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Proposed Rules Changes:

Command Points are now calculated based on this formula:

For each unit in your army, up to a maximum of 7 units you get 1 CP
Your Warlord Provides +1 additional CP

At the beginning of your turn you get +1 additional CP

Detachments change to the following:

EXAMPLE:

Spearhead Detachment:

This detachment may not include any units with the TROOPS battlefield role. This detachment costs 1 Command Point to include it in your army.

At the beginning of your turn you may choose one of the following abilities, pay its cost and apply its effect to your units.

1. 3 Command Points: Each Heavy Support choice in this detachment with the INFANTRY keyword that did not move in the preceding movement phase may add +1 to their ballistic skill until the end of the shooting phase.
2. 2 Command Points: Choose one Heavy Support choice from this detachment with the VEHICLE keyword. If it advanced, it treats all of its weapons as assault this turn. In addition, it does not suffer the penalty to moving and shooting assault weapons during the SHOOTING phase.
3. 1 Command Point: Choose one Heavy Support choice from this detachment. It gains the IGNORE COVER special rule until the end of the turn.

So this proposed change would greatly change the way CP works currently within the game, and make detachments much more than just batteries for factions to abuse. Most armies will field around 6-9 units in a 2K list. Putting the cap at 7 keeps hordes from abusing the system, while ensuring the bar is low enough that Elite armies get reasonably the same number of CP.

Regen is stolen directly from AOS.

Strategies would need to be reworked, some should obviously become cheaper, others become more expensive based on the benefits they provide.

This is a rough general idea, I would greatly appreciate constructive comments.

CP accrual is a terrible idea as the game is generally decided within first 1.5 rounds.

I do like the overhaul of stratagems. It should be very much more clear cut as you propose.

Generally, 10% stratagems are so good, an army is often built based around it. Another 15% are situational where it CAN be good, and the rest of the 75% of stratagems are just space fillers for codex. This is based on average of 20 stratagems, which would make the above percentages play out to 2/3/15.

I like where this is heading.
In regards to CP regen. I think it would make more sense to tie it to your warlord being *alive* similar to how Kill Team works. While alive, you get 2 more a turn, or something like that.

 skchsan wrote:
CP accrual is a terrible idea as the game is generally decided within first 1.5 rounds.

I do like the overhaul of stratagems. It should be very much more clear cut as you propose.

Generally, 10% stratagems are so good, an army is often built based around it. Another 15% are situational where it CAN be good, and the rest of the 75% of stratagems are just space fillers for codex. This is based on average of 20 stratagems, which would make the above percentages play out to 2/3/15.

I agree that is true on the highly competitive level, but where I mostly see play, games generally swing turn to turn. My thought to try and bridge this issue though was to find an appropriate "starting" CP that would keep the competitive happy so that they can enjoy their version of the game.

As for stratagems, a lot of them appear to be hold overs to 7th, the vindicator stratagem comes to mind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 iGuy91 wrote:
I like where this is heading.
In regards to CP regen. I think it would make more sense to tie it to your warlord being *alive* similar to how Kill Team works. While alive, you get 2 more a turn, or something like that.

that was my thought, I stole the warlord part from that, but I suppose you could add even more for him being alive?

That'll make "Well, my Warlord just Perilled, so here's STW" even more hillarious.

Your proposal does not scale with game size. It's easy enough to have 7 units in 1000 points. Why wouldn't I have more in a 2000 point list than in a 1000 point list?
I'd much rather see a flat formula based on game size.
'For every 200 points in the game size, each player receives 1 CP'
I.e. 1000 point game = 5 CP.
If you really want detachments to cost CP, then subtract from the total.

You seem to have a couple of main ideas going on here:
1.) Generate CP over time.
2.) Generate CP based on number of units rather than on detachment selection.
3.) Gain access to stratagems based on detachment selection.

1. I kind of like the idea of. I enjoy it in Kill Team. It encourages me to spend what I have rather than hording CP and regretting spending them later. At the same time, it rewards being patient and not using CP until you've built up a killer combo. I like it. The tricky thing is figuring out how many CP you have access to pre-game for buying extra relics, putting things into deepstrike with strats, etc.

2.) As Zustiur points out, this scales pretty poorly, and a flat number of units will mean wildly different things to different armies. Guardsmen, space marines, Grey Knights, and Custodes can all hit the 7 unit mark with wildly different amounts of points and cost efficiency.

Making it 1CP per X points you're playing (the game size) probably works better.

3.) This is a neat idea, but you can't really take a one-size-fits-all approach to it. A spearhead full of devastator marines who add +1 to their to-hit rolls, for instance, are basically increasing their number of hits by 25% (they normally hit on 4 sides of the dice). Meanwhile, lootas that normally hit on a 5+ are getting a 33% boost to their number of hits. Not accounting for the differences between armies is full of opportunities to create a rule that is utterly broken when a certain type of enemy build uses it.

Something I've been kicking around for my own project is to have detachments unlock one or two stratagems depending on both the detachment and the faction taking that detachment. So you detachment selection impacts your available strats, but you have more ability to keep especially broken combos out of the players' hands.

You can also reuse the same "unlockable" strats across different detachment + faction combinations to cut down on the amount of work involved. So maybe a Vanguard stratagem that grants +1" to all charge rolls is just fine in the hands of a marine or craftworlder army but a bit too good on an Ork army because 'Ere We Go's rerolls synergize with it too much. So you'd make the +1" charge strat available to marines and craftworlders who take the Vanguard detachment, but you give orkz a different stratagem instead.

I like the idea of giving CP based on unit count, and of regenerating. I also see the issue of unit spam and the cap only affecting 1k and lower games.

What about if, as we're overhauling anyway, we make command points require a commander to actually be used?

So, in this suggestion, you give a "command" statistic for characters and squad leaders. For this example, squad leaders are command 1, secondary leaders (crypteks, painboys, etc.) are Command 2 and then HQ-type characters are Command 3, warlord gets +1 to command stat.

Then you must allocate a model to perform a stratagem, up to their Command statistic, in the same way as imperial guard issue orders (Orders could easily be assimilated into stratagems to reflect guards huge amount of minor characters). So a squad leader can play 1CP stratagems, minor leaders 1 or 2 CP stratagems and then HQ's can do 3CP stratagems, warlord 4CP's.

Stratagems would have, say, 6" ranges - so you can "cast" a strat onto a unit in 6". Vox casters would increase this, as would synapse, I imagine.

This system already works for guard, and I'm pretty sure that's where they looted stratagems from anyway. it would also give good reason to kill the enemy warlord, as it will stop them using their more powerful strats.

It would probably increase the number of CP armies have, but would also reduce the number of powerful strats which would get thrown about.

It was just a thought!

I think most people want CP generation changed. And I love the idea of it regenerating.

I'm not wild on it being based directly on number of units. I'd expect three Marine squads to be no less tactically adaptable (have more CP) than four IG squads, for example. And I certainly don't think 4 Banshee squads should give more CP than 3 Marine or IG squads.

You should define the core structure then play with numbers. For the core structure, the preeminent question seems to be "What *should* it scale on". Various answers are:
-With Detatchements, more for more well-rounded ones (current)
-Against Detatchments, fewer for less well-rounded lists ("Detatchments Cost CP" concept)
-Static number ("Everyone gets 15CP regardless")
-Number of units (per above)
-Points (basically Static, but scaled to size)

I'm sure there are other proposals.

I'm a huge fan of "Detatchments Cost CP" myself. It balances CP out a lot, in addition to providing disincentives to allies/soup and bolt-on detatchments, without destroying any of those.

I'd love to do that *and* the per-turn CP thing, but unsure how to do that well, numbers-wise, without too much bloat. Because a typical Demi-COmpany style Marine list would have a crapton more CP than a pure-knight or Eldar Air Wing army.

I think i like tying starting CP to the number of points in a match.

2k? ok, 3 for battleforged, 10 for the points value of the battle, or something akin to that - You get 13 CP total.

Paired with - while your warlord is alive, you regain 1 or 2 CP a turn. Maybe some CP regen warlord traits modify the trait from a base of 1 to 2 or maybe 3 in niche cases for apex tactician named characters.

Less dice rolling, less random, and a lot more balanced. Helps elite armies out that cannot spam the hell out of detatchments, and armies without access to soup. Slight nerf to extra CP hungry factions. Seems like a win/win to me.

I’m definitely in favour of changing command points and stratagems.

I like the idea of regenerating command points each turn, of tying the number of CPs to points too, as it would scale well. And linking CP regeneration to the warlord is something I hadn’t considered, I like it.

I’d propose the following:

The majority of stratagems would be removed as I think most of them work better as special rules for units, I’d keep a few faction specific ones and the generic ones from the rulebook though.

If most stratagems are changed to special rules, then the game would work well with fewer CPs in total. I’d suggest 2 Cps per 500pts, or 1 CP per 250pt for better granularity.

On top of this, generation of one CP at the start of each turn provided your Warlord is on the table. (So 2 per battle round).

I’d like to see CPs as a limited resource where each use has to be carefully considered, but I dislike the idea of allowing any sort of farming, I think the system only works well if the CPs stay a limited resource.

When it comes to army building, I’d charge a CP cost for any detachment that isn’t the same faction as your Warlord. So multiple factions of the same faction wouldn’t cost anything, but if you wanted to have an imperial knight to support your Custodes for instance, it would cost a CP.

I’d also change the way first turn is determined. First turn would be determined by a roll off, but the dice roll is modified by each player, each +1 modifier would cost 1 CP. I like the fact that going first is not a strategic decision you have to weigh up against keeping back some CPs to spend when the game starts. I’d consider making the players pay for the CP modifier before rolling, or even make it a blind bid so that each player writes down how many CPs they will spend to modify the roll-off for first turn and their opponent doesn’t know. Not sure what would work best here, would need play-testing.

Also I’d add a new generic stratagem, the opposite of the Command re-roll. Maybe call it “strategic interference” or something like that: you can force your opponent to re-roll a single dice roll. The same limitations would apply, you can’t re-roll a re-roll and I’d probably cost it higher that the command re-roll, maybe 2 CPs, maybe 3 CPs.

I like the idea of Command Points and Startegens, I just think it isn’t working well and the whole system needs to be overhauled.

Guard needs to lose their Mini-Stratagems (Orders) before this can be considered...

 iGuy91 wrote:
I think i like tying starting CP to the number of points in a match.

2k? ok, 3 for battleforged, 10 for the points value of the battle, or something akin to that - You get 13 CP total.

Paired with - while your warlord is alive, you regain 1 or 2 CP a turn. Maybe some CP regen warlord traits modify the trait from a base of 1 to 2 or maybe 3 in niche cases for apex tactician named characters.

Less dice rolling, less random, and a lot more balanced. Helps elite armies out that cannot spam the hell out of detatchments, and armies without access to soup. Slight nerf to extra CP hungry factions. Seems like a win/win to me.

Whilst this would be great, it would no doubt be accompanied by the neutering of your favourite strategems, because Elite armies can't have nice things apparently. So as much as I'd love to have 12+ CP's whilst only fielding a Battalion, I wouldn't love having to pay 3 CP's for Extermination Protocols or Adaptive Subroutines. And that's exactly what would happen so the armies with "worse" strategems and dirt cheap units remain on top

Has anyone considered changing Command Points to be generated per-round, rather than per-game?

i.e. rather than generating a complete pool of Command Points which you expend throughout the game, you generate a set number of Command Points each round, with unused Command Points expiring at the turn's end?

For example:
Tactical Points
When you build a Battle-forged army, it generates a number of Tactical Points (or TP) at start of each of your turns. These can be spent to utilise Stratagems – each of which represents a strategic or tactical asset available to your army. Any unspent Tactical Points are lost at the start of your turn – the tides of war shift constantly. Some abilities allow your army to generate additional Tactical Points during the game, or refund the Tactical Points you spent on a Stratagem. You can only gain (or regain) Tactical Points from one such rule each battle round, regardless of the source. This restriction does not apply to Stratagems that specifically supply or refund Tactical Points.

Calculate the number of Tactical Points your army generates each round as follows:

Your army is Battle-forged: +1 TP

Your army roster includes a Battalion: +1 TP per Battalion

Your army roster includes a Brigade Detachment: +2 TP per Brigade

Your army roster includes a Vanguard, Spearhead, Outrider, Air Wing, or Supreme Command Detachment: +1 TP per three Detachments of these types

Then Raiding Force becomes "you can treat Patrol Detachments as Outrider Detachments for the purposes of generating Tactical Points", and Raiders from the Maelstrom becomes "you can treat Detachments that include three or more units with this trait as Outrider Detachments for the purposes of generating Tactical Points. If these units are CHAOS SPACE MARINES, the Detachment instead generates +1 TP each round". Warlord Traits/Special Character abilities that give flat extra TP (like Abaddon's The Warmaster) are reduced, or become discounts or random TP.


This would have the following effects:

More even CP usage. It becomes impossible to splurge all your CP in one vital turn, because the maximum CP available to you at any given time is more limited. On the other hand, there is no CP drought where a player runs out and has to sit on their hands.

Lower CP modifiers. The numbers used to modify CP pools become smaller and less complex, because they apply every turn rather than once per game. On the other hand, CP pool modifiers become less granular.

More dynamic CP generation. Abilities and Stratagems that generate CP become less of a concern. You still want to look carefully at them, but the extra CP vanishes at the end of your turn.

If you only gained two to three CP turn one (and say, started the game with 2-4), how much less bloody/game deciding would turn one be?