drawbacks you could take, that prevented you from taking an Iron Halo, an Adamatine Mantle (ignore Instant Death) and Terminators. Were there alot of people that took that? No, just like there are some vows I've not seen people use for your Templars.

Well let's take a look at those drawbacks for the Vows:
1. Mini-Transhuman and a 5++ locks you out of any benefit from cover. That can be significant sometimes.
2. 6s to hit in melee against anything not a vehicle automatically wounding locks you from choosing your charge targets effectively. That's pretty significant
3. The Anti-Psyker one locks you from actions when close enough to a Psyker. VERY significant.

The only one without a real downside is the permanent Shock Assault and Assault Doctrine, because you don't want to fall back out of melee, but half of the perk matters a lot less as long drawn melee doesn't happen terribly often, ergo needing Shock Assault on all the time is unnecessary.

So where were these things you weren't going to do? Were you refusing to perform actions near Psykers?

I was never gonna use the Psyker one, because I dont see enough Psykers for it to matter. I'd never take the 6s to hit because I prefer the permanent Shock Assault and Assault Doctrine, for those times when the drawn out melee does happen, or even when it goes on a turn beyond the charge. Mini-Transhuman and the 5++ losing out on cover seems a fair trade.

If you want a more direct comparison to the 4th Ed rules, I suggest looking at the rules of your Templars from then. You lose Librarians, but gain Emperor's Champion, Vows, Crusader Squads, better Veteran Squad.

Also the upgrades everyone seems to complain about you get in exchange for the Disadvantages were typically not free. You want Infiltrate on your Squads? You pay for that per model in the Squad. Furious Charge, pay per model. Preferred Enemy, pay per model. Where the Templars got their vows for the low low price of buying the Emperor's Champion which you were gonna take anyway and an upgrade.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

antia wrote:
The 'what if I didn't intend to take it anyway' argument makes the assumptions that (1) you made the correct choice

Not relevant. You're taking specific advantages that the army offers and in doing so are being forced to give up other aspects of the army. If those aspects were never something you intended to take, you have not given anything up. This isn't a difficult concept.

So you're against this for the Marines, but are entirely in support of it for the 3.5 CSM Codex? Night Lords losing out on Heavy Support to gain more FA, Raptors and Stealth, isnt really losing out on anything cause you werent gonna take it anyway.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Right. The balance was bad.

But instead of saying "GW goofed", people seem to believe that rules with no drawbacks (or themed drawbacks that are effectively not drawbacks) are axiomatically bad.

Free (or negligibly costed) buffs with no real drawbacks are bad.

AND GW buggered the the points/balance.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
So you're against this for the Marines, but are entirely in support of it for the 3.5 CSM Codex? Night Lords losing out on Heavy Support to gain more FA, Raptors and Stealth, isnt really losing out on anything cause you werent gonna take it anyway.

No. I'm not.

Iron Warriors giving up FA slots they were never going to use to get an extra Heavy Support slot - something that they're always going to use - was a poorly designed rule. It's just as poorly design as giving up Sanctioned Psykers and Ratlings to get free Deep Strike across your whole Guard army, or an upgrade that lets you pay between 15 and 25 points across your entire army to massively strengthen something that's already a core strength of your army (Iron Discipline), or getting a bonus for your Marines by "giving up" allies. Any rule where you give something up to get a bonus, and the thing you give us can be something you never intended to take is a bad idea.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
So you're against this for the Marines, but are entirely in support of it for the 3.5 CSM Codex? Night Lords losing out on Heavy Support to gain more FA, Raptors and Stealth, isnt really losing out on anything cause you werent gonna take it anyway.

No. I'm not.

Iron Warriors giving up FA slots they were never going to use to get an extra Heavy Support slot - something that they're always going to use - was a poorly designed rule. It's just as poorly design as giving up Sanctioned Psykers and Ratlings to get free Deep Strike across your whole Guard army, or an upgrade that lets you pay between 15 and 25 points across your entire army to massively strengthen something that's already a core strength of your army (Iron Discipline), or getting a bonus for your Marines by "giving up" allies. Any rule where you give something up to get a bonus, and the thing you give us can be something you never intended to take is a bad idea.

We're gonna have to agree to disagree, because to me, as youve got it, that sounds no different from choosing an army. Certain armies get the whole shtick with drawback of not being able to take things I didnt want in the first place. The only difference is that here I get to tailor the Army I chose to serve in a manner I see more fitting.

Do you dislike Rites of War in Heresy? Many of those seem to have the same sort of lose out on something you dont want to benefit the things you do. Some of them have extra bits on them, like for the Firewing they need to mark and kill specific Units for more VP. Would that be more to your liking in terms of disadvantages?

But it's not just "choosing an army". It's getting a bonus for free because the thing you're giving up isn't really being "given up" because you were never going to take it in the first place.

Say you have two options:

1. Regular Army.
2. Regular Army +1.

If you choose Regular Army you're given a hammer and can hit yourself in the forehead with it.

If you choose Regular Army +1 you're not given that hammer and aren't allowed to hit yourself in the forehead with it.

Can you conceive of a reason you would ever take Regular Army over Regular Army +1? Regular Army +1 gets you everything Regular Army has, but it's +1, and you don't have to hit yourself in the head.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But it's not just "choosing an army". It's getting a bonus for free because the thing you're giving up isn't really being "given up" because you were never going to take it in the first place.

Say you have two options:

1. Regular Army.
2. Regular Army +1.

If you choose Regular Army you're given a hammer and can hit yourself in the forehead with it.

If you choose Regular Army +1 you're not given that hammer and aren't allowed to hit yourself in the forehead with it.

Can you conceive of a reason you would ever take Regular Army over Regular Army +1? Regular Army +1 gets you everything Regular Army has, but it's +1, and you don't have to hit yourself in the head.

No, I can't - and that's the point, because regular army +1 has a theme and must stick to it, which is a good thing to encourage (so long as your supported themes fit the narrative of course).

The option to run Regular Army probably shouldn't even exist, as a hodgepodge of unthemed units should be banned - in this case though, it is just disincentivized.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But it's not just "choosing an army". It's getting a bonus for free because the thing you're giving up isn't really being "given up" because you were never going to take it in the first place.

Say you have two options:

1. Regular Army.
2. Regular Army +1.

If you choose Regular Army you're given a hammer and can hit yourself in the forehead with it.

If you choose Regular Army +1 you're not given that hammer and aren't allowed to hit yourself in the forehead with it.

Can you conceive of a reason you would ever take Regular Army over Regular Army +1? Regular Army +1 gets you everything Regular Army has, but it's +1, and you don't have to hit yourself in the head.

It seems pretty similar to me, for example in the Regular Marines vs Black Templars from 4e. You give up Librarians that you weren't gonna take and gain Crusader Squads, Emperor's Champion (and your vows for 90pts + Cost of the Vow). You get your Army +1, and dont have to hit yourself in the head.

Its not really for free though in all cases is it? Stealth for the Night Lords cost points per model, Infiltrate for the marines cost points per model. Make it so that you dont have the disadvantages in the first place if they are that irrelevant. Because you still pay points.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But it's not just "choosing an army". It's getting a bonus for free because the thing you're giving up isn't really being "given up" because you were never going to take it in the first place.

Say you have two options:

1. Regular Army.
2. Regular Army +1.

If you choose Regular Army you're given a hammer and can hit yourself in the forehead with it.

If you choose Regular Army +1 you're not given that hammer and aren't allowed to hit yourself in the forehead with it.

Can you conceive of a reason you would ever take Regular Army over Regular Army +1? Regular Army +1 gets you everything Regular Army has, but it's +1, and you don't have to hit yourself in the head.

Just give it up. You can distill every argument against you on this as "I benefitted from it, so it's perfectly balanced." and you'll never convince them otherwise.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
For example I don't think Lirbrarians are that reliable unless you go all in to setting their powers off. So while I go with Black Templars, what exactly did I lose?

Literally the same thing as taking a drawback for units you weren't gonna use anyway. The difference is the book you bought.

At least the Vow system currently has SOME drawbacks even if they aren't super severe overall. Remember the 4th edition Marine codex where one of the downsides was "You can't take allies"? LOL who the feth wrote that?

So the same thing as the minimal drawbacks of the Black Templars vows? Things you probably weren't gonna do anyway? Remember that there were also extreme drawbacks you could take, that prevented you from taking an Iron Halo, an Adamatine Mantle (ignore Instant Death) and Terminators. Were there alot of people that took that? No, just like there are some vows I've not seen people use for your Templars.

Well let's take a look at those drawbacks for the Vows:
1. Mini-Transhuman and a 5++ locks you out of any benefit from cover. That can be significant sometimes.
2. 6s to hit in melee against anything not a vehicle automatically wounding locks you from choosing your charge targets effectively. That's pretty significant
3. The Anti-Psyker one locks you from actions when close enough to a Psyker. VERY significant.

The only one without a real downside is the permanent Shock Assault and Assault Doctrine, because you don't want to fall back out of melee, but half of the perk matters a lot less as long drawn melee doesn't happen terribly often, ergo needing Shock Assault on all the time is unnecessary.

So where were these things you weren't going to do? Were you refusing to perform actions near Psykers?

I was never gonna use the Psyker one, because I dont see enough Psykers for it to matter. I'd never take the 6s to hit because I prefer the permanent Shock Assault and Assault Doctrine, for those times when the drawn out melee does happen, or even when it goes on a turn beyond the charge. Mini-Transhuman and the 5++ losing out on cover seems a fair trade.

So I'm right, there's actual downsides to the Vows.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

antia wrote:
The 'what if I didn't intend to take it anyway' argument makes the assumptions that (1) you made the correct choice

Not relevant. You're taking specific advantages that the army offers and in doing so are being forced to give up other aspects of the army. If those aspects were never something you intended to take, you have not given anything up. This isn't a difficult concept.

Is it different than choosing an army over another army? I choose to take Space Marines over Necrons, the disadvantage is that now I cant take any Necrons, but I didn't want to in the first place?

Alternatively you could think of the SM book as being balanced around the idea that players would take the disadvantage that represented the least opportunity cost for them, and No Allies is just a popular choice.

Either way I loved that codex, as you could do interesting stuff with it. From an army building and a world building standpoint it was loads of fun. Personally I went with Elite Devastator Squads.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Is it different than choosing an army over another army? I choose to take Space Marines over Necrons, the disadvantage is that now I cant take any Necrons, but I didn't want to in the first place?

Of course it is. Your Space Marines don't suddenly get better because you can't take any Necrons.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
If you want a more direct comparison to the 4th Ed rules, I suggest looking at the rules of your Templars from then. You lose Librarians, but gain Emperor's Champion, Vows, Crusader Squads, better Veteran Squad.

Templars also had worse target priority (Ld 7 by default as they also had no squad sergeants), a 100-140pt compulsory champion surcharge, substantially different morale rules, different unit costs, and were also lacking scouts, scout bikers, devastators, and whirlwinds.

So actual unavoidable drawbacks (especially if you used the more punitive reading of righteous fury) compared to 4e marines 'take that thing you weren't taking for a bonus', 3e chaos 'take that thing you weren't taking for a bonus', and of course 3e eldar 'take this new and really powerful thing and also get a bonus'.
3e Ranger disruption tables - for when time is short and your opponent didn't want his first turn anyway.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

antia wrote:
The 'what if I didn't intend to take it anyway' argument makes the assumptions that (1) you made the correct choice

Not relevant. You're taking specific advantages that the army offers and in doing so are being forced to give up other aspects of the army. If those aspects were never something you intended to take, you have not given anything up. This isn't a difficult concept.

So you're against this for the Marines, but are entirely in support of it for the 3.5 CSM Codex? Night Lords losing out on Heavy Support to gain more FA, Raptors and Stealth, isnt really losing out on anything cause you werent gonna take it anyway.

I can't speak for all 3.5 era Night Lords players, but I would have definitely liked getting more than one HS choice when using that option back then. An additional squad of Havocs, or a Dreadnought, or a tank for some additional heavy firepower? It definitely would have been nice. Same for the one HS restriction in Terror Assault in HH (though I personally find the "no LoW" restriction more irksome). That restriction led to debates about what was the best option for that singular slot amongst 8th Legion players both then and now. There was definitely more than one unit that we would have taken (or would take now).

 Insectum7 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

antia wrote:
The 'what if I didn't intend to take it anyway' argument makes the assumptions that (1) you made the correct choice

Not relevant. You're taking specific advantages that the army offers and in doing so are being forced to give up other aspects of the army. If those aspects were never something you intended to take, you have not given anything up. This isn't a difficult concept.

Is it different than choosing an army over another army? I choose to take Space Marines over Necrons, the disadvantage is that now I cant take any Necrons, but I didn't want to in the first place?

Alternatively you could think of the SM book as being balanced around the idea that players would take the disadvantage that represented the least opportunity cost for them, and No Allies is just a popular choice.

Either way I loved that codex, as you could do interesting stuff with it. From an army building and a world building standpoint it was loads of fun. Personally I went with Elite Devastator Squads.

That´s not how limitations work.

Take any codex at a baseline. Every unit in it is available in the default setting. Now you begin to take perks and therefore suffer limitations. Your opponent knows this and may exploit this fact. Your SM force doesn´t use vehicles a lot? Your opponent may field a lot of pie-plate weapons with AP3 as a response and you can only hug cover as a form of protection. This in itself is a DISADVANTAGE even if you were never inclined to buy a single vehicle kit. I don´t understand why this concept is so hard to understand. Army books from 4th 40K who used such a system were very fun to build armies with as they provided character unlike the garbage which 8th 40K provided which was the infamous "Loyal 32", if I am not mistaken.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Is it different than choosing an army over another army? I choose to take Space Marines over Necrons, the disadvantage is that now I cant take any Necrons, but I didn't want to in the first place?

Of course it is. Your Space Marines don't suddenly get better because you can't take any Necrons.

Okay, but Chimeras didn't suddenly get better when you picked mechanized doctrine... so it's basically the same thing. Excluding something you weren't going to take anyways (ogryns/necrons) to build your army into what you wanted (SM/mech guard).

Even carapace armor didn't improve your armor save because of the drawback. It improved the armor save because you paid 20 pts per unit!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Okay, but Chimeras didn't suddenly get better when you picked mechanized doctrine... so it's basically the same thing. Excluding something you weren't going to take anyways (ogryns/necrons) to build your army into what you wanted (SM/mech guard).

The trade-off for mechanised is losing the choice not to take them.

Doesn't change that giving up things you were never going to take anyway isn't a sacrifice. It's not a cost.

If I walk into a restaurant and they say "If you ditch the avocado from this chicken avocado burger, you get free fries!", and I never eat avocado anyway (who would? It's the Devi's pear! Satan's stonefruit!), then I'm not really giving anything up. I'm getting rid of something I never intended to get in the first place, and getting something for free as a replacement.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Even carapace armor didn't improve your armor save because of the drawback. It improved the armor save because you paid 20 pts per unit!

But I am sacrificing something for the carapace armour: Common sense, because no one in their right mind ever took carapace armour, but that's an unrelated conversation...

Isn't this just an issue with internal balance? If sanctioned psykers, ogryn, priests, techpriests, heavy weapon platoons, and ratlings were all worth taking, then choosing which to give up would be more meaningful.

As it stands, conscripts, special weapon squads, stormtroopers, and rough riders were the only choices worth considering. Improve the other options, and the limitations are more meaningful.

 Haighus wrote:
Isn't this just an issue with internal balance? If sanctioned psykers, ogryn, priests, techpriests, heavy weapon platoons, and ratlings were all worth taking, then choosing which to give up would be more meaningful.

Partially. Again, giving up something you weren't going to take isn't really giving anything up, so it's a bad mechanic.

But, you are correct in saying that if the things you were "giving up" were actually worthwhile in the first place, then there might be some real choice in the decision rather than "Oh no... I can't bring a bad psyker with random powers? Oh well, I guess I'll just give my whole army Deep Strike for free..."