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Hey gang, remember 7th edition?

Remember when necrons got their fancy decurion bonus, and it made them the absolute top dog, nobody else had something like it, and it was just unimaginable that GW could ever put something bonkers like that out into the game?

And then a few more factions got it, and they were able to compete using their "Decurion-like" superformations, and it became a rallying cry that denying someone the right to use their Decurion was denying their fun, and that people should just be patient and wait their turn?

And then remember again when GW released the codexes in 8th, with the unique warlord traits that were way better than the rulebook ones and the unique stratagems that were better than the rulebook ones and the relics that you didn't even get to have if you didn't have a codex yet?

Well in the new rules preview they shared some exciting news: A reworked Resurrection Protocols isn't the only army wide rule the necrons will get, no sir, they'll get a fancy new rule to represent the special programmed behavior routines that the necrons use when they go to war!

I wonder how that will work? I wonder if each turn you'll select a special army wide rule that gives a bonus to some category of unit in your army. Like how necrons have always done in the fluff? Kind of like how space marines read a book and then they use that book to make their various bullets explode harder.

Do you think maybe this is kind of like when, in a video game, you can pay 10 dollars to make your bullets golden for a match and get +5% damage? And it's just enough that you definitely feel that bonus, but just little enough that when someone complains that you only won because of it you can tell them to git gud noob you absolutely would have won without it.

Do you think a lot of the problems that we perceive with the game, the lethality and the bad balance might be reduced greatly if we made it a normal thing that we just collectively decide that we're not going to use the new manufactured discontent mechanic against armies that haven't gotten theirs yet?

I ask because it was tougher to convince people with the index stuff to not use their special subfaction bonuses and their full psychic power list and their unique stratagems, because that's a lot of stuff and a lot of the traditional fluffiness of the army was kind of contained within them.

But is anyone REALLY so attached to the *checks notes* special hymns that the sisters of battle have always chanted to give them army wide bonuses for singing? Or the dynastic coding that gives canoptek units bonuses turn 1, then vehicle units bonuses turn 2, then infantry bonuses turn 3, then....I'm guessing here.

This just seems like the decurions/formations again. A blatantly gamey bonus that we all KNOW you just get for buying the stuff and paying for the bonus to have the bonus. There's no fluff justification for space marines to have free razorbacks for buying 4 specific plastic kits and helping GW clear out their stock of assault marines.

So what do we think? It certainly seems like the general 40k community at large is perfectly capable of establishing preferred houserules every edition that are fairly independent of GW's rules.

Bit different things giving more army wide rules just because and giving extra rules if you stay mono. Remember sister rule became when souping up actively gave you boost. This would leave mono sisters at disadvantage. Thus came sacred rites(which btw are rather minor with exception of deny thing that allows sisters not get roflstomped by mw spam).

Of course 9th ed putting price for detachments reason reduces. Though if you pay 2nd det often might just as well look at other faction to fill in plugs so bonus to staying mono still has some place as long as effect is minor.

Wouldn't worry necron one yet though. Many factions have more than 1 army rule and necrons have 1, resurection protocol, that is currently so useless dropping that wouldn't even be seen.

tneva82 wrote:
Bit different things giving more army wide rules just because and giving extra rules if you stay mono. Remember sister rule became when souping up actively gave you boost. This would leave mono sisters at disadvantage. Thus came sacred rites(which btw are rather minor with exception of deny thing that allows sisters not get roflstomped by mw spam).

Of course 9th ed putting price for detachments reason reduces. Though if you pay 2nd det often might just as well look at other faction to fill in plugs so bonus to staying mono still has some place as long as effect is minor.

Wouldn't worry necron one yet though. Many factions have more than 1 army rule and necrons have 1, resurection protocol, that is currently so useless dropping that wouldn't even be seen.

They put out the armywide rule for Sisters because they didn't want Sisters players to immediately have to buy a new codex in the new edition to get their armywide rule.

They put out the rules for marines, GK, BA, SW, DA etc because you have to do something to set up the discontent, they were the current weakest factions in the game so most likely to buy in heavily to normalize taking advantage of the new "Premium Codex 2.0 Rules Bonus".

They WILL pitch each new codex in the 2.0 cycle as the solution to bring your faction up to par and able to compete, and they will use the new army-wide bonus rule to do it.

The difference between this situation and the indexes vs the codex is that there's no emotional connection to the rules bonus. There's no "My dudes will be unique now because I'll get this rule" that you'll be giving up. You have to consciously know you are buying the 10$ golden bullets when you use them in a game against someone who doesn't have them yet.

They did this exact same thing in Sigmar's 2.0 cycle, where suddenly the gobbos cared about the 'phases of the moon' and the orks had like 'stages of the waaagh' and whatever else. It's a bald-faced mechanism to maintain codex creep and keep people buying 'em, because there's not enough other changes in the codex to warrant rebuying it, and it takes less effort on GW's part to actually go and fix uncompetitive choices so instead they'll slap a blanket rule on the whole army and it'll apply to whatever units you want it to.

AoS has used monofaction army wide bonuses to a really good effect. Whilst the game has lore and structurally got a lot of room to make "souped" armies, the way that you get allegiance bonuses for your core faction only means that pure factions remain dominant. Furthermore it means that allies have to be well chosen because you're limited on what you can take and also because they won't get the core faction's bonuses.

It's made for a game environment where you can min-max allies into a souped army if you want, but it doesn't out-compete mono-factions. It also means that the game shifted more toward monofactions with specific or flavourful allies rather than a souped mess of jumbled up armies.

 Overread wrote:
AoS has used monofaction army wide bonuses to a really good effect. Whilst the game has lore and structurally got a lot of room to make "souped" armies, the way that you get allegiance bonuses for your core faction only means that pure factions remain dominant. Furthermore it means that allies have to be well chosen because you're limited on what you can take and also because they won't get the core faction's bonuses.

It's made for a game environment where you can min-max allies into a souped army if you want, but it doesn't out-compete mono-factions. It also means that the game shifted more toward monofactions with specific or flavourful allies rather than a souped mess of jumbled up armies.

I'm sure it would be good....if incredibly, excessively deadly.

That is, if everyone got their bonuses at once.

Just like the game is better for people having their subfaction bonuses, and faction specific fluffy stratagems (Though again, all those also add to the cumulative deadliness of the game).

The problem is, you can take even a good thing, and make it bad, by spreading it out over a multi-year codex release churn schedule, and forcing people into a have/have not situation.

Which is what GW is doing, because a have/have not situation is incredibly good for getting people to actually rebuy the book they've already paid for.

the_scotsman wrote:

They put out the armywide rule for Sisters because they didn't want Sisters players to immediately have to buy a new codex in the new edition to get their armywide rule.

They put out the rules for marines, GK, BA, SW, DA etc because you have to do something to set up the discontent, they were the current weakest factions in the game so most likely to buy in heavily to normalize taking advantage of the new "Premium Codex 2.0 Rules Bonus".

They WILL pitch each new codex in the 2.0 cycle as the solution to bring your faction up to par and able to compete, and they will use the new army-wide bonus rule to do it.

The difference between this situation and the indexes vs the codex is that there's no emotional connection to the rules bonus. There's no "My dudes will be unique now because I'll get this rule" that you'll be giving up. You have to consciously know you are buying the 10$ golden bullets when you use them in a game against someone who doesn't have them yet.

They did this exact same thing in Sigmar's 2.0 cycle, where suddenly the gobbos cared about the 'phases of the moon' and the orks had like 'stages of the waaagh' and whatever else. It's a bald-faced mechanism to maintain codex creep and keep people buying 'em, because there's not enough other changes in the codex to warrant rebuying it, and it takes less effort on GW's part to actually go and fix uncompetitive choices so instead they'll slap a blanket rule on the whole army and it'll apply to whatever units you want it to.

Sorry but everybody said PA would bring doctrine style thing to all but it didn't.

The mono bonus had function in 8th ed and keep in mind codex was written for 8th. Don't try the marketing sense it and PA books were written with 9th ed in mind as that's BS. Too much stuff there that gets invalidated by 9th ed(gee rule that makes no effect in 9th for the army. How useful!).

Fact of the matter is you NEED bonus for staying mono as otherwise you are just shooting yourself to foot. Soup is by definition better than non-soup so something needed. Sisters got that right in that effect is very tiny. Marines went wrong.

And necrons currently don't have ANY functional army wide rule.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

I'm sure it would be good....if incredibly, excessively deadly.

That is, if everyone got their bonuses at once.

Just like the game is better for people having their subfaction bonuses, and faction specific fluffy stratagems (Though again, all those also add to the cumulative deadliness of the game).

The problem is, you can take even a good thing, and make it bad, by spreading it out over a multi-year codex release churn schedule, and forcing people into a have/have not situation.

Which is what GW is doing, because a have/have not situation is incredibly good for getting people to actually rebuy the book they've already paid for.

Something you forget is that everybody without that kind of rule has instant power up available. Soup. You trump any non-soup without mono bonus right away.

That's why mono bonuses need to exist. Well that or ban any kind of souping(even inside codex. Not cadian and catachan working inside). Soup>mono.

tneva82 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

They put out the armywide rule for Sisters because they didn't want Sisters players to immediately have to buy a new codex in the new edition to get their armywide rule.

They put out the rules for marines, GK, BA, SW, DA etc because you have to do something to set up the discontent, they were the current weakest factions in the game so most likely to buy in heavily to normalize taking advantage of the new "Premium Codex 2.0 Rules Bonus".

They WILL pitch each new codex in the 2.0 cycle as the solution to bring your faction up to par and able to compete, and they will use the new army-wide bonus rule to do it.

The difference between this situation and the indexes vs the codex is that there's no emotional connection to the rules bonus. There's no "My dudes will be unique now because I'll get this rule" that you'll be giving up. You have to consciously know you are buying the 10$ golden bullets when you use them in a game against someone who doesn't have them yet.

They did this exact same thing in Sigmar's 2.0 cycle, where suddenly the gobbos cared about the 'phases of the moon' and the orks had like 'stages of the waaagh' and whatever else. It's a bald-faced mechanism to maintain codex creep and keep people buying 'em, because there's not enough other changes in the codex to warrant rebuying it, and it takes less effort on GW's part to actually go and fix uncompetitive choices so instead they'll slap a blanket rule on the whole army and it'll apply to whatever units you want it to.

Sorry but everybody said PA would bring doctrine style thing to all but it didn't.

The mono bonus had function in 8th ed and keep in mind codex was written for 8th. Don't try the marketing sense it and PA books were written with 9th ed in mind as that's BS. Too much stuff there that gets invalidated by 9th ed(gee rule that makes no effect in 9th for the army. How useful!).

Fact of the matter is you NEED bonus for staying mono as otherwise you are just shooting yourself to foot. Soup is by definition better than non-soup so something needed. Sisters got that right in that effect is very tiny. Marines went wrong.

And necrons currently don't have ANY functional army wide rule.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

I'm sure it would be good....if incredibly, excessively deadly.

That is, if everyone got their bonuses at once.

Just like the game is better for people having their subfaction bonuses, and faction specific fluffy stratagems (Though again, all those also add to the cumulative deadliness of the game).

The problem is, you can take even a good thing, and make it bad, by spreading it out over a multi-year codex release churn schedule, and forcing people into a have/have not situation.

Which is what GW is doing, because a have/have not situation is incredibly good for getting people to actually rebuy the book they've already paid for.

Something you forget is that everybody without that kind of rule has instant power up available. Soup. You trump any non-soup without mono bonus right away.

That's why mono bonuses need to exist. Well that or ban any kind of souping(even inside codex. Not cadian and catachan working inside). Soup>mono.

Cool cool, Ok here, you're clearly a competitive gamer maybe you can help me out. I'll tell you the faction I've been struggling the most with, and you tell me how I can counter the monofaction bonuses using soup.

Orks.

Just don't play against monofaction armies with a bonus, instead only play index for optimal balance.

I think those rules could partly fixed by tagging on points cost as while I dont play I do keep up with my pointy ears and the Alaitoc rule trumps the rest most of the time, EC maybe on par, but free bonus' that buff the good to silly good seems shaky

Thar again depends on your definition of Soup, do you play pure mono clan? Most ork lists I have seen are mulyiple clans spread across detachments in 8th, in 8th that kind of nonsencr will cost CP as it should do.

That's not to say Orks as they are are OP.
The issue is Marines have new rules which as far as GW is telling ade here to stay and have created the next round of power creep.

Marines 1.0 was pretty bad, the free all bonus Allies was bad for blance yes. Thr issue is GW have added rules to correct for Allies and Balance in one hit while not touching points.

They have then changed the core rules of the new edition but those power correction rules are now lumped on top of core rules that favour the same thing your rewarding.

Also Marines are possibly the most breakable faction in 40k, make them bad and all the experienced players jump to their other army so their win rate plummets to the floor as it's reduced to newer players and fluff bunnies, but dial thrm up to where new players and fluff bunnies have a chance and then have the competitive players switch back and it's an OP mess.

Hence why they violently swing from depressing to play against as it was autowin for any competitive list and player vrs Marine's to now its just opressive to play against as they got dialed upt to 13 on a scale of 1-10 and have slowly been nerfed down to 11 but they are still out of the balance.

Necrons are likely to be the next dialed upto 11 faction as they need to compete with marines as per the boxed set.

Meh I don't think they're that bad, I'd say CP are worse. I played a game last night where I had 0 CP. I used many relics and had honored Sergeants. Most fun I had in 40k in quite a while. I also lost

One would almost wonder how much soup you would actually see if you removed the ability for allies to provide CP to their teammates.

You'd certainly see daemons allied with their god-aligned marine faction.

You'd probably see a single knight or a couple knights tacked on to an admech army, or marines, or guard.

But you'd pretty much immediately do away with the 15 Red Corsairs CSM, 17 Admech or 32 Guard tacked on to every single imperial/chaos list that exists just to provide a CP battery.

Too bad we'll never know how that particular balance decision would shake out, because GW has already put out half a dozen factions with bonuses for staying monofaction and they're talking about the next one they're going to do. Why change one thing when you can change a half dozen things at once and *coincidentally* provide a convenient sales feature to put in all the new codexes you want to sell?

I guess in CA 2020 everyone without a new codex or an army bonus from PA will get theirs. Just like in 8th. Problem solved, nothing to see here.

Also, we really don't know what the rule will be. It could be like living metal (which is, btw, the other kind-of-army-rule Necrons already have - and noone has complained about that). So far they did quite well with the balance since 8th edition started, even though many things needed FaQs.