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Following the post of how formations hold the power to balance 40k. I've been thinking on the subject, and decided formations should be removed.

1: much of the "OP"ness in 40k has been caused by formations
The ability to take 45 Warp Spiders in aspect hosts that give them all BS 5
The ability to take 5 Wraithknights
Decurion army wide 4+ RP
2+ rerollable jink
Free transports!
Free upgrades!
This is what comes to mind currently.
All of our terriors are currently caused by formations

2: also formations have removed the strategic process of list building. Even if formations were balanced, one would be at a disadvantage if they decided not to take them, and so have reduced the process of list building to picking 3-4 formations and the units that come with them.

Formations do present interesting pros- being able to take tons of elites for instance without all the required HQ and Troops in a CAD. Perhaps I'm not a fan of the large formations like decurion or the SM free transports as I am of aspect hosts or Judiscar Batallions

I agree, especially considering they exist solely to sell more models rather than actually adding anything interesting to army composition or gameplay. Formations and the various other radical changes to the game lately are the reason I play 30k now. I'm about to eBay my Eldar and SM, already got rid of the SW. Formation hammer is killing 40k.

I think this is half-right. Sure, some formations have some big troubles, but good numbers of them are reasonable. Or, say, there's one specific exploit in a formation is broken, but otherwise it's not bad (Guardian Battlehosts, for example, with multi-WK's). Or things like the 2+ rerollable jink are more a function of the units' rules than formation(I'm looking at you, Darkshroud).

It's an issue of formations being fine in theory, but designers having a poor ability to see the consequences. Not sure where I'm going with this, other than to say don't throw the whole batch out with the bad apples.

Edit: yeah, in retrospect, it's probably well more than half-right; the few bad ones are the biggest offenders b/c they offer such massive force multipliers, rather than sheer number of bad formations.

Depends on the fomation, your forgetting some formations make armies viable (harlequins)

They're mechanisms to move web bundles and specific kits, nothing more. They're awful game mechanics. There's essentially zero merit to them from a proper game design perspective.

Any upsides they have (such as making certain units more desireable that otherwise would not be) are really poor ways of solving those problems. The game functions at the unit level, fixes should be implemented at the unit level, formations are just an extra layer that has no need to exist.

 Vaktathi wrote:
They're mechanisms to move web bundles and specific kits, nothing more. They're awful game mechanics. There's essentially zero merit to them from a proper game design perspective.

Any upsides they have (such as making certain units more desireable that otherwise would not be) are really poor ways of solving those problems. The game functions at the unit level, fixes should be implemented at the unit level, formations are just an extra layer that has no need to exist.

Some armies are literally unplayable without formatioms

Reavas wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
They're mechanisms to move web bundles and specific kits, nothing more. They're awful game mechanics. There's essentially zero merit to them from a proper game design perspective.

Any upsides they have (such as making certain units more desireable that otherwise would not be) are really poor ways of solving those problems. The game functions at the unit level, fixes should be implemented at the unit level, formations are just an extra layer that has no need to exist.

Some armies are literally unplayable without formatioms

Which armies are those? Last time i checked all the armies that can't take a CAD stil have their own detachment they can take

Formations have not caused the imbalance in 40k. They have, however, done nothing to fix it and only made it worse. Which was to be expected, since as other posters have already said, they were never aimed towards balancing the game.

Could it be probable that tournaments move to disallow formations? This said, detachments such as the Skitarii maniple would be allowed because it is not considered a formation in the Codex/ in the formation section. For those that don't know, it is like a CAD, only without the HQ requirnment, as Skitarii don't have any.

Vaktathi wrote:They're mechanisms to move web bundles and specific kits, nothing more. They're awful game mechanics. There's essentially zero merit to them from a proper game design perspective.

Any upsides they have (such as making certain units more desireable that otherwise would not be) are really poor ways of solving those problems. The game functions at the unit level, fixes should be implemented at the unit level, formations are just an extra layer that has no need to exist.

Korinov wrote:Formations have not caused the imbalance in 40k. They have, however, done nothing to fix it and only made it worse. Which was to be expected, since as other posters have already said, they were never aimed towards balancing the game.

Said all that needs to be said between the two here.

Nope. 40k has always been unbalanced, formations just made it worse.

When you offer something for nothing then you know you have a problem.

This could have been rectified with a balanced rule set but OP stuff sells better than balanced.

A fair number of my gaming group have moved to Infinity (which is more balanced) because of GW's lack of balance.

Was the game balanced before formations?
Afaik it was way worse.
Greg Knights had like an 70% win rate in tournaments at the end of 5th.
At least now many armies compete with each other.
Even the 7th Ed eldar are not as dominant as pre formation 6th Ed eldar. Serpent spam was worse than warp spider spam which is arguably debatable how many times they are allowed to warp jump aka flicker jump.

gungo wrote:
Was the game balanced before formations?
Afaik it was way worse.

Having lived those days, it could be bad, but it's definitely far worse now.

Greg Knights had like an 70% win rate in tournaments at the end of 5th.

Their win rate was nowhere near that, and they weren't appreciably more powerful than several other armies of the era, like SW's, IG, BA's and SM's.

At least now many armies compete with each other.

Have you seen tournament results of late? If you're not playing Eldar, SM's, Necrons, Tau, or a very narrow slice of Daemon builds, you might as well not show up.

Even the 7th Ed eldar are not as dominant as pre formation 6th Ed eldar. Serpent spam was worse than warp spider spam which is arguably debatable how many times they are allowed to warp jump aka flicker jump.

Eldar are dominating at least as hard as they were in 6th, and if you look at basically all the top armies from Adepticon, the LVO, and other events, it's multi-detachment formation armies that are winning events, with Eldar clearly at the head.

The problem is that formations aren't even balanced with each other. The formation that lets Stormtroopers get twin linked and pinning on the turn they jump out of their Tauroxes, provided you take them in a special formation with a Commissar tax, is fluffy, cool, and encourages you to play the army the way they're meant to be played. The formation that lets a bunch of berserk cultists be fearless near their Hellbrute is similar. Then there's the stuff that gives you free units and wargear, which I think is absolutely stupid and not good for game balance at all. Points are there to balance the game, and if you get more points than the other guy, then you're actively unbalancing it.

What if I changed the title to: formations have only furthered the imbalance in 40k and thus should be removed. The units must be balanced first before formations are. Also, any model that is not in a formation will be at a sever disadvantage if they were all balanced

 Brother SRM wrote:
The problem is that formations aren't even balanced with each other. The formation that lets Stormtroopers get twin linked and pinning on the turn they jump out of their Tauroxes, provided you take them in a special formation with a Commissar tax, is fluffy, cool, and encourages you to play the army the way they're meant to be played. The formation that lets a bunch of berserk cultists be fearless near their Hellbrute is similar. Then there's the stuff that gives you free units and wargear, which I think is absolutely stupid and not good for game balance at all. Points are there to balance the game, and if you get more points than the other guy, then you're actively unbalancing it.

Special rules are points. I agree that those are fluffy and fun, but it makes the unit worth more points than you are paying for it. For some reason you are ok with cultists being fearless if it's something they just get that they couldn't get before, but what if they could pay 5pt each to get "Helbrute Pride" and be fearless next to their Helbrute, and then the formation gives it to them without that cost. Would it then not be a fluffy and fun mechanic anymore?

could not agree more.

Formations are fine, the damn codexes need fixing.

The news about CSM has really annoyed me :(

 Vaktathi wrote:

gungo wrote:
Was the game balanced before formations?
Afaik it was way worse.

Having lived those days, it could be bad, but it's definitely far worse now.

This GK where strong in 5th. So strong that did not like facing them, but the gab between 5th GK and Orks was small compared to the current gab between Eldar, Tau, Necron or Marines and Orks.
The op things back then where Terminator deathstars with a poor inv save, models with 2 wounds and vehicles with assault cannons. Assault cannons for god sake. Eldar now have troop jet bikes with a higher rate of fire.

zerosignal wrote:
Formations are fine, the damn codexes need fixing.

Formations without point costs are not fine because of this.

 Frozocrone wrote:
When you offer something for nothing then you know you have a problem.
.

and this

 Vaktathi wrote:

Any upsides they have (such as making certain units more desireable that otherwise would not be) are really poor ways of solving those problems. The game functions at the unit level, fixes should be implemented at the unit level, formations are just an extra layer that has no need to exist.

The current balance in 40k is bad and formations just made it a whole lot worse by further decoupling points from effectiveness on the board.

 oldzoggy wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

gungo wrote:
Was the game balanced before formations?
Afaik it was way worse.

Having lived those days, it could be bad, but it's definitely far worse now.

This GK where strong in 5th. So strong that did not like facing them, but the gab between 5th GK and Orks was small compared to the current gab between Eldar, Tau, Necron or Marines and Orks.

That's true. GK was universally hated, mostly because the Draigo-star was virtually untouchable. They rolled around the table, killing things while rarely dying, and when kills are basically the only things that give you victory points, you're in a bad spot when you can't crack the star. They weren't fun to play (I know, I did.) And they weren't fun to play against. It didn't last very long, because then came fliers...

But even then, *every army in the game had a chance* to blow up the star. Obviously it wasn't equal, but it was possible for everyone. Now, certain armies, if played to their full potential, are vastly more potent than others, and some codexes just can't stand up to it.

40k has never been balanced, but I honestly don't think it has ever been as bad as it is right now.

But there are also more threats now. It used to be that there was always one top codex that was better than all the others... now we have a multiple threat situation where several codex are simply in a class way above others (and allying muddies the waters further.) So while it's bad, there is hope that it will get better if everyone is brought to around the same level. Then maybe we will just see a return to the "bad" balancing, rather than the tragic balancing we have now. Maybe GW are trying to teach us a lesson for our whining. Maybe they're saying "it can always be worse, so swallow the horse **** and stop complaining."

 Purifier wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

gungo wrote:
Was the game balanced before formations?
Afaik it was way worse.

Having lived those days, it could be bad, but it's definitely far worse now.

This GK where strong in 5th. So strong that did not like facing them, but the gab between 5th GK and Orks was small compared to the current gab between Eldar, Tau, Necron or Marines and Orks.

That's true. GK was universally hated, mostly because the Draigo-star was virtually untouchable. They rolled around the table, killing things while rarely dying, and when kills are basically the only things that give you victory points, you're in a bad spot when you can't crack the star. They weren't fun to play (I know, I did.) And they weren't fun to play against. It didn't last very long, because then came fliers...

But even then, *every army in the game had a chance* to blow up the star. Obviously it wasn't equal, but it was possible for everyone. Now, certain armies, if played to their full potential, are vastly more potent than others, and some codexes just can't stand up to it.

40k has never been balanced, but I honestly don't think it has ever been as bad as it is right now.

But there are also more threats now. It used to be that there was always one top codex that was better than all the others... now we have a multiple threat situation where several codex are simply in a class way above others (and allying muddies the waters further.) So while it's bad, there is hope that it will get better if everyone is brought to around the same level. Then maybe we will just see a return to the "bad" balancing, rather than the tragic balancing we have now. Maybe GW are trying to teach us a lesson for our whining. Maybe they're saying "it can always be worse, so swallow the horse **** and stop complaining."

The bold part rings particularly true.
Players: Eldar are OP gak with the silly serpent Shields
GW: Introducing 7th edition Eldar, we listened and got rid of serpent shields, but made everything else OP instead MWHAHAHA

Players: Orks are under powered Gak except for the Deff Rolla and Nobs/nob bikers
GW: Introducing 7th edition orks, We nerfed Deff Rollas into oblivion so you will never see them again, and we made nob bikers with Pks so expensive that you will never see them fielded again...Ohh and we didn't buff anything in the Ork codex, we did however nerf a bunch of other things, mwahahahahahah!

Reavas wrote:
Depends on the fomation, your forgetting some formations make armies viable (harlequins)

Because GW intentionally made them that way to sell more of certain models that wouldn't have sold otherwise. You act like they couldn't have made a solitaire and/or shadowseer HQ choices. Boom, problem solved. Armies are only unplayable without formations as long as GW wants them to be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

gungo wrote:
Was the game balanced before formations?
Afaik it was way worse.
Greg Knights had like an 70% win rate in tournaments at the end of 5th.
At least now many armies compete with each other.
Even the 7th Ed eldar are not as dominant as pre formation 6th Ed eldar. Serpent spam was worse than warp spider spam which is arguably debatable how many times they are allowed to warp jump aka flicker jump.

This is a joke, right?

I'd like to think that (and I know this is not their intended purpose and never will be and OP is more or less right about this) that formations are to make otherwise stupid unit builds playable.

I like formations in theory. Just not in execution. Formations *should* be a way to make themed armies work. For instance, I might want to play an assault marine heavy army, but that's not necessarily a very potent option. With a formation, I might get a benefit such as the ability to jink my jump pack units (or whatever) to make them more viable. Things like Death Wing should be represented with formations.

What I don't like are formations/detachments that basically just give away free rules for taking already good options.

Removing formations would definitely not solve all of 40k's problems. Scatbikes and wraith knights would still be problematic (if less so), and grav cent stars would still be possible.

The superior option for creating abnormal or specifically themed armies is 30k's rites of war (and the militia equivalent). Downside is that I imagine it'll be quite burdensome sifting through all of them by the end of the series. It'll still be less than all the formations for even a single book though, so there's that.

marcman wrote:

1: much of the "OP"ness in 40k has been caused by formations
The ability to take 45 Warp Spiders in aspect hosts that give them all BS 5
The ability to take 5 Wraithknights
Decurion army wide 4+ RP
2+ rerollable jink
Free transports!
Free upgrades!
This is what comes to mind currently.
All of our terriors are currently caused by formations

The ability to take 5 Wraithknights has nothing to do with a formation, and could easily be done in a CAD(s) as well.

2+ Rerollable jink is tame compared to 2++ rerollable saves with invisibility which is easily doable without formations.

Formations do present interesting pros- being able to take tons of elites for instance without all the required HQ and Troops in a CAD. Perhaps I'm not a fan of the large formations like decurion or the SM free transports as I am of aspect hosts or Judiscar Batallions

You say an issue with formations is being able to take 45 Warp Spyders with BS5. Then you say that a "pro" of formations is being able to take a ton of elites "for instance". You then go on to say that you like the Aspect Host, which is the definition of what is wrong with formations (I like formations, but the Aspect Host is the main one that gives them the bad name of all of this imbalance). Please proceed to make up your mind, sir.

I agree with Wyldhunt. The idea of formations is fine - not too many people were lining up to play units with large numbers of Eldar Guardians, or comprised primarily of SM Tac, Assault, and Dev squads without the formation bonuses, but according to the background material, armies from those factions should overwhelmingly have large percentages of those units. GW may have bolloxed the execution, but since when is that unusual?

Wyldhunt wrote:
I like formations in theory. Just not in execution. Formations *should* be a way to make themed armies work. For instance, I might want to play an assault marine heavy army, but that's not necessarily a very potent option. With a formation, I might get a benefit such as the ability to jink my jump pack units (or whatever) to make them more viable. Things like Death Wing should be represented with formations.

What I don't like are formations/detachments that basically just give away free rules for taking already good options.

Removing formations would definitely not solve all of 40k's problems. Scatbikes and wraith knights would still be problematic (if less so), and grav cent stars would still be possible.

I agree completely. If someone is prepared to not take thier armies most powerful units, then they should be thrown a bone to at least give them a fighting chance, Failing fixing the unit itself, formation bonuses are the next best way to do this.

Fixing the weak unit is the perfect way to do this.