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I know that Tau has a "formation" where you take 2 units of 3 broadsides and a riptide together in an army and then it becomes a "formation". What are the benefits of taking one? Do they count towards any of the slots? I just don't understand their role in making a list.

They don't take slots and they gain special rules depending on the formation.

The real point is to make you buy models though

Formations usually have some kind of special rules attached to them, and don't take up a slot. They're really beneficial to take if you plan on taking the specific units to begin with. I think it's a neat idea, and something that makes the game feel more like a proper "war" game since there's similar stuff in Flames of War and the like.

Another key thing is that Formations are the only detachments whose special rules can be used in unbound armies.

What special rules do these formations have?

They are specified in the books they are in.

There are a lot of em but generally things like PE or Tank hunter.

Though nids has a balling one.

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:
What special rules do these formations have?

It varies on the formation, there isn't a set bunch of special rules that all formations get

Here is a Tau formation in it's natural setting:



The blue fish-people find that the formation is supremely off-putting for marines to shoot at, causing both confusion, disorientation and manic depression over something so terrible

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:
I know that Tau has a "formation" where you take 2 units of 3 broadsides and a riptide together in an army and then it becomes a "formation". What are the benefits of taking one? Do they count towards any of the slots? I just don't understand their role in making a list.

To give you a reason to buy a special box set or group of models that take no FoC slots and get special rules for free.

That's their point.

Formations create the largest amount of page usage with the least amount of new rules. For each full page formation, they write one to three lines of new rules for them - the rest is just a picture and a copy of the existing rules. "Pay more for less" - GWs motto. All an $18 digital release needs is 5 lines of new rules and some recycled stuff, it's *perfect*!

Formations made the new Ork codex incredibly fun.

 Bulldogging wrote:
They don't take slots and they gain special rules depending on the formation.

The real point is to make you buy models though

Unless you already have those models lol

Honestly, it seems like formations are slowly replacing all the old white dwarf stuff. Yes, white dwarf still exists, but no, nobody buys it anymore.

Formations are the new chapter approved. A way to add silly little things into the game.

 tankboy145 wrote:

 Bulldogging wrote:
They don't take slots and they gain special rules depending on the formation.

The real point is to make you buy models though

Unless you already have those models lol

Some people are bitching that it's a feindish plot to sell more models, I say it's a fun way to let me use a bunch of my models in a new way. I was pissed that I never got to use all my boyz as a proper green tide as my local meta isn't into Apoc (which is a GW store, if anyone would be trying to push LoW and Apoc formations you'd think it'd be them). With formations I've been putting together dozens of lists using my boyz in tons of different combinations at many different point levels. I'm able to make lists to go against most situations. Green Tide, Green Tide + Council of Waaagh, straight-up vanilla Battleforged, Zagstruk's Stormin' Kommandos, etc.

If people stopped complaining for ten seconds and used a bit of imagination...

It is a way to make your pay for a codex twice or more. Nids have to buy skyblight , orks suddenly end up with a 100$ codex.

I get extra rules to make new armies out of existing model ranges that are totaly different from the parent list and do not invalidate it. But making someone pay twice for rules that should be in the parent book or cutting out HQs to sell them as DLC is stupid.

Makumba wrote:
It is a way to make your pay for a codex twice or more. Nids have to buy skyblight , orks suddenly end up with a 100$ codex.

I get extra rules to make new armies out of existing model ranges that are totaly different from the parent list and do not invalidate it. But making someone pay twice for rules that should be in the parent book or cutting out HQs to sell them as DLC is stupid.

Not all formations come like that in codexs. The Sanctus reach book I think was a great buy. The book gave you a great story line that have a bit of history about each of the forces and some of the different characters. It then gives you I believe 10 missions to recreate the campaign and gives you a bonuses as you go through the campaign(such as if imperial player wins this they get a and if ork player wins this they get b). The book then gives you 5 new formations you can use in standard games. The book then gives you updated rules for the planet strike and how to play.

Not all books are bad. If you don't want to buy it then don't buy it.

Only no one wants to play campaign missions that aren't ETC , specialy when the books works for 2 factions which aren't the most widely played. One becaus it sucks and costs a lot and the other one costs a lot and is weaker then the good factions.

I don't think anyone wanted to play planet strike either as it gave super huge buffs to armies that started unless someone had a huge collection of models, when it just worked better for people that buy more then 1500pts.

Also tell the nid player he is suppose to play without skyblight or a chaos player that he doesn't need crimson slaughter. Or if GW ever brings back AM special characters, that we won't need marbo etc.

Makumba wrote:
Only no one wants to play campaign missions that aren't ETC , specialy when the books works for 2 factions which aren't the most widely played. One becaus it sucks and costs a lot and the other one costs a lot and is weaker then the good factions.

I don't think anyone wanted to play planet strike either as it gave super huge buffs to armies that started unless someone had a huge collection of models, when it just worked better for people that buy more then 1500pts.

Also tell the nid player he is suppose to play without skyblight or a chaos player that he doesn't need crimson slaughter. Or if GW ever brings back AM special characters, that we won't need marbo etc.

Quite a few blanket statements there. A lot of people play custom missions, so if GW make them more available then that's awesome. Same for Planet Strike, the last version allowed for some really cool games.

There's no such thing as 'needing' any unit or formation. Some options are good, some less so, but everything has its place, and there's no units that one 'must take' to win.

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:
I know that Tau has a "formation" where you take 2 units of 3 broadsides and a riptide together in an army and then it becomes a "formation". What are the benefits of taking one? Do they count towards any of the slots? I just don't understand their role in making a list.

They basically allow you to mess around with crazy units, but still remain Battle Forged, or to play with crazy units in an Unbound game, but get to keep the extra rules applied with those formations. They are not mandatory in any way, but they are fun to mess around with. A lot of people bash formations because they are in supplements, but again...supplements are purely optional. I play Orks, and I bought the supplement because it had formations I wanted to use. No one held a gun to my head and forced me to buy it. It gave my army new life, and I'm OK with that. Don't let naysayers make up your mind for you. It's your choice to use em or not. *shrug*

Makumba wrote:
Only no one wants to play campaign missions that aren't ETC , specialy when the books works for 2 factions which aren't the most widely played. One becaus it sucks and costs a lot and the other one costs a lot and is weaker then the good factions.

I don't think anyone wanted to play planet strike either as it gave super huge buffs to armies that started unless someone had a huge collection of models, when it just worked better for people that buy more then 1500pts.

Also tell the nid player he is suppose to play without skyblight or a chaos player that he doesn't need crimson slaughter. Or if GW ever brings back AM special characters, that we won't need marbo etc.

Not true at all, very few if anyone I regulary play with will demand to use such dull rules, and not every player is intrested in playing what the internet or various faceless people online says is the best book at the moment. A lot of us plays just for the fun of it

This DLC argument is not doing it for me. For one DLC isn't necessarily bad. Feels like people are remembering a time that didn't exist where buying additional supplement books wasn't DLC.

I played Bioshock Infinite the other day. Bought the season pass and got what I felt was a good amount of additional content for what I paid for.

Same with Orks, I bought Sanctus Reach and felt I got a lot of value from it. Not to mention the new formations,which are really good, but I like that GW are doing more stories in "present day" 40k. As opposed to just sticking to the Horus Heresy stuff.

Bonus being they are also making statline for units without models accessible in White Dwarf. I really liked the new Forgotten Knight in the last one.

I support with my dollar.

I wish Necrons had cool ones to be used in standard 40k :(

Immortal Phalanx is awesome but not doable.

GW makes formations to encourage you to buy lots of miniatures at one time. It's all about taking more of your money.

 40k Wargamer wrote:
GW makes formations to encourage you to buy lots of miniatures at one time. It's all about taking more of your money.

And giving you something in return. Paying for a dataslate/Formation is no different to paying for a Codex or for rules in WD. There's no obligation to buy it if you don't want to, so if some people can get more enjoyment out of the game from it then how can it be a bad thing? Yes, they're overpriced, but that's an issue with GW, not the idea of formation dataslates.

 Paradigm wrote:
so if some people can get more enjoyment out of the game from it then how can it be a bad thing? Yes, they're overpriced

You give two answers to your own question:
1. They're overpriced. The scale by which they're overpriced is bad even for GW. Dataslates offer so little for comparatively so much.
2. Only some people have them - you get a similar problem to video games with the piecemeal sale of additional power in the form of microtransactions. No longer is buying the codex enough to play an army at full effectiveness, you need to buy supplements, dataslates and white dwarfs to have everything your army can field - let alone possible allies or unbound options. It results in the real and observable problem of paid extra content fixing lacklustre codex content as with the tyranids.
These add up to:
3. People leaving in droves and you having no one to play your $400 worth of BRB, codices, dataslates, supplements and white dwarfs with, let alone the price of your miniatures. If GW doesn't settle on a monetization system that's acceptable for their players, people will (and have been) leaving which only decreases the value of the rules further as it becomes increasingly difficult to find games.

Would you argue that being able to buy a dataslate to increase the power of your troops guns by 20% would be a good thing because "some people (the people that buy it) got more enjoyment out of it"? That's a simplified version of the problem with dataslates, and an accurate representation of where this business model went with video games that use it. Pay to win is not a good game model for gamers, it's only good for the companies that use it.

If your like my gaming group, there is shared knowledge between players.

Seriously we have people running Farsight Enclave without the supp. Doubt you'll see someone leave because they couldn't afford the $4 white dwarf looted wagon rules. Or because they didn't buy Santus Reach. In some metas there will access to the rules.

 Yonan wrote:

2. Only some people have them - you get a similar problem to video games with the piecemeal sale of additional power in the form of microtransactions. No longer is buying the codex enough to play an army at full effectiveness, you need to buy supplements, dataslates and white dwarfs to have everything your army can field - let alone possible allies or unbound options. It results in the real and observable problem of paid extra content fixing lacklustre codex content as with the tyranids.

>> No official GW tournaments
>> The internet

 Yonan wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
so if some people can get more enjoyment out of the game from it then how can it be a bad thing? Yes, they're overpriced

You give two answers to your own question:
1. They're overpriced. The scale by which they're overpriced is bad even for GW. Dataslates offer so little for comparatively so much.
2. Only some people have them - you get a similar problem to video games with the piecemeal sale of additional power in the form of microtransactions. No longer is buying the codex enough to play an army at full effectiveness, you need to buy supplements, dataslates and white dwarfs to have everything your army can field - let alone possible allies or unbound options. It results in the real and observable problem of paid extra content fixing lacklustre codex content as with the tyranids.
These add up to:
3. People leaving in droves and you having no one to play your $400 worth of BRB, codices, dataslates, supplements and white dwarfs with, let alone the price of your miniatures. If GW doesn't settle on a monetization system that's acceptable for their players, people will (and have been) leaving which only decreases the value of the rules further as it becomes increasingly difficult to find games.

Would you argue that being able to buy a dataslate to increase the power of your troops guns by 20% would be a good thing because "some people (the people that buy it) got more enjoyment out of it"? That's a simplified version of the problem with dataslates, and an accurate representation of where this business model went with video games that use it. Pay to win is not a good game model for gamers, it's only good for the companies that use it.

The pricing, I agree, is out of order entirely.

As for it being 'pay to win', I think this is (once again) an issue with rules writing rather than the idea of a formation. Given the appropriate points cost, there is no reason units in a formation should be inherently better than their codex counterparts. It's still possible to form a pefectly good list with purely one-book units if you want.

I think what I was trying to say is that the concept of formations is a great thing. THere are, however, some issues with how GW are handling that concept, but that's part of a very different discussion.

I disagree with the "Pay to win".

The term "Pay to Win" is derivd from online games where paying players gain a huge and unfair advantage over non-paying players, or, in general, paying yields unfair advantages.

It's different in 40k because you can just tell your opponent that you do not want to play with formations and you then do not have to play with formations. You have a choice.

Sure, the prices are overblown and I HIGHLY recommend everyone not to pay for them in order to generate low sales; vote with your wallet etc.

I would not, however, call them "Pay to win". And some formations are for Apocalypse only anyway - Immortal Phalanx cannot be played in regular 40k

I just wish Chaos had some good formations, or some interesting ones at least beyond the helbrutes.