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In the AoS GHB they introduced rules of one to balance some aspects of the game. I can think of a few that might be helpful in non-drastic ways that could be introduced to GW as suggestions.

1) A unit can contest / hold only one objective at a time. I've been seeing a lot of IG with super heavies cluster the objectives and park on them to cover three with minimal effort.

2) A unit cannot claim the same benefit even if from different sources OR -1 to hit from an army trait cannot stack, but other things can. This covers the stacking minus to hit. I can see this one being controversial as people cling to them.

3) An army cannot claim more than 12 CP at the start of the game. This brings down the power of armies that can fill out lots of detachments mindlessly and then spam CP. It may also promote more diversity in list building.

4) An army may not have more than 2 (or 3?) detachments. A limit to 'soup' perhaps? I'm not confident on this one.

Do you agree? What needs tweaking? What else might be feasible? Bear in mind we should be looking for small small changes rather than drastic re-imaginings of the game.

For 1 remember one grot will nullify super heavy from taking objective. For 4 remember limit is already 3 detachments, less on smaller games

I view the Rules of One as Fake Balance, a hacky proverbial "band-aid over a gunshot wound" meant to patch over rules that were sloppily implemented to begin with. Rather than introducing more Rules of One, the game should focus on cleaning up the underlying mechanics.

Take Psychic Powers for example. You can only attempt to cast a non-Smite power once per turn. While this patches over powers like Warptime or Da Jump, it also makes powers like Infernal Gaze or 'Eadbutt comically useless. It also discourages using smaller casters, in favor of larger casters with larger bonuses to Manifest. This is why you see Magnus but you don't see Thousand Sons: if you only get one chance to cast Warptime, you want the best odds possible. Combine this with the fact that higher rolls are harder to Deny, so the Denying player might as well not bother. Rather than having hi-powered "all or nothing" powers with denial being "pass-fail", make it a Degrees of Success System. Ex: Roll 6 or so dice, each 4+ is a success (to a max of 4). For example, Orks can use Da Jump to appear 18.1" away from an enemy unit, and each additional success lets the unit appear 3" closer (up to a max of 4 successes for 9.1" away). Likewise, you make it so each 4+ to Deny subtracts a success, so even if you don't completely stop a power from going off, you can mitigate the worst of said powers.

Alternately, take Stratagems. You can only use 1 of each Stratagem per phase. However, many of the Stratagems boil down to "do more damage." In fact, if you were to remove Strategic Discipline, the end result would be player 1 frontloading as many damage buffs as possible to make an alphastrike even better. This is because you get all your CP up-front, and it's a non-regenerating resource. A good analogy I like to think of would be playing Warmachine, where you get 50 Focus at the start of the game and that's it; the end result would most likely be both players going for some extreme alphastrike where dice get frontloaded onto multishot damage boosts. Reworking CP to have a much smaller amount that you gain from "turn to turn" would instantly eliminate the need for Strategic Discipline.

And so on so forth. Don't use Rules of One, but consider why you want said rules to begin with and dig deeper.

tneva82 wrote:
For 1 remember one grot will nullify super heavy from taking objective. For 4 remember limit is already 3 detachments, less on smaller games

Given the current state of the game I think that grot is more of a possibility than a reality. The door swings both ways of course meaning infantry couldn't grab more than one.

My brain settling on 2 detachments for 2K. It's been part of the house rules around here for a while and doesn't seem to upset anyone yet.

Daedalus81 wrote:
In the AoS GHB they introduced rules of one to balance some aspects of the game. I can think of a few that might be helpful in non-drastic ways that could be introduced to GW as suggestions.

1) A unit can contest / hold only one objective at a time. I've been seeing a lot of IG with super heavies cluster the objectives and park on them to cover three with minimal effort.

2) A unit cannot claim the same benefit even if from different sources OR -1 to hit from an army trait cannot stack, but other things can. This covers the stacking minus to hit. I can see this one being controversial as people cling to them.

3) An army cannot claim more than 12 CP at the start of the game. This brings down the power of armies that can fill out lots of detachments mindlessly and then spam CP. It may also promote more diversity in list building.

4) An army may not have more than 2 (or 3?) detachments. A limit to 'soup' perhaps? I'm not confident on this one.

Do you agree? What needs tweaking? What else might be feasible? Bear in mind we should be looking for small small changes rather than drastic re-imaginings of the game.

To preface, I usually only play 'casually' with friends so I haven't run into a lot of the balance issues most people have with 8th. That said, I do like suggestions for improving the game and rounding out some of the 'edge cases.'

1) I like this, I feel like it was actually a rule in previous editions.

2) I'm okay with this as well.

3) This one I'm less sure about. I feel like you already pay in HQs and Troops to get that many CPs. I'd argue it's a valid playstyle to build a list that leverages a lot of CPs over maybe taking the best units.

4) Don't have my rulebook in front of me, but I think there is a detachment limit in matched play already?

One thing I think that 40k really needs is the rule that a 6 always hits/wounds. It would remove a lot of the absolute BS you see where you stack shooting penalties so you can't be shot at all. It would still not trigger special abilities if you didn't get the value needed, but would give armies like Orks a chance against penalty-stacking Eldar and the like.

For 3, honestly, I think the whole way that CP is assigned is kind of dumb.

If you had me design the system, here's what I would do:

1) To be battleforged and get CP, your army must include at least one unit with the HQ role.

2) Determine your "Base CP":

-If 1/3 or over of your points are spent on units with the "Troops" role, 6.
-If 1/2 or over of your points are spent on units with one of the following roles: Fast Attack, Elite, Heavy Support, 4.
-Otherwise, 2.

3) Determine your "CP multiplier"

-If your list shares only a "Grand Alliance" keyword (Imperium, Chaos, Aeldari), 1.
-If your list shares a single "Faction" keyword (e.g. Space Marines, Chaos Daemons, Tau, Orks), 1.5.
-If your list shares a single "Subfaction" keyword, excluding units that do not remove subfaction bonuses, 2.

Choose the two options that maximise your CP. So, a 2000 point IG list with 700 points of troops and a single regiment keyword = 12CP. A 2000 point Space Marine detachment with 1200 points of Elites would get 6CP.

The current system gives an un-needed advantage to armies that can spam cheap troops, and a very weird incentive to spam HQs, even necessitating spamming HQs which penalizes factions who don't have good cheap spammable HQs like Dark Eldar.

CP should have required more to get, and not be such a hot commodity due to crazy stratagems that it's something you want to maximize; remember when GW said it would be a way to reward playing mono faction or fluffy lists? And instead it becomes about spamming cheap troops to get Battalions so you can get more CP to use stratagems with.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Take Psychic Powers for example. You can only attempt to cast a non-Smite power once per turn. While this patches over powers like Warptime or Da Jump, it also makes powers like Infernal Gaze or 'Eadbutt comically useless. It also discourages using smaller casters, in favor of larger casters with larger bonuses to Manifest. This is why you see Magnus but you don't see Thousand Sons: if you only get one chance to cast Warptime, you want the best odds possible. Combine this with the fact that higher rolls are harder to Deny, so you might as well not bother.

These things are not mutually exclusive. Eadbutt is crowded out by Da Jump and it's horrible range. Infernal Gaze is a go to for tagging that weakened character, but competes too often with Smite anyway. And, I suppose, according to the rumor limiting Smite to 3 times per turn seems more and more likely.

Also, Magnus is not on the table exclusively for his +2. He can be where he needs to be to cast Warp Time and a crushing Smite. Not for the ease of casting and difficulty of denial.

Rather than having hi-powered "all or nothing" powers with denial being "pass-fail", make it a Degrees of Success System. Ex: Roll 6 or so dice, each 4+ is a success (to a max of 4). For example, Orks can use Da Jump to appear 18.1" away from an enemy unit, and each additional success lets the unit appear 3" closer (up to a max of 4 successes for 9.1" away). Likewise, you make it so each 4+ to Deny subtracts a success, so even if you don't completely stop a power from going off, you can mitigate the worst of said powers.

This falls under too drastic of a change with potential unintended consequences. I don't see how this would benefit big casters any less as well.

Alternately, take Stratagems. You can only use 1 of each Stratagem per phase. However, many of the Stratagems boil down to "do more damage." In fact, if you were to remove Strategic Discipline, the end result would be player 1 frontloading as many damage buffs as possible to make an alphastrike even better. This is because you get all your CP up-front, and it's a non-regenerating resource. A good analogy I like to think of would be playing Warmachine, where you get 50 Focus at the start of the game and that's it; the end result would most likely be both players going for some extreme alphastrike where dice get frontloaded onto multishot damage boosts. Reworking CP to have a much smaller amount that you gain from "turn to turn" would instantly eliminate the need for Strategic Discipline.

And so on so forth. Don't use Rules of One, but consider why you want said rules to begin with and dig deeper.

Or one stratagem per unit per phase? I'm not opposed to earning CP, but i'd have to dive into a such a system a little more deeply.


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I like the thought, but I think it's overly complex and possibly not balanced.


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Wayniac wrote:
One thing I think that 40k really needs is the rule that a 6 always hits/wounds. It would remove a lot of the absolute BS you see where you stack shooting penalties so you can't be shot at all. It would still not trigger special abilities if you didn't get the value needed, but would give armies like Orks a chance against penalty-stacking Eldar and the like.

I'm inclined to think Orks should get a rule "Dakka Don't Care" that says they ignore any minus to hit. I'm not certain 6s should always hit yet.

Magnus is fast, a melee beatstick, has superior Smite, a 3++ that rerolls 1s, and he's more likely to get powers you can only attempt to cast once per turn off in the first place. "All or nothing" effects are an innately wonky mechanic to balance. Remember Stomp and Destroyer from 7th? They "only" worked on 6s. Likewise, the Grimoire of True Names "only" worked 2 out of 3 times, regardless of the times it could combo with modifiers for rerollable 2++. Likewise, it's fair that "only" one unit of Guard Crusaders per turn can get 2+ Invulnerable Saves.

Or to use another analogy: Imagine if in 40k, a unit rolled *one* die to see if it hit, and depending on that roll, either every shot hit or none of them hit. Doesn't sound very fun now, does it? Starfleet Battles had such a rule for firing Photon Torpedoes ("Narrow field of fire"), where you could optionally do an "all or nothing" attack, but the extreme swinginess of this rule led to it being banned in tournaments.

The main advantage of the "degrees of success" system, assuming it's powered correctly, is that it mitigates this "coinflip" aspect of 40k and normalizes the results some. Maybe add some caps on the amount of dice you can throw on a power if you want, but since the powers reach max power at 4 successes, more dice beyond that becomes somewhat wasteful. What appened in 7th was "I have a Deathstar, I roll dice on Invisibility and get 5 Successes. You only rolled four 6s to deny? Tough luck." The odds of Denial became increasingly slim the more dice were thrown, due to basic combinatorics. By contrast, being able to mitigate a power down means you still have a chance to weaken said power.

Other examples of how to make Degrees of Success powers work:

* Smite: 2 Mortal Wounds per success (max 8).
* Warptime: Target unit may immediately move 2" (max 8") per success.
* Infernal Gaze: 1 MW per success (max 4).
* Psychic Barrier: +1 to *Armor Save* per success. No using it to give Crusaders a 2++!
* Null Zone: 3" Radius per success.

Etc, etc. The key point is that both casting and denial are not "all-or-nothing" but have a better distribution of results.

Daedalus81 wrote:
In the AoS GHB they introduced rules of one to balance some aspects of the game. I can think of a few that might be helpful in non-drastic ways that could be introduced to GW as suggestions.

1) A unit can contest / hold only one objective at a time. I've been seeing a lot of IG with super heavies cluster the objectives and park on them to cover three with minimal effort.

Seems reasonable enough. I've never seen this in play though since most missions have spacing requirements for objectives.

2) A unit cannot claim the same benefit even if from different sources OR -1 to hit from an army trait cannot stack, but other things can. This covers the stacking minus to hit. I can see this one being controversial as people cling to them.

Makes sense. Some of the recent books are already starting to address this - such as limiting the number of Feel No Pain saves that can be stacked on a unit.

e.g. the Ulthwé trait: Roll a D6 each time a model with this attribute loses a wound; on a 6 that wound is ignored. If a model has a similar ability (e.g. the Hemlock Wraithfighter’s Spirit Stones ability, or the Farseer’s Ghosthelm ability) you can choose which ability to use when a model loses a wound, but you cannot use both.

3) An army cannot claim more than 12 CP at the start of the game. This brings down the power of armies that can fill out lots of detachments mindlessly and then spam CP. It may also promote more diversity in list building.

The rules restricting strategems to once per phase limits the utility of collecting large numbers of CP anyway.

4) An army may not have more than 2 (or 3?) detachments. A limit to 'soup' perhaps? I'm not confident on this one.

The rules for Matched Play already suggest guidelines for the number of detachments at different points levels. Most events I've played at have followed them.

I like the suggestion that 6's auto-succeed to match 1's auto-failing as well.

Daedalus81 wrote:
In the AoS GHB they introduced rules of one to balance some aspects of the game. I can think of a few that might be helpful in non-drastic ways that could be introduced to GW as suggestions.

1) A unit can contest / hold only one objective at a time. I've been seeing a lot of IG with super heavies cluster the objectives and park on them to cover three with minimal effort.

2) A unit cannot claim the same benefit even if from different sources OR -1 to hit from an army trait cannot stack, but other things can. This covers the stacking minus to hit. I can see this one being controversial as people cling to them.

3) An army cannot claim more than 12 CP at the start of the game. This brings down the power of armies that can fill out lots of detachments mindlessly and then spam CP. It may also promote more diversity in list building.

4) An army may not have more than 2 (or 3?) detachments. A limit to 'soup' perhaps? I'm not confident on this one.

Do you agree? What needs tweaking? What else might be feasible? Bear in mind we should be looking for small small changes rather than drastic re-imaginings of the game.

4 is actually covered in the rulebook by providing a guideline.
3 is covered by 4

Ordana wrote:

Spoiler:

Daedalus81 wrote:
In the AoS GHB they introduced rules of one to balance some aspects of the game. I can think of a few that might be helpful in non-drastic ways that could be introduced to GW as suggestions.

1) A unit can contest / hold only one objective at a time. I've been seeing a lot of IG with super heavies cluster the objectives and park on them to cover three with minimal effort.

2) A unit cannot claim the same benefit even if from different sources OR -1 to hit from an army trait cannot stack, but other things can. This covers the stacking minus to hit. I can see this one being controversial as people cling to them.

3) An army cannot claim more than 12 CP at the start of the game. This brings down the power of armies that can fill out lots of detachments mindlessly and then spam CP. It may also promote more diversity in list building.

4) An army may not have more than 2 (or 3?) detachments. A limit to 'soup' perhaps? I'm not confident on this one.

Do you agree? What needs tweaking? What else might be feasible? Bear in mind we should be looking for small small changes rather than drastic re-imaginings of the game.

4 is actually covered in the rulebook by providing a guideline.
3 is covered by 4

I'm actually thinking two for 2K instead of the current 3.
#3 is not covered by #4, because IG can easily achieve well over 12.

Most of this is covered in tournaments. Some go so far as to say 3 detachments max, and you cannot duplicate the same detachment, so no double battalion.

Command points being given up front is fine. That allows you to plan your attack over several turns, which is more tactical gameplay. "I need those CP for my next turn"- tactics.

I would say simply instead of capping CP they just freaking balance the undercosted armies. It's absurd people can field more than a brigade with units they'd already bring. Well it's absurd one problem child faction can do this.

And the psychic phase is fine, by in large. More expensive psykers should be better at casting powers. Magnus was done right in this regard. It doesn't make sense that a cheap unit under 100 points can smite just as well as a 300 point psyker badass.

I don't think coin flip is a good way to term it. The argument you lay out is a little bit into starwman territory. Getting a 5 on 2D6 is not insurmountable for most casters - basically "don't roll a 1" (for smite). The degree by which you succeed also determines how hard it is for your opponent to deny - a degree of success.

This system you describe still seems to favor Magnus heavily where he'll score more successes than anyone else. I'll try not to nitpick such a system since it isn't fully fleshed out, but even a regular person smiting would do more damage on average than now - assuming you roll four dice and look for 4+ rolls. You're also making it easier to pull off certain combinations. Why would I need a full Warp Time when i'm coming in off Deepstrike? I only need 2" to 4" to make my changes far, far better. As of right now I can't usually deepstrike turn 1 and have Magnus in range for Warptime. I can take the risk of using a sorcerer to DS in and cast Warp Time. This ruleset just makes that way easier with much less risk.

Risk is part of the game.


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 Marmatag wrote:
Most of this is covered in tournaments. Some go so far as to say 3 detachments max, and you cannot duplicate the same detachment, so no double battalion.

Right - and I would like to see GW adopt it so that is gets broader appeal and affects the meta globally.

No double detachments is one i'd support.

I would say simply instead of capping CP they just freaking balance the undercosted armies. It's absurd people can field more than a brigade with units they'd already bring. Well it's absurd one problem child faction can do this.

I think there is a limit to the point changes one can make. GW is suffering from an optics issue where a unit is priced mostly ok, but make it Alaitoc or Catachan or whatever and add a few stratagems and god damn it's a little nuts. Not insurmountably nuts (unless you brought scissors to a rock fight), but it disconnect people's perception as to what is balanced.

Powers that cast on 7+ or 8+ are closer to coinflips, while Stratagems that "Deny on 4+" are statistically equivalent. And yes I know you could spend a CP to reroll the "Deny on 4+" roll but even then it's still functionally equivalent to "coinflip with the chance to retry once." It's still far less room for variance compared to "A unit of 20 Boyz fires Shootas".

Risk is part of the game, but that risk should tie into player agency. Failing to do enough damage because you fell slightly below the bellcurve is one thing. Losing an entire Adamantine Lance because a player rolled 3 lucky 6s on a Lynx is another thing altogether. Ditto wanting to outflank your opponent through a forest only for a Mysterious Terrain roll to come up and say "surprise. The Forest eats you." "Surprise, the River gives you a free Birona's Timewarp!"

Roulettehammer innately makes the game less about fighting your opponent and fighting the game.

(Note: I'm basically suggesting the magic system from Kings of War).

I think the objectives have to be more than 12" apart, which should block the SH tanks from sitting on more than one. I don't see a problem with a single squad of Boyz or Conscripts or Warriors stretching out across the objectives.

More than one thing is balanced around stacking effects from different sources. I would instead implement this effect as "6's always hit."

I mean, eh? Is this a problem? I feel like that, if you filled out 2 Brigades, then you probably also deserve the 21 Command Points. Also, having a maximum limit I think has the opposite effect, since armies that can't make a useful brigade will have to field specific forces to get near the limit, whereas if you have a brigade, everything else might as well be unbound without a trade-off. And, to be honest, what are you really going to do with 30 CP? There's another Rule of One in play with already imposes a fairly intense law of diminishing returns on CP.

I wouldn't say this limits multi-faction armies, but the rulebook does specify an number of maximum detachments for matched play.

I don't know, most of the psychic phase i'm fine with in terms of logistics. The powers themselves need a massive rebalancing but that's a whole different dilemma.

It does not make sense, for instance, that Grand Master Voldus casts a weaker smite than a Primaris Psyker.