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Hey so my hobby group where talking about the state of 40k and a two topics that are fairly connected it seems is hurting the game;
1) the prevalence of high point units dominating the game
2) overwhelming psychic buff that are benefiting the above style
So we were talking how to deal with it. We agree minium changes are generally better and so we came up with a couple of solution. I was wondering what your thoughts on them are and what your own problems are with 40k are?
So our solutions are:
1) Make wound allocation hurt death stars (not sure how to go around to this)
2) low the effectiveness of buff psychic powers (lower invisibility and such)
3) allow each psyker/s only one power that keeps over time (so one power you keep per turn much like warmachine )
4) only one psychic power per side on one unit at a time

Note not all 4 are needed just some to help the game out

This doesn't actually remove death stars. Eldar and Space Marines can just cast Fortune/Veil of Time on an already durable unit and boom instant Deathstar. Heck Daemons still have their Screamer Star since they only need to cast a single power (Cursed Earth of Forwarning) and then use the Grimoire to reach 2++ rerollable status.

Turning wound allocation, at least for multiwound models, back to 4E would help a lot, along with ditching Look Out Sir (a rule with a level of granularity inappropriate to the scake at ehich 40k is played). That said, the multiple overlapping and often stacking saves is the other issue, stuff like TWC's with a 2+/3++ with 4+FNP becomes effectively unkillable, likewise Necron Wraiths.

Invisibility is its own problem that should probably just be ditched altogether.

Rerollable 2+ saves is also not a thing that should ever be allowed.

Simply limit the amount of independent characters that can join a unit and/or limit psychic powers to either 1 blessing per unit or 1 malediction that a unit can receive.

Simplest and best solution is to just only allow 1 independent character per unit at any given time unless otherwise allowed by rule or formation.

The goal is not to ban the eight but to prevent super-friends and draigostar.

Try it, it works great.

I'm a fan of the way AoS handles Heroes (which would be the equivalent of ICs). They cannot join other units, but have increased survivability to survive on their own. It wouldn't stop all the Deathstars, but it would go a hell of a long way toward limiting them.

The way to eliminate deathstars is what Buddha said: Limit how many Independent Characters can join a unit. A couple ways to do that are numerical limits and preventing allied ICs from joining even battle brothers. I personally like the second option because it gets rid of the most egregious deathstars and feels more fluffy.

However, psychic powers also need to be flat out nerfed - No more casting on 2+, no more powers that make units unkillable, and no more teleporting around the map. With psychic powers alone, ANY imperial or chaos unit can have a 3++ re-rollable save (using 3 powers), or they can get EW with 4+ Feel no pain and 2+ strength while teleporting 24" every turn (also 3 powers). Psychic powers can turn any unit into a deathstar, and the only way to get rid of that effect is to limit the effectiveness of said powers.

There also needs to be a built in hard limit to what rerolls can acomplish. ++2/++2 should never have existed. ++2/++4 should be the absolute best you can get, if not ++5

Rerollable 2+ saves shoulnt even be a thing, they're just too reliable, and was something the game avoided pretty seriously until the last couple years.

I'm not sure limiting the number of ICs in a unit really fixes the majority of death stars. It mitigates T-Cav, but things like screamer stars only need a single herald to work, and that herald doesn't necessarily even need to be in the screamer unit.

As has already kind of been touched on, "death stars" are kind of a symptom of a few different problems.

Imperial stars generally run off of the "super friends" approach to a unit. For instance, you can take a character with shrouded and then toss him into a mob of cheap things from another codex (like fenrisian puppies or conscripts) and end up with a massive unit of 2+ cover saves. This, and many other problematic combos, would be prevented by getting rid of Battle Brothers as a level of alliance. If Battle Bro's were Allies of Convenience instead, you'd cut down on a lot of the most abusable combos.

Some psychic powers make for quick-and-easy death stars. You can toss invisibility onto pretty much any half-decent assault unit and turn it into something really daunting. Stacking invul save buffs on daemons is also problematic, and some of the new psychic powers from Angels of Death/Traitor's Hate make first turn assaults easy thus upping the effectiveness of some death stars. The solution to these is to either fix/ban those specifically problematic psychic powers (no one is breaking the game with pyromancy), or to rework the psychic phase entirely.

On that note, I'm not a fan of psychic powers that change every turn. It's just not fluffy in my eyes. I much prefer purchasable powers that are reasonably balanced.

There are also things like Necron Wraiths that dont require any character to function in a death star role, even outside of a Harvest formation, 6 Wraiths for 240pts with T5 W2 and a 3++ with 12" move is an absurdly resilient and fast unit.

Mostly its the access to "other than armor" saves that really makes these units so abusable, and in the case of TWC's, Bikes, and Wraiths, being T5 and multiwound to some extent or other allows just far too much resiliency to both quantity and quality of firepower.

What if we just get rid of most battle brothers? Why are Ravenwing and Thunderwolves in the same unit?

You want to know how they might remove death stars? They will do what they did going from WHFB to AoS. Characters cant join units... They can walk right beside them all day long.. but they can be targeted separately.

There is no death star in AoS now. However certain characters are now extremely powerful with 10+ wounds(which I don't agree with really).

Not saying I think this is what should happen, this is just what did happen with their other system. Its a crap shoot to see if they give 40k the AoS treatment. I hope they learn from AoS and do a better job, although I have come to enjoy AoS after the recent update.

a complete rework of the phychic powers is what is needed. PLus baseline rules that prevent any reroll save being better than 2+/4+. Get rid of LoS. Want to tank with your tank? hes tanking everything.

Removal of Battle Brothers would go a long way. Allies of Convenience is a much better ruleset for game balance.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Removal of Battle Brothers would go a long way. Allies of Convenience is a much better ruleset for game balance.

It makes no sense fuf wise though.

 mew28 wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Removal of Battle Brothers would go a long way. Allies of Convenience is a much better ruleset for game balance.

It makes no sense fuf wise though.

Sure it does. Count the number of individuals from one faction that have fought in combat in a unit of another faction.

Maybe you're thinking Allies of Convenience is actually more restrictive than it is.

Here are some solutions for the state of 40k

1) Remove all formations and super formations (decurions).
2) Use 30k rules for the FoC including cost restrictions for LoW units (can cost no more than 25% of total army value - i.e. 500 points in a 2k army) and most HQs that can only be taken 1 per every 1000 points.
3) Introduce Rites of War.
4) Removal of battle brothers for no cross codex shenanigans.
5) Rerollable saves function like high BS. a 2+ rerollable save requires a 6+ on the reroll.

The ETC format actively encourages deathstars, which is why you get quite a few - limitation on maelstrom scoring to 2 per turn, you only need to hold each objective individually once per game (only 31 - 36 secure objective X cards, no other secure objective X cards) and playing eternal war WITH kill points wants high survivability and maximum ability to move at the end of the game.

1) Limit invis
2) No 2+ to cast. Ever. No 3+ to cast, ever.
3) Allow blessings to be denied with bonuses.
4) Limitaiton on psychic dice per phase

Frankly the IH command squad plus cypher (shrouded, H&R) plus libby conclave plus wyrdstorm brotherhood with helm of durfast (ignore cover, reroll to hit on a 6D6 power (5 RP) ) is just a stupid stupid army

Forget all that nonsense it will also hurt other weaker units. There are codexes that need those rerolls like sisters and inquisition, and daemon armies really need their powers. This is how to fix it.

1. Point cap on how much points a unit can be included joined IC's. IC's are no longer allowed to join that unit if the limit is exceeded.

2. Battle brother IC's can no longer join allied units.

That should do it. There is no death star that can survive these rules and almost no other armies are seriously hurt.

The only 2++ that I think is somewhat balanced is the Dark Eldar's Shadowfield. Its wonderful while its there, but one fail and it is gone at the end of the round (and typically insta-kills the T3 elf holding the shadowfield)

invuln saves probably should never be allowed to be re-rolled. Armor re-rolls can be bad... but if you've ever fought against a deamon army that has an army wide re-rollable 2++, it is frustrating and simply not fun to play against.

I could see 1 IC per unit. That would actually give non-IC characters some additional value in some lists.

 oldzoggy wrote:
Forget all that nonsense it will also hurt other weaker units. There are codexes that need those rerolls like sisters and inquisition, and daemon armies really need their powers. This is how to fix it.

1. Point cap on how much points a unit can be included joined IC's. IC's are no longer allowed to join that unit if the limit is exceeded.

2. Battle brother IC's can no longer join allied units.

That should do it. There is no death star that can survive these rules and almost no other armies are seriously hurt.

Even easier way to fix it:

Codex: Space Wolves wrote:
Chapter Tactics: Space Wolves; <insert their army wide special rules here>

Blood Angels wrote:
Chapter Tactics: Blood Angels; <insert their army wide special rules here>

Codex: Dark Angels wrote:
Chapter Tactics: Dark Angels; <insert their army wide special rules here>

Because that's the issue that keeps cropping up with the 'superfriends' style lists. It involves you digging into multiple books to get benefits that are granted to the squads thanks to what would be Chapter Tactics in the main Space Marine book.


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 Lance845 wrote:
Here are some solutions for the state of 40k

1) Remove all formations and super formations (decurions).

No.

2) Use 30k rules for the FoC including cost restrictions for LoW units (can cost no more than 25% of total army value - i.e. 500 points in a 2k army) and most HQs that can only be taken 1 per every 1000 points.

Yeah...no.

4) Removal of battle brothers for no cross codex shenanigans.

Battle Brothers alone is not the problem. Look at the cross codex shenanigans that go on closely and you'll see the issue is the lack of a "Chapter Tactics" designator on the non-Codex Marines books.

Remove current psy phase, totally and utterly bin it, put fantasies magic phase in, keep the 12 dice cap, give tau a +2 to dispel and Necrons, kind of like dwarves, that will open up all sorts of options to psy items, I'd even add a "acheotech" common items list that all armies can take from.

Why would Necrons or Tau have bonuses to dispell? That doesnt make a whole lot of sense from a background perspective. They aren't psychic blanks or immune to the effects and powers of the Warp, theyre just not capable of harnessing its power themselves.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Why would Necrons or Tau have bonuses to dispell? That doesnt make a whole lot of sense from a background perspective. They aren't psychic blanks or immune to the effects and powers of the Warp, theyre just not capable of harnessing its power themselves.

The necrons have a huge amount of tech that blocks the warp and warp based powers in the fluff, so a +2 to dispel would represent this quite well, for tau its more of a balance thing, they are capable of developing a defence and would develop it.

things like adamantium will, +1 to inv save vs psy powers.

Eldrad would become a lvl4 psyker/wizard

human psykers could go up to lvl 3, marines lvl 4 but it all costs points

I could go on, but the point is made.

First, let me direction your attention here:

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2016/09/29/why-do-deathstars-work/

It's a nice little article that, very factually, explains that the main reason Deathstars work is that, when you have something very strong *and* which uses a lot of your army's points cost, then buffing that thing further has a compounding effect. Mathematically, let's say you can increase how much money you have in two piles by 10%, and are able to do this twice, and for arguments sake we'll say you have $100. If you split this $100 into two piles of $50 each and increase each pile by 10%, you'll end up with $110 ($50*1.1 + $50*1.1 = $110). However, if you apply BOTH 10% increases to a single pile, you'll end up with $110.50 ($50*1.1*1.1 + $50 = $110.50). That means you gain extra value by focusing both buffs instead of spreading them out.

That is the crux of why Deathstars WORK. They're accumulating extra value by buffing not just the original unit, but ALSO buffing each previous buff. Giving Invisibility to a unit of Guardsmen isn't what makes Invisibility broken. Giving Invisibility to a unit that has 2+ armour saves, 2+ Invulnerable saves, which can already reroll those saves is broken.

Now, what would fix this? It would need to be some bottom-up design decisions at this point. First, much less buffing, or a way to heavily restrict these buffs. Magic The Gathering has a great self-balancing feature called the Colour Pie; that is, as you start trying to make stronger and stronger decks, you have to start branching out into cards in other colours, and that makes it harder to cast any of the cards in your deck, and makes it more and more likely that you start getting clunky draws - so even though you have the best cards, it won't matter if you can't cast them. Back when Factions were almost impossible to use together, deathstars weren't as much an issue because you couldn't easily combine things from outside your core faction - so if you had a weakness, unless your faction had an in-codex method of dealing with those weaknesses, you had to learn to play around them. There was more limitations as to what can buff what.

Unfortunately, because ease of mixing armies leads to more sales (and hey, that's not a bad thing! GW needs to have sales to keep around), and because this has been around long enough, there are newer things in-codex that are so strong that they can form deathstars even without interference.

As such, there's only two possible directions:

#1 - Scrap & Restart. This is what they did in 3rd edition. They restarted from baseline simple, with all major armies having their own 4-6 pages within the rulebooks. And you know what? It was good! It focused the game like you wouldn't believe, and everything since has only been bloating on top of it like a boil on a Nurgling's bum.

#2 - Try to make everything more powerful so there's all at nearly the same playing field. It's hard to tell if GW is doing this on purpose, as some armies are getting real buffs and can play at the top tables on their own (Codex Necrons, Eldar, Space Marines, Traitor's Hate, Genestealer Cult), or is just accidentally doing this, as many other armies see no upgrade, or sometime even downgrades (Codex Orks, Astra Militarum, Dark Eldar)!

Personally? I prefer option #1, because I do think we've hit a wall. Some people really don't like this though, because they like the game in its current incarnation. They like deathstars and games full of super-heavies and summoning spam, etc. They're not wrong for liking it, but I don't believe that the way they play the game is the way that's going to encourage the game to grow and be one of the best games out there. I believe there will always be room for the type of game they want to play (Apocalypse supplements and whatnot), but I truly believe that the game as it is right now is hazardous to its own growth.

Remove Battle brothers best friends forever

and at least half the death stars will go away

Allow pskers to deny the witch against blessings if they are within x range like in AoS

makes it less reliable to play eggs in one basket lists.

i forget what other death stars are out there nowadays.

Edit oh right 2++ rerollables.

umm i got nothing honestly.

I wrote a revised Psyker system awhile ago, and among other things, it separated "Blessings/Maledictions" from "Focused Blessings/Focused Maledictions." A *unit* could be under the effects of one blessing/malediction at a time, but individual models in that unit could be simultaneously affected by a single Focused Blessing/Focused Malediction.

More importantly though, I made the "Manifest/Deny" system one of "graduated successes/graduated denial", to a maximum of 4 successes. So if (as an example), Scouring Flame was a Witchfire, it would be a S5 AP 4 template, but each success beyond the first would up Strength/lower AP, up to it being S8/AP 1. However, Deny The Witch could be used against any "nearby" enemy psykers on a 4+, and each success on Denial removed a success from the Manifestation. Rather than success/denial being an "All Or Nothing" affair ("I rolled 3 successes to manifest Invisibility." "I rolled 2 to deny." "Tough luck"), it becomes possible to "deny enough" to weaken the full effect of the attack.

To round it off, each Psyker got 2 powers per Mastery Level but they have to be chosen at army creation (as opposed to pre-game generation). Each Psyker got 2 WC per mastery level, *but* there is no "extra D6 WC" to play with, and Psykers can only use their own Warp Charge for manifesting powers.

And then I added some stuff to keep things entertaining; discplines have Psychic Phenomena (similar to Signature Traits from 8th ed WHFB magic), there are fluff variants on different types of Psykers (unbound Psykers can explode their WC dice, some types of Psykers can "push" for a free WC die that causes perils if it matches with another), and adding "resonance" (Psychic powers that can be cast immediately upon a condition being met), and "Utility/Utility Aura" as types of powers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and another thing that would help with the whole Deathstar thing would be going back to 5th edition rules where Hit and Run was not a "shared" USR.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I wrote a revised Psyker system awhile ago, and among other things, it separated "Blessings/Maledictions" from "Focused Blessings/Focused Maledictions." A *unit* could be under the effects of one blessing/malediction at a time, but individual models in that unit could be simultaneously affected by a single Focused Blessing/Focused Malediction.

More importantly though, I made the "Manifest/Deny" system one of "graduated successes/graduated denial", to a maximum of 4 successes. So if (as an example), Scouring Flame was a Witchfire, it would be a S5 AP 4 template, but each success beyond the first would up Strength/lower AP, up to it being S8/AP 1. However, Deny The Witch could be used against any "nearby" enemy psykers on a 4+, and each success on Denial removed a success from the Manifestation. Rather than success/denial being an "All Or Nothing" affair ("I rolled 3 successes to manifest Invisibility." "I rolled 2 to deny." "Tough luck"), it becomes possible to "deny enough" to weaken the full effect of the attack.

To round it off, each Psyker got 2 powers per Mastery Level but they have to be chosen at army creation (as opposed to pre-game generation). Each Psyker got 2 WC per mastery level, *but* there is no "extra D6 WC" to play with, and Psykers can only use their own Warp Charge for manifesting powers.

And then I added some stuff to keep things entertaining; discplines have Psychic Phenomena (similar to Signature Traits from 8th ed WHFB magic), there are fluff variants on different types of Psykers (unbound Psykers can explode their WC dice, some types of Psykers can "push" for a free WC die that causes perils if it matches with another), and adding "resonance" (Psychic powers that can be cast immediately upon a condition being met), and "Utility/Utility Aura" as types of powers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and another thing that would help with the whole Deathstar thing would be going back to 5th edition rules where Hit and Run was not a "shared" USR.

Not too bad, I really really dislike the 4+ harness psy check, I find it a very bad mechanic and very Limiting, as there are only so many thing you can do with a single d6, make it 2d6 and give powers a set number (like invisibility a 15+) and that makes it a lot more adaptable and enjoyable, it also allows the other player an actual chance to dispel, while now it's nearly impossible.

I think everyone is barking up the wrong tree here.
To fix a GW problem, first you must think like GW.
If things are getting too big then we need BIGGER counters!
More powerful spells designed for killing those units and bigger, better guns.
Sure that might also make smaller things that we have in our collections insignificant and extremely easy to kill but then we'll have an excuse to go and get some cool new big models.
Quite how this thread has lasted this long without a sensible solution is beyond me.