Heavy restrict on unit duplicates. Spreading up?

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**tneva82**

Just wondering if the rather strict limits I have seen on couple upcoming local tournaments are starting to become common or is this just finnish oddity. Basically one tournament has 2k list with max 3 same datasheet, other 1750 pts has max 2. Guess this is meant to stop worst multi unit spams but that feels rather...heavy handed and leaves me unable to even attend without buying more models(which I refuse to do outside 30k/non-GW games). With my IG for 2k tournament I realized I could juuuuust about get roughly 1700-1800 pts scrawled together. 1750 pts gets even worse killing off battallion as I can't bring more troops than the 2 squads of infantry and limits hellhounds and russess to 2 max so I made quick estimate and came around 1500 pts. Orks gets even worse as they are flat out banned of using brigade on the 1750 pts and any ork player can tell how good list with just 2 squads of boyz is going to be.

Obviously I'm not going to bother going either with 15-25% point deficy. Ah well saved money and can always play 30k with friends so no biggie. However makes me wonder if this is becoming increasingly popular option...

On extreme case if all tournaments adopt this here I might just as well sell off my models. At home we prefer play 30k so 40k gets outed pretty much only for tournaments etc. Well IG might be usable as repurposed cultist/solar auxilia.

Puzzled at what so uber some ~6 squads of IG troopers. Barely 2 min sized platoons when 40k has gone to company level game long time ago. 2 squads is bare minimum platoon. That limitation would be more appropriate for 2nd ed!

**tneva82**

Yarium wrote:
Highlander is a fun variant, but every time I've seen it, the restriction was only on non-Troop choices. Some armies, like Necrons and Orks, only have 2 possible Troop choices, and others, like Harlequins, only have 1! As such, I'd perhaps contact those tournament organizers and ask if the restriction applies to troops, because its overly restrictive to some armies. Also, while I find Highlander to be fun at times, it's fun because it's different, and it should not be the status quo, and the results of such tournaments are rarely hyper-competitive affairs.

Yeah I have seen it before. Before it wasn't bothering me too much as I rarely have more than 2 non-troop and 3 would be more than generous. However now with even troops I realized I'm struggling to even make a legal list! I have just 1 unit of grotz so I barely have legal battallion. My ork boyz are mostly 12(trukks) to 20 boyz strong squads so for troops I would be looking at 40 boyz and 10 grotz as max. That's...Little. Points wise is that even 300 pts out of 1750 pts?

Then I got worried when this is not in one but two tournaments which is...well pretty much all upcoming tournaments in southern Finland and one of them is big one for finnish standards.

Well guess I could attend the 2k tournament if I painted in time my warhound titan...Guess that would be way to get legal 2k tournament list :lol: Would be quick games for me. I'm fast enough 3h game is enough even with horde army so imagine how fast I can play my games through with 1 model army

**tneva82**

Sherrypie wrote:
I like unit restrictions, especially if it is for a tournament. Then again, I also liked the old FOC restrictions, minimum core slots and percentage limitations of WHFB and all the rest. Those give some structure to armies and the event where the limit applies, making it distinct from your everyday match at home.

That being said, it could of course be done in many ways, some better than others. Only use 1 or 2 Detachments, spend at least 50 % of your points on Troops, don't use more than two of the same unit entries, no Fliers, no Super heavies, no named Characters, what ever. It is all fine and dandy for an event and I personally welcome such experiments from organizers, always more interesting to dabble with list building when it is constrained by something.

Problem being these wide sweeping chances have been tried for like 2 decades and have never been shown to actually create more balanced game. Actually reverse. Generally the ones being hurt by these are LESS effective armies. The power houses of editions just walk through still top of the hill often with even bigger margin.

As it is even on my case I would actually get STRONGER list if I were able to make list that follows the rules than if I took list that I would like to take(like to mainly because I don't have any other troop option than infantry squad!). Less infantry squads, more tempestrum for deep striking plasma=instant power up. IG has enough competive options that while this would cut some of their strenght other lists like competively much worse orks gets absolutely vaporized. 2 units of ork boyz in 1750 pts? That's not even semi-competive any more. And brigade for orks is obviously so uber that it needs to be banned.

**tneva82**

Captain Joystick wrote:
Does the restriction also apply to things like transports?

Everything. Max 2 chimera,max 2 russ, max 2 ork warboss. Well at least tank commander is separate to russ so pask, 2 tank commander and 2 russ legal. Seems to be tailor made touney rules to force ig play tank army.

**tneva82**

Tourney rule specifically covers that. No squdron of 3 russ either in max 2 of same tourney.

**tneva82**

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Infantryman wrote:
When did the old 0-X limits disappear? I remember 4e having certain units that could only be taken up to a certain number.

M.

Relatively recently when GW Rewrote the rules system so that 'Rules' and 'Balance' didn't get in the way of buying models.

0-1 Baneblade in your Codex? Well that'll discourage you from buying that second Baneblade.
Only allowed one Assassin of any type in your army? Well that'll put people off buying our new shiny boardgame assassin boxed set.

Etc.

The new detachments, and so on are very clearly written from the perspective of a company that doesn't want you to put a fluffy warhammer setting army on the table, but rather whats to provide a ruleset that's as permissive as possible for you using whatever models you own, regardless of sanity. Want to bring an army of nothing but space marine captains? Now you can! An Army with 18 Astropaths? Go for it! An Army of all Space Marine Captains and Astropaths accompanied by two squads of Fallen Dark Angels? Yes Sir!

Problem with 0-1 restrictions though is those are also unfluffy. Or you think in 40k there never ever ever is 2 baneblades at the same time on battlefield? Despite fluff describing such battles.

**tneva82**

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
I was being silly with my 0-1 restriction on Baneblades. To the best of my knowledge, that specifically has never been a thing. Back in my day you never actually saw them because they had no place in a platoon skirmish game, and then only appeared in Apocalypse games where everyone felt they belonged.

Once again however, the rules system has changed. Want to play titans? In an infantry platoon skirmish! Yes Sir, you can do that now too. What's that you say? Those are for large engagements? Ha, don't be so silly.

The orginal deployment limitations were included primarily for fluff, and occasionally for balence. Both concepts I am 100% behind. But unfortunately now Fluff/Balance<Sales.

Much like, 'You can only use special characters with opponents permission.' What? Your opponent might say no, so you can't play them, so you might not buy them? We can't have that!

The final causality of this mindset was the CAD. Whadda you mean, at 2,000 points people are only able to buy and field three heavy support/elites choices? That's silly. Now you can field 18! Quick everyone, go rebuy your armies to allow for the vast expansion in different types of unit you can field at once.

Huh? Imperial Guard companies now need to be lead by a dozen officers/lord commissars to even be legal? That's not realistic? ... Oh, but the rules are really good and competitive? Sweet, carry on then...

I think the only time I've seen anyone advocate using an IG Junior officer is as a lone ally in another faction list for the sole reason of giving him the AM Relic of moar command points.

Anywayy... Back on topic. GW is pushing duplicate units for duplicate sales, and TO's are pushing less duplicate units because they make for exceptionally dull games, particularly when spread across the entire event.>

But again those restictions leads to LESS fluffy armies. Also remember 40k battles are highlight parts of bigger battles with more stuff going on around.

If you want balance fix rules rather than make extra restrictions and if you do restrictions do them unit by unit basis on problem units rather than blanket restrictions that not only hinder making fluffy armies just screw balance more.

**tneva82**

sennacherib wrote:
I really like highlander armies as a way to balance things. I also feel like making a battalion a requirement for any army besides knights would be a good thing. Lower points values for tournaments too would be nice. 1750 or 1500.

Highlander has been tried for balance for 2 decades. Never worked and indeed has just worsened balance. What would make it work now? Hell Imperium soup would now benefit from it even more than before so rather than 8th ed making it suddenly highlander=balance it makes it even worse than before...

**tneva82**

auticus wrote:
Rules are rules, and this isn't brikwars so you don't have some "well, I can change the rules if I want to do something else" concept the game allows

The GW rules pretty much openly encourage you to houserule. Their devs tell you to do it. The warhammer community page will tell you to do it.

Its pretty much a given that the game should be houseruled if you don't like things about it.

Especially as game literally cannot function sensibly without them.

But there's limits to those and the highlander is taking things way too far. Especially when it's on one of the biggest tournaments of year in the country...It's simply too unbalanced rule for such a tournament.

**tneva82**

jeff white wrote:
I would endorse a limit on all non-troop choices.
and as for this, I would endorse a limit on the number of detachments brought to the table, also.
So, max 2 hq, 2 elite, 3 heavy support, 3 fast attack and 1 dedicated flyer, max 3 detachments of any sort in a 1500 point game, for example.

Better but still screws some armies over others. And btw are those per detachment or per army? Which basically means forget any detachment but battallion. Actually even with that what's the point of any non-battallion(brigade btw would be illegal...) as battallion covers max's anyway. and you are going to need troops just to fill points so battallions minimums are covered.

So yet another rule set that just makes balance worse.