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Greetings,

Have been testing some army comp rules with friends to see if it helps balances the codexes and we've been having a lot of success with it. We're planning on making a youtube channel for video battle reports starting hopefully in July (realistically August) but I'd love to get some input on the changes and see if anyone can think of any improvements before we start putting games up. The aim is to tweak the game as much as possible through army selection instead of altering specific rules, which makes it less homebrew and more composition and therefore easier to pick up and play with.

The system is basically the highlander format with a few more restrictions added. The idea is to get back to armies you would see in third edition but with all the gameplay bells and whistles of the new editions. These rules seem to work at 1500, but I suspect they'd be alright up to 1750. The below is as succinct as I could make it:

Tweakedhammer 40k

Army selection must use the standard force organisation chart only and units may be selected from the unit list entries of one codex only.

Restrictions:
1) Every unit entry is to be considered 0-1 except units taken from the troops section and units taken as dedicated transports.
2) No Lords of War or superheavy/gargantuan units may be selected.
3) You may have a maximum of two units with the flying/flyer type, only one of which may be a vehicle.
4) Any weapons with the strength characteristic of 'D' changes it's strength characteristic to '10'.

This cuts out a lot of spam, removes allies and fortifications entirely, makes flyers less prevalent, removes detachments/formations, gets rid of previously apoc-style units and in the one case of rules tweaking, removes strength D altogether. The main drawbacks I can see so far is that it may nerf Sister completely and that it doesn't really remove deathstars from the game. It also doesn't counter things like summon spam and invisibility, but I'm not sure how to remove these through composition.

Please let me know what you think, I'm concerned I've overlooked some things that may leave some codexes at an advantage over others even more than they are now. Will update with batreps when we get round to doing some.

I guess this still allows Tigurius to gate around with Centurions.

I wonder if Wave serpent spam might be strong in your meta.

This doesn't address several balance issues, and would only shift the problems to other armies, and would in fact favour the stronger codices even more.

That and the first rule kills off, well, any interest I'd ever have in using these rules.

Spam is not a bad thing. Poor balance is a bad thing. I enjoy taking multiples of units; I like redundancy, symmetry, themes, and a cohesive forces.

Focus on fixing the problems, not blanket solutions that hamstring players.

You've effectively killed certain army's special detachments, and given Eldar even more of an advantage. (Oh, you can only bring 0-1 of your awesome elite choice? Eldar can still bring F-U amounts of Scatriders as troops).

What everyone above has said.

There is no simple set of rules to balance codices, the only way to do that is to fix a couple of the terrible rules in the BRB, and address problems at the codex level. Blanket changes like this just make some problems worse, it Tiggie and Driago or Loth are sitll Gating around Invisible with five Grav Cents deleting two units per turn. Etc. And armies like Eldar who have all the goo choices in every slot they need will be just fine. Darn, they can only have one Farseer with their Seer Council, plus Warp Spiders, etc, etc. I guess they'll have to settle for an Autarch....

How would DE faire under this? Or any army that relies on redundancy?

Look up the threads on Highlander, the problems with 0-1 are well documented and argued out.

Spam to me is a huge problem, but while it needs more, I think this is a good step in the right direction at least from a Big Picture point. I think LoW/Gargauntaun/Superheavy/etc. should have this: May only be taken at 2,500+ points and with opponents consent.

Add in, "Special Characters may only be taken in armies of 1,500+ points and with opponents consent."

Throw Overwatch and Run in the dumpster fire where it belongs.

Allies and Fortifications NEED to DIE!

I'd like to see the tweaks down at the codex level now.

 Blacksails wrote:
This doesn't address several balance issues, and would only shift the problems to other armies, and would in fact favour the stronger codices even more.

That and the first rule kills off, well, any interest I'd ever have in using these rules.

Spam is not a bad thing. Poor balance is a bad thing. I enjoy taking multiples of units; I like redundancy, symmetry, themes, and a cohesive forces.

Focus on fixing the problems, not blanket solutions that hamstring players.

You beat me to it, and said exactly what I was going to say.

 Blacksails wrote:
Spam is not a bad thing. Poor balance is a bad thing. I enjoy taking multiples of units; I like redundancy, symmetry, themes, and a cohesive forces.

Precisely. I enjoy running multiples of pretty much every unit in my army. Otherwise it would sorta suck balls. Not only that, it wouldn't be the army I want it to be, and it wouldn't fit the theme I've created for my legion.