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Hello. I remember the circular Battle-forged diagram that was floating about a while ago, which was great. With all the new Codexes and rules floating about since then, and people still confused as to how to build an army, I thought I'd make another.

Any comments/criticism??

Looking pretty nice. Maybe make one for unbound too. Since it may not be immediately clear that you cannot take faction detachments or formation detachments. I'm not actually sure what those new huge formations are that consist of other formations like the mechanicus one where you get free gear. Are they proper detachments or actually formations that would allow you to use them in unbound lists?

Per this chart it looks like you can take an allied detachment on its own. Which I thought you couldn't, as the allied detachment had to be in addition to something else. But now that I think about, I'm not sure I ever read that exclusion or if it was just something I imagined.

I'd add a separate entry for the Decurion types making it clear that the Formations that can be in them are part of that Detachment and not separate.

The idea that the Combined Arms Detachment has any sort of special place is a holdover from previous editions and seems to be what causes the most confusion.

I haven't gotten to this section of the BRB yet and didn't even know it was changed on how armies are put together (I played 2nd ed a lot, learned the rules and played a couple games of 3rd, but then was out of it until recently)

I kept seeing all this "detachment" talk on these forums and thought that they were just pre-made armies that you could pick and choose from until you reached your point total.

But the more people talk about them, the more confused I get. My head is spinning :(

How so? What is it that's confusing you? In essence, it's still the same way that 3rd edition onwards has done things.

If you ever played Epic - particularly Epic 40,000, that might help.

kaotkbliss wrote:
I haven't gotten to this section of the BRB yet and didn't even know it was changed on how armies are put together (I played 2nd ed a lot, learned the rules and played a couple games of 3rd, but then was out of it until recently)

I kept seeing all this "detachment" talk on these forums and thought that they were just pre-made armies that you could pick and choose from until you reached your point total.

But the more people talk about them, the more confused I get. My head is spinning :(

It's not so crazy, actually. A 'Combined Arms Detachment' is essentially the same as all versions of 'Building an Army' since 3ed. The Allied detachment is just a smaller version of the same. Formations and the Faction-specific Detachments with all their own rules are where it gets crazy, but you don't actually need to take any of them. You can happily build an army with just a single Combined Arms Detachment.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
How so? What is it that's confusing you? In essence, it's still the same way that 3rd edition onwards has done things.

If you ever played Epic - particularly Epic 40,000, that might help.

No, I stayed away from Epic. The micro-machine models didn't appeal to me

Anyways, I hear things like "In order to use this detachment, you need an auxiliary" and such but I've not seen what an auxiliary is yet
I also thought that Unbound was just simply taking whatever you wanted from any army, but even if I take all SW that may also be unbound?
If I just simply follow the standard force organization chart and take no detachments, is that Unbound?

If you take detachments, do you still have to make sure you have so many HQ and at least a certain number of troop selections ect?

SharkoutofWata wrote:I'd add a separate entry for the Decurion types making it clear that the Formations that can be in them are part of that Detachment and not separate.

I could put this as a note on the Gladius example. Or a separate thing, but can anyone think of a better name for these than 'Decurion Style'? 'Mixed Detachment'? 'Codex-Specific Detachment'?

Icculus wrote:Per this chart it looks like you can take an allied detachment on its own. Which I thought you couldn't, as the allied detachment had to be in addition to something else. But now that I think about, I'm not sure I ever read that exclusion or if it was just something I imagined.

Well, you MUST have a Primary Detachment, and the Allied Detachment can't ever be it, so it's always going to be allied to something! The interesting point is that it could be 'Allied' to a Formation (as long as the Formation includes a character) or to a Codex-specific Detachment.

kaotkbliss wrote:
Anyways, I hear things like "In order to use this detachment, you need an auxiliary" and such but I've not seen what an auxiliary is yet
I also thought that Unbound was just simply taking whatever you wanted from any army, but even if I take all SW that may also be unbound?
If I just simply follow the standard force organization chart and take no detachments, is that Unbound?

If you take detachments, do you still have to make sure you have so many HQ and at least a certain number of troop selections ect?

Unbound is just TAKE ANYTHING YOU WANT. No restrictions, and no FOC.

The 'Standard Force Organisation Chart' is now called a 'Combined Arms Detachment' so if you follow it, you've just built yourself an army of 1 Detachment - a single CAD. This is the simplest way to build an army, and the same way it's been done since 3ed. A CAD has a FOC just like before that requires 1 HQ and 2 Troops, may have up to 3 Elites, etc etc....

An Allied detachment is just a way of including a second, mini-FOC in your army, and a lot of Codexes have their own special detachment which is basically a different sort of FOC - like the Inquisition one which only includes HQ and Elites.

Formations don't have FOCs - they are really specific groupings of units that can exist on their own get special rules.

And then some recent Codexes have their own, totally new and different, ways of building an army out of a mixture of Formations and individual units - 'Auxiliary' is something used in some of these Codex-specific / Mixed Detachments, like the Gladius Strike Force.

Good work, pal! Gonna save it and show to people (have some newbs entering the fray around here)

SharkoutofWata wrote:I'd add a separate entry for the Decurion types making it clear that the Formations that can be in them are part of that Detachment and not separate.

He did. The Gladius example is the same of a Decurion.

Roknar wrote:Looking pretty nice. Maybe make one for unbound too. Since it may not be immediately clear that you cannot take faction detachments or formation detachments. I'm not actually sure what those new huge formations are that consist of other formations like the mechanicus one where you get free gear. Are they proper detachments or actually formations that would allow you to use them in unbound lists?

Unbound lists can take formation detachments. In fact, it's the only kind of closed detachment they can use (the models from his warlord's faction will be considered primary, though)

Ok, I think I got it.
I use the FOC listed in the in the codex to get the base requirements, then I can either spend the rest of the points using that FOC or by adding special detachments.

kaotkbliss wrote:
Ok, I think I got it.
I use the FOC listed in the in the codex to get the base requirements, then I can either spend the rest of the points using that FOC or by adding special detachments.

Ummm. Sort of.

EVERYTHING is in a Detachment, even the 'base requirements'. I'm not sure what Codex you're using, so I'm not sure which FOC is printed in it, but whatever FOC it is, it's the FOC that relates to a sort of Detachment. If it's an older codex, then it's probably the FOC for a 'Combined Arms Detachment' - you know, 2 HQ 6 TROOPS 3 ELITES, etc etc etc.

The only reason I'm correcting so specifically is that it's perfectly legal for you to make a Battleforged army from, say, four Formations and never look at a Force Organisation Chart. There is no 'base requirement' any more.

Older Codexes, particularly ones from 6ed, show the old FOC and then you 'add' to that. Newer Codexes don't show that FOC any more, or show their own Codex-specific way of making an army (like the Gladius Strike Force)

 Vector Strike wrote:
Good work, pal! Gonna save it and show to people (have some newbs entering the fray around here)

SharkoutofWata wrote:I'd add a separate entry for the Decurion types making it clear that the Formations that can be in them are part of that Detachment and not separate.

He did. The Gladius example is the same of a Decurion.

Roknar wrote:Looking pretty nice. Maybe make one for unbound too. Since it may not be immediately clear that you cannot take faction detachments or formation detachments. I'm not actually sure what those new huge formations are that consist of other formations like the mechanicus one where you get free gear. Are they proper detachments or actually formations that would allow you to use them in unbound lists?

Unbound lists can take formation detachments. In fact, it's the only kind of closed detachment they can use (the models from his warlord's faction will be considered primary, though)

I should have been more specific. I was referring to those formations of formations. Like the mechanicus one. Because I didn't actually know if they were indeed formations that act like detachments or decurion style detachments.


**disregard the rest of this post...apparently I am unable to read properly -_-. You only get blood frenzy in a battleforged list **

But checking back with my daemonkin codex, I noticed something odd. The blood host detachment consists of the slaughtercult plus a choice of auxiliaries and the lord or slaughter choice. This is a detachment and thus cannot be used in an unbound list.
But the slaughtercult and auxiliaries are formations in their own right. So they can be taken individually in an unbound list minus the lord of slaughter and war engines, but since your playing unbound that doesn't matter and you can take the units anyway. And the slaughter cult has the same bonus rules as the bloodhost detachment command benefits.
So taking the individual formations results in exactly the same list in unbound or battle forged. With all the same bonus rules.

Is the same true for other decurions?

I've updated the initial post with a 'Version 2' - hopefully a bit more obvious because of the layout, and making a point of separating out the Mixed Detachments.

The new layout looks nice and is easy to read so it helps understand things (along with the other posts in this thread)

Thank you all