Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Galas wrote:

Personally, I would accept all kind of limitations to allies, cp related, etc... before banning them.

The core problem is just that the game has a very loose definition of what a faction is, has WAY too many factions and far too many of them have the barest selection of options to work with. The only way you could really remove soup and keep anywhere near the variety we have now is by massively consolidating things (particularly Imperial things) into a much smaller set of factions. That's ultimately what soup is doing though. I think its overall a pretty successful experiment that's primarily needs some outliers snipped and its core philosophy extended to Xenos factions in a way that makes sense for them. For example, I'd love to see Orks carved up into several smaller "factions" that soup together into a really cool, dynamic set of detachments.

I'm not willing to say the Castellan is fine. I am willing to say that its not good development to nerf it from two directions at one time.

Simple rules for good game development are Fix the game first over fixing a specific model. That means fix the CP issue, then see if that clears the Model issue.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Galas wrote:

Personally, I would accept all kind of limitations to allies, cp related, etc... before banning them.

The core problem is just that the game has a very loose definition of what a faction is, has WAY too many factions and far too many of them have the barest selection of options to work with. The only way you could really remove soup and keep anywhere near the variety we have now is by massively consolidating things (particularly Imperial things) into a much smaller set of factions. That's ultimately what soup is doing though. I think its overall a pretty successful experiment that's primarily needs some outliers snipped and its core philosophy extended to Xenos factions in a way that makes sense for them. For example, I'd love to see Orks carved up into several smaller "factions" that soup together into a really cool, dynamic set of detachments.

^^^^
THIS!

I would buy an entirely new army of Orks if we could have Da Burna Boyz faction, or Da Footstompas, Or the Speed Freaks!

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Galas wrote:

Personally, I would accept all kind of limitations to allies, cp related, etc... before banning them.

The core problem is just that the game has a very loose definition of what a faction is, has WAY too many factions and far too many of them have the barest selection of options to work with. The only way you could really remove soup and keep anywhere near the variety we have now is by massively consolidating things (particularly Imperial things) into a much smaller set of factions. That's ultimately what soup is doing though. I think its overall a pretty successful experiment that's primarily needs some outliers snipped and its core philosophy extended to Xenos factions in a way that makes sense for them. For example, I'd love to see Orks carved up into several smaller "factions" that soup together into a really cool, dynamic set of detachments.

^^^^
THIS!

I would buy an entirely new army of Orks if we could have Da Burna Boyz faction, or Da Footstompas, Or the Speed Freaks!

Exactly! Expand the soup for everyone! Let Orks bring some of the other races as allies too. I'd love rules for Khorne-Ork armies to be fielded together like Genestealers can take Astra Militarum. They can be those Orks that are on that one Daemon World eternally fighting the best fight ever (aka their heaven).

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Galas wrote:

Personally, I would accept all kind of limitations to allies, cp related, etc... before banning them.

The core problem is just that the game has a very loose definition of what a faction is, has WAY too many factions and far too many of them have the barest selection of options to work with. The only way you could really remove soup and keep anywhere near the variety we have now is by massively consolidating things (particularly Imperial things) into a much smaller set of factions. That's ultimately what soup is doing though. I think its overall a pretty successful experiment that's primarily needs some outliers snipped and its core philosophy extended to Xenos factions in a way that makes sense for them. For example, I'd love to see Orks carved up into several smaller "factions" that soup together into a really cool, dynamic set of detachments.

^^^^
THIS!

I would buy an entirely new army of Orks if we could have Da Burna Boyz faction, or Da Footstompas, Or the Speed Freaks!

We already know what the ork factions are. Speed freaks is one of them. Getting new models too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Audustum wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Galas wrote:

Personally, I would accept all kind of limitations to allies, cp related, etc... before banning them.

The core problem is just that the game has a very loose definition of what a faction is, has WAY too many factions and far too many of them have the barest selection of options to work with. The only way you could really remove soup and keep anywhere near the variety we have now is by massively consolidating things (particularly Imperial things) into a much smaller set of factions. That's ultimately what soup is doing though. I think its overall a pretty successful experiment that's primarily needs some outliers snipped and its core philosophy extended to Xenos factions in a way that makes sense for them. For example, I'd love to see Orks carved up into several smaller "factions" that soup together into a really cool, dynamic set of detachments.

^^^^
THIS!

I would buy an entirely new army of Orks if we could have Da Burna Boyz faction, or Da Footstompas, Or the Speed Freaks!

Exactly! Expand the soup for everyone! Let Orks bring some of the other races as allies too. I'd love rules for Khorne-Ork armies to be fielded together like Genestealers can take Astra Militarum. They can be those Orks that are on that one Daemon World eternally fighting the best fight ever (aka their heaven).

Have you heard of Age of Sigmar - I think that is your game man. Check it out. I just got into it.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Galas wrote:

Personally, I would accept all kind of limitations to allies, cp related, etc... before banning them.

The core problem is just that the game has a very loose definition of what a faction is, has WAY too many factions and far too many of them have the barest selection of options to work with. The only way you could really remove soup and keep anywhere near the variety we have now is by massively consolidating things (particularly Imperial things) into a much smaller set of factions. That's ultimately what soup is doing though. I think its overall a pretty successful experiment that's primarily needs some outliers snipped and its core philosophy extended to Xenos factions in a way that makes sense for them. For example, I'd love to see Orks carved up into several smaller "factions" that soup together into a really cool, dynamic set of detachments.

^^^^
THIS!

I would buy an entirely new army of Orks if we could have Da Burna Boyz faction, or Da Footstompas, Or the Speed Freaks!

We already know what the ork factions are. Speed freaks is one of them. Getting new models too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Audustum wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Galas wrote:

Personally, I would accept all kind of limitations to allies, cp related, etc... before banning them.

The core problem is just that the game has a very loose definition of what a faction is, has WAY too many factions and far too many of them have the barest selection of options to work with. The only way you could really remove soup and keep anywhere near the variety we have now is by massively consolidating things (particularly Imperial things) into a much smaller set of factions. That's ultimately what soup is doing though. I think its overall a pretty successful experiment that's primarily needs some outliers snipped and its core philosophy extended to Xenos factions in a way that makes sense for them. For example, I'd love to see Orks carved up into several smaller "factions" that soup together into a really cool, dynamic set of detachments.

^^^^
THIS!

I would buy an entirely new army of Orks if we could have Da Burna Boyz faction, or Da Footstompas, Or the Speed Freaks!

Exactly! Expand the soup for everyone! Let Orks bring some of the other races as allies too. I'd love rules for Khorne-Ork armies to be fielded together like Genestealers can take Astra Militarum. They can be those Orks that are on that one Daemon World eternally fighting the best fight ever (aka their heaven).

Have you heard of Age of Sigmar - I think that is your game man. Check it out. I just got into it.

Unfortunately, my group is firmly 40k with no Sigmar and the general attitude is enough money/resources have been spent on 40k that there won't be movement. It's mostly busy careerists who don't have time for more than one miniature game (and barely time for that). No Sigmar for me.

Reemule wrote:
I'm not willing to say the Castellan is fine. I am willing to say that its not good development to nerf it from two directions at one time.

Simple rules for good game development are Fix the game first over fixing a specific model. That means fix the CP issue, then see if that clears the Model issue.

It clearly isn't a CP issue though because Chaos ones can get the same amount of CP basically. It's a combination of Households and Relics. Cawls Wrath being free is basically all the proof one needs about free relics being a broken concept.

As far as the argument for whether or not soup is good or not, I believe it is mostly good. That being said i’ll go over my primary negatives of soup first.
Right now soup presents two big problems, the first is that it disproportionately benifts certain factions over others. This point has already been talked to death so I won’t go into too much detail on it, necrons, tau, and orks start at inate disadvantage compared to armies which soup. This problem is a direct result of GW’s attempt to streamline the game (as the allies matrex was a confusing mess), but keywords do help certain factions over others.
The second problem of soup is that extremely powerful units and abilities have a greater impact on game since more armies have access to them. Case in point the IG battalion/brigade. It can’t be debated that without soup these types of detachments wouldn’t be nearly as problematic. Once again this has been talked to death so I go much beyond this.

So why I am in favor a soup despite these 2 issues? A lot of reasons so I’ll give a list

1) both these negatives aren’t that big deals. Sure they are annoying, but I strongly disagree that they are game breaking. Mono-army factions can still be strong provided their books are strong enough. It won’t always work out (see necrons), but can be reasonable as well (see tau and likely to be orks). As far as point 2 is concerned yeah OP stuff is worse with soup, but OP stuff is bad anyway regardless if soup exists. In a soulless world this thread would likely be a debate over how unfair IG is, and whether or not GW can ever successfully balance armies against eachother. GW is more frequent with fixes stuff shouldn’t stay OP for too long, ergo this isn’t that big of issue.

2) most of the other complaints about soup are extremely minor. For example people love to harp on how soup makes it so certain armies have no weaknesses, but that A) isn’t really true and B) isn’t that bad. In essence adding allies means gaining some of that armies strengths, but it also means acquiring a portion of its weaknesses. Consider adding an IG detachment to a Knight army. True it adds a lot of CP to the army and board presence, but it also carries costs. It adds more units to your list, which means you are less likely to get +1 to go first. It gives your opponent good targets for their anti infantry guns which they wouldn’t have had otherwise, and in that same vain gives them easy things to kill for mission purposes. Finally it costs a detachment slot, which is a bigger deal than many think. To put it bluntly you weaken your armies strengths by including allies. The problem is that the pros of an IG battalion far outweigh the cons, because IG are OP. Take out grand strategist, or raise the price of guardsman and commanders (very underpriced at 30 points) and all of sudden that battalion is very likely not an auto include anymore.

3) Soup solves more things then it hurts. This ones harder to see because we aren’t directly experiencing the problems that soup solves, but believe me it solves a lot of problems. Here’s a big example. I have played competitive 40k during 2 editions, 5th and 8th. I have to say i’ve greatly enjoyed 8th edition more than 5th. Part of this is because I’m better now than I was then (you enjoy things more when you’re good at them), but there are plenty of other reasons as well. Chief among them is allies. In 5th a single OP unit could define an army. There was codex Nob bikerz, codex: guys in chimeras and vendettas, codex: guys in razor backs, codex: terminators with storm shields, codex: palidens and psy autocannon dreads, codex: heldrakes and obliterators, etc etc. The reason for this is because most armies all had units with similar strengths. Due to this people would simply only use the most OP units. You couldn’t pick units from other armies to plug your weakness, so it is best to go all in your strengths. That meant spamming the best units and nothing else. Also if your armies best units weren’t up to meta standerd, well tough crackers your army sucks. Doesn’t matter that you have plenty of pretty good units (see space marines and tau) if you’re not the best you’ll need to buy a new army. To put it into perspective, a codex like custodies would have no chance in 5th, something soup solved.

4) lots of out of game benefits. There are a lot of cool units in 40k. I don’t want to have to start an army anytime i want to use just 1-2 of its units. Soup helps a lot with that. Additionally the community has grown due to soup. More people means more people to talk to, a more healthy competitive environment, and more people which get to to experience this wonderful hobby. That’s a big + for me. Balance is nice, but shouldn’t take precedence over everything else. I hate to be that guy, but go play chess if you only want that (also a wonderful game btw).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Reemule wrote:
I'm not willing to say the Castellan is fine. I am willing to say that its not good development to nerf it from two directions at one time.

Simple rules for good game development are Fix the game first over fixing a specific model. That means fix the CP issue, then see if that clears the Model issue.

It clearly isn't a CP issue though because Chaos ones can get the same amount of CP basically. It's a combination of Households and Relics. Cawls Wrath being free is basically all the proof one needs about free relics being a broken concept.

Yeah - relics are not all made equal.

Cawls wrath and primarchs wrath are equal in terms of command points. One is basically a mega storm bolter - the other is basically 2 riptide ion accerlators with a little less range. So basically - 200 points of firepower compare to about 10.

Salt donkey wrote:A while back I posted a thread about soup and why it wasn’t going away. The thesis to my argument there is “Unless it’s more profitable for GW to remove soup then keep they won’t, FURTHERMORE it extremely unlikely that soup will ever affect game balance enouugh to make any significant nerfs to it a profitable decision.”One thing to note is that most people’s response to my thread was “no duh, of course money only matters.” Yet here we are when many posters doubting that sentiment.
I don’t want want repeat myself too much so I’m just going to post a link to that thread

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/760188.page#10058400

The same thing was said about Rule of 3. What GW will lose in sales they will make up for by attracting players to a better game. The biggest hurdle right now to people looking to jump into the largest competitive tabletop in the game is the fact that you need three armies to play at once and that's overwhelmingly. That's my counter hypothesis to you anyway.

I don't know it is one thing to be forced to run bigger squads or lose one unit out of a list. It is a totaly a different thing, when one has to think that at any moment GW may just decide to make their 700-1000$ army illegal.

The person who bought a castellan would REALLY have to like painting and converting, to not be angry about a castellan nerf with how much it costs.

When GW nerfed the deep strike and mono BA lists, the two people that played BAs quit the game, but no new BA players ever came. In fact in my whole city we didn't have any new new players start and army. If someone new comes to play, it is always someone who already owns models from 4th-6th ed. I know the 7th ed players are rather salty and aside for those that play tournaments, non of those kept playing when 8th cstarted.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Reemule wrote:
I'm not willing to say the Castellan is fine. I am willing to say that its not good development to nerf it from two directions at one time.

Simple rules for good game development are Fix the game first over fixing a specific model. That means fix the CP issue, then see if that clears the Model issue.

It clearly isn't a CP issue though because Chaos ones can get the same amount of CP basically. It's a combination of Households and Relics. Cawls Wrath being free is basically all the proof one needs about free relics being a broken concept.

Chaos ones have only a single strategem to spend cp on..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Reemule wrote:
I'm not willing to say the Castellan is fine. I am willing to say that its not good development to nerf it from two directions at one time.

Simple rules for good game development are Fix the game first over fixing a specific model. That means fix the CP issue, then see if that clears the Model issue.

It clearly isn't a CP issue though because Chaos ones can get the same amount of CP basically. It's a combination of Households and Relics. Cawls Wrath being free is basically all the proof one needs about free relics being a broken concept.

Yeah - relics are not all made equal.

Cawls wrath and primarchs wrath are equal in terms of command points. One is basically a mega storm bolter - the other is basically 2 riptide ion accerlators with a little less range. So basically - 200 points of firepower compare to about 10.

I think this is interesting, maybe some relics need to cost cp above and beyond any cp to get a relic.

The problem with Imperial Knight relics is that they cost exactly the same as relics in all other codices (Free, 1CP, 3 CP) but they are not the same. This would be fine in the context of pure Knight armies strugling to get CP. With the FAQ change to their detachment rules they can have a nice amount of CP in a pure Knight Army. Of course, with that you couldn't have all the relics that you want and also use all the stratagems that you want. And thats a shame, because theres many stratagems that are fine but when you are strugling to get CP, is like, why bother?

The Tau Onager Gauntlet is not equivalent to the Imperial Knight Fist-Relic. But not because the Onager is worse. It is just because the Imperial Knight is a super heavy with very powerfull weapons, that are reallly expensive

blaktoof wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Reemule wrote:
I'm not willing to say the Castellan is fine. I am willing to say that its not good development to nerf it from two directions at one time.

Simple rules for good game development are Fix the game first over fixing a specific model. That means fix the CP issue, then see if that clears the Model issue.

It clearly isn't a CP issue though because Chaos ones can get the same amount of CP basically. It's a combination of Households and Relics. Cawls Wrath being free is basically all the proof one needs about free relics being a broken concept.

Chaos ones have only a single strategem to spend cp on..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Reemule wrote:
I'm not willing to say the Castellan is fine. I am willing to say that its not good development to nerf it from two directions at one time.

Simple rules for good game development are Fix the game first over fixing a specific model. That means fix the CP issue, then see if that clears the Model issue.

It clearly isn't a CP issue though because Chaos ones can get the same amount of CP basically. It's a combination of Households and Relics. Cawls Wrath being free is basically all the proof one needs about free relics being a broken concept.

Yeah - relics are not all made equal.

Cawls wrath and primarchs wrath are equal in terms of command points. One is basically a mega storm bolter - the other is basically 2 riptide ion accerlators with a little less range. So basically - 200 points of firepower compare to about 10.

I think this is interesting, maybe some relics need to cost cp above and beyond any cp to get a relic.

AND did you read that Stratagem? It's pretty darn good. However, let's say they gain every single Stratagem the Knight codex has. The issue would be the Relics and Households, clearly. Cawls Wrath shouldn't be free in ANY manner. Period.

Wouldn't the easier solution be to just nerf Cawl's wrath?

Keep +1 Str and +1 AP but removing the bonus damage for example?

Spoletta wrote:
Wouldn't the easier solution be to just nerf Cawl's wrath?

Keep +1 Str and +1 AP but removing the bonus damage for example?

It's still way better than any relic bolt pistol or storm bolter etc.

GW created big landmine with their free warlord traits, chapter etc traits and relics.

tneva82 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Wouldn't the easier solution be to just nerf Cawl's wrath?

Keep +1 Str and +1 AP but removing the bonus damage for example?

It's still way better than any relic bolt pistol or storm bolter etc.

GW created big landmine with their free warlord traits, chapter etc traits and relics.

That is more of a problem with the fact that relic small weapons really should be all buffed in some way.

Spoletta wrote:

That is more of a problem with the fact that relic small weapons really should be all buffed in some way.

It's pretty hard to buff relic bolt pistol equal to 2d6 S8 AP-4 D2 which can be buffed to S9/D3 I would say...So guess which one you spend CP on?

tneva82 wrote:


It's pretty hard to buff relic bolt pistol equal to 2d6 S8 AP-4 D2 which can be buffed to S9/D3 I would say...So guess which one you spend CP on?

Whilst I agree that that relics are not equal and should cost points, this is still kinda false comparison. The cost of bringing as space marine character with a bolt pistol or a stormbolter is not the same as a cost of bringing a Castellan with plasma. You have already paid way more points for that Castellan plasma weapon before any relics are being bought.

 Crimson wrote:

tneva82 wrote:


It's pretty hard to buff relic bolt pistol equal to 2d6 S8 AP-4 D2 which can be buffed to S9/D3 I would say...So guess which one you spend CP on?

Whilst I agree that that relics are not equal and should cost points, this is still kinda false comparison. The cost of bringing as space marine character with a bolt pistol or a stormbolter is not the same as a cost of bringing a Castellan with plasma. You have already paid way more points for that Castellan plasma weapon before any relics are being bought.

100% this. It's an unfair comparison.

That said, many of the Infantry weapon replacement relics in many of the Codexes are just bad choices, so something could do with changing there.

A relic bolt pistol should be on the level of:

Pistol 3 S6 -2 D2

to really be worthy of a CP or a relic.

Spoletta wrote:
A relic bolt pistol should be on the level of:

Pistol 3 S6 -2 D2

to really be worthy of a CP or a relic.

Sure, I think that kind of level would be totally fine. In fact you may still not get people taking it.

The thing is with relic weapons is that they mostly just make you a little bit more killy. Which is all well and good, but there are loads of ways to make your army more killy without using up your free relic slot.

The popular relics are usually (not exclusively, but usually) unique utility effects. Like CP generation, or fancy auras and such. Something you can't get just be taking normal units with stronger weapons.

So a relic Storm Bolter (for example) shouldn't just be better Storm Bolters. They should have a unique additional effect, and one that is actually useful. For instance the fluff for a relic Storm Bolter could be that it sets enemies on fire, and you represent that by giving subsequent shooting attacks against the same target that shooting phase +1 to hit.

Or alternatively a relic Power Sword could inspire friendly models nearby, who know of the legendary deeds done with that Sword. So it could give units within 6" exploding 6s in the Fight Phase.

You see where I'm going.

Spoletta wrote:
A relic bolt pistol should be on the level of:

Pistol 3 S6 -2 D2

to really be worthy of a CP or a relic.

So why you would take that rather than cawl's wrath? Which one is better usage of CP?

Audustum wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Galas wrote:

Personally, I would accept all kind of limitations to allies, cp related, etc... before banning them.

The core problem is just that the game has a very loose definition of what a faction is, has WAY too many factions and far too many of them have the barest selection of options to work with. The only way you could really remove soup and keep anywhere near the variety we have now is by massively consolidating things (particularly Imperial things) into a much smaller set of factions. That's ultimately what soup is doing though. I think its overall a pretty successful experiment that's primarily needs some outliers snipped and its core philosophy extended to Xenos factions in a way that makes sense for them. For example, I'd love to see Orks carved up into several smaller "factions" that soup together into a really cool, dynamic set of detachments.

^^^^
THIS!

I would buy an entirely new army of Orks if we could have Da Burna Boyz faction, or Da Footstompas, Or the Speed Freaks!

Exactly! Expand the soup for everyone! Let Orks bring some of the other races as allies too. I'd love rules for Khorne-Ork armies to be fielded together like Genestealers can take Astra Militarum. They can be those Orks that are on that one Daemon World eternally fighting the best fight ever (aka their heaven).

Yeah, until someone starts winning tournaments with a combo that includes a faction people serially don't like (eldar plus anything, tau plus anything) and all the imperium players lose their minds because of how fluff breaking it is.

It'd happen. You know it would. Like if Tau were allowed to bring in support from Harlequins or something like that based on some new fluff development where they're working together.

You're wrong. I LOVED the way DOW1 used the Orks and Chaos as mutual enemies. They worked, thematically and fluff wise. The Orks were being controlled by the Chaos. Same with Eldar/Orks. Tau/Eldar would be easy to fluff up. The only difficult ones to fluff would be Necrons/Anyone. Because Necrons literally want everyone to die. So maybe 1kSons/Necrons? Promise them death and slaughter of the living?

It would be AMAZEBALLS to have to plan against a DEldar/Chaos foe, or a Tau/Eldar force. Tau hold the line while Harlequins chop them up? I want this. Like I've never wanted anything else. PLEASE GIVE ME ORK/ELDAR COMbOS!!

He isn't wrong though. We already know people would complain about such 'unfluffy' combos. Just look at 6th.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
He isn't wrong though. We already know people would complain about such 'unfluffy' combos. Just look at 6th.

Absolutely.

And honestly, I'd be fine if GW phrased this change as an 'organised play suggestion' exactly as the rule of 3.

That way they can still say 'if you want maximum balance, you can do this', while still allowing people playing casual games with full matched play rules to ignore it should they wish.

 Stux wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

tneva82 wrote:


It's pretty hard to buff relic bolt pistol equal to 2d6 S8 AP-4 D2 which can be buffed to S9/D3 I would say...So guess which one you spend CP on?

Whilst I agree that that relics are not equal and should cost points, this is still kinda false comparison. The cost of bringing as space marine character with a bolt pistol or a stormbolter is not the same as a cost of bringing a Castellan with plasma. You have already paid way more points for that Castellan plasma weapon before any relics are being bought.

100% this. It's an unfair comparison.

That said, many of the Infantry weapon replacement relics in many of the Codexes are just bad choices, so something could do with changing there.

It's not an unfair comparison though. They cost the exact same CP. What is unfair is the additional power you are getting out of a weapon for the same cost. For a relic storm bolter you are getting like maybe 1 more average damage - for a weapon like cawls wrath - you are getting probably 5 more average damage. Pulled these numbers out of the air but just trying to make my point.

Cawls wrath is probably 5x more efficient in terms of CP spent to total power received.

tneva82 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
A relic bolt pistol should be on the level of:

Pistol 3 S6 -2 D2

to really be worthy of a CP or a relic.

So why you would take that rather than cawl's wrath? Which one is better usage of CP?

Let's not use Cawl's wrath as an element of comparison because it is clearly OP.
Let's use the relic gatling cannon. So the question is, should i get that pistol on my captain, or give about 4 more shots of gatling to my knight? The profiles are the same S6 AP-2 D2. In one case you are giving more power to a big shooty platform, in the other you are giving this power to an untargetable char, but at lower range one less shot and higher BS. It's not that obvious of a choice.

Relic Gatling is about half another gatling. It averages 12 hits where 2 galtings averages 16. Or like...2 more hellbasters killed per turn...not a big deal.