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That way our various 40k armies can be more different. One of the things that pulled me away from 40k to other games was being able to customize better. In 40k it's more rigid; better for some who don't have the time to be creative or the inclination to be crunchy when it comes to unit design, but I still wish it was around. I remember late 3rd / early 4th edition had something for Guard (poorly thought out and mostly useless) and Marines (which I never got feed back on). Who else wishes a more thought out and indepth system existed?

M.

Remember Craftworld Eldar?

*Shudder*

I disagree.

I think there's just as much room for creativity using the Special Characters and the Counts-As rule as there was with Doctrines, or in my personal case, Chapter Traits.

MekanobSamael wrote:Remember Craftworld Eldar?

*Shudder*

No, actually :/

M.

I recall there being a craftworld that could boobytrap every terrain piece on the board by taking ten rangers and fielding them as ten separate units.

Plus other nonsense.

I guess what I'm saying is, it would need to be given more thought than what it was last time, that is to say, a way of making your army better, essentially without sacrificing anything.

Doctrines add disctiveness, but they are also very restrictive. I think 4th Ed SM was the best example of a good use of one, but 4th Ed IG was meh.

It's something that is very hard to balance I would think.

Even with the advantage/disadvantage system in the Space Marine codex, it was easily abusable.

Well the disadvantages simply didn't hurt certain builds at all. That was the problem.

There needs to be a way to field an all veteran army, all tank army, etc. Engagements like that will occur in small scales in 40k, why can't we play them out?

I did like the old Chapter Traits SM had, though there is nearly as much flexibility to be had via special characters, even if it does restrict list building a little (ie: If you want a biker force, but also want a librarian, youve probably just spent 300 points or so getting some pretty basic HQ)

Well, you have to run BA/BT/SW now if you want CS/BP troops which kind of sucks imo. I'm sure there are so called codex chapters that actually do that, but I'm probably just crazy.

Yeah, I do wish you could give Captains a Jump Pack to have assault squads count as troops, since imo there are *much* better options in FA (speeders and attack bikes)

One thing I definitely miss is BP/CCW tactical marines.

Oh, and two Meltas per squad. That was so choice.

Amaya wrote:Well the disadvantages simply didn't hurt certain builds at all. That was the problem.

There needs to be a way to field an all veteran army, all tank army, etc. Engagements like that will occur in small scales in 40k, why can't we play them out?

Thing is, you can, unless all you play is tournaments. Pretty easy to ask a friend if you can run a list using say, Sternguard veterans as troops. I think with games played for fun, people take the game a little too seriously. I kind of miss the design-a-vehicle and deisgn-a-monster rules too.

Putting it in the book just made it abusable at tournament level.

I liked Craftworld Eldar, Ulthwe Seer council was awesome-sauce.

MekanobSamael wrote:I recall there being a craftworld that could boobytrap every terrain piece on the board by taking ten rangers and fielding them as ten separate units.

Plus other nonsense.

I guess what I'm saying is, it would need to be given more thought than what it was last time, that is to say, a way of making your army better, essentially without sacrificing anything.

Not at all, but the rangers did have AP1 shots on their elites choice when you rolled 4 5 or 6, though the models were 24 points each. The really ridiculous rules for the rangers were the +2 to cover save they ALWAYS had, meaning they had 5+/2+ the entire game basically. There was a table of rolls you did before the game too, but it didn't do anything too ridiculous.

The craftworld eldar had amazingly fun rules, much like the Catachans codex I have recently started using again. Court of the Young King armies looked stunning when well-painted, too.

The Catachan rules I think are a good example of how unique armies should be done. The codex allows you to fully cahnge the battlefield into a jungle, there are booby-traps for both teams, 6' vision through the dense trees making gunlines impossible. The whole game was like a massive version of the original Predator.

Ordo Dakka wrote:6' vision through the dense trees making gunlines impossible.

My friend and I basically moved this rule into standard games. We always had a small woodland area or two, and it was a great way to kill gunlines down a table.

I don't miss them either.

Most of the doctrines were rolled into the new codex. The only ones that weren't were ones that would have been horribly broken in 5th ed (deepstriking platoons landing and BiD/FRF straight out of the jump? Power blobs with +1 attack?)

You can still make unique guard lists, you have just lost the fluff cues to do so. It's not the lack of doctrines that people are choosing bland armies, it's that they're choosing bland armies.