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Which armies do you think would/could improve if Soup didnt exist?
Which do you think would take an obvious nerf and which could still motor on regardless?
Which rely on Soup too much (or not)?

Or is it a case of leaving the Soup armies to battle away (at the top?) and others to just play as best they can?

Have I asked too many questions here? Can woodchucks still chuck? Is this a question mark ? Or is this

Armys that Improve: All Monofactions like orks, necrons, tau and nids.

Armys that get nerfed: All non-monofaction armies. All Imperial factions, ynnari, chaos.

Armies that depend on allies too much: All armies that have trouble generating CP on their own, have too little of a modelcount to score objectives reliably or have no access to cheap chaff.

Certain armies simply don't work with out allies, which puts GW in a bind with how to balance allies in general, particularly as they release more and more tiny factions.

There is no such thing as soup except for Space Marines.

Everyone else must bring pure detachments.

You can't have a detachment with multi-factions, that is souping.

Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

Morkphoiz wrote:
Armys that Improve: All Monofactions like orks, necrons, tau and nids.

Armys that get nerfed: All non-monofaction armies. All Imperial factions, ynnari, chaos.

Armies that depend on allies too much: All armies that have trouble generating CP on their own, have too little of a modelcount to score objectives reliably or have no access to cheap chaff.

False.

Armies that comparatively improve: IK, AM
-improved by virtue of lack of hard counters. Most other codex lacks good internal balance that can deal with hordes and heavy hitters alike. Weak against mirror matches as it is hard counter to itself.
Armies that are unaffected: Necrons, Tau, Nids
-never relied on allies to begin with
Armies that are slightly nerfed, but still competitive: DE, CWE
-aeldari soup combines the best of ynnari, DE, CWE. Still plethora of great units with above par internal balance.
Armies that becomes less playable: SM, BA, DA, DW, CSM, DG, Tson, Daemons, Harlequin, Ynnari
-SM flavor of the month don't synergize with one another. CSM flavors benefit greatly from allying in DP's from daemon codex and vice-versa. Others have poor internal balance/lack of units in codex.
Armies so bad that it doesn't matter: GK
-Who?

Real Answer: We don't know. It's too complex.

Best Guess:
It's easy to say "anything that's already mono-faction and good will do comparatively better", and there's likely some truth to that. I'd expect Tyranids to be flying pretty high because they rarely include allies as it is, and are still a top performer (due to some fiendish cunning). Problem is, once the top armies are known, people build with them in mind. Once that happens, it's impossible to say what the best mono-faction army is that tackles both Tyranids and whatever else is doing really good.

It's also possible that some current portions of top performing lists, like Astra Militarum, won't lose as much as others do, and the way that they make up for their loss throws the meta into such disarray that, again, we can't predict what the response to it will be.

What is likely is that the forces that don't just use allies, but flat-out depend on them, like Custodes and Grey Knights, will likely do much worse.

I don't think it's too complex. Generally speaking, soup (which is not units in a detachment like GW states, as the term is more about army detachments now - and has been since the edition started) benefits those armies which can ally.

Any "army" which has access to 120 datasheets, when the opposing army has access to 20...is inherently at an advantage.

I think without Soup the top end of the power curve comes down. We'd have a simpler heirachy of power rankings to be sure and less variety within many armies. I dont think the worst armies are better off but some of the mid/lowermid tier armies would have a better chance.

 Marmatag wrote:


Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

To be fair, the game went most of its recent existence without them for the 14 years of 3E/4E/5E (not counting WH/DH that was available in a very limited capacity).

More to the point, the unfortunate reality is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, allies are used as power combos and crutches, not for fluff, most of the allies combos ive seen on tables over the last few editions have been unimaginative fluff abortions, and the rate that Allies are used makes little sense within the framework of the 40k universe (e.g. Celestine does not always accompany a grip of Guardsmen, Mortarian and Magnus sharing the same field should be an inconceivably rare event, etc).

The top 3 lists at SoCal were mostly mono faction.

Brandon Grandt - Astra Militarum, but with a Castellan.
Cooper Waddel - Tyranids, but with a GSC detachment.
Alex Aquila - Dark Eldar, with 1 aux Farseer Skyrunner.

I'm not seeing a huge problem here.

 Marmatag wrote:
The top 3 lists at SoCal were mostly mono faction.

Brandon Grandt - Astra Militarum, but with a Castellan.
Cooper Waddel - Tyranids, but with a GSC detachment.
Alex Aquila - Dark Eldar, with 1 aux Farseer Skyrunner.

I'm not seeing a huge problem here.

Of course there isn't a problem when you look at a single event. Look at 8th edition tournament results as a whole and the problem becomes blatantly obvious. Top 3 at GTs has been dominated by imperial soup with loyal 32 and IKs, and ynnari soup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If there was no soup, GW might sell a few less models, and we can't have that. Allies were a problem, battalions made the problem worse. They removed battalions but doubled down on the original problem of allies by the way CP and detachments work. Here's a crazy idea, give CP based on points of the game. Maybe 2 CP for every 500 points, plus 1 per turn. Go back to the allies system where you can only have 2 factions. This would fix most of the balance issues the game has right now without even touching stat lines, special rules, or point values. However, GW will never do it because it might mean less sales, despite the fact that a well-balanced game will inherently sell more models anyway.

 Marmatag wrote:
The top 3 lists at SoCal were mostly mono faction.

Brandon Grandt - Astra Militarum, but with a Castellan.
Cooper Waddel - Tyranids, but with a GSC detachment.
Alex Aquila - Dark Eldar, with 1 aux Farseer Skyrunner.

I'm not seeing a huge problem here.

Keyword: MOSTLY.

Castellan, GSC detachment, Farseer all provides the extra oomph unattainable if not for allies - Banesword swapped out for castellan, GSC & farseer provides access to additional psykers/powers.

 Toofast wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The top 3 lists at SoCal were mostly mono faction.

Brandon Grandt - Astra Militarum, but with a Castellan.
Cooper Waddel - Tyranids, but with a GSC detachment.
Alex Aquila - Dark Eldar, with 1 aux Farseer Skyrunner.

I'm not seeing a huge problem here.

Of course there isn't a problem when you look at a single event. Look at 8th edition tournament results as a whole and the problem becomes blatantly obvious. Top 3 at GTs has been dominated by imperial soup with loyal 32 and IKs, and ynnari soup.

If it's so obvious you shouldn't have trouble proving it. You could make the case that Ynnari are a problem, and I would agree, but that's not a "soup" or "allies" problem, that's a SOULBURST problem.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 skchsan wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The top 3 lists at SoCal were mostly mono faction.

Brandon Grandt - Astra Militarum, but with a Castellan.
Cooper Waddel - Tyranids, but with a GSC detachment.
Alex Aquila - Dark Eldar, with 1 aux Farseer Skyrunner.

I'm not seeing a huge problem here.

Keyword: MOSTLY.

Castellan, GSC detachment, Farseer all provides the extra oomph unattainable if not for allies - Banesword swapped out for castellan, GSC & farseer provides access to additional psykers/powers.

Sure. Mostly. What's wrong with that? Are you going to sit here and say that these lists are toxic for the game/ meta? Because that's not a winning argument.

Morkphoiz wrote:
Armys that Improve: All Monofactions like orks, necrons, tau and nids.

Armys that get nerfed: All non-monofaction armies. All Imperial factions, ynnari, chaos.

Armies that depend on allies too much: All armies that have trouble generating CP on their own, have too little of a modelcount to score objectives reliably or have no access to cheap chaff.

I LOL at the notion that you think Necrons will just improve like that with the elimination of allies.

Please explain in depth that thought process.

No soup? What will the Imperium eat? Corpse rations?

Seriously though (and I'm only speaking in terms of competetive play), Marines would be unplayable, Knights would be low tier, Custodes might not even see the table, Eldar would be spanking everyone like it was 7th and generally the meta wouldn't be shifting around as much as it is currently.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
No soup? What will the Imperium eat? Corpse rations?

Seriously though (and I'm only speaking in terms of competetive play), Marines would be unplayable, Knights would be low tier, Custodes might not even see the table, Eldar would be spanking everyone like it was 7th and generally the meta wouldn't be shifting around as much as it is currently.

Eldar without allies are mediocre.
Dark Eldar without allies are barely mediocre.
Ynnari exist only in the concept of allies.

I can't even with this place sometimes.

 Marmatag wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
No soup? What will the Imperium eat? Corpse rations?

Seriously though (and I'm only speaking in terms of competetive play), Marines would be unplayable, Knights would be low tier, Custodes might not even see the table, Eldar would be spanking everyone like it was 7th and generally the meta wouldn't be shifting around as much as it is currently.

Eldar without allies are mediocre.
Dark Eldar without allies are barely mediocre.
Ynnari exist only in the concept of allies.

I can't even with this place sometimes.

Craftworld are solid, even with Ynnari. Ynnari just takes a solid army and makes it a brokenly good army.

And seriously, that Ynnari list finishing 4th at SoCal was losing its game to Genestealer cult, but Daniel threatened to attack Nick so Nick resigned and said screw this. Tastey Taste did a blog about it and you can see the argument starting in one of his videos where he walks down the line of the top tables.

Daniel was getting stomped and *lost his mind* which forced his opponent to be an adult and walk away.

Ynnari are good but beatable, acting like they're this god mode faction is hilarious.

 Marmatag wrote:
And seriously, that Ynnari list finishing 4th at SoCal was losing its game to Genestealer cult, but Daniel threatened to attack Nick so Nick resigned and said screw this. Tastey Taste did a blog about it and you can see the argument starting in one of his videos where he walks down the line of the top tables.

Daniel was getting stomped and *lost his mind* which forced his opponent to be an adult and walk away.

Ynnari are good but beatable, acting like they're this god mode faction is hilarious.

I never claimed they were unbeatable, just that they're basically broken.

And in a monocodex setting, both flavors of Eldar would be sitting pretty high on the list. Don't use current tournament results to make judgements as those are results based on mono-faction armies facing various levels of soup. Even stripping the Aeldari soup away doesn't make either Eldar codex bad. And stripping Imperial soup away only allows already good armies to be better, while every Imperial faction with more than 4+ armour save on average that needs that extra support right now falls pretty hard.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

To be fair, the game went most of its recent existence without them for the 14 years of 3E/4E/5E (not counting WH/DH that was available in a very limited capacity).

More to the point, the unfortunate reality is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, allies are used as power combos and crutches, not for fluff, most of the allies combos ive seen on tables over the last few editions have been unimaginative fluff abortions, and the rate that Allies are used makes little sense within the framework of the 40k universe (e.g. Celestine does not always accompany a grip of Guardsmen, Mortarian and Magnus sharing the same field should be an inconceivably rare event, etc).

Bu can't that be said about everythng, and use it as an argument agaisnt most options? In a competitive scene everything is a fluff abortion.
Special Characters are always used in the most broken combo possible, they aren't fluffy, ban them. Forgeworld? You don't see the fluffy options, just the OP ones. Ban it. Super heavies? Ban them. Relics? The same OP ones are always used, ban them.
Most armies in the competitive scene aren't based aroud fluff but by how competitive they are. Should we ban competitive play?

At the end of the day, allies have a place both in narrative and casual play (There they allow to fluffy lists), and competitive play (There they allow for broken combos, but everything in competitive play is based around building broken combos, allies are a tool like Forgeworld or Special Characters or Reliqs or Subfaction rules)

 Galas wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

To be fair, the game went most of its recent existence without them for the 14 years of 3E/4E/5E (not counting WH/DH that was available in a very limited capacity).

More to the point, the unfortunate reality is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, allies are used as power combos and crutches, not for fluff, most of the allies combos ive seen on tables over the last few editions have been unimaginative fluff abortions, and the rate that Allies are used makes little sense within the framework of the 40k universe (e.g. Celestine does not always accompany a grip of Guardsmen, Mortarian and Magnus sharing the same field should be an inconceivably rare event, etc).

Bu can't that be said about everythng, and use it as an argument agaisnt most options? In a competitive scene everything is a fluff abortion.
Special Characters are always used in the most broken combo possible, they aren't fluffy, ban them. Forgeworld? You don't see the fluffy options, just the OP ones. Ban it. Super heavies? Ban them. Relics? The same OP ones are always used, ban them.
Most armies in the competitive scene aren't based aroud fluff but by how competitive they are. Should we ban competitive play?

This. lol

 Galas wrote:
Should we ban competitive play?

Ideally? Yes.

Then we can go back to concentrating on having fun with our toy soldiers, and not worrying about "the meta", the latest tournament shenanigans, or other people trying to eek out that extra 0.001% performance from a list as they've decided it determines the size of their e-peen...

 Galas wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

To be fair, the game went most of its recent existence without them for the 14 years of 3E/4E/5E (not counting WH/DH that was available in a very limited capacity).

More to the point, the unfortunate reality is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, allies are used as power combos and crutches, not for fluff, most of the allies combos ive seen on tables over the last few editions have been unimaginative fluff abortions, and the rate that Allies are used makes little sense within the framework of the 40k universe (e.g. Celestine does not always accompany a grip of Guardsmen, Mortarian and Magnus sharing the same field should be an inconceivably rare event, etc).

Bu can't that be said about everythng, and use it as an argument agaisnt most options? In a competitive scene everything is a fluff abortion.
Special Characters are always used in the most broken combo possible, they aren't fluffy, ban them. Forgeworld? You don't see the fluffy options, just the OP ones. Ban it. Super heavies? Ban them. Relics? The same OP ones are always used, ban them.
Most armies in the competitive scene aren't based aroud fluff but by how competitive they are. Should we ban competitive play?

At the end of the day, allies have a place both in narrative and casual play (There they allow to fluffy lists), and competitive play (There they allow for broken combos, but everything in competitive play is based around building broken combos, allies are a tool like Forgeworld or Special Characters or Reliqs or Subfaction rules)

The original statement was that allies are fundamental to fluffy play. The results we see on tables strongly disagree was my point, allies are far more commonly used as power crutches than for anything fluffy, usually quite the opposite.

If we want to talk about that other stuff, we can, but thats a different conversation and bucket of worms. Each faction is designed inherently as a complete self contained force not only in background but as a game faction as well, and its own product release, with only a few exceptions (and of those many are unnecessarily forced). Allies end up creating a whole lot more issues than internal book issues do, and with a lot less game design justification for their existence and poor actual results in terms of reflecting their intent on the table.

People can play whatever they want. I'm not going to show up and tell you that you cant play whatever Soup list you're running, but lets not pretend like fluff is really what drives its utilization. The allies mechanics are overwhelmingly used as mix-n-match power crutches as opposed to any well thought out coherent background representation. The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

 Elbows wrote:

Any "army" which has access to 120 datasheets, when the opposing army has access to 20...is inherently at an advantage.

Space Marines have easily over hundred datasheets. Is this why they are dominating all the tournaments? Should Space Marines be banned?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:
And seriously, that Ynnari list finishing 4th at SoCal was losing its game to Genestealer cult, but Daniel threatened to attack Nick so Nick resigned and said screw this. Tastey Taste did a blog about it and you can see the argument starting in one of his videos where he walks down the line of the top tables.

Daniel was getting stomped and *lost his mind* which forced his opponent to be an adult and walk away.

Wait what?

 Dysartes wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Should we ban competitive play?

Ideally? Yes.

Then we can go back to concentrating on having fun with our toy soldiers, and not worrying about "the meta", the latest tournament shenanigans, or other people trying to eek out that extra 0.001% performance from a list as they've decided it determines the size of their e-peen...

Maybe in an ideal world, but we've seen time and time again that competetive play and the "meta" are the things that largely keep GW afloat. Tournament players spend a lot more than casual players expanding, adjusting and changing their armies on the regular after all.

No, we need a solid game rewritten from the ground up, rebalanced in a way that allows both horde and elite armies to share the table without gimping one or the other.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

That's completely subjective. To me, the single BEST mechanic in 8th is how easy it is to ally because it's so freeing from a hobby perspective.

 Marmatag wrote:
And seriously, that Ynnari list finishing 4th at SoCal was losing its game to Genestealer cult, but Daniel threatened to attack Nick so Nick resigned and said screw this. Tastey Taste did a blog about it and you can see the argument starting in one of his videos where he walks down the line of the top tables.

Daniel was getting stomped and *lost his mind* which forced his opponent to be an adult and walk away.

Ynnari are good but beatable, acting like they're this god mode faction is hilarious.

You got a link for that? Google isn't showing anything and I have trouble believing the drama-loving 40k community would miss something like that.

Dandelion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

That's completely subjective. To me, the single BEST mechanic in 8th is how easy it is to ally because it's so freeing from a hobby perspective.

7th had just the right amount of freedom. My stand-in Assassins for my Necrons are basically unusable now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Galas wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


Allies will always exist in this game. And they should. It is the opposite of fluffy if you can't have allies.

To be fair, the game went most of its recent existence without them for the 14 years of 3E/4E/5E (not counting WH/DH that was available in a very limited capacity).

More to the point, the unfortunate reality is that in the overwhelming majority of cases, allies are used as power combos and crutches, not for fluff, most of the allies combos ive seen on tables over the last few editions have been unimaginative fluff abortions, and the rate that Allies are used makes little sense within the framework of the 40k universe (e.g. Celestine does not always accompany a grip of Guardsmen, Mortarian and Magnus sharing the same field should be an inconceivably rare event, etc).

Bu can't that be said about everythng, and use it as an argument agaisnt most options? In a competitive scene everything is a fluff abortion.
Special Characters are always used in the most broken combo possible, they aren't fluffy, ban them. Forgeworld? You don't see the fluffy options, just the OP ones. Ban it. Super heavies? Ban them. Relics? The same OP ones are always used, ban them.
Most armies in the competitive scene aren't based aroud fluff but by how competitive they are. Should we ban competitive play?

At the end of the day, allies have a place both in narrative and casual play (There they allow to fluffy lists), and competitive play (There they allow for broken combos, but everything in competitive play is based around building broken combos, allies are a tool like Forgeworld or Special Characters or Reliqs or Subfaction rules)

The original statement was that allies are fundamental to fluffy play. The results we see on tables strongly disagree was my point, allies are far more commonly used as power crutches than for anything fluffy, usually quite the opposite.

If we want to talk about that other stuff, we can, but thats a different conversation and bucket of worms. Each faction is designed inherently as a complete self contained force not only in background but as a game faction as well, and its own product release, with only a few exceptions (and of those many are unnecessarily forced). Allies end up creating a whole lot more issues than internal book issues do, and with a lot less game design justification for their existence and poor actual results in terms of reflecting their intent on the table.

People can play whatever they want. I'm not going to show up and tell you that you cant play whatever Soup list you're running, but lets not pretend like fluff is really what drives its utilization. The allies mechanics are overwhelmingly used as mix-n-match power crutches as opposed to any well thought out coherent background representation. The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

Except allies HAVE always existed, just in differing capacities.

Nobody complained about Grey Knights and Sisters, right? I almost feel like you'll just say "no that doesn't count", but it does. There was a way to throw in Guard and Marines, and a way to throw in Grey Knights and Sisters.

That's allies. It doesn't matter how you want to interpret it.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

That's completely subjective. To me, the single BEST mechanic in 8th is how easy it is to ally because it's so freeing from a hobby perspective.

7th had just the right amount of freedom. My stand-in Assassins for my Necrons are basically unusable now.

8th hasn't figured out how to do tiny factions allying in well. Yes I know there is the -1 cp option but to me it's silly that I get punished cause I want to take a solo inquisitor or a single assassin.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Should we ban competitive play?

Ideally? Yes.

Then we can go back to concentrating on having fun with our toy soldiers, and not worrying about "the meta", the latest tournament shenanigans, or other people trying to eek out that extra 0.001% performance from a list as they've decided it determines the size of their e-peen...

LOL, this is the most trollish post i've seen in a while.

"My way to play is the right way, and anyone else is a horrible person."

HoundsofDemos wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The game went many years and editions without allies just fine without allies being needed for fluffy armies.

That's completely subjective. To me, the single BEST mechanic in 8th is how easy it is to ally because it's so freeing from a hobby perspective.

7th had just the right amount of freedom. My stand-in Assassins for my Necrons are basically unusable now.

8th hasn't figured out how to do tiny factions allying in well. Yes I know there is the -1 cp option but to me it's silly that I get punished cause I want to take a solo inquisitor or a single assassin.

Undersized Chaos Terminator squads was the biggest casualty of all that. I liked my 4 man Termicide squads and now I'm worse off for wanting it :(