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So I have tried to follow numerous YouTube Battle reports using CP and Stratagems. I am having a little bit of a hard time understanding.
Is there a discussion online that explains it. Perhaps a tutorial?

FWIW, I have now a pretty big Steel Legion army and DeathGuard. Would love to start playing BattleForge armies to unlock all these nice perks.

Thanks

Basically, if you want to use Stratagems, you pay the cost of the Stratagem in Command Points. If you do not have enough Command Points left, you can not use that strat.

So if you want to use the COMMAND RE-ROLL Core Stratagem it costs 1 Command Point.

You use Stratagems when the text of the Stratagem says they are used. In the case of the COMMAND RE-ROLL Core Stratagem, you use it "after you have made a hit roll, a wound roll, a damage roll, a saving throw, an Advance roll, a charge roll, a Psychic test, a Deny the Witch test or you have rolled the dice to determine the number of attacks made by a weapon."

And you do what the strat says and reduce the number of Command Points you have available by however mucht he strat costs. In the case of the COMMAND RE-ROLL Core Stratagem you would reduse your Command Points by 1, since it costs 1 to use it.

The rule book explains how you get command points and what you can use them for. This forum is not a replacement for the rules. If you have specific questions about something you have read in the rule book then we can try to answer them.

It can be a bit confusing when the way the CP are generated has completely changed going into this new edition.

To sum up - if your army is Battle-Forged (that is, split into detachments that are each linked by a common keyword) you get a certain amount of CP, depending on the size of game you're playing.
You might then have to spend some of those CP on your detachments, if you're not solely using one of the ones that gives you the CP back for having your Warlord in them.

Once the game starts you would usually get an extra 1CP per turn as the game progresses. You can then spend those points on Stratagems as the game goes on.

I'd suggest getting used to the concept by trying out a quick test game with just the Stratagems included in the rulebook, if you have it - or maybe pick 2/3 specific ones from a Codex if not. Just set up a couple of units on a table, play against yourself, follow the rules through as you're using them.
Trying to jump straight into a couple of pages of Stratagems can be daunting and you can trick yourself into thinking that you'll need to remember every Stratagem on there, that's not the case - typically you'll find there's a handful that you might really want to use, and the rest are either not that big a deal for what you're bringing, or not useful for your units at all.

 Bilge Rat wrote:
The rule book explains how you get command points and what you can use them for. This forum is not a replacement for the rules. If you have specific questions about something you have read in the rule book then we can try to answer them.

Yes, I am aware of this and still struggle with the application of it. Hence, my inquiry on here to find an online breakdown of it applied. Not a replacement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DeathReaper wrote:
Basically, if you want to use Stratagems, you pay the cost of the Stratagem in Command Points. If you do not have enough Command Points left, you can not use that strat.

So if you want to use the COMMAND RE-ROLL Core Stratagem it costs 1 Command Point.

You use Stratagems when the text of the Stratagem says they are used. In the case of the COMMAND RE-ROLL Core Stratagem, you use it "after you have made a hit roll, a wound roll, a damage roll, a saving throw, an Advance roll, a charge roll, a Psychic test, a Deny the Witch test or you have rolled the dice to determine the number of attacks made by a weapon."

And you do what the strat says and reduce the number of Command Points you have available by however mucht he strat costs. In the case of the COMMAND RE-ROLL Core Stratagem you would reduse your Command Points by 1, since it costs 1 to use it.

This makes sense. Thanks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Super Ready wrote:
It can be a bit confusing when the way the CP are generated has completely changed going into this new edition.

To sum up - if your army is Battle-Forged (that is, split into detachments that are each linked by a common keyword) you get a certain amount of CP, depending on the size of game you're playing.
You might then have to spend some of those CP on your detachments, if you're not solely using one of the ones that gives you the CP back for having your Warlord in them.

Once the game starts you would usually get an extra 1CP per turn as the game progresses. You can then spend those points on Stratagems as the game goes on.

I'd suggest getting used to the concept by trying out a quick test game with just the Stratagems included in the rulebook, if you have it - or maybe pick 2/3 specific ones from a Codex if not. Just set up a couple of units on a table, play against yourself, follow the rules through as you're using them.
Trying to jump straight into a couple of pages of Stratagems can be daunting and you can trick yourself into thinking that you'll need to remember every Stratagem on there, that's not the case - typically you'll find there's a handful that you might really want to use, and the rest are either not that big a deal for what you're bringing, or not useful for your units at all.

I see. So you start with a sum of CP from your selections based on Battle-Forged keywords and then spend the accordingly prior to game. Then spend during game to gain stratagems.

The simple breakdown is this:

-At each game size, you start with a number of command points (CP) to spend. At 2,000 points, that number is 12.

-You then spend those CP in two ways: First, you can spend them before the game, in constructing your army, or to give certain upgrades to units. If you have access to these pre-game upgrades, they will appear in your codex as Stratagems, for example: "1CP/3CP, give 1 or 2 extra relics to models in your army"

To spend them constructing your army, each type of Detachment has a CP cost. Note that Patrol, Battalion, and Brigade detachments cost 0 if your warlord is in that detachment. Most players decide to make this the basis of their army to save on CP!

-Second, you spend CP during the game on momentary stratagems. Each player usually keeps a die, like a D12 or D20, sitting off to the side, and uses that to keep track of how much CP they have. You also get a CP at the very beginning of each of your turns, and certain relics/warlord traits can be used to give you more CP.

assuming you have the 9th ed rulebook, and assuming its the same as the copy i have (english language hardback version sold as a stand along product):

if your army compostion is a battle forged (as explained on pg 244, but roughly, if all your force is form the same army, ie all form the Steel legion, or as the Death Guard) force that fits into one of the detachment layouts on page 248-249, your force gets several things:

1) a pool of Command points, determined by the force size, as show on the table on Pg 244. basically, you get 3 CP per 500 points/25 Power level. so a 1,000 point force (which should be about 50PL) would have 6 CP at the start of the game.

2) you get a detachment bonus, which is in your army Codex (for example, the guard get the "defenders of humanity" ability, which gives your troops Obsec, and makes them better at taking objectives)

3) at the start of EACH of your turn(s), you gain 1 additional CP, on top of the ones you already have.

4) you get a free Relic, a powerful piece of wargear that is normally given to your Warlord or another character, and improves them in some way (like Skull Mask of Acheron, whichs gives enemy in 3 inches on the wearer a -1 to Leadership). your relics are normally in your Codex.

a valid detachment MUST have the unit choices shown in red, and MAY have the others (also repeated in numbers above the unit types). The most basic detachment is a "patrol", which MUST have a HQ choice and a Troops choice. In addition it MAY have 1 extra HQ, 2 extra troops, and 2 Elites, 2 Fast Attack, 2 Heavy support and 2 Flyers, but it doesn't have to.

So, if you have a imperial guard army of (Say) 1 company commander, and a squad of guardsmen in a Chimera, that, in and of itself, is a valid detachment, and you would get CP at the start, and on every turn. You could add more forces to that, like another squad of guardsmen, but if you added 3 extra squads (or, say 4 Leman Russ tanks), you'd have too many troops/heavy support for a Patrol, and would need to either drop some of the choices or switch to another Detachment (like a Battalion or Brigade). Most transport units like the Chimera dont count towards your detachment limits, but some might (a Death Guard Chaos Land Raider is a heavy support choice, for example, even though it can transport units)

Every detachment has a cost in CP to use. However, if your Warlord (ie the commander of the army) is in a patrol, battalion or Birgade detachment, you get the command points you would have spent back, so its basically "free". the other types of detachment all you to take a force with a lot more of a certain unit type, but you have to pay a CP tax to do so (so you could make a very tank heavy force with a Spearhead detachment, but you'd have less CP and not as many other units to support those tanks).

if your wondering how you can tell the different unit types apart, on each units datasheet, in the top left corner, next to where it says the units Power Level, thier s little graphic, and these line up to the ones on the force org chart (so a HQ choice has a skull, a Troop has a triangle, etc)


So, during battle, you fail a vital roll. you need to make that roll (maybe its a morale check, or a vital lascannon shot). you decide that this failure Just Will Not Do, so you declare your using the "command Re-roll" stratagem. you pay the 1CP cost (maybe have a tally written on a scrap of paper, or a dice in the corner that you keep track of the number with), then you follow the text on the stratagem. in this case you get to re-roll that vital roll.

in addition to the universal stratagems in the main rule book, you have your army-specific ones found in your Codex. Read these carefully (or look online for guides) and you can discover how certains strats boost specific units (Like the "Aerial Spotter" strat boosts the Basilisk and Wyvern). Some of them can be used before battle starts, and improve a unit for the whole battle.





does that answer your questions? do you have more, or follow on questions?

FYI, YMDC is to be used for rules query, not read me the rules.

I will apologize beforehand if this comes off as snarky/rude, but you need to read the rulebook because everything everyone just told you is in the rulebook, instead of asking others online to read it for you.

If you have specific questions on specifics of the rule, then come back and post them here and we will help you better understand it.

 Bilge Rat wrote:
The rule book explains how you get command points and what you can use them for. This forum is not a replacement for the rules. If you have specific questions about something you have read in the rule book then we can try to answer them.

Sorry missed this post. What he said.

If you don't have the rulebook and are just pretending to have read because you don't want to buy the rulebook, 99.99% of the rules can be found simply by googling. Batreps are not a good way of learning this game because they skip over all the important parts about the mechanics of the game and just gets to the action part (as in rolling dice).

 skchsan wrote:
FYI, YMDC is to be used for rules query, not read me the rules.

I will apologize beforehand if this comes off as snarky/rude, but you need to read the rulebook because everything everyone just told you is in the rulebook, instead of asking others online to read it for you.

If you have specific questions on specifics of the rule, then come back and post them here and we will help you better understand it.

 Bilge Rat wrote:
The rule book explains how you get command points and what you can use them for. This forum is not a replacement for the rules. If you have specific questions about something you have read in the rule book then we can try to answer them.

Sorry missed this post. What he said.

If you don't have the rulebook and are just pretending to have read because you don't want to buy the rulebook, 99.99% of the rules can be found simply by googling. Batreps are not a good way of learning this game because they skip over all the important parts about the mechanics of the game and just gets to the action part (as in rolling dice).

Perhaps you should read my original post. I never asked anyone to read or re-post anything to me as you claim.

I asked members to direct me to a viable source / tutorial explaining how CP works more clearly (i.e videos, articles etc). My intention was to find a better source on CP mechanics. Now, members out of their kindness, decided to give their understandings or post rules here directly. Which is greatly appreciated but was never the ask. In fact, their interpretations were really helpful.

FYI, I do own the the new 9th edition core rule book, have read it several times and have played a few games. Truth is, I played from 2nd edition till 5th AND was a member of this forum ages ago when Russ ran it. But I digress.

And ya, you did come pretty rude at me playing mall cop. That "apologize beforehand' play is an ineffective verbal slight of hand to behave like a hall monitor. Then you go off, jabbing me by insinuating that I am a liar, cheap and too lazy to read? Seriously, that's how you treat a returning member? You get upset for a post in a sub thread and start insulting me?

Not cool...not cool at all.

Have you ever played any Magic?

If so, just think of most strats as being instants & the CP you pay for them with as manna.
Now you just have to remember all the strats that could apply to a situation.