Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello, new member here. I used to play 40k with my old buddies back in 4th/5thedition (I played a small 1000pt Tyranid army) The whole appeal of 40k was that you could mix and match your favorite units to make your own perfect army. Aside from SM/CSM I would say that Necrons are my second favorite faction in the 40k lore (but I think nids are the most fun to paint and play) and was checking out their new codex update. It seems that with their new formation(?) rules it kind of "forces" you to take a pre built force or else you lose rules advantages and such.

Is anyone else kind of upset at this? I know that specific armies had special characters and that makes sense to me but in order to have a more advantageous and competitive force you now can't really choose what units you want. That seems to contradict the reason why 40K was so appealing at least to me, being able to customize so that my army was truly mine.

I might get back into this hobby, though there's no one that plays 40k at mylocal gaming store :( and this is worrying me that this will eventually spread to other armies as well as an effort to push sales.

Formations are present in every army, and there's a lot of folks who don't like them. Basically if you're going to say "is anyone else ____?" the answer is always yes

Personally I like formations in concept, as it lets you build towards a specific force that will give you some special benefits. What I don't like is how unbalanced a lot of formations are. You don't need to use formations at all - you can just build an army the way you did back in the old days and have it be perfectly viable and enjoyable to play. Formations are just another way to play.

Welcome to the 7th edition hellhole XD
Where you have to choose a "formation" to buy more mod..ahem...to get more advantages.
My suggestion is, if it rustles your jimmies as it does to mine, skip the formation stuff in your friendly games or simply talk with your opponent if you want to use them in a fair way.
Imo, we already have Unbound and CAD to build our armies.

The latest push to formations is an attempt by GW to wed comp with sales. By rewading a specific composition that uses underwhelming units with game changing special rules, GW is trying to reign in some of our abuses in army building while turning a profit. And it's working. Take Space Marine Gladius, for example. Free transports obligates you to buy more transports, for a generic army that matchs fluff rather than 'Ard Boyz. Can you defeat an army with over 500 more points than you have, even if it is so plain as to be boring to look at?

Take your own Tyranid formations. Are you being encouraged to buy units you'd normally avoid, just to get an advantage? That is today's 40k.

SJ

I don't see the problem really, formations are an option you can take but more flexible Force Organisation Charts like the CAD and totally as you please Unbound are still rules legal. Some formations have some pretty strong buffs but they also limit your options, it's a trade off not an auto-take.

Actually you have much more possibilities to build an army than before. There aren't any restrictions really. If you choose to take a different style than CAD (the kind of force organisation you know from earlier editions, which is still part of every codex) you lose the bonus of "objective secured" and get other boni instead.
And then there's "unbound", where you receive no bonus at all but can mix and match the models as you like.

Technically you can make an army any way you want now with no restrictions. Effectively, however, doing so doesn't feel like 40k. Trying to find the middle ground is next to impossible. GW broke the wall between game systems (skirmish/40k/Apocalypse), told people to play the game they want, but didn't realize that gamers naturally seek out ways to give themselves an advantage. If you tell them they "can" do something, if they want, and then make it extremely advantageous for them to do so... they're going to do it!

So yes, technically, you can do whatever you want. However, effectively, the game is all about having a 30min discussion with your opponent prior to a game or risk having a completely lopsided battle that's no fun for anyone.

 FlawlessSubzero wrote:
Hello, new member here. I used to play 40k with my old buddies back in 4th/5thedition (I played a small 1000pt Tyranid army) The whole appeal of 40k was that you could mix and match your favorite units to make your own perfect army. Aside from SM/CSM I would say that Necrons are my second favorite faction in the 40k lore (but I think nids are the most fun to paint and play) and was checking out their new codex update. It seems that with their new formation(?) rules it kind of "forces" you to take a pre built force or else you lose rules advantages and such.

Is anyone else kind of upset at this? I know that specific armies had special characters and that makes sense to me but in order to have a more advantageous and competitive force you now can't really choose what units you want. That seems to contradict the reason why 40K was so appealing at least to me, being able to customize so that my army was truly mine.

I might get back into this hobby, though there's no one that plays 40k at mylocal gaming store :( and this is worrying me that this will eventually spread to other armies as well as an effort to push sales.

On the flipside even before formations everybody geared toward same builds anyway. With internet it doesn't take long for codex to be cracked and then people gravitate to same power builds. Not really different. You still aren't building your favourite units. Just the ones that are most powerful.

On flipside it does give incentive to build more fluffy armies that wouldn't ever see light of day. Tactical marines? Nobody would take them without gladius. Bikers all the way. As it is biker swarm white scar style could still be better...Yeah no free rhinos but better base unit. Hell of a better.

So formations at least give incentive to field armies you see on fluff. Even if only a little bit.

Some of them are good. Like bully boyz - 3 squads of 5 meganobz that get fearless, ws5 and fear - or dreadmob - a bunch of walkers. It opens up a way of fielding a themed list way more effectively. Others like libconclave are breaking the game as it turns into a dice-throwing fest of endless psy buffs of an allready strong army.

 Yarium wrote:
Technically you can make an army any way you want now with no restrictions. Effectively, however, doing so doesn't feel like 40k. Trying to find the middle ground is next to impossible. GW broke the wall between game systems (skirmish/40k/Apocalypse), told people to play the game they want, but didn't realize that gamers naturally seek out ways to give themselves an advantage. If you tell them they "can" do something, if they want, and then make it extremely advantageous for them to do so... they're going to do it!

So yes, technically, you can do whatever you want. However, effectively, the game is all about having a 30min discussion with your opponent prior to a game or risk having a completely lopsided battle that's no fun for anyone.

I'm not sure that the unbound option is taken up that often and most of the time that it is it isn't to field something totally bonkers. There isn't yet a formation that allows Orks to do a cult of speed biker only list, though such a thing is fluffy. You can't really do it with any of the FOCs available to Orks either without taking a lot of unfluffy infantry taxes or using Zhadsnark's old and dubiously legal FW rules. Unbound let's you do it without unfluffy taxes but at the cost of having no warlord trait or other detachment level bonuses, which is quite fair.

Formations were fine.... Inside a FOC. Now decurions massively bring up power creep.

We are now getting to a point where there is a formation for every type of army list you want. Formations make many poor and unused units better. As time goes on the number of formations just continue to grow. So while you feel like you can't play the models you want the truth is the exact opposite in 7th where it's quite normal now to see people field at least three seperate formstions all centered on the army list and models you like. Sure there might be a model you need to include in certain formstions but this has never been different in any editon where you were required to take a hq, required to take 2 troops which were usually your worse units, and limited in every other slot on the amount of units you could field. Now in 7th those artificial restrictions are gone and you simply choose to use the old foc style (cad) list or you choose one of the 25+ formations your army has access too.

I accept formations as the evil they are.

Best way to think about it is regular 40k games are now apoc rules. Which is kinda dumb, but hey i just work here.

gungo wrote:
We are now getting to a point where there is a formation for every type of army list you want. Formations make many poor and unused units better.

Funny how the best formations (at least for Orks) always involve the most expensive models. Formations using cheap models get deleted.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
The latest push to formations is an attempt by GW to wed comp with sales. By rewading a specific composition that uses underwhelming units with game changing special rules, GW is trying to reign in some of our abuses in army building while turning a profit.And it's working. Take Space Marine Gladius, for example. Free transports obligates you to buy more transports, for a generic army that matchs fluff rather than 'Ard Boyz. Can you defeat an army with over 500 more points than you have, even if it is so plain as to be boring to look at?

GW isn't really balancing anything by introducing even more egregious abuses.There's really no reigning in or balancing attempt here. For every somewhat fluffy Gladius we get a "buy one of everything" variety funshow or "buy 7 riptides!" enabler.

I'll totally agree that they're trying to push sales through rules, but there's no attempt at comp or reigning anything in here really.

If you don't want to take the decurion you don't have to, crons are already in a good position. Unless you want to table people or go in tournies stick with CAD or unbound.

 JimOnMars wrote:

gungo wrote:
We are now getting to a point where there is a formation for every type of army list you want. Formations make many poor and unused units better.

Funny how the best formations (at least for Orks) always involve the most expensive models. Formations using cheap models get deleted.

If this was true we be knee deep in Mek gun formations which we don't have yet. Most ork formations right now are boys heavy (aka cheap), we have 1 mega nob formstion and a bunch of walker and flyer formations. I'm presuming you mean our best formstion is the bullyboyz meganob formstion (since our walkers and flyers suck) but I don't think you paid any attention to the ridiculous amount of varients we have with boys or nobs formations. Also right now I'd kill for a good warbiker formstion since that is one of our best units not called meganob or Mek guns or tankbustas/lootas (two good units again without a formation).

 Vaktathi wrote:
There's really no reigning in or balancing attempt here. For every somewhat fluffy Gladius we get a "buy one of everything" variety funshow or "buy 7 riptides!" enabler.

I'll totally agree that they're trying to push sales through rules, but there's no attempt at comp or reigning anything in here really.

If only the SM formations were as effective as the IG ones. And vice versa...

Formations becoming standard is the best thing that happened to 40k in quite a while. it gives you the incentive to pull off so many fluffy builds that you simply would never even consider before.

We ALL know that the FOC was simply used as "take tax HQ and troop, spam your best elite/fast/heavy" (and in some lucky armies, there was an HQ and/or troop actually worth having)

Under formations? I really can't make up my mind. I want a Dawn blade Contingent, but I also want an OSC, and the hunter contingent is not too shabby either-but then where will I fit in my drone network? etc, etc.
An endless cycle of "I want X, and Y, and Z, and T but can't possibly fit them all in points, and I could take X and T, but the two are not from the same decurion...."
And the best part-all these things I want are all rational, fluffy forces. proper unit distribution that one would expect in a real army. a few big things, many small things, units that supplement each other and work in cohesion rather than simply fighting against the same enemy.

Its giving me options to build different.
And yes, some of the different styles require me to buy units I don't have. shame on GW, actually promoting a product by making it worthwhile.


Sure a few of the formations are too good, and a few are not good enough, but is it in any level of existence worse than already existing unit imbalance?
Most formations are fun, fluffy and reasonable balanced. a minor tweaking to the few that are too good/poor is all that needed to fix them.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
There's really no reigning in or balancing attempt here. For every somewhat fluffy Gladius we get a "buy one of everything" variety funshow or "buy 7 riptides!" enabler.

I'll totally agree that they're trying to push sales through rules, but there's no attempt at comp or reigning anything in here really.

If only the SM formations were as effective as the IG ones. And vice versa...

Hell, if only the IG formations where not total crap. We have what, one useful and two semi decent ones and the rest are a waste of ink and paper/data storage.

OP, welcome to 7th edition 40K, AKA formationhammer. Right now the game is more unbalanced than it has ever been before and the power disparity between the codex's and even the unit types (Monstrous Creatures vs Tanks for example) is massive. In the meantime the power scale has escalated drastically, leaving most basic troop choices and old dependable's in the dust as new super units such as Riptides, Stormsurges, Imperial Knight and WraithKnights duke it out and Super Heavies such as Baneblades and even small titans are not an uncommon sight on the battle field.
Add on to this the schizophrenic nature of Maelstrom missions (go here and grab that, now go there and grab that, now head back to that other place and grab it again, shoot an enemy unit to death, cast a psychic power, kill a tank, assault a unit and kill it, charge out of a building/ruin, grab that place again, shoot down a flyer, now grab both those places,actually scratch that grab all of them, etc) and you have a recipe for a nightmarish scenario of random charges, units throwing themselves about everywhere and general horror.

It probably does not help that 40K is trying to be a Skirmish level game, a Platoon level engagement game and an Amassed Battle game all at once.

Formations are cool in theory and most of the time in practice as they can add cool new interactions between models, add functionality, or give units needing something extra a boost. The issue with them is GW is still fast and loose with their game balance both internally and externally so you end up with formations that make great units even better and you also end up with formations that require bad units and they do little to nothing to help or have terrible rules. If GW tightens up their balance by buffing and nerfing the outlier units and then focus on making thematic formations then things will be great.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
The latest push to formations is an attempt by GW to wed comp with sales. By rewading a specific composition that uses underwhelming units with game changing special rules, GW is trying to reign in some of our abuses in army building while turning a profit.And it's working. Take Space Marine Gladius, for example. Free transports obligates you to buy more transports, for a generic army that matchs fluff rather than 'Ard Boyz. Can you defeat an army with over 500 more points than you have, even if it is so plain as to be boring to look at?

GW isn't really balancing anything by introducing even more egregious abuses.There's really no reigning in or balancing attempt here. For every somewhat fluffy Gladius we get a "buy one of everything" variety funshow or "buy 7 riptides!" enabler.

I'll totally agree that they're trying to push sales through rules, but there's no attempt at comp or reigning anything in here really.

Comp doesn't mean balance, comp means composition, as in what you are allowed to take. GW is dictating army composition via rules to encourage sales.

SJ

In fairness, with Tyranids at least, there is pretty much a formation for whatever type of non-standard army you want to build.

Artillery? Living Artillery Node
Airforce? Skyblight
Lictors? Assassin Brood

Just stitch 'formations' together as you might stitch together units at a smaller scale.

The problem is that 40k is nigh unplayable without MCs and superheavies to soak the points. The same 1500+ pts as an easily-played Knight lance fielded as a horde of Guardsmen / Gaunts / Boyz is far messier to wrangle.

5 Knights vs 5 Knights gets 40k back to being a small skirmish of 5 models per side.

I personally don't have a problem with formations. Probably the reason behind it is that I fall into the collector niche of the hobby, I do play but when I want to run a formation I already have the models on hand if I want to run a formation or in the rare instance that I don't I just use a CAD. I personally don't have a competitive bone in my body when it comes to 40k so being at a rules disadvantage isn't really something that crosses my mind often, if at all.

I think I'm honestly one of the few people who doesn't have any particular gripes about the overall game. Sure I've complained about some of the business practices and there's always the price but its not anything I can't handle with budgeting.