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The issue is that fun is extremely subjective, so a game can be very well done, or poorly done, and how much fun you have depends on you as a person.

 Vilgeir wrote:
Pages and pages on an FoC change when that's the least problematic issue in 9th edition. Never change, dakka.

This comment makes no sense. You're annoyed at Dakka as a whole for discussiong what changes people would like to see in a thread about discussing what changes people would like to see?

 catbarf wrote:

I played Guard from 3rd-5th and have no idea what you guys are talking about. You never could just forgo infantry and take all Russes in that era. And only in 5th could you really mass Russes thanks to squadrons.

It was a White Dwarf Chapter Approved that allowed Armoured Company, and had the "6s auto glance" rule as well. Don't recall the issue, but it was definitely towards the tail end of 3rd. One of the ones that had "Official Rules" tagged on it IIRC. I remember this because I read it and was like WTF

He said as much in the post you're quoting from:

The Armored Company list was released in White Dwarf, I still have the issue. Again, it requires opponent's permission, it's given as experimental rules, and it had a whole bunch of special rules to add extra disadvantages to the Armored Company player, like letting low-S weapons fish for 6s to inflict glancing hits, implementing vehicle morale, and requiring infantry in close support for vehicles to get close to enemy infantry (providing an incentive to take more than just tanks).

 Sim-Life wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

What makes a a game objectively well designed if it does not lead to engaging (fun) experiences?

Lots of things. I play board games all the time that I can see are super well designed but I just don't like them for whatever reason. Like I can see that stuff like Spirit Island, Brass: Birmingham, Great Western Trail and most recently Ark Nova are all well designed games and are rightly hugely popular and successful in relative terms because they're well designed. But I didn't think they were fun.

Would you agree that those games lead to engaging experiences for a lot of people? I am not saying it all comes down to your personal subjective opinion, but that absent humans you cannot say whether one game or another is more well-designed. Absent humans most tree leaves would still be green (as in absorbing specific wave-lengths of lights at a greater rate than other wave-lengths of light) and wolves would still howl. A certain leaf can be said to be objectively green, but when it comes to aesthetics at most you can say that most, a lot or some people find the aesthetics of the leaf appealing. I'll try to end my game design philosophizing with this post.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
The issue is that fun is extremely subjective, so a game can be very well done, or poorly done, and how much fun you have depends on you as a person.

A game can be unpolished and fun or polished and unfun. I wouldn't necessarily call polish good design, the gameplay has to be fun for a significant number of people otherwise I think it is unfair to call it well-designed and gets game designers away from what they should be trying to achieve. The reason rules should be fluffy for example is to increase how engaging they are to use.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Vilgeir wrote:
Pages and pages on an FoC change when that's the least problematic issue in 9th edition. Never change, dakka.

This comment makes no sense. You're annoyed at Dakka as a whole for discussiong what changes people would like to see in a thread about discussing what changes people would like to see?

I'm just glad it's not a topic we've discussed to death in five previous threads.

What if the goal isn't a fun game? Or a game for a niche group, that most people wouldn't find fun? Is it then bad? Games quality should be determined by how well they achieve their goals.

vict0988 wrote: Why is it a problem when Alpha Legion takes 6 units of Raptors but not a problem when Night Lords do it? Yes I assume Necrons won't get the same treatment, because they haven't had it in the past and it doesn't make sense lore-wise. I'm not being insincere, I'm being pessimistic. What is the point of having limits if you can break several of the limits anyway? If Ophydian Destroyers end up being OP then a cheeser is just going to play the Destroyer dynasty and take 6 units of Ophydian Destroyers. The limit of max 3 Wraiths hardly matters when I cannot afford 4x6 Wraiths + 6x6 Ophydian Destroyers, so you might as well just play Open Play, with all the anti-cheese community building that is necessary to make that work in a casual context. You still have the problem of 6x6 Ophydian Destroyers being boring to play against and monopose models just makes the issue worse, that should be 3 models repeated 12 times.

Because Alpha Legion is about cultists and infiltrating units/guerilla warfare. Night Lords are about raptors as their backbone and terror attacks.

vict0988 wrote:KingmanHighborn also thinks that breaking the FOC should be possible and says how easy it was in 3rd. Now I would like people to withdraw their statements that I was making a strawman and say that they only personally feel that FOC should not be broken and accept that people wanting the FOC chart back but also thinking it should have exceptions is a common opinion instead of a strawman.

I never said that at any time. Don't be disingenuous with your claims. A tweak of the FOC moving certain units around to fit an army's 'theme' and flavor is not breaking it, it's using it as it's intended. A Ravenwing army, a Necron army, and a Tau army can all use the FOC, but have different units and play different ways, organized in a neat chart/roster.

vict0988 wrote: They absolutely aren't, they have tactical and devastator companies just like everyone else, were you convinced otherwise by the 5th ed codex rules? All restrictions will be somewhat arbitrary, if you don't want any restrictions play open play. It's like the people that hate a max% of the army being spent on a specific battle role, saying that 1 point over makes the list illegal, it's the same thing with 2000 pts, 2001 pts is illegal.

5th did give more focus on the Blood Angels having Jump Packs and gave them exclusive rights to the Storm Raven that lasted... like ten minutes. (Metaphorically speaking) But they did have overcharged engines for their rhinos and have always been about getting close and frisky as quick as possible, and even that Devastator company could have people just 'f' it before the battle and join the death company. Points are points though, it's what makes the game fair (in a vacuum)

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Except the tweaks made sense for those armies.

I never said they didn't. Of course more HS slots made sense for Iron Warriors. My point was that in order to get that bonus you weren't really giving anything up.

You give up the FA slot for the extra HS slot because you're playing Iron Warriors, it's not a sacrifice, it's being what that chapter is.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
I also take umbrage with the FA choices in the 3.5 dex being lackluster as the mounted demon units that were FA, and Raptors which at that time were one of the key components of my Red Corsairs. And for Night Lords, Raptors are their bread and butter.

Daemonette Cav were good, but that's about it. Raptors could be made good with a lot of points invested into them, something an Iron Warriors player would be better off using on their four heavy support slots. And I wasn't talking about Night Lords. Plus Red Corsairs weren't even a thing in that book, as far as rules went.

There was a lot of good stuff besides the Daemonette cav, but they were one of my favs. Khorne hounds, Furies (which were the undivided demons for undivided forces that wanted something more representative of that). And I forgot about bikers which were also really good. But it's fine, Iron Warriors are about the HS, and not those units.

And the Red Corsairs didn't have 'rules' but they were represented in the examples, and the little bit of lore got me interested in them, so they are a 'thing' as much as the other warbands/fallen chapters exampled in the book. You don't have to play named chapters, warbands, etc. You can make your own just fine.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
And no allies, didn't have as big a negative as others, iirc there was major bonuses, minor bonuses, and minor negatives and major negatives. And no allies was a minor one. Even still during 3rd and 4th you still had some good options to drop into SM armies, like Grey Knight units and Inquisitors, Preachers, etc. And they just used a slot in the FOC you didn't have to do the detachment truffle shuffle for them.

You're right, it was a minor one, not a major one. Even so, the point stands: If you're not actually giving anything up, if your "sacrifice" is something you were never going to take in the first place, then it's not actually a sacrifice.

You're still seeing it as a sacrifice, when it's actually the flavor of the chapter your building/want to play.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
And the 3.5 Guard dex the only units no one took was the rough riders.

RR's were great unit, but that's not the point...

eh no one took em' when I used to play, may have been because no one had the $ to convert a bunch of them up. But the consensus was too pricy and too easy to get killed. Though carapace + RR always looked interesting to me.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Ratlings were pretty strong since they were cheap and could cause pinning. And several army THEMES were built around sanctioned psykers, priests, you even had a prototype for the Adeptus Mechanius armies with the cybernetics doctrine and one of the example armies became an Ad Mech army iirc.

I never saw anyone take those, and the Cybernetica Doctrine was a complete waste point points. A colossal waste of points.

One of the better guard players in our group back then used it to great effect. And it won't that pricy. And it was THE way to play Ad Mech back then. Also yeah, ratlings and other snipers were big until they took pinning out of the game and took that away from snipers. Being able to hurt anything on 4+ and hit on 2+ was great in large numbers. IIRC even Orks through lootas (since they took other SQUAD weapons) could take sniper rifles, which was wonderfully hilarious. (though again iirc they hit on 3+ cause they're still orks.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Also, that +1LD and initiative came at the cost of getting easily nuked by templates as you had to have everybody touching one another in a neat row.

Totally worth it for the bonuses you got, especially as it was free. Close Order Drill + Iron Discipline was a damned staple of Guard lists.

Some but not all. You don't take that if you're playing Chemdogs, Tallarn, Catachan or Tanith for example.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
The 3.5 Chaos book, the Green Ork book, the light blue Eldar book, the 3.5 IG, and the build a chapter Marine dex were ALL vastly superior to the books we got now that are tied to the garbage pail mess of a system we got now.

Of course they were, but you seem to have completely missed the point I was getting at:

If you are forced to give something up in order to get a bonus, and that thing you're giving up was something you were never intending on taking in your list, then you aren't really giving anything up.

It'd be like someone saying that I could have $1 million dollars, but I would have to forgo eating avocados ever again. Well, avocados make me physically ill, so sure, I'll "give them up" for the cool million. What a sacrifice!

I think you're seeing this wrong. It's like going to a car dealership and buying a red suv instead of a blue sportscar. You're not 'sacrificing' the blue sportscar, you don't need it for what you intend to do, and the goals you want to achieve and since you can't buy both, you get want works for you.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The problem with FoC manipulation back in the day was that, similar to how the FoC is now with being able to take whatever you want with no real consequence, you got extra FoC slots by 'giving up' things you might not have wanted to take in the first place.

The classic example is Iron Warriors from the 3.5 Codex. They could get an extra Heavy Support slot, but would have to give up a Fast Attack slot in order to get that. Wow. A whole FA slot, something most Chaos players (let alone Iron Warriors players) were never going to use as FA choices in the 3.5 Codex were quite lacklustre. So, you gave up something you weren't taking anyway, and got a huge boon as a result.

The 4th Ed Marine Codex was similar with its Chapter Traits. You had to take a negative trait to 'balance' the positive ones. One of the negative traits was 'No allies!'. So, if you didn't intend to take any allies (Inquisition, Grey Knights, etc.), you could just take that 'negative' trait and get the bonuses without actually losing anything.

This didn't just apply for FoC manipulation. The 3.5 Guard Codex has a wonderful(ly flawed) Doctrine system that was full of all sorts of amazing things, but if you took a Doctrines army you were forced to give up things like Ogryns and Ratlings and Sanctioned Psykers and Priestss - y'know, the kind of things that basically nobody took in the first place - so you weren't exactly missing out on anything truly vital to get these added bonuses. I mean, do I give all the infantry in my army +1Ld and +1 Initiative for free, or take a unit of Ratlings? Hard choice...

Iron Warriors also had super restricted Fast Attack options to begin with.

First, no Daemons allowed at all at all. That left you with Chaos Bikes and Chaos Raptors. And of those two, Chaos Raptors were a 0-1 for everyone but Night Lords (there may have been another Legion?).

So by trading in two Fast Attack slots for another Heavy Support, one was basically just surrendering Chaos Bikes, which weren’t all that appealing to me in the first place, and even less so in the face of a 4th Defiler and it’s gorgeous Pie Plate Of Marine Squelching Doom.

I don't remember if Raptors were 0-1 or not. That's one where time and no longer having the book on hand hurts. But I think if you are foregoing FA options for that 4th Defiler, then you're doing what Iron Warriors are supposed to do. (Though I think more people ran a basilisk and vindicators in Iron Warriors. And games were almost universally played on a 4x4 table so range wasn't an issue or Oblits when you could just choose the weapon you wanted to fire. I miss those days.)

Bonde wrote:When 8th edition promised big changes with simplifications of the cure rules and a blank slate with the indexes, I was excited, because the game really needed streamlining. But they rapidly moved away from that design shift again to the detriment of the game.

1. The rules team need to create a design document they all have to adhere to. Currently it feels like they try to come up with new core mechanics for every codex and it hurts the game.
2. They need to bring back USR's and make all weapon profiles follow them. Right now there are simply too many long paragraphs in the weapon profiles that you have to read and remember.
3. They need to bring back strict FoC. Currently there is too much flexibility in list building and it is clearly difficult to balance.
4. They should cut 90% of stratagems and move to universal stratagems instead, with each faction having one unique.

Yup, moving away from the Indexes was a mistake. And I agree with all of this. Though I'd take it further and do away with stratagems entirely just to streamline and simplify the game more.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

I don't think needing an HQ is arbitrary, that HQ is leading that detachment from a logistics standpoint.

A HQ, yes. 2-3 HQ? Overseeing a couple of squads? That's a bit excessive, no?
That's not even getting into the "troops" tax.

I don't see 'troops' as a tax, it's the heart and soul of the army you choose to play as.

catbarf wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

catbarf wrote:

VladimirHerzog wrote:what are leman russes?

Amishprn86 wrote:Guard had troop tanks for a long time

I played Guard from 3rd-5th and have no idea what you guys are talking about. You never could just forgo infantry and take all Russes in that era. And only in 5th could you really mass Russes thanks to squadrons.

Yeah, you could take Armored Fist squads and have lots of Chimeras- not tanks. In 3rd and 4th if you wanted a tank skew, you had to take the Armored Company list by opponent's permission and which came with a bunch of special rules to try to offset the skew.

They had all Leman Russ armies all the way when 3rd came out, it's in the back of the book in the IG army list. You didn't need opponent's permission either. Only things you ever needed opponent's permission for in 3rd was taking Special/Named characters, which as a rule is something that does SERIOUSLY need to come back in a bad way.

I have my 3rd Ed codex out and see no such thing. The army list (explicitly named an Infantry Company, no less) ends on p21, then there are rules for Macharius, Yarrick, Nork Deddog, and the Last Chancers, and then the rest of the book is hobby content.

The Armored Company list was released in White Dwarf, I still have the issue. Again, it requires opponent's permission, it's given as experimental rules, and it had a whole bunch of special rules to add extra disadvantages to the Armored Company player, like letting low-S weapons fish for 6s to inflict glancing hits, implementing vehicle morale, and requiring infantry in close support for vehicles to get close to enemy infantry (providing an incentive to take more than just tanks).

I don't know where you folks got the idea that you've always been able to build an army of entirely tanks if you wanted as part of the core rules, but it's just not true. The old FOC was designed to prevent exactly that sort of skew, and when bespoke exceptions made it possible (eg the 5th Ed Guard codex allowing 9 Leman Russes plus Valkyries), it was broken as hell.

8th/9th have made all-vehicle lists less oppressive but the ability to skew is still there, and the gatekeeper nature of infantry hordes or Knights at various points in these editions has come from them being skew that the average TAC list can't effectively deal with.

I wasn't referencing the codex. I said ARMY LIST. Back of the MAIN 3rd ed. rulebook. Pg. 245. Imperial Guard Appendix.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Because Alpha Legion is about cultists and infiltrating units/guerilla warfare. Night Lords are about raptors as their backbone and terror attacks.

So what if Alpha Legion are about cultists and infiltrating units, what is the problem of an Alpha Legion army with 6 Raptors? What if I am on the way to sabotage some kind of flying thing?

...A tweak of the FOC moving certain units around to fit an army's 'theme' and flavor is not breaking it...

That's exactly what it is.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
You give up the FA slot for the extra HS slot because you're playing Iron Warriors, it's not a sacrifice, it's being what that chapter is.

I've had a really bad day today, so to avoid taking it out on you by going through your reply line by line and shredding it I'll simply say this:

You've completely missed my point in every conceivable way a person can miss a point. Come back when you understand it.

vict0988 wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Because Alpha Legion is about cultists and infiltrating units/guerilla warfare. Night Lords are about raptors as their backbone and terror attacks.

So what if Alpha Legion are about cultists and infiltrating units, what is the problem of an Alpha Legion army with 6 Raptors? What if I am on the way to sabotage some kind of flying thing?

Every game though? That's kinda niche. Something that'd fit for a narrative play more so than a matched point balanced game.

vict0988 wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
...A tweak of the FOC moving certain units around to fit an army's 'theme' and flavor is not breaking it...

That's exactly what it is.

Ehhh no they are completely different, and you cut off the part explaining it.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
You give up the FA slot for the extra HS slot because you're playing Iron Warriors, it's not a sacrifice, it's being what that chapter is.

I've had a really bad day today, so to avoid taking it out on you by going through your reply line by line and shredding it I'll simply say this:

You've completely missed my point in every conceivable way a person can miss a point. Come back when you understand it.

Right back at you. It's not a competition to win. But if you want to make it like that and then take your ball and go home that's on you. And you can come back when you understand what I wrote.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

vict0988 wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Because Alpha Legion is about cultists and infiltrating units/guerilla warfare. Night Lords are about raptors as their backbone and terror attacks.

So what if Alpha Legion are about cultists and infiltrating units, what is the problem of an Alpha Legion army with 6 Raptors? What if I am on the way to sabotage some kind of flying thing?

Every game though? That's kinda niche. Something that'd fit for a narrative play more so than a matched point balanced game.

Why is balance an issue for Alpha Legion but not for Night Lords? Raptor spam belongs in narrative play for both legions due to balance concerns and wanting more tactical depth in matched play. Taking 3 units of Raptors and painting them as Night Lords is already a good part of the way to what makes an army into a Night Lords army.

 vict0988 wrote:

Why is balance an issue for Alpha Legion but not for Night Lords?

its not for either.... 3 vs 6 units of raptors isn't an issue if that's what the dex was designed to accommodate.

Again, switching FoC slots depending on the subfaction is much more fluffy than getting some legion traits/strats like we currently have. Army composition plays a bigger part in getting the feel of a subfaction than the rules.

Oh and this isn't about me wanting to play 60 raptors, its about me wanting to play Raptors, warp talons, dreadclaws and bikers as more than 1-of's (aka : MSU instead of deathstar)

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
I wasn't referencing the codex. I said ARMY LIST. Back of the MAIN 3rd ed. rulebook. Pg. 245. Imperial Guard Appendix.

Alright, fair enough. For the single year between when 3rd Ed launched and the 3rd Ed Guard codex released, it was possible to run an all-tank skew. Which GW clearly realized was a mistake, and it wasn't until the 5th Ed book in 2009 that you could again spam tanks outside a by-opponent's-permission WD army list. 5th Ed Guard was not exactly a balanced codex, either, but even it didn't let you take tanks to fulfill core requirements.

So I mean, the original argument here- that Guard have always been able to do all-tank skew- is still wrong. And the point is that GW historically has been pretty restrictive of this kind of skew because it does present significant balance issues. 40K is a combined arms game first and foremost and its deployment/army structure handles skew poorly.

I suspect that 10th isn't going to be a hard reset like 7th to 8th was.

I believe there's too much momentum at the moment and it would be foolish for GW to do something so drastic. I think perhaps GW finally realized that the game is heading in a direction they don't like - becoming too competitive, having too great a cognitive load with all of the rules bloat and now having the highest barrier to entry in the games history with all of the rules fragmentation.

I hope it's just going to come with some rather significant changes such as:

Removal of warlord traits and relics.
Removal of stratagems or rather a complete overhaul of the stratagem mechanics.
I've changed my point of view on stratagems a lot over the years; currently I think it would be best to give a few (and a I stress a few) units an ability, on their data sheet, that they can use / is applied during the Command Phase by spending CP's and only if the Warlord is on the battlefield.

...and some other things that I know I'd like to see.

 catbarf wrote:


And the point is that GW historically has been pretty restrictive of this kind of skew because it does present significant balance issues. 40K is a combined arms game first and foremost and its deployment/army structure handles skew poorly.

In front of any of the popular mechanical ideas like AA or suppression I am way more I my wrested in fixing the combined arms situation. It should be a normal matched play pickup game situation for an artillery list to run into a fast attack raider list.

The Chapter Approved Armored Company shows it’s possible to balance skew lists. In that case it was somewhat over corrected; it was a slightly weak army due to the units being constantly shaken. It would be very easy to write directly into the army list that if you take three units of Obliterators and four Basiliks your opponent immediate gets some extremely easy objective.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Why is balance an issue for Alpha Legion but not for Night Lords?

its not for either.... 3 vs 6 units of raptors isn't an issue if that's what the dex was designed to accommodate.

Again, switching FoC slots depending on the subfaction is much more fluffy than getting some legion traits/strats like we currently have. Army composition plays a bigger part in getting the feel of a subfaction than the rules.

Oh and this isn't about me wanting to play 60 raptors, its about me wanting to play Raptors, warp talons, dreadclaws and bikers as more than 1-of's (aka : MSU instead of deathstar)

GW cannot design their way out of a wet paper bag, I don't trust them with making spam fun and engaging to play against and you still have the problem of GW's modern kits not being designed to look good when spammed.

How is it more fluffy for Blood Angels to gain the ability to spam Assault Marines instead of getting what they currently have? You end up with a flanderized army either way. The best option would be only Relics and a few Strats, since that would allow Blood Angels to occasionally kick lots of ass in melee without incentivising only melee units by layering melee buffs on them in fifteen different ways or enabling only Blood Angels to field a list that should be just as possible for any chapter to field (Assault Company).

If you take some legionnaires in a Dreadclaw, 3x5 Raptors, 3x5 Warp Talons and 3x3 Bikers you have an insanely mobile Night Lords list, then you can add characters, flyers and legionnaires in Rhinos to pad out the list. No need for another 3 units of Raptors, if you think more Raptors are more cool then that's fine, but you cannot really get around the potential balance issue of having 20-50 datasheets ignore Ro3.

The game doesn't NEED 50 Datasheets in each codex LMAO

 vict0988 wrote:

If you take some legionnaires in a Dreadclaw, 3x5 Raptors, 3x5 Warp Talons and 3x3 Bikers you have an insanely mobile Night Lords list,

i know, thats my point, i can't make that list without buying an additionnal detachment right now


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:
but you cannot really get around the potential balance issue of having 20-50 datasheets ignore Ro3.

you mean the rule that they added to nerf like 5 units in the whole game? (and now these units mostly have a rule of 1?)

pelicaniforce wrote:The Chapter Approved Armored Company shows it’s possible to balance skew lists. In that case it was somewhat over corrected; it was a slightly weak army due to the units being constantly shaken. It would be very easy to write directly into the army list that if you take three units of Obliterators and four Basiliks your opponent immediate gets some extremely easy objective.

I'd genuinely love to hear what you have in mind for balancing a situation like that. What sort of criteria give your opponent an easy objective?

GW tried to balance skew in 8th/9th by making the specialist formations have associated CP costs, but it just... didn't work out, when it's so easy to just take a Battalion instead and a few tax units.

vict0988 wrote:If you take some legionnaires in a Dreadclaw, 3x5 Raptors, 3x5 Warp Talons and 3x3 Bikers you have an insanely mobile Night Lords list, then you can add characters, flyers and legionnaires in Rhinos to pad out the list. No need for another 3 units of Raptors, if you think more Raptors are more cool then that's fine, but you cannot really get around the potential balance issue of having 20-50 datasheets ignore Ro3.

It's annoying when you can take 3 units of 10-strong Scourges, but not 4 units of 5. In that case Ro3 isn't preventing you from spamming, it's preventing you from MSU.

Want to make an army of Veterans, to represent a unit like Tanith First & Only? Sorry, can't. The Vanguard structure is there for you to base your army on Elites choices, but Ro3 says no, and three units of Veterans is maybe 20% of your 2K army if you really kit them out. But you can take over a dozen Leman Russes if you want. Thanks Ro3, really limiting the spam there.

Ro3 was a mid-edition hack to address a fundamental game structure problem. The old FOC had some of the same negative outcomes, but at least it was explicitly designed around a 'balanced' combined-arms force, rather than purporting to give you unlimited flexibility and then hitting you with a hard limit. 'GW can't design' is a cop-out; just copy-pasting the HH2.0 FOC + Rites of War system would be a major improvement.

VladimirHerzog wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

If you take some legionnaires in a Dreadclaw, 3x5 Raptors, 3x5 Warp Talons and 3x3 Bikers you have an insanely mobile Night Lords list,

i know, thats my point, i can't make that list without buying an additionnal detachment right now

Yeah, that's 10 FA choices. No single detachment covers that.

catbarf wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:The Chapter Approved Armored Company shows it’s possible to balance skew lists. In that case it was somewhat over corrected; it was a slightly weak army due to the units being constantly shaken. It would be very easy to write directly into the army list that if you take three units of Obliterators and four Basiliks your opponent immediate gets some extremely easy objective.

I'd genuinely love to hear what you have in mind for balancing a situation like that. What sort of criteria give your opponent an easy objective?

GW tried to balance skew in 8th/9th by making the specialist formations have associated CP costs, but it just... didn't work out, when it's so easy to just take a Battalion instead and a few tax units.

vict0988 wrote:If you take some legionnaires in a Dreadclaw, 3x5 Raptors, 3x5 Warp Talons and 3x3 Bikers you have an insanely mobile Night Lords list, then you can add characters, flyers and legionnaires in Rhinos to pad out the list. No need for another 3 units of Raptors, if you think more Raptors are more cool then that's fine, but you cannot really get around the potential balance issue of having 20-50 datasheets ignore Ro3.

It's annoying when you can take 3 units of 10-strong Scourges, but not 4 units of 5. In that case Ro3 isn't preventing you from spamming, it's preventing you from MSU.

Want to make an army of Veterans, to represent a unit like Tanith First & Only? Sorry, can't. The Vanguard structure is there for you to base your army on Elites choices, but Ro3 says no, and three units of Veterans is maybe 20% of your 2K army if you really kit them out. But you can take over a dozen Leman Russes if you want. Thanks Ro3, really limiting the spam there.

Ro3 was a mid-edition hack to address a fundamental game structure problem. The old FOC had some of the same negative outcomes, but at least it was explicitly designed around a 'balanced' combined-arms force, rather than purporting to give you unlimited flexibility and then hitting you with a hard limit. 'GW can't design' is a cop-out; just copy-pasting the HH2.0 FOC + Rites of War system would be a major improvement.

Yup. But just copy-pasting the entire HH2.0 ruleset would be even better.

I think they need to rethink the five layers of rules:
Core rules
Faction only rules
Subfaction rules
Unit rules (and auras)
Stratagem rules

It's too many levels to keep track of when each level has multiple rules which cross all the categories. I would probably reduce umber of Stratagem and unit rules if fixing 9th.

First one that needs to go is clearly the core rule layer.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Vilgeir wrote:
Pages and pages on an FoC change when that's the least problematic issue in 9th edition. Never change, dakka.

This comment makes no sense. You're annoyed at Dakka as a whole for discussiong what changes people would like to see in a thread about discussing what changes people would like to see?

Look, I'll break it down for you.

Imagine discussing what a full reset of the rules might mean by spending days obsessed with the process of list building.

Like, that's all the FoC does. It happens entirely outside a match. It's absurd.

 Vilgeir wrote:
Imagine discussing what a full reset of the rules might mean by spending days obsessed with the process of list building.

Like, that's all the FoC does. It happens entirely outside a match. It's absurd.

Lists affect the match, a lot. List building is also all everybody talks about on the tactics forum so it being a topic of discussion isn't weird.

 Vilgeir wrote:
It's absurd.

Is it? Lists are a massive part of the game.

 Vilgeir wrote:

Look, I'll break it down for you.

Imagine discussing what a full reset of the rules might mean by spending days obsessed with the process of list building.

Like, that's all the FoC does. It happens entirely outside a match. It's absurd.

Try playing any army in any game which was designed to take 3-4 of something, which suddenly gets limited to taking 1-2 of those. Especialy when there is a possibility that other factions will not face the same problems. It is exactly the thing that breaks games. It is the same like making a game where a sudden focus suddenly falls on some unit type, which is rare and not well spread among other armies, but you make it super efficient. For w40k it is everything that can fly over terrain as a vehicle or monster. Those units break the game more often then anything else in w40k. A FoC more limiting then the one we have right now, because lets face it how many armies outside of DE or Eldar can actualy run more then one detachment right now in the game, only makes the possibility of such problems bigger ?

 Vilgeir wrote:
Look, I'll break it down for you.

Imagine discussing what a full reset of the rules might mean by spending days obsessed with the process of list building.

Like, that's all the FoC does. It happens entirely outside a match. It's absurd.

40K's rules make listbuilding a pivotal part of the game. The fact that it has such impact while existing entirely outside of the actual match is precisely why it's so worth discussing.

It's not something you can just brush off as a minor detail.

I'd be pleased as pie if they eliminated strategems, or at the very least made strategems 80% generic with like, no more than a page worth of strats per faction, or maybe one strat per unit (as in on their datasheet).

The whole concept of "heres a mishmash of 3-4 pages worth of randomly organized situationally useful additional rules that work on some of the models in your army under certain specific circumstances" doesn't work well, IMO. My memory is good enough to remember that most strategems exist, but not what they are called or their specific wording and application. Huge gameplay slowdown when I'm flipping through the book trying to find the thing that I vaguely remember existing but don't know how to use.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I'd be pleased as pie if they eliminated strategems, or at the very least made strategems 80% generic with like, no more than a page worth of strats per faction, or maybe one strat per unit (as in on their datasheet).

The whole concept of "heres a mishmash of 3-4 pages worth of randomly organized situationally useful additional rules that work on some of the models in your army under certain specific circumstances" doesn't work well, IMO. My memory is good enough to remember that most strategems exist, but not what they are called or their specific wording and application. Huge gameplay slowdown when I'm flipping through the book trying to find the thing that I vaguely remember existing but don't know how to use.

Totally agree. The most frustrating thing about 9th is all the rules bloat, and strategems are the worst offender. Each faction having 20-30 is actual insanity; there's no way an average player will remember all the ones from even their own codex, let alone any from their opponent's. Bring it down to 5-6 generic ones and then maybe 3-4 per faction, or even just eliminate them entirely IMO.

Really overall my only hope is that they reduce rules bloat; make it so that I can look at unit's datasheet and get a good idea of how strong they are. As it stands, to even understand the power level of like, a basic squad of intercessors, I have to take in to account so many things not listed on the datasheet; doctrines, subfaction abilities, auras, psychic powers, strategems, all these noodley little ways to buff and change the unit. Just curb that kind of stuff down and honestly I'd be pretty happy.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Vilgeir wrote:
Imagine discussing what a full reset of the rules might mean by spending days obsessed with the process of list building.

Like, that's all the FoC does. It happens entirely outside a match. It's absurd.

Lists affect the match, a lot. List building is also all everybody talks about on the tactics forum so it being a topic of discussion isn't weird.

I guess the point he is trying to make is that the FOC doesn't affect the actual gameplay. Sure, it does affect balance and what units you see on the table, but that isn't really a big problem nephilim, tempest of war or crusade have, right?

The problems are stratagems, layers upon layers of rules, codex creep and dysfunctional codices at the same time, an overabundance of AP invalidating armor, vehicles not being durable at all, counter-counter-counter rules like AoC and daemonic invuls, worthless transports, mediocre terrain rules and probably another few that I missed.

And that is not even touching all the issues with company policies which are ruining people's fun and collections, like legacy, the treatment of FW units and everything related to cutting down unit options.

Complaining about the FOC in that context is pretty much like complaining about bad weather while your house is infested with pests, you have a burst pipe flooding your living room, your dog just dragged in the the carcass of the neighbor's cat and your lunch on the stove just caught fire.