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I was thinking about this the otherday, in a lot of the fluff, certain types of armor, weapons or vehicles are considered incredibly rare, yet on the table top, this is not always represented. My question is, should GW or FW put specific caps on certain in game features to better reflect fluff? Such as, introducing rules that would limit any army to X number of grav weapons per X point limit. Or X number of terminators (not limiting how many units, but the specific individual numbers) per X point limit or unless a specific character is also present? This would also be introduced to all factions, and formations could have special issues of war gear to include additional gear beyond the normal numbers.

There has been a bit of that already - for example the Sicarian tank from FW is limited to one unless you also have a certain type of character (at least that's my understanding, don't have much interaction with FW). There were also examples in the 4th edition SM codex, where some of the choices limited the number of X you could bring, representing chapters that had limited access to X.

Overall though, I'm not a fan of the idea - if someone wants to have a homebrew chapter that has oodles of X but no Y (for whatever reason), I don't see a reason to limit them based on the generic SM fluff.
I would consider limits for game balance reasons (though limits like that are likely to be a nest of vipers).

This was kinda/sorta how it worked in 2nd edition. You had wargear cards and in general if you didn't have a card, you couldn't have that wargear (codices had a majoirty of the simpler wargear). Super fancy or super powerful bits were kept on cards.

However, as you can imagine some people cheated the system and bought/traded as many of these cards as they could.

While limitations on numerous units/vehicles/special characters would benefit the game, it would not benefit the bottom line for GW sales.

An oft overlooked term is "spirit of the game/rules" of which there is little left. Playing nice and polite lists will get you beat consistently in every game you play. This is mainly why I just play old modified 2nd edition with some close friends - as we share the same mentality toward the game.

I'm more for the wargear cap to be brought back as it was in 2nd edition.

I'm more peeved with how Kairos can show up in so many daemon armies, also Draigo pops out of the warp for a random little battle quite often

I got on this train of thought because I was using a sicaran, and thought to myself, why are these relics sequestered while other things can be brought en-mass especially because some armies can be so min/maxed by disregarding fluff. If people want to do homebrew armies that is not necessarily a bad thing, but maybe in that case make the army in essence unbound. Otherwise everyone in competitive will call their army "homebrew" in order to get around the limit.

At various times, certain wargear, units, or vehicles have been limited, usually based on the fluff or game balance. Most notably, IG can spam plasma like nobody else, despite it being "rare."

And rare varies, depending on the faction. A rare bit of kit for the IG or Orks is probably far more common than anything for Astartes or Eldar. However, Marines are more likely to access rare things than a random IG company.

Still, one solution that my buddy and I thought of for a potential game system, was to assign two costs to each unit or upgrade. The first is points, and the second is "rare points." (I wanted to call them awesome points) For something like 40k, you'd probably start with a rarity point for every 100 points, rounded up. Basic units and transports don't cost any rarity, while more specialized and rarer units, or veteran upgrades, wargear, etc, would all cost more and more rare points. So for Marines, Tacticals, assaults, devestators, bikes, speeders, predators, and captains are all zero rarity. LIbbies, chaplains, plasma/grav weapons, relic blades, veterans, dreads would be one rarity. Terminator squads, land raiders, stormtalons, would all be three.

This was more or less how things operated in 3rd/4th edition:

You had a 0-1 or 0-2 cap on units that were considered rare or unique, while special characters had to have your opponent's explicit permission to use, so few people included them in pickup games since you never know if a player didn't want to play with special characters. The only exception to this was the Deathwing and Ravenwing Masters, who at the time were one of the few special characters that completely altered your FoC to something else. Wargear was limited likewise; you'd never know that before you would only see maybe 1 or 2 Iron Halos in an entire army, and Daemon Princes were limited to 1 choice per army and couldn't be taken alongside the likes of Abaddon or Kharn.

Fluff wise there is no need. You're representing a small chunk of the battlefield, not the entire war. It's possible the force is a special taskforce, or an elite taskforce, or just happened to be where specific units are.

You have 10 grav guns in your army? For all you know that's the chapter's entire supply.

You are spamming plasma in guard? Well, the platoons there may have been allocated ALL the plasma due to the predicted need, while the rest of the regiment has none.

You have 5 Sicarian in one army? For all we know that is the entire complement of that tank in that particular war theater, and they could even have more than most other areas.

You have 20 terminators dropping with 40 normal marines? It happens in fluff at times.

You *gasp* have Calgar deploying? Well, he does do that at times, and he could choose to go wherever he wants. The rest of the chapter could be there two about two 6x4 gameboards over.

You can easily get through the fluff argument. If you wanted to restrict, restricting based on fluff isn't the way to go.

In war you never just have 1 of something..... so no I dont agree

 Amishprn86 wrote:
In war you never just have 1 of something..... so no I dont agree

Sure you do.

But no I don't think that's a good idea for all the reasons listed above.

I'm on my phone so I cannot quote the above two responses easily, however, while it is tempting to say that no limits should exist, there are already some put in place, like only having 1 relic sicaran and other relic vehicles in an army unless a technomancer or equivalent is in the army and then you can take two. Also while each game is technically only a snap shot of the entire campaign/war, as I suggested earlier, certain formations could allow you to take additional rare items, but potentially at greater cost to indicate how all of these items are trusted to a strike team

I's like to see the ability to only take one unit type per army, it would put a hampering on power gaming and running lists of say 3 units of warp spiders. plus one aspect host of 3 units of wrap spiders.... one of a unit type per cad with the exception of troops and HQ

I also really like the idea of assigning "rarity points" to certain units/war gear and have it be some fraction of the total points of the army. This would of course mean that different factions would have differently costed items/units even if they go by the same name. (as in a plasma gun for IG would be a different price than SM or CSM or any other faction)

This speaks to the two forces affecting how 40k armies are designed. Some people would prefer armies to be representative of the fluff, meaning that they feature mostly "core" units and have auxiliary or rare units only as flavoring. Other people want to be able to focus on specialized lists and formations, and essentially to take whatever they want.

Back in 3rd edition, armies were only built out of CAD, which was meant, at the time, to ensure "Balanced" builds. When people quickly dropped all but the minimum troops to build lists with all specialists, GW changed 4th edition so that only troops could score. Still, specialized formations, most notably deathwing and ravenwing, existed, which allowed for things like an all terminator or all bike army. In late third, and more so in fourth, options to make certain specialists troops, and therefore both scoring and available in greater numbers, were a common sight in codexes.

In current 40k, even in Battleforged environments you can build essentially whatever you like. I think that's great, but for some people, every battle being a combat between ultra elites or giant warmachines loses some of the grittiness that they feel 40k should exemplify.

Years ago, White Dwarf included some guidelines for what it called "low fantasy" WFB, with the idea of using units and magic that was more common in such a setting. It appealed to me greatly, and if I found a group of people I really liked playing 40k with, I'd try to float an equivalent.

 Polonius wrote:
Some people would prefer armies to be representative of the fluff, meaning that they feature mostly "core" units and have auxiliary or rare units only as flavoring.

IMO the problem with this idea is that it comes down to "take these boring units that you hate because the rules force you to". If troops aren't appealing enough to take without a rule that forces you to take them then troops need to be fixed to be more interesting. Once that's done the game should swing back in favor of troops-heavy armies as a natural result of people taking the cool stuff.

they already do impose limits on relics. thing is most things are already pretty rare.

take space Marines for example in a "demi battle company" of 1 captain, 3 tatical squads 1 devestator squad, and 1 assault squad you're going to have max.. 3 plasma rifles, 7 plasma Cannons and 5 Plasma Pistols the majority of your units will be using bolt guns. the plasma is going to be in the hands of officers of special weapons units.

this applies to guardsmen, generally speaking you don't see a ton of special weapons, your average infantry man still uses the lasgun.


so rare items ARE somewhat rarer, just we also have the options for elite units with elite weaponry. but as others have said these are well.. elite units in special circumstances. and we should reckongize this.

 G00fySmiley wrote:
I's like to see the ability to only take one unit type per army, it would put a hampering on power gaming and running lists of say 3 units of warp spiders. plus one aspect host of 3 units of wrap spiders.... one of a unit type per cad with the exception of troops and HQ

I don't even know what the bolded means. Would you please explain this?

On the subject of "rarity points", Fantasy's old points system was sorta like that; only Core Units (Troops equivallent) could be any number. Your Specials were only allocated a specific amount of points, and you could only have I think 3 copies of any specific Special Choice. Rare Choices were further limited to halve the allotment Special Choices get, and only 2 copies of any specific Special Choice. Lords and Heroes were also limited in numbers and in how much points they got to spend in total.

This is on top of 0-1 restrictions and unique wargear (in the form of magic items) as well.

Based on the above, out of a max of 41, min of 36 (I dont know the max size of a SM tact squad) troops 15 would have plasma weapons.... that is not even close to rare, the age of plasma was at the time of the crusade and HH, if anything the devestators would have melta, lascannons or heavy bolters. Like maybe CSM would have more of that war gear because horus stacked their side with that kind of stuff before starting the war.

I think that's what's done through formations nowadays.

You want to play Canoptek Harvest? Okay, but then you are restricted to one Spyder only.
You want a Battle Company? You have to take all those Tac Marines.

I know, there's much debate about formations and especially the more open ones' are problematic, but I think in promoting a fluffy way to play it's better to say: "Hey, you chose that army so you get a bonus for your fluffy units, and some of your other units won't be as useful for you as for some other army" than: "You chose to play this army, so you are not allowed to take this, this and this."

The game really needs something this imo. It would put further limits on nasty WAAC types and the ability to take "broken" lists (no more triptides!). I think it just might bring back a bit of balance and give armies that rely on troops and don't have a lot of superawesome rare stuff like the IG or Orks a better fighting chance.
As an added bonus, rarity points or something like that would make the games feel more fluffy, and who could possibly be against that?
However I do think there should still be special formations that allow you to field special combinations of units like an army of terminators and such. Because that is just cool.
That is of course presuming that GW sticks with the current model and doesn't move to a formation-based game entirely.

Unbound should also still be an option for when all players agree with it and just want to take whatever they want.

im againsty the idea of a hard limit but rather a tax for certain units based on slot and army, so the taxes would be on an army basis and used to keep certain aspect in check and offer a new level of depth towards armybuilding decision making. for example eldar troops could have a tax of 25 meaning that every additional troop they take after any REQUIRED amounts for a detachment are increased by 25 after any other unit math is done. and with formations you pay that upfront straight off the hop(regardless of formation requirements) for any unit that exceeds 1 of. so if a formation is 2 squads of dire avengers and a wraithlord (as an exmaple) and the avengers tax is 12 then your paying an extra 12 points for that second squad of avengers. and before you ask, yes this means that free units in formations or detachments that are taken in bulk recieve a tax

we then have this tax be slot wide so a dark angels taxes might be 10 troop, 25 fast, 5 elite, and 15 heavy, and since lord of war and fortifications only get 1 slot then they dont get taxed.

this would stop the spam all the bike marines lists and spam all the crisis suits to fill for space around my missilesides and stormsurge nonsense we see currently. it would minimum make army building a lot more diverse if your trying to skirt around taxes and it could be used as a way of off-setting a particularly busted portion of an armies roster such as the fast being really good or the heavy or the HQ.

you could even just make some armies have a flat tax across all slots like eldar if you wanted them to be super tiny armies or armies that take a variety of slots and spread themselves out across the various slots a lot more then they currently do.

 ionusx wrote:
im againsty the idea of a hard limit but rather a tax for certain units based on slot and army, so the taxes would be on an army basis and used to keep certain aspect in check and offer a new level of depth towards armybuilding decision making. for example eldar troops could have a tax of 25 meaning that every additional troop they take after any REQUIRED amounts for a detachment are increased by 25 after any other unit math is done. and with formations you pay that upfront straight off the hop(regardless of formation requirements) for any unit that exceeds 1 of. so if a formation is 2 squads of dire avengers and a wraithlord (as an exmaple) and the avengers tax is 12 then your paying an extra 12 points for that second squad of avengers. and before you ask, yes this means that free units in formations or detachments that are taken in bulk recieve a tax

we then have this tax be slot wide so a dark angels taxes might be 10 troop, 25 fast, 5 elite, and 15 heavy, and since lord of war and fortifications only get 1 slot then they dont get taxed.

this would stop the spam all the bike marines lists and spam all the crisis suits to fill for space around my missilesides and stormsurge nonsense we see currently. it would minimum make army building a lot more diverse if your trying to skirt around taxes and it could be used as a way of off-setting a particularly busted portion of an armies roster such as the fast being really good or the heavy or the HQ.

you could even just make some armies have a flat tax across all slots like eldar if you wanted them to be super tiny armies or armies that take a variety of slots and spread themselves out across the various slots a lot more then they currently do.

I disagree with this idea.... Codex: Space Marines have two troops choices, tactical squads and scouts. Now, I know some folks swear by scouts, but I'm never, ever gonna use them, it doesn't fit the fluff of any of the marine armies that I play.

I also play Harlequins, where I have ONE troop option, that is the harlequin Troupe. Under your premise, I'm going to be paying a "tax" because I'm forced to take 3 squads for any kind of CAD army.

Guard are in a similar situation: you have conscripts (lol!), platoons, and veteran squads.

Ultimately, it isn't so much the units themselves that people have a problem with, it's pieces of wargear or special abilities and rules that people have an issue with. In the earlier example someone gave of a captain, 2 tac squads, and a devastator squad having 4 plasma pistols, 2 plasma guns, 6 plasma cannons.... That list is going to have problems on numerous fronts, so almost no one in their right mind is going to run that kind of a list. There is going to be some variation in special and heavy weapons in there.

 DarkBlack wrote:
I'm more peeved with how Kairos can show up in so many daemon armies, also Draigo pops out of the warp for a random little battle quite often

And that is why special characters are dumb.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 ionusx wrote:
im againsty the idea of a hard limit but rather a tax for certain units based on slot and army, so the taxes would be on an army basis and used to keep certain aspect in check and offer a new level of depth towards armybuilding decision making. for example eldar troops could have a tax of 25 meaning that every additional troop they take after any REQUIRED amounts for a detachment are increased by 25 after any other unit math is done. and with formations you pay that upfront straight off the hop(regardless of formation requirements) for any unit that exceeds 1 of. so if a formation is 2 squads of dire avengers and a wraithlord (as an exmaple) and the avengers tax is 12 then your paying an extra 12 points for that second squad of avengers. and before you ask, yes this means that free units in formations or detachments that are taken in bulk recieve a tax

we then have this tax be slot wide so a dark angels taxes might be 10 troop, 25 fast, 5 elite, and 15 heavy, and since lord of war and fortifications only get 1 slot then they dont get taxed.

this would stop the spam all the bike marines lists and spam all the crisis suits to fill for space around my missilesides and stormsurge nonsense we see currently. it would minimum make army building a lot more diverse if your trying to skirt around taxes and it could be used as a way of off-setting a particularly busted portion of an armies roster such as the fast being really good or the heavy or the HQ.

you could even just make some armies have a flat tax across all slots like eldar if you wanted them to be super tiny armies or armies that take a variety of slots and spread themselves out across the various slots a lot more then they currently do.

I disagree with this idea.... Codex: Space Marines have two troops choices, tactical squads and scouts. Now, I know some folks swear by scouts, but I'm never, ever gonna use them, it doesn't fit the fluff of any of the marine armies that I play. (and bikes and other things that can transition slots like ravenguard moving assault marines via imperial armour and crimson fists sternguard.

I also play Harlequins, where I have ONE troop option, that is the harlequin Troupe. Under your premise, I'm going to be paying a "tax" because I'm forced to take 3 squads for any kind of CAD army. (not tghe detachments, they are tax free up to the min, then you pay the tax

Guard are in a similar situation: you have conscripts (lol!), platoons, and veteran squads. (and plague marines via imperial armour 13)

Ultimately, it isn't so much the units themselves that people have a problem with, it's pieces of wargear or special abilities and rules that people have an issue with. In the earlier example someone gave of a captain, 2 tac squads, and a devastator squad having 4 plasma pistols, 2 plasma guns, 6 plasma cannons.... That list is going to have problems on numerous fronts, so almost no one in their right mind is going to run that kind of a list. There is going to be some variation in special and heavy weapons in there.

the problem is that theres almost no variantion or diversity, your told theres one way to get to heaven because everyone else only cares about the one way to get to heaven and then your punished time and again for doing something new or doing something else. and then 6 months down the line were angry. because our communities are refusing to leave the nukes at home for god damn once in our lives.

the reason why we have the tax is to make formations less prevelant because the taxes just murder you on points it means that essentially your not getting free traqnsports at all in demi companies, it means that optimised stealth cadres are now having to move up a point bracket or make serious cutbacks. it means that eldar cant go all in on jetbikes and dire avengers to mule wave serpents so they can spam wraithknights.

it cuts down on the spamming of things cause lol its broken and rewards a diversity of slot choices or an emphasis in direction. and you can alter and bend these taxes to make them level out as new content is released. so for example a slot that might be 14pts at launch might drop to just 4pts 6 months down the line when new codecies have come along since gdubs is so insitent on breaking the fething game with every new product launch when there only having and faq and errata twice a fething year


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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:
I'm more peeved with how Kairos can show up in so many daemon armies, also Draigo pops out of the warp for a random little battle quite often

And that is why special characters are dumb.

they arent dumb its that they work too well and in armies where they dont work well the generic boyz were given too many handouts. like back in 6th where every chapter suddenly found themselves being led by two to three chapter masters cause fething reasons i think that if your going to give outrageous handouts to generic dudes then a tax isnt a bad idea because at least that second or third or 6th guy is now going to cost them out the arm. this means that those guys feel even more special because sinking points into a second lackey only to have him be 25pts more then you origionally estimated then your going to have to make cuts somewhere else and things stop working as well as youd like and this forces you back to the drawing board and just in general it tones down this cancerous all in natures people take towards armyn building

 Traditio wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
I's like to see the ability to only take one unit type per army, it would put a hampering on power gaming and running lists of say 3 units of warp spiders. plus one aspect host of 3 units of wrap spiders.... one of a unit type per cad with the exception of troops and HQ

I don't even know what the bolded means. Would you please explain this?

one unit type as in one squad... want terminators ok, there is your squad of terminators. want devastators, on there is your one squad of devastators, you have 3 elite , 3 fast attack, and 3 heavy slots and if you want them all filled on the same CAD you use 9 different unit types other armies line elder one unit of warp spiders, use some of the other cool units you have, tau can then bring 1 unit of riptides etc.

Really I just get tired of seeing the same cheesy spam over and over again

We do still have rarity built into the game - you can only take one Lord of War in most detachments and you can only field one of each special character. Obviously it's not as it once was, but there seems to be an admission by the games designers that some units should be restricted somewhat.

I like restrictions. I was always keen on the FOC and I was keen on units that are 0-1 in the codex, except in certain circumstances. I think that kept things more balanced and fluffy.
I think if elite units get too commonplace, they cease to be elite, and that leads to power creep. The game should be based around troops and light vehicles, with elite units swooping in to save the day from time to time.

Now... Imperial Knights. There are tons of them about and some field entire armies of them - someone on facebook had about 15 in an army. But aren't they super rare? I am in disbelief when I see hordes of them on the battle field. Sorry, Knight fans, you're perfectly entitled to field what you like, but I find I am having to suspend my disbelief!


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 G00fySmiley wrote:

one unit type as in one squad... want terminators ok, there is your squad of terminators. want devastators, on there is your one squad of devastators, you have 3 elite , 3 fast attack, and 3 heavy slots and if you want them all filled on the same CAD you use 9 different unit types other armies line elder one unit of warp spiders, use some of the other cool units you have, tau can then bring 1 unit of riptides etc.

Really I just get tired of seeing the same cheesy spam over and over again

I wouldn't be keen on that myself. I think it's only necessary for a few units - Chapter Masters, Knights, Greater Daemons, Honour Guard etc.
I don't think it is fluffy to say you can't have more than one squad of Terminators or Khorne Berserkers in an army.

 ionusx wrote:

the reason why we have the tax is to make formations less prevelant because the taxes just murder you on points it means that essentially your not getting free traqnsports at all in demi companies, it means that optimised stealth cadres are now having to move up a point bracket or make serious cutbacks. it means that eldar cant go all in on jetbikes and dire avengers to mule wave serpents so they can spam wraithknights.

it cuts down on the spamming of things cause lol its broken and rewards a diversity of slot choices or an emphasis in direction. and you can alter and bend these taxes to make them level out as new content is released. so for example a slot that might be 14pts at launch might drop to just 4pts 6 months down the line when new codecies have come along since gdubs is so insitent on breaking the fething game with every new product launch when there only having and faq and errata twice a fething year

None of my Harlequin formations get free transports. And I STILL only have ONE... let me repeat that ONE fething troop option, and that is the Harlequin Troupe. What you are proposing would literally kill entire armies off. All in the name of what??? No spam allowed? OK, if you hate spam so much, perhaps individual units could use a cap... like, say... the FOC.


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 corpuschain wrote:

Now... Imperial Knights. There are tons of them about and some field entire armies of them - someone on facebook had about 15 in an army. But aren't they super rare? I am in disbelief when I see hordes of them on the battle field. Sorry, Knight fans, you're perfectly entitled to field what you like, but I find I am having to suspend my disbelief!

Knights are a bit of a thing.... They aren't really super rare, and the fluff in the Knight codex doesn't say anything like, "A Knightly house is made up of X Imperial Knights" the way that the SM codex talks about the 1000 people rule. As such, it is entirely possible to see an entire army of knights, as well as see one or two supporting another army.

A dude at my store has 19.... and is still planning on more (once Forgeworld releases their newly planned ones). I myself am going to stop at 5 or 6 (if I get a sixth one, it's getting the Thermal Cannon and will be an alternate sub to my written up list)

I am not against spam, rather I think it could be fun to try and build viable lists with additional stipulations that would make the table top turn into more of a "grimdark"-esque brawl (with troops being the most populace units, and towering behemoths/named HQ/certain Elite/Heavy Support being more rare, unless using a codex such as the knights and including having some weapons being less massed)