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 Thadin wrote:
While the points and upgrades are more akin to AoS now, the army building structure seems to be a step towards Conquest, IMO. But, just a step.

Given that AoS doesn't have embeded characters yet, while Conquest does.

Conquest also has hard restrictions on what Units you can take in your army, based off of what Characters you have, whereas 40k is more of a Soft restriction, currently.

You can take whatever characters you want to for your FOC in 40k, but, are you taking foot heroes without units to slot them in with, that aren't Independant agents or whatever that mechanic is? I can't imagine building a list without a unit to pair my characters with, but it is something you can do. Which is why I would call it a soft restriction, and not a hard restriction like Conquest uses.

I would love Conquest style AA / Action economy, where you preplan your turn and activate in sequence, trying to out-think what your opponent is trying to accomplish. I believe 8th edition Apocalypse had a very similar list construction/AA as Conquest has. Shame that GW is so hell bent on keeping their whole turn/phase structure. Wouldn't need to have any strategems or reactions in Conquest's system :(

I would take any reasonable FOC at this point

Flat mandate of 1 character and 2 battleline (or whatever)? Sure

Each Battleline unit unlocks 1 vehicle, 1 other, 1 character? Sure

%points set to keywords? Probably my favorite, sure

I could be talked into just about anything a typical war-gamer would come up with.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Every time I talk about how I liked the FOC, and how 8th/9th ruined it by adding in "take anything you want" FOCs, that eventually led to Arks of Omen, and now 10th, I get yelled at.

So I won't bring it up.

I agree… 7the could have been an improvement but it took months to unravel and we’ve shouldered it’s burden ever since.

well, AoS is the better game of the 2, it already was with 2nd Edition and one reason for it is simply that they have a developed game that does not change core mechanics every 3 years that messes up the rest and needs to start again

AoS has issues, but those can be solved with the next Edition and the chance that it will do that instead of change for the sake of change

for the army building, difference with AoS is that units with different battlefield roles are on their own which helps a lot with the limitation

take Devestators or Crisis as example, they can have different roles but are always the same unit that is limited to 3 (be it with FOC or the new system), so you cannot have 3 Anti-Infantry and 3 Anti Monster units like it is possible AoS.

another reason for the big difference is that there are less units overall, Stormcast have a lot but not in the range of Marines were every possible role on the battlefield has 5+ units were you cannot avoid that 1 will be better than the other to get the specific job done
so unless 40k starts reducing the number of Marine units by merging some of them we cannot see big improvement no matter the system as one army will have a major advantage over all others simply because they have more options to chose from

 Lobokai wrote:
I would take any reasonable FOC at this point

Flat mandate of 1 character and 2 battleline (or whatever)? Sure

Each Battleline unit unlocks 1 vehicle, 1 other, 1 character? Sure

%points set to keywords? Probably my favorite, sure

I could be talked into just about anything a typical war-gamer would come up with.

Somehow the thought of "troops unlock other slots" has never occurred to me. Holy moly, that'd solve the troops-avoidance issues 40k has always had.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Lobokai wrote:
I would take any reasonable FOC at this point

Flat mandate of 1 character and 2 battleline (or whatever)? Sure

Each Battleline unit unlocks 1 vehicle, 1 other, 1 character? Sure

%points set to keywords? Probably my favorite, sure

I could be talked into just about anything a typical war-gamer would come up with.

Somehow the thought of "troops unlock other slots" has never occurred to me. Holy moly, that'd solve the troops-avoidance issues 40k has always had.

The mandatory 2 Troops of older editions, Troop-centric detachments of 8th/9th, and WHFB's requirement of 25% Core were all functionally about making you take troops to unlock other things.

Players complained that they didn't like having to take 'tax' units, sometimes because the core troops genuinely were underpowered, sometimes because they simply didn't appreciate the unglamorous dependability and cost-effectiveness of normal dudes.

So here we are with a totally free-form army-building system that lets you avoid the normal dudes entirely. Go figure that skew's an issue and armies don't look anything like a TOE.

 catbarf wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Lobokai wrote:
I would take any reasonable FOC at this point

Flat mandate of 1 character and 2 battleline (or whatever)? Sure

Each Battleline unit unlocks 1 vehicle, 1 other, 1 character? Sure

%points set to keywords? Probably my favorite, sure

I could be talked into just about anything a typical war-gamer would come up with.

Somehow the thought of "troops unlock other slots" has never occurred to me. Holy moly, that'd solve the troops-avoidance issues 40k has always had.

The mandatory 2 Troops of older editions, Troop-centric detachments of 8th/9th, and WHFB's requirement of 25% Core were all functionally about making you take troops to unlock other things.

Players complained that they didn't like having to take 'tax' units, sometimes because the core troops genuinely were underpowered, sometimes because they simply didn't appreciate the unglamorous dependability and cost-effectiveness of normal dudes.

So here we are with a totally free-form army-building system that lets you avoid the normal dudes entirely. Go figure that skew's an issue and armies don't look anything like a TOE.

If we're honest, the FoC has likely been a genuine casualty of the competitive scene. The idea of the troops tax has been around a while, but it wasn't until widespread exposure to competitive play was normalised that the desire to remove it from GW came in.

you deal with "troops tax" by making troops something you actually want

leopard wrote:
you deal with "troops tax" by making troops something you actually want

I think GW have tried most combinations within the confines of their system but either they end up A. Too efficient or B. Pure tax.

It's nearly never been a choice and that's going as far back as when only troops could score objectives.

People like to kill stuff, by decisions troops aren't meant to be killy compared to not troops.

leopard wrote:
you deal with "troops tax" by making troops something you actually want

They made troops effective in multiple editions across multiple games and players still chafed at the 'troops tax' because the ordinary basic dudes tend not to be very flashy or exciting.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Lobokai wrote:
I would take any reasonable FOC at this point

Flat mandate of 1 character and 2 battleline (or whatever)? Sure

Each Battleline unit unlocks 1 vehicle, 1 other, 1 character? Sure

%points set to keywords? Probably my favorite, sure

I could be talked into just about anything a typical war-gamer would come up with.

Somehow the thought of "troops unlock other slots" has never occurred to me. Holy moly, that'd solve the troops-avoidance issues 40k has always had.

OR you make the troops more appealing and look at why they might not be taken or just as MSU.

For example I always thought the best solution to Tactical Marines was 1 Special or Heavy at five dudes and then 1 of each at ten dudes. It's a way to encourage larger squads, or switch how it worked for Skitarii Rangers/Vanguard and they only get 1 special at 5 dudes and then the 2 additional at 10.

You also have to consider overlap of roles. This is mostly problematic with Marines due to proliferation of unit profiles, whereas you can solve that a little easier with CSM, where I think we can agree MAYBE Chosen should just be the base statline of Legionaires and then we have the more obvious specialized roles in their other units.
Meanwhile, Skitarii Rangers/Vanguard don't have the overlap of roles overall but GW absolutely destroyed how the unit functioned.

I'm not really a fan of troops unlocking other units because it stops fluffy armies as well. One of the few times GW did something successfully was with 7th with the 1st Company Formation for Marines, and with 8th/9th allowing running of more Elites, or for CSM to do more Bikers via a Red Corsairs list.

 catbarf wrote:

leopard wrote:
you deal with "troops tax" by making troops something you actually want

They made troops effective in multiple editions across multiple games and players still chafed at the 'troops tax' because the ordinary basic dudes tend not to be very flashy or exciting.

"They" made troops effective for some armies. For marines, excluding a short time at the end of 8th ed, troops were always the tax. There is a reason why csm armies often go csmless, because stuff like poxwalkers and cultists are cheaper and better. And that is before often the cheaper stuff having better rules. Who is going to take an expensive and slow unit of 5 PM, when a cultist unit can be on an objective turn 1, infect it and then it doesn't even matter that much if they die or not.

GK troops were historicaly horrible. If GK could, in the past, take just interceptors they would. Stuff like Custodes Guard becoming a good and worth taking unit, and a core of the army too, is a rare thing in w40k. It has nothing to do with being exciting or flashy. It is just that, and marines got lucky here that phobos marines stayed troops, intercessors or tacticals are bad, and are a tax with how much they cost. The work horse, in 9th, of marine armies is stuff like desolators, lancers and buff characters.

leopard wrote:
you deal with "troops tax" by making troops something you actually want

No. Grunts of any faction shouldn´t feel special or powerful as they would overshadow the elite and support options. It would boil down to this:

"If everybody is super no one is."

No, it's simply a matter of making troops worth their cost. They don't need to be special or powerful; just useful.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Lobokai wrote:
I would take any reasonable FOC at this point

Flat mandate of 1 character and 2 battleline (or whatever)? Sure

Each Battleline unit unlocks 1 vehicle, 1 other, 1 character? Sure

%points set to keywords? Probably my favorite, sure

I could be talked into just about anything a typical war-gamer would come up with.

Somehow the thought of "troops unlock other slots" has never occurred to me. Holy moly, that'd solve the troops-avoidance issues 40k has always had.

This sort of system is exactly how Kings of War (and deadzone + firefight/ other Mantic games) have been doing it for over 10 years.

It works really well, combined with some simple anti-spam rules which scale with the points size of the battle.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
I'm not really a fan of troops unlocking other units because it stops fluffy armies as well. One of the few times GW did something successfully was with 7th with the 1st Company Formation for Marines, and with 8th/9th allowing running of more Elites, or for CSM to do more Bikers via a Red Corsairs list.

This is where the concept of Battleline, especially mutable Battleline would fix that issue.

Pick a Warlord. The Warlord choice determines which units are Battleline.
For each Battleline unit you take, you make take 1 X, Y, and Z.

Your Warlord is a Tank Commander, making Leman Russ Battle Tanks, Demolishers, and Exterminators are Battleline. You can not build your Tank Company.

If your Warlord is a Space Marine in Terminator Armor, various Terminators are Battleline. You can now make your 1st Company force.

Etc and so on. It might require GW to expand the range of characters to allow all reasonable army archetypes to be constructed, but that wouldn't be a bad thing.

Dudeface wrote:
If we're honest, the FoC has likely been a genuine casualty of the competitive scene. The idea of the troops tax has been around a while, but it wasn't until widespread exposure to competitive play was normalised that the desire to remove it from GW came in.

I think that's one of those "correlation is not causation" things. Removing the FOC is an extension of unbound armies (anyone remember that idiocy?) and open play, which were created because GW's sales department hated the idea that a new customer could be told "don't buy that new release, it's not for your army". GW wanted a way to say "buy this new space marine kit for your orks" and so they created a format where it was possible, and despite a complete lack of interest from the community they've been steadily pushing the entire game in that direction.

 alextroy wrote:
Pick a Warlord. The Warlord choice determines which units are Battleline.
For each Battleline unit you take, you make take 1 X, Y, and Z.

Your Warlord is a Tank Commander, making Leman Russ Battle Tanks, Demolishers, and Exterminators are Battleline. You can not build your Tank Company.

If your Warlord is a Space Marine in Terminator Armor, various Terminators are Battleline. You can now make your 1st Company force.

This is the way I hope detachments work, but as we haven't seen an actual Codex yet, there's no way to know if that's possible.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
If we're honest, the FoC has likely been a genuine casualty of the competitive scene. The idea of the troops tax has been around a while, but it wasn't until widespread exposure to competitive play was normalised that the desire to remove it from GW came in.

I think that's one of those "correlation is not causation" things. Removing the FOC is an extension of unbound armies (anyone remember that idiocy?) and open play, which were created because GW's sales department hated the idea that a new customer could be told "don't buy that new release, it's not for your army". GW wanted a way to say "buy this new space marine kit for your orks" and so they created a format where it was possible, and despite a complete lack of interest from the community they've been steadily pushing the entire game in that direction.

I strongly disagree, the FoC started to loosen when individual armies began to get their own back in 6th. Then the moment detachments appear in 8th we had people manipulating min troops to gain resources to fuel competitive combos. For 9th there wasn't a benefit to taking the troops not as obsec could be given to other things and some detachments could avoid them, which people did. Then by arks they stopped forcing the troops on people and suddenly they were never seen again.

Those drivers have not come from unbound, which frankly I've never seen. The game still doesn't support unbound in the manner you suggest due to the detachment rules requiring army purity.

The FOC has been getting watered down for years. And Unbound did exist.

I'd bet real money it was a sales thing more than a tournament thing.

"What do you mean you wrote it so they can only bring one of that unit? The next book removes 0-1's, you hear me? We want to sell more kits!"

Dudeface wrote:
Those drivers have not come from unbound, which frankly I've never seen.

Unbound not being seen is exactly my point. Like with "it's totally not PL" as the new point system GW looked at the failure of unbound and decided to, rather than acknowledge the failure and move on with a better idea, start pushing the game in the direction of "buy whatever you want". Formations replaced the FOC, then detachments made it irrelevant, and now finally it doesn't exist at all.

And whether or not you accept unbound as the root of it all it certainly wasn't the demands of competitive play. Competitive play benefits from the classic FOC restricting armies and making it easier to balance the game. Removing those limits and allowing one-dimensional spam armies of whatever the latest overpowered design mistake is magnifies every balance problem and encourages "win in the list building phase" strategies that rarely produce a healthy metagame.

In an optimal world, one wouldn't need an FoC because the gamemechanics would enforce balanced forces from the get go.

ThePaintingOwl wrote:
I think that's one of those "correlation is not causation" things. Removing the FOC is an extension of unbound armies (anyone remember that idiocy?) and open play, which were created because GW's sales department hated the idea that a new customer could be told "don't buy that new release, it's not for your army". GW wanted a way to say "buy this new space marine kit for your orks" and so they created a format where it was possible, and despite a complete lack of interest from the community they've been steadily pushing the entire game in that direction.

In late 4th, Apocalypse was a way to encourage larger armies. When 1500 points was the norm back then, Apocalypse offered an environment for armies up to 3000 points or more. Then in 6th we got allies as a way to encourage starting second or third armies that you could get ready and use quickly since you didn't need a whole lot, just a few units. Then in 7th it was formations giving bonuses to encourage more sales and also unbound armies were introduced. And now in 10th it's just take whatever you want, but no more than three of each thing as the last remnant of the FOC.

Dudeface wrote:
I strongly disagree, the FoC started to loosen when individual armies began to get their own back in 6th. Then the moment detachments appear in 8th we had people manipulating min troops to gain resources to fuel competitive combos. For 9th there wasn't a benefit to taking the troops not as obsec could be given to other things and some detachments could avoid them, which people did. Then by arks they stopped forcing the troops on people and suddenly they were never seen again.

We've had FOC manipulation going back to 3rd when the FOC was first introduced. Iron Hands, Craftworlds, etc.

Tyel wrote:
This is a subjective thing that other people possibly don't notice, don't mind - or may feel has always been the case. But here goes.
And its not about points/PL/free upgrades.

One of the problems I've had with AoS (possibly why I've never got into it) is that a lot of armies don't "feel" like armies to me.
Its hard exactly to put a finger on why - as you might say "1 leader, 3 battleline" should produce something sort of standard. But I think its because there are various ways to expand battleline - or you can take a few units of scrubs, then go all in on monsters (or characters who are effectively monsters) etc.

It kind of reminds me of Total War where you'd get armies of "all Stegadons" etc. That's not, to my mind, a force that "should" exist. Someone might think its cool - but its too one-dimensional for me.

And I feel 10th is sort of going the same way. So for example, looking at successful tournament lists, there's say Belakor+5 greater deamons and 12 flamers. Or say an Eldar list of characters (and Yncarne), 3 Fire Prisms, 2 Wraith Knights. They don't feel like organic forces that would exist. Arguably this swings down as far as "here's my 2k points army, its 3 bricks of Custodian Guard+characters" - which doesn't feel like it should be an issue, but somehow is to my mind.

As said - its extremely subjective, and unclear why "this arguably random bunch of units represents a fluffy army", while "this random bunch of units is just an optimal selection without any natural constraints". But its an issue that's been gnawing at me the last couple of weekends. I'm not a hard advocate of the FoC, and suspect a lot of these armies could be made quasi-compliant anyway (as in say AoS). But I do feel something is missing.

Anyway, what do other people think?

No, I very much agree.

Though I suspect GW would very much consider this a feature, rather than a bug. Why else would you remove virtually all restrictions to list-building and just let everyone take whatever they want?

Personally, I'm not a fan. I miss when armies actually looked like armies.

 Overread wrote:
One thing 40K has done well with that GW has never really managed to port over to AoS is the idea of niches.

AoS everything is basically kinda the same.
In 40K they've had armour values and shifts nad changes over the years which means that at times anti-tank or anti-air really was the only reliably way to deal with those threats.

Now taken too far with AA the issue was that if you didn't take AA (or couldn't) then an air dominant opponent would wipe the floor with you. However it does create lots of reasons to take different models besides their damage output.

AoS has suffered and suffers more now as most weapons are basically the same stats, because there aren't the same niches. So when you've a big diverse army, you don't really have reason to take some units over others because really all you need look at is the damage output.

Granted that's simplifying it somewhat, but the overall feel is that AoS has a super simplistic approach which means you can take anything and anything can hurt anything; but this also saps tactical niches.
40K wavers (because 3 year editions) but has generally sought to create niches which then require counters to them.

What I find depressing is that 40k designers seem to delight in taking the very worst aspects of AoS, whilst leaving behind the stuff that's actually decent. Hence why 40k characters are now glued to units and stratagems have as much connection to events on the battlefield as a game of Yugioh. Meanwhile, AoS characters can move independently of units and have Command Abilities, which remove the need for both stratagems and auras. To say nothing of the fact that AoS has now overtaken 40k when it comes to wargear, options and spells.

You mentioned niches, which (as you say) AoS doesn't really have. Indeed, I think fixed hit/wound rolls were a big mistake. On the other hand, 40k is so festooned with crap to try and make its niches work. Look at how few invulnerable/FNP-type saves there are in AoS. Outside of the literal ghost army, they're pretty damn rare. Now look at 40k. Every unit is tripping over invulnerable saves. And FNP saves. And special rules and special rules for those special rules and then some more special rules so that the other special rules don't get lonely. Not what I'd expect after two supposed resets.

Moreover, while I think niches are good, they're very much tied to having solid rules for army-building, and solid army-design. Insofar as possible, you want armies that have a reasonable mix of units characters, infantry, heavy-infantry/bikes, vehicles/monsters etc. And if a list leans one way, it's better that it leans towards the infantry side, rather than the monster/tank side. The reason, naturally, is that niches only work if you need all of them. If a lot of armies stop including infantry then why would you include any anti-infantry weapons? This can also spiral very quickly - why include infantry of your own if it's only really good against other infantry, which most other people aren't taking?

And this is exactly what we see with 40k, because it has thrown virtually all army-building limits out the window, to ensure that forces bear as little resemblance to coherent armies as possible. This, a lot of infantry quickly becomes obsolete because you don't need a bunch of bolters - you need weapons that can deal with an army of C'Tan or a horde of Captains or Leman Russ or whatever.

But even before 10th took a massive dump on 40k, the changes to SMs basically killed niches by ensuring that the most ubiquitous armies in the game had nothing that even resembled basic infantry. They were too elite, you see. Thus, anti-infantry weapons were already on the way out because what's the point in anti-infantry weapons that can't efficiently deal with the most common infantry in the game?

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that 40k is desperate to hold onto its niches (rather than going the AoS route), yet its army and list-building design means those niches can only serve to promote skew lists.

Quite honestly, given how many things I dislike about AoS, I'm astonished at how much better it looks when contrasted with current 40k.

The best solution was something like 4th edition's standardised FOC, but with quite a few characters who move units around/into new slots.

A Terminator Captain should make Terminator Squads Troops choices (and unlock the ability to upgrade one to a Command Squad), but you should be forced to take a minimum number of Terminators so that there's an opportunity cost.

Tank Commanders should move Leman Russes to Troops, but you should again have to take a minimum number of them, and maybe lose access to infantry Troops.

An Autarch (or Menshad Korum Exarch) should make Aspect Warriors Troops, but you have more limited access to Guardian-based support units.

etc. etc.

 amanita wrote:
No, it's simply a matter of making troops worth their cost. They don't need to be special or powerful; just useful.

No. Those people who complained in the past about core troops wanted every unit to be lethal which resulted in bad games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:
In an optimal world, one wouldn't need an FoC because the gamemechanics would enforce balanced forces from the get go.

How would your game mechanics differ between a small army which consists entirely of terminators and one slightly larger SM army which included a variety of armour types (scout, power and terminator armour)?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
[quote

We've had FOC manipulation going back to 3rd when the FOC was first introduced. Iron Hands, Craftworlds, etc.

 Strg Alt wrote:

Iron Hands didn´t have dedicated rules in 3rd 40K.

Yes they did. All of the First Founding SM chapters had dedicated rules in 3rd edition, be it from their own codex, sub lists or the Index Astartes series. The IH had a list in the latter which messed around with the placement of a couple of units (Dreadnoughts were both HQs and Elites for example) or just having a brand new HQ in the Iron Father.

 Strg Alt wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
In an optimal world, one wouldn't need an FoC because the gamemechanics would enforce balanced forces from the get go.

How would your game mechanics differ between a small army which consists entirely of terminators and one slightly larger SM army which included a variety of armour types (scout, power and terminator armour)?

I bit unclear of an exemple no? but i will try.

For one, both are still infantry skews, so the obvious answer would be firepower usually found on tanks and anti-tank weaponry to a degree intermixed with the later force.

Alternatively if the later force is designed as an infantry company type deal, then you'd expect a decent amount of AT weaponry which should also be able to deal with terminators, further terrain and mechanics like crossfire should finally allow the mixed force to be able to spring ambushes with scouts on the terminators.

 Strg Alt wrote:

Iron Hands didn´t have dedicated rules in 3rd 40K.

Iron Warriors then. I can never keep those two straight.

Even AoS does have a force organization of sorts; there are several limits on certain unit types as well as a minimum of '1HQ, 3Troops' though as the OP mentioned AoS has a pretty flexible definition of what can go in that slot.

I tend to regard individual games as 'zoomed in' on a certain part of a larger battle, or a special operation within a greater field of war. So I'm OK if the armies don't look like *armies* because in my mind the idea that what we put on the tabletop represents a norm would be more immersion breaking.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I tend to regard individual games as 'zoomed in' on a certain part of a larger battle

That's always been 40K's justification, and it works (at least, sort of- the game is rather lacking in off-board support) until you start playing Crusade or other campaign system and it collapses like an overcooked soufflé.