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Hello Ladies and Gents.

I would like to suggest some wholesale changes to 8th to remove some of the issues I think are holding the game back. I would like to start however by qualifying what I say as my opinion based on games I have played in 8th and all the changes I have seen since 3rd ed up to this point. This has maybe biased my opinion of what armies should look like but am suggesting changes that I think would correct issues others may not believe are problems. I will also say that despite being someone who has written scenarios, campaigns, house rules etc for use with myself and friends and regular opponents I am by no means an expert in game design, hence why I ask for feedback.

The first thing I think is a problem is that lack of troops units seeing play. Troops are a tax. I know this has been the case since well before 8th but the main thing here is that the way detachments are built now ties CP generation to specifically the number of troops units taken. This creates another problem in that it encourages taking min size units to generate CP for other units that sometimes do 90% of the heavy lifting of the army. This alongside the fact that multiple detachments can be taken without being of the same codex created the CP battery issue for knights. I will stop here to say I’ve always been a fan of mono codex builds but have seen the gaminess of the mixing of codex’s taken to the next degree in 8th. This treatment of troops also relegates them to insignificance to watch the battle go by as spectators as the giant robots and superheavy tanks battle it out.

The other thing I have an issue with is the fact that HQs don’t really act as army commanders. If I am honest I think the aura buff mechanic is lazy and needs replacing. I think plenty of people on Dakka have raised issue with the problem of being unable to engage a Captain/Necron Lord/Primarch stood out in the open if there are 2 scouts slightly closer but in the complete opposite direction. This doesn’t make any sense and undermines the purpose of the rule in the first place in trying to represent the difficulty hitting a commander when shielded by their troops.

I would like to suggest a solution which although makes a number of changes could actually see a very different style of game emerge.
The new rules for army building would be:
- One detachment only (no more CP batteries) everything must have the same keyword
- All detachments would require a minimum of one HQ and 2 troops (starting to look like the old FOC right?)
- (now here comes the interesting parts) for every equivalent max size troop unit taken one of the following “support units” may be taken: FA, HS, Elite
(for example if I take a captain and two tac squads of 5 man I have one equivalent max size troop unit so can take one “support unit” but if I take those tac squads as 10 man units I have two max size units so can pick two “support units”)
- For every 3 equivalent max unit size troop units you can take 1 superheavy unit selection
- There are no limits on mandatory or max additional HQ choices taken.
- Detachments whose units all share the same keyword at the codex level ie. Death guard, tyrannids etc get objective secured for troops choices

We then move on to the problem of what to do with commanders. From the above it looks like HQ units would barely be seen as you only need one for a legal army but they will have a use.

- Remove CPs
- Allow characters to join units again (up to a limit of 1 character per unit)
- Instead of CPs characters now can issue orders. In a similar manner to IG officers. Each HQ can issue 1 order (at the start of the movement phase per turn)
- These orders can be issued to the attached unit or another unit within x distance (I would suggest 12”)
- Each faction would have a way to potentially double this range (nids would have some extension to their synapse rules, IG would be based on passing a Ld check etc)
- The more elite and named characters could issue more orders of specific ones beyond the normal orders so characters like a chapter master would issue say 2 orders but characters like guilliman or typhus/morty would be able to issue not only 2/3 orders but have an additional order that only they have access to

This would need some extensive fleshing out (as it only occurred to me this afternoon and thought I’d ask for feedback from the community before spending time writing up rules) but I think could be a base on which a positive change could be made. These changes would mean that we would see much more troops fielded in games and would mean that troops actually get something to kill – enemy troops. This would also bring in a strategical element to games where by with much more of someones army being made up of simple troops there would be more emphasis on effective use of the support units to apply overwhelming force to a certain area of the battlefield whilst also having to manage those elite or HS units more thoughtfully. The allowance of characters to join squads would mean we’d see a more cinematic style of play where a character could actually lead a charge attached to a unit rather than cowering behind his weaker underlings. The removal of auras would also lessen the need to castle up and somewhat neuter the proliferation of overlapping auras that work in sigmar but arent as well thought out in a scenario where personal radio equipment would be pretty standard.

I recognise that this would invalidate some builds but then each codex may get access to one or two special detachments to allow for fluffy builds eg. an all elites one for marine 1st co/deathwing or an all FA one for ravenwing/saim hann.

How do people feel these changes all together might change the way armies are built and would you think it could be effective in making the in game changes it is aiming for?

Man, I love these "I've thought about it for ten minutes and I'm pretty sure my nostalgia for the Good Old Days qualifies me to be better at balancing a game than GW" threads.

let's just take one random example, shall we?

I'm playing Imperial Guard. So I take a max sized troop unit - I'll go with a 10-man Infantry squad. 40 points. Great, I can now take a support unit, and I'm 1/3 of the way to a superheavy!

Now, I'm playing Adeptus Custodes. What's the cheapest max size troop unit I've got access to if I want to include, say, one unit of bikers?

Hmm, 520 points.

This seems like a great way to balance the game into making sure every 2000 point army contains 1200 points of troops! Boy oh boy what fun!

There is a dedicated forum for this kind of stuff. cheers

I'll pass thank you.

I rather like the ability to field nothing but dreadnoughts as a pair of Spearhead detachments. I wish they'd generate a few more CPs, or better yet, that CPs weren't a thing, but oh well.
Your rules would piss all over that, so no thanks.

the_scotsman wrote:
Man, I love these "I've thought about it for ten minutes and I'm pretty sure my nostalgia for the Good Old Days qualifies me to be better at balancing a game than GW" threads.

/thread

The difference should come from how good stratagems an army can use. And CP should not over spill, between detachments. If custodes can only generate 5-6 CP, then their CP should be ground breaking.
Stuff that is always taken pre battle, should just be rolled in to unit stats. On the flip side armies that generate tens of CP, should have weaker effects.
The problem we are having right now is that armies like IG have premium cost, premium CP, premium rules and with CP over spill they can fuel the CP needs of any unit out side of the IG codex they may want to added to their list.

I agree with you about the issues you raised, but I don't think your solutions would really help.

In theory, I like the idea of tying Elite, HS and FA units to the number of troops taken. However, as the_scotsman pointed out, different armies can end up paying vastly different prices for their troops. If anything, it seems like you'll end up with basically the same problem we have now. I guess you get to screw over Dark Eldar though, so there is that.

Anyway, rather than looking at 'number of troops equal to max squad size', which is inelegant and causes a number of weird issues, might it not be better to go by points? e.g. for every 100pts of troops in your army, you can have 100pts of Elite, FA and/or HS. I'm still not sure whether this is the best solution, but at least we're no longer arbitrarily penalising armies with expensive troops or high maximum squad sizes.

As for Orders, they're IG's thing and I don't think giving them to every army will really improve anything. I'm not entirely against making command abilities single-target or having multiple possible buffs (though it seems we'd just be turning every HQ into a Psyker-lite), but it doesn't seem like much improvement from a tactical perspective. I mean, whilst you might end up with a little choice, it's still usually going to be pretty obvious and you're unlikely to end up sacrificing anything.

As an alternative, I'd suggest the following: Remove Stratagems entirely and instead give every HQ one or more Command abilities (these could be auras, single-target buffs, debuffs etc.). At the beginning of their turn, a player gains 1 CP per 1000pts +1CP if their Warlord is still alive. These CPs can be spent to activate Command abilities on HQs for a turn. Basically, something very similar to the AoS system (though we could have more abilities and abilities costing 2 or more CPs to activate). This would add a resource-management element to commanders, without retaining the issues of CP-sharing or encouraging Alpha-Strikes. It would also allow for stronger auras by forcing players to spend more resources to activate them. e.g. an aura that lets you reroll 1s to wound could cost 1CP to activate, whilst an aura that allows all failed wound rolls to be rerolled could cost 2 or 3 CPs.

the_scotsman wrote:


This seems like a great way to balance the game into making sure every 2000 point army contains 1200 points of troops! Boy oh boy what fun!

It's the only way to "Forge the Narrative"

I get it. Some people want to play WHFB with 40k models. I am, however, not that much into it. Maybe because I do not want to run 1000 points of Dire Avengers or Guardians. I have zero interest in playing Craftworlds as a horde army with around 100+ Guardians or Dire Avengers.

Besides, this ignores the fact that designers circumvented all the slot restrictions by moving units between slots depending on what character you use. "Then designers shouldn't do that!" someone shouts. Well, what about Deathwing and Ravenwing players? What about Iyanden players? What about every army that states in the fluff that they are not like your standard ultramarine army. Allowing then each codex to circumvent the entire thing with "special detachment" makes the overcomplicated rule moot to begin with.

The thing is, I have completely stopped believing that people who want ton of troops are into narrative and fluff because the narrative and fluff doesn't even support that position. They just want 2nd edition back without explicitly saying it. I also think that a lot of people who like troops are very much into playing Space marines because for them 1000 points of upgraded troops are around 50 Tac Marines compared to the hundreds of models other people would have to field. The thing is, I might find this interesting if - and only if - I was playing Space Marines because Space Marine troops are varied enough despite their underpowered position currently.

So my direct response to OP: I am sorry about the current state of Space Marine troops, I really am. It would be fun if the standard Space Marines served their roles better and were functional and weren't overlooked for minimum squads of Scouts. I mean, the standard Space Marine is iconic for that codex so it is sad that they do not serve a more prominent role in the entire thing. We can only hope that one day GW manages to tweak the Space Marine codex to its maximum and balanced potential and we'll see more standard Space Marines on the table walking up that battlefield like they did in the days of Horus.

 Eldarsif wrote:
I get it. Some people want to play WHFB with 40k models. I am, however, not that much into it. Maybe because I do not want to run 1000 points of Dire Avengers or Guardians. I have zero interest in playing Craftworlds as a horde army with around 100+ Guardians or Dire Avengers.

Whilst I would definitely prefer something more along the lines of AoS's CP system to 40k's horrible mess of Stratagems, I think requiring 1000pts of troops in a 2000pt game would indeed be too much.


However, at the same time, I do think that there needs to be an actual reason to bring troops. If you are allowed to freely take whichever unit you want, then why would, for example, a Space Marine player ever bring Space Marines over Devastators?

I really think there needs to be a solid tactical reason to take troops over units that are otherwise more efficient.

I don't think that the current CP-reward system is a good way of doing this, but there really does need to be some reason to take troops at all.

 Eldarsif wrote:
The thing is, I have completely stopped believing that people who want ton of troops are into narrative and fluff because the narrative and fluff doesn't even support that position. They just want 2nd edition back without explicitly saying it.

Erm, the tax back then was only 25% squads and as such most armies were super character and/or vehicle heavy, not massively troop heavy. If anything you'd get more of what you wanted going back towards 2nd Ed (a 2000 point SM army would only need 2 core choices) so your argument there is a bit odd. Fluff wise, in theory a SM company is mostly tac squads so it's not completely out of whack for people to expect a SM army for example to have at least some tac presence, same way you'd expect a guard army to have a platoon or two as its base structure.

GW had this back in the day kinda.

If you wanted to take an Eldar Exarch you had to have at least 1 unit of any aspect for each Exarch. They were independent then.

If you wanted to take a Great Harlequin or Solitair or Death Jester or Master Mime or Shadow Seer, you had to have at least 1 troupe of Harlies for each of those.

I always liked that so that games did not devolve into a super character slugfest.

]
To give more crucial role to troop choice we might think to a system in which only troops can hold objectives.

The less troops you include in your army, the easiest is for your opponent to destroy them and negate you the possibility to score any victory points.

On top, you could reintroduce the old rule that a unit can hold objectives only if it is not reduced under half its initial size.

Honestly in 8th characters for the first time in 40K feel like actual commanders and not just 50 shades of beatsticks. So I'm not even seeing the problem.

Same with troops, due to CP generation and changed AP system you see more troops than in prior editions usually. I don't see the problem of them being useless at all. Depending on the mission obsec alone can be worth it to include more than just 30 squishy cultists.

Also... I do have to take 20 Plague marines to take one Bloat drone? No thanks. I mean, I really like my plague marines and usually take 15-21, but still...

bouncingboredom wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
The thing is, I have completely stopped believing that people who want ton of troops are into narrative and fluff because the narrative and fluff doesn't even support that position. They just want 2nd edition back without explicitly saying it.

Erm, the tax back then was only 25% squads and as such most armies were super character and/or vehicle heavy, not massively troop heavy. If anything you'd get more of what you wanted going back towards 2nd Ed (a 2000 point SM army would only need 2 core choices) so your argument there is a bit odd. Fluff wise, in theory a SM company is mostly tac squads so it's not completely out of whack for people to expect a SM army for example to have at least some tac presence, same way you'd expect a guard army to have a platoon or two as its base structure.

Tactical squads were also 300 points in second edition(30 points per marine in Codex: Angels of Death, without upgrades. A goff mob boy was 12 in comparison) so picking your core usually got you rather high to begin with. You are still kind supporting my argument that this seems to be a thing that is mostly a Space Marine thing and the thing is I do get that and did mention. Running a lot of marines is cool which is why 30k has a certain charm to it. So to an extent OP is right about wanting fluffy Space marine army, but that which applies to one army does not apply to another.
So what OP really wants is: 1) to have Codex: Space Marines limited to his rule, but 2) he wants every other army to be Astartes compliant.

Now, while I slept I got a much better idea to change the game to a more troop heavy game and does not require elaborate rules or calculations.

Just make troops better. Give troops a bonus to their ability if they meet a certain unit size(f.ex. Tyranids do this already). Voila, people pick more troops and larger units. No need for any detachment rules. Does feel like OP is not realizing that a lot of the problem with lack of troops is that maybe troop choices just aren't really good at the moment. Apply his rule to the CSM codex and you'll just get more Chaos Cultists. Apply this rule to Codex Space Marines and you'll probably just get a Scout army, and so on and so on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Whilst I would definitely prefer something more along the lines of AoS's CP system to 40k's horrible mess of Stratagems, I think requiring 1000pts of troops in a 2000pt game would indeed be too much.


However, at the same time, I do think that there needs to be an actual reason to bring troops. If you are allowed to freely take whichever unit you want, then why would, for example, a Space Marine player ever bring Space Marines over Devastators?

I really think there needs to be a solid tactical reason to take troops over units that are otherwise more efficient.

I don't think that the current CP-reward system is a good way of doing this, but there really does need to be some reason to take troops at all.

The AoS and Kill Team CP systems are in my mind superior to the current 40k system and I do hope GW adapts them to 40k in some form.

Regarding troops I just think they need to be changed so there is a reason to take them in general. Someone mentioned objective holders, but even then they would still be a tax or people just bring bigger guns to wipe out those objective holders. The problem is also, as I mentioned, that even if people were to take more troops they would continue to take the most point-efficient troop choice which would be cultists, scouts, guardsmen, and so on and that would continue to ruin the perfect image of those who desire more troop heavy games. Ultimately the units themselves need to be revisited at some point.

 Pr3Mu5 wrote:

- (now here comes the interesting parts) for every equivalent max size troop unit taken one of the following “support units” may be taken: FA, HS, Elite
(for example if I take a captain and two tac squads of 5 man I have one equivalent max size troop unit so can take one “support unit” but if I take those tac squads as 10 man units I have two max size units so can pick two “support units”)

I'm playing around a similar idea, but to be honest, this is very hard to implement in the current FOC setup and is more for a different, streamlined army building method. There would be simply too much "support units" for too few "troop units" and the armies would become slate and kinda uninspired as others said.

Also, in my opinion, the CP system is really good, it just needs a lot more thought to put into it. There needs to be a lot more "unaligned stratagems" for example and of course CP generation should be fixed because it is a mess now.

 Eldarsif wrote:

Regarding troops I just think they need to be changed so there is a reason to take them in general. Someone mentioned objective holders, but even then they would still be a tax or people just bring bigger guns to wipe out those objective holders. The problem is also, as I mentioned, that even if people were to take more troops they would continue to take the most point-efficient troop choice which would be cultists, scouts, guardsmen, and so on and that would continue to ruin the perfect image of those who desire more troop heavy games. Ultimately the units themselves need to be revisited at some point.

Also an issue with troops is, I think, that most Codex's have either 2 or three Troops options, and that's it. Then they have a dozen HQ's, a dozen Elites and so on; and those troops aren't usually that good; why most people consider them a 'tax' just so they can get the good stuff. If more units were Troops, and those Troops units were better, people would want to take them more - though you're right about the 'best' ones being spammed, which would be a problem unless they were all much closer in power.

 Eldarsif wrote:
A goff mob boy was 12 in comparison) so picking your core usually got you rather high to begin with. You are still kind supporting my argument that this seems to be a thing that is mostly a Space Marine thing

I used to run orks. You could easily meet the tax in a 2000 point game with two reasonably sized mobs kitted out with extra bling such as assault weapons/special weapons (even though Orks are supposed to be a bit more numerous). The only real reason for anyone to take a lot of points in troops back then was if they particularly wanted to. Even guard players didn't have to go crazy given how many troops they take now.

As an alternative to the OPs suggestion, maybe if the detachment system wasn't so fixed across all armies and was instead a bit more tailored then it be easier for people to bring different stuff, i.e. in order to bring something like Vets a SM player would have to include a tac squad in the detachment. In order for a guard player to bring something like a super heavy they would have to pay a tax in the same detachment, perhaps of core troops or scouts etc.

As others have pointed out, this would sort of pidgeon-hole list design a lot. I'd personally prefer rules that make troops less essential, not more. Also, tying non-troop availability to max squad size would create a lot of weird problems.

That said, I kind of like the idea of giving something akin to orders to more units in the game. I know they're the guard's "thing," but they're also a pretty intuitive way to represent leaders actually leading. I'd strongly prefer an autarch that sets up killer aspect warrior combos or facilitates deft fighting withdrawals rather than recyling a a couple of CP and smacking stuff with a sword extra smackily.

Stratagems are actually a pretty good way to facilitate this, but I think that...
1. Stratagems are too wide in scope. They represent everything from arranging for coordinated air cavalry to strike the enemy's rear to flinging the extra special grenades instead of the normal grenades. The former (cloudstrike) is exactly what I expect my autarch to facilitate. The latter less so. Shooting better because he's looking over your shoulder even less than that.

2. Stratagems should maybe be tied more strongly to your army's leaders. If stratagems are more about unconventional deployments and orbital strikes than about loading flakk missiles and trying extra hard to punch things, then you can make stratagems in general more of a flavorful-large-scale effect tied to your warlord, HQs, units in general, whatever. So maybe having a master of ordnance in my army unlocks a potent preliminary bombardment stratagem. Maybe taking an apothecary or haemonculus lets me grant units combat drugs or FNP rules pre-game by injecting them with arcane serums in advance.

As for making troops important, you should just design useful troops instead of bad units who use their lacklustre rules as an excuse to provide more CP. Give troops special rules or stratagems that make them better at scoring and supporting the rest of your army. Up their points cost if the new rules warrant it. A tactical marine should be just as essential on the battlefield as a devastator, albeit in different ways.