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I keep reading this a lot and I am not sure what it is. Is it just people mixing codices together like in 6th and 7th edition? If so, how come it's called "soup" in 8th edition when it wasn't in 6th or 7th? I would like to know the proper meaning so I can understand what people are talking about in their posts.

It's basically mixing codexes, but the keyword limitation allows for significantly more fluid mixing than the allies system, so you see more blended elements. When you use very generic keywords like "Imperium" you can take things from a pretty large swath of sources. Detachments generally do a good job of limiting players to 3, but it often comes up specifically with HQ options, where a Supreme Command might often take 3-4 HQs from 3-4 different codexes.

With the current 40K rules, an army for Matched Play is legal and "Battle Forged" if all units within it are organized into detachments. Detachments in an army only need to share one broad keyword, such as <IMPERIUM> or <CHAOS>, meaning a completely legal (read: tournament legal) army can consist of detachments from any codex/index/book as long as the models in it meet those keywords.

This is called "soup".

Thus it would be legal to have an army with the <CHAOS> keyword consist of units from: Daemons, Death Guard, Chaos Space Marines, Renegades and Heretics, Thousand Sons, etc.

The main complaint is that <IMPERIUM> and <CHAOS> "soup" armies basically have access to a dozen or more army lists or codices where many players' armies such as Orks and Tau will only ever have access to one army/book (at least for the foreseeable future).

This means in a tournament setting the <IMPERIUM> "soup" players might have access to 10x the number of units for building their army, compared to their opponent, etc.

The "soup" or "unbound" nature of the current rules is mainly to push more sales from GW and it's working. While it can be good and fluffy it can also be super lame/cheesy/spammy. Just depends.

I think it's from the beginning of the edition when everyone was limited to index armies. There was no direct downside to making an Imperium detachment instead of e.g. an Iron Hands detachment, since there was no bonus attached to being a specific faction. So you could end up with an HQ from one army list, the other HQ from a different army list and everthing else from yet another army list - e.g. Celestine, Cawl, 3 Infantry Squads and 3 Dreadnoughts.

Thank you very much everyone greatly appreciated and now I understand.

I am pretty shocked to see what Elbows said by unbound. That was so much frowned apon to see it so excepted now just boggles my mind.

Again thank you, the threads make more sense now.

Davor wrote:
I am pretty shocked to see what Elbows said by unbound. That was so much frowned apon to see it so excepted now just boggles my mind.

Well, it's not really an issue anymore I'd say. As soon as you mix a detachment, you lose the Faction rules of the involved units - and those are too good to pass on.

 Elbows wrote:

This means in a tournament setting the <IMPERIUM> "soup" players might have access to 10x the number of units for building their army, compared to their opponent, etc.

The "soup" or "unbound" nature of the current rules is mainly to push more sales from GW and it's working. While it can be good and fluffy it can also be super lame/cheesy/spammy. Just depends.

The thing I like most about soup is that having access to the large number of units makes it far far less likely for a list to end up being spammy.

I think there should be <XENOS> soup to balance out the <IMPERIUM> and <CHAOS> soups.

craftworld_uk wrote:
I think there should be <XENOS> soup to balance out the <IMPERIUM> and <CHAOS> soups.

That is more or less how the edition was advertised. Unfortunately, the fluff doesn't support it the same way it supports the other two. I'd love to see variations of Xenos soup for sure, but the how is tricky. Eldar soup seems to have been created via Ynaari and Tyranids have some Genestealer soup, but I'm not sure the best way to make it work for Orks, Tau, and Necrons.

I usually assume it refers to mixing codexes.

nekooni wrote:

Davor wrote:
I am pretty shocked to see what Elbows said by unbound. That was so much frowned apon to see it so excepted now just boggles my mind.

Well, it's not really an issue anymore I'd say. As soon as you mix a detachment, you lose the Faction rules of the involved units - and those are too good to pass on.

Yes and no, as you can easily take tiny detachments to get the benefit for both - but yes, if you mix a single detachment you will lose certain benefits.

I do like that one can make a codex witch hunters or daemon hunters army again.

Witch hunters/daemon hunters: making soup before it was cool.

 LunarSol wrote:

craftworld_uk wrote:
I think there should be <XENOS> soup to balance out the <IMPERIUM> and <CHAOS> soups.

That is more or less how the edition was advertised. Unfortunately, the fluff doesn't support it the same way it supports the other two. I'd love to see variations of Xenos soup for sure, but the how is tricky. Eldar soup seems to have been created via Ynaari and Tyranids have some Genestealer soup, but I'm not sure the best way to make it work for Orks, Tau, and Necrons.

It could be done in a sigmar sort of way ...

Tau, Necron and Craftworld Eldar could gain <ORDER> (as might most Imperial forces).
Dark Eldar and Ork could possibly gain a special keyword <MERCENARY>, which allows it to join <ORDER>, <CHAOS> or <IMPERIUM>, but not gain the benefit of abilities that require one of those three faction keywords. I'd probably also add <MERCENARY> to Imperial Guard to account for Planetary forces working for other faction, or possibly renegade army forces - such as Traitor Guard or Tau G'Vesa.

 Elbows wrote:

nekooni wrote:

Davor wrote:
I am pretty shocked to see what Elbows said by unbound. That was so much frowned apon to see it so excepted now just boggles my mind.

Well, it's not really an issue anymore I'd say. As soon as you mix a detachment, you lose the Faction rules of the involved units - and those are too good to pass on.

Yes and no, as you can easily take tiny detachments to get the benefit for both - but yes, if you mix a single detachment you will lose certain benefits.

Sure, but you could do that in 7th too, and there it was even easier due to Formations. And now the rules suggest a maximum number of detachments.

 Elbows wrote:
With the current 40K rules, an army for Matched Play is legal and "Battle Forged" if all units within it are organized into detachments. Detachments in an army only need to share one broad keyword, such as <IMPERIUM> or <CHAOS>, meaning a completely legal (read: tournament legal) army can consist of detachments from any codex/index/book as long as the models in it meet those keywords.

This is called "soup".

Thus it would be legal to have an army with the <CHAOS> keyword consist of units from: Daemons, Death Guard, Chaos Space Marines, Renegades and Heretics, Thousand Sons, etc.

The main complaint is that <IMPERIUM> and <CHAOS> "soup" armies basically have access to a dozen or more army lists or codices where many players' armies such as Orks and Tau will only ever have access to one army/book (at least for the foreseeable future).

This means in a tournament setting the <IMPERIUM> "soup" players might have access to 10x the number of units for building their army, compared to their opponent, etc.

The "soup" or "unbound" nature of the current rules is mainly to push more sales from GW and it's working. While it can be good and fluffy it can also be super lame/cheesy/spammy. Just depends.

GW wouldnt need to do anything all that needs to happen to stop the annoying soup BS is for tourney organizers to limit the amount of detachments you can bring in a list and/or put requirements on which keywords your army has to take to be to count as battle forged for the purpose of the tourney ITC could do this very easily.

It wouldnt stop soup entirely but alot of people especially those new to the hobby just google "best army" and then copy whatever lists are doing well at tourneys

Correct, but let's keep in mind GW doesn't have any vested interested in trimming or tightening the game to that extent. They want "use any models"/"soup", etc. It's great for their sales (and I don't blame them at all). I do think you'll see some tournament limitations going forward determiend by the actual event organizers.

 LunarSol wrote:

craftworld_uk wrote:
I think there should be <XENOS> soup to balance out the <IMPERIUM> and <CHAOS> soups.

That is more or less how the edition was advertised. Unfortunately, the fluff doesn't support it the same way it supports the other two. I'd love to see variations of Xenos soup for sure, but the how is tricky. Eldar soup seems to have been created via Ynaari and Tyranids have some Genestealer soup, but I'm not sure the best way to make it work for Orks, Tau, and Necrons.

Tau used to be able to ally with Aeldari but that was removed. I personally wouldn't mind having that option again, at least to appease Tau players who can't ally with anyone currently.

I think outside of Chaos and Imperium and similar obvious constructs it just doesn't make sense to allow a battleforged army. All that's needed is to remove the Matched Play requirement that an army has to be battleforged.

Welcome to 7th ed where there is no such thing as what army are you playing?

 Eldarsif wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

craftworld_uk wrote:
I think there should be <XENOS> soup to balance out the <IMPERIUM> and <CHAOS> soups.

That is more or less how the edition was advertised. Unfortunately, the fluff doesn't support it the same way it supports the other two. I'd love to see variations of Xenos soup for sure, but the how is tricky. Eldar soup seems to have been created via Ynaari and Tyranids have some Genestealer soup, but I'm not sure the best way to make it work for Orks, Tau, and Necrons.

Tau used to be able to ally with Aeldari but that was removed. I personally wouldn't mind having that option again, at least to appease Tau players who can't ally with anyone currently.

Yeah, I kind of walk the fence on that one. It works, but at the same time, Eldar have a decent soup already and Tau make a good foundation to build something else off of. Ultimately, it comes down to me liking Chaos and Empire as single entities as consolidation shrinks their overall footprint and makes the universe seem bigger. Consolidating Xenos has the opposite effect, where I think it would be better to expand them out.

I don't think we really need to combine them with other Xenos factions to provide variety. Rather, its probably more useful to organize them a bit better. I mean, for all the "factions" that make up the Imperium, there's not actually that many unique options. Sure there's unique models for stuff like Blood Angels and Dark Angels and such, but MEQ is a thing for a reason. No reason Xenos can't see similar treatment and to a degree Eldar already have with spikey Eldar and funny Eldar.

Orks are a good army to look at in this direction. They actually have a pretty large range with a lot of options. Breaking them out into the Green Tide, Cult of Speed, and Mek specialties could make for 3 pretty distinct build directions with some additional model support that could then ally together. I'd be happier with this sort of direction over making Orks somebody's underlings.

I personally find the soups ironic. 8th was an edition that they peddled as a simpler version and was meant to cut down in rules.

I now need to carry around 4 books, a box of cards, an extra counter dial, more dice then ever. I have to reference books more and more then any other edition. On top of that there is even more ambiguity in rules because of soup it makes it more anoying

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I personally find the soups ironic. 8th was an edition that they peddled as a simpler version and was meant to cut down in rules.

I now need to carry around 4 books, a box of cards, an extra counter dial, more dice then ever. I have to reference books more and more then any other edition. On top of that there is even more ambiguity in rules because of soup it makes it more anoying

But they did cut down the rules. There are only a handful of universal rules (e.g. Characters) instead of "lets look up this unexplained USR. Oh, great, it's definition is that the unit gains two other USRs."
8th is much more streamlined than 7th was, especially at the end. You had to remember all your units datasheets, the USR they had on that datasheet (instead of just printing what it does on the sheet), the formation rules that the unit was part of, the detachment rules that the formation was a part of. The rules now found in CA and the BRB itself were spread out over what, 5 or 6 supplements for the base game? Some were "current" but from previous editions. To field a Space Marine army you didn't just need a Codex. Space Marines had like 4 additional supplements just for the vanilla Marines. Sure, stuff got consolidated in Angels of Death, but I still had to buy the other supplements at the time because AoD came later.

Rules were also a lot less clear than in 8th - remember how long everyone used multiple grenades per squad? Or how any unit not being the initial target of a blast template wasn't able to jink? Or how the psyker rules were so convoluted that there was basically a universal house rule in place to fix that? Now each and every psyker simply tells you he knows this many powers and is able to manifest that many per round.

I would argue rules were better in 7th I had to only worry about 2 books. My codex and the brb. Need I need to look up a unit in my index, one from chaos daemons, t sons codex, check the BrB. Cross check multiple FAQs to explain why what I'm doing is ok.

8th is just a hot mess, the rules are simpler yes, but it's like trying to find the definition to a word in a single dictionary, verse a dictionary that's split into 4 books that's not in alphabetical order.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And noooooo rules in 8th are super ambiguous, way worse then 7th. Example

The GuO has a mace that days this weapon can be used in combat, but does that mean it's a pistol and can be used in combat you are already in? Or if I'm in combat and a unit is 7" away from the GuO can I use the mace on him still? Because it's not a pistol?

I mean the FAQs are proof the rules are horribly unclear.

Wich 7th was that? I almost never saw anyone get by with just codex and brb.

Well some people were forced to and had subpar codces as a result.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I would argue rules were better in 7th I had to only worry about 2 books. My codex and the brb. Need I need to look up a unit in my index, one from chaos daemons, t sons codex, check the BrB. Cross check multiple FAQs to explain why what I'm doing is ok.

8th is just a hot mess, the rules are simpler yes, but it's like trying to find the definition to a word in a single dictionary, verse a dictionary that's split into 4 books that's not in alphabetical order.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And noooooo rules in 8th are super ambiguous, way worse then 7th. Example

The GuO has a mace that days this weapon can be used in combat, but does that mean it's a pistol and can be used in combat you are already in? Or if I'm in combat and a unit is 7" away from the GuO can I use the mace on him still? Because it's not a pistol?

I mean the FAQs are proof the rules are horribly unclear.

The FAQs are proof that GW this time actually tries to fix their crap. They didn't for most of 7th, that's why there were way less FAQs and errata - because they just didn't bother.

The GuO Plague flail is a 7'' Assault 3 ranged weapon that can be used while you're within 1 inch of an enemy unit, and it can target units that are within 1 inch of a friendly unit. It's neither a pistol nor a melee weapon, as it's type is clearly "Assault 3".
Yes, that's close to being a Pistol 3, but it isn't. It can be used after advancing, it can target units that aren't in combat with the GuO while he himself is in combat, and the GuO can use it to shoot into a fight he's not even part of. It's all right there on the datasheet of the GuO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Earth127 wrote:
Wich 7th was that? I almost never saw anyone get by with just codex and brb.

Well some people were forced to and had subpar codces as a result.

As I said - at least as a Space Marine player I had to haul a ton of books around. Sure, I guess a pure CD player could get away with just two, but most of the Xenos Races can do the same right now.
At least right now everyone HAS a book to haul around - Sisters and Inquisition had to wait till the end of 7th for that, and AM never got an actual 7th edition codex - just some examples.

---

But hey, it's just proof that whatever they do, someone will be pissed at them.

Release FAQs to fix issues? Too many FAQs to consider!
Release Codex to add flavour and rebalance your army? Too many books to carry around because I have to have some old units that're no longer produced in my army!
Remove USRs and print almost everything on the datasheet? The rules aren't centralized and I have to look at the individual datasheet!

They just can't win.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I personally find the soups ironic. 8th was an edition that they peddled as a simpler version and was meant to cut down in rules.

I now need to carry around 4 books, a box of cards, an extra counter dial, more dice then ever. I have to reference books more and more then any other edition. On top of that there is even more ambiguity in rules because of soup it makes it more anoying

no you CHOOSE to do that. having additional options they can sell you isn't a bad thing, and you never have to use those options. additional choices in a game is a good thing

BrianDavion wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I personally find the soups ironic. 8th was an edition that they peddled as a simpler version and was meant to cut down in rules.

I now need to carry around 4 books, a box of cards, an extra counter dial, more dice then ever. I have to reference books more and more then any other edition. On top of that there is even more ambiguity in rules because of soup it makes it more anoying

no you CHOOSE to do that. having additional options they can sell you isn't a bad thing, and you never have to use those options. additional choices in a game is a good thing

There comes a point where all the "options" are just an excuse to sell things rather than adding an option.