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I had a thought on a different way to make stratagems work in the game.

Command points would all be generated in the same way as before, but spent completely differently.

Each player buys stratagem cards (they would need their own card decks, like tactical objectives used to) using their command points.

Stratagems become one use only - ish - and are kept secret from the opponent.

When you want to play a stratagem, turn the card over and resolve it.

Most cards will have a roll to make after they are used - this is to allow you to keep the stratagem card.

EG a stratagem might allow you to keep it on a 5+, meaning you can use it again.

This way you have to pick your stratagems before the game, to suit your army. You have to decide when to play them, as they aren't guaranteed to be there every turn. you don't have to keep track of CP all game, just your hand of cards, and it works well with using CP to buy relics pre-game.

There would need to be some cost-adjustment, but it would get people using more stratagems (you can't buy the same one twice) and would simultaneously counter soup to some extent (more CP allows you to buy more stratagems, not spam the same one, so your soup force had better justify the loyal 32!)

Abilities which usually regen CP would instead allow one reroll to keep a stratagem each turn.

What do you think?

Neat concept. I like that it turns stratagem selection into an additional form of army customization. Keeping your strats a secret adds a cool angle to the mix, but you'll be very embarrassed when you realize you accidentally overspent your CP and didn't notice until the end of the game.

I pitched something similar a while back. In my proposal, cards didn't stick around based on a die roll but instead had either limited uses or cooldowns. So a Webway Strike (deepstrike) strat might be purchasable multiple times and cost 1CP and could be used once per game each. Lightning Fast Reactions (-1 to being hit for a phase) might cost 2 or 3 CP and have a cooldown of 1 turn. Agents of Vect might cost 3CP and be usable only once, or it might be reusable but have a hefty 1d6 turn cooldown.

The advantage of using cooldowns rather than % chances of "recylcing" the strat is that being able to reuse a powerful and expensive strat just because your dice were hot can be a pretty serious game changer meaning it's harder to balance. Having a clearer idea of how often you'll be able to reuse strats gives you a clearer idea of how often they'll be useful and let you balance accordingly.

A couple other thoughts off the top of my head:
* Special rules, powers, and strats that let you peek at one or more enemy strat so you know what they have planned.

* Abilities that let you spend CP mid-game rather than pre-game to buy a strat at a markup; worse price tag, but you can pick the right tool for the job.

* Discounted strats based on unit selection. I'm picturing flakk missiles that cost less when you take a tech priest or webway strats that cost less if you field a webway gate.