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I've been kind of down on doctrine-slot abilities this edition. Actual doctrines were fine when marines first got them as a bribe for not taking soup, but now they (and their counterparts for other factions) just kind of seem like an easily identified source of bloat/power creep. BUT! I want to give such mechanics a fair shake and to identify what they're doing right. So, which of the doctrine-equivalent rules do you feel...

A.) Make your army feel more fluffy/thematic.
B.) Make the gameplay more interesting. (Not to be confused with just making your army stronger unless that's what you find interesting.)

I'm not familiar with all the doctrine slot mechanics, but here are my thoughts on the ones I'm at least sort of familiar with.

Marine Doctrines: Basically, you get slightly better AP with certain weapons on certain turns. Meant to reflect your marines having a battle plan that they've practiced really really thoroughly to the point that they're slightly tactically inflexible. Not the biggest fan of this one. The fluff is okay for relatively regimented marines, but it's less fitting for the more gung-ho chapters. In terms of gameplay, you're not really making any interesting decisions other than, "Do I want to use the Tactical or Assault buff on turn 3?" And the answer to that question is probably either so clear that it's a non-decision or so unclear that your choice doesn't actually matter much.

The chapter-specific "super" doctrines are a little more interesting, but kind of mixed. The Death Watch version lets you choose what order you use your doctrines in, so there's at least a bit more decision making happening. Some of these are pretty fluffy (ex: Raven Guard being encouraged to assassinate characters). Then again, some of these are fluffy, but maybe still a bad idea. My White Scars and Blood Angels were probably perfectly happy to charge into melee even without the benefit of their amped-up assault doctrines, so the doctrine essentially acts as power creep that rewards you for doing what you were already going to do anyway. You might even argue that the BA and WS assault doctrines reduce decision making because the cost of missing out on your bonus damage for charging in discourages you from doing something cagey instead.

Power From Pain: Drukhari accumulate buffs based on the game turn. They get a 6+ (and then 5+) invuln save, can charge after advancing, hit things better in melee, and eventually become fearless. The fluff is that suffering is basically a drug for them complete with withdrawal symptoms and amped up pain tolerance/energy when they get a hit. They're assumed to be drinking in the suffering of both sides during the battle, even if you play cagey and neither side is inflicting casualties.

I love my drukhari, but I don't love this mechanic. It's weird to me that the symptoms of my elves getting amped up are so specific and happen in such a structured order. Like, my wyches will always run faster before they hit better, and they're functionally unaffected by PFP on turn 1 because they already have a 6++ from their Dodge save. So this chaotic pain frenzy they're trying to represent just seems weirdly predictable and kind of divorced from the actual gameplay. There's a drukhari strat that lets you perform better against a unit that's below starting strength, and that single strat feels like a better fit for this fluff than the entire PFP mechanic. Mechanically, PFP is useful and does impact how your units perform (arguably to a fault as some units really get screwed if you include allies). Not terrible, but it feels like there's room for improvement.

Strands of Fate: Because precognition, craftworld eldar get to automatically treat a few dice rolls as 6s instead of actually rolling. I haven't had a chance to use this much yet. It feels good to use in the same way that miracle dice do, but they seem likely to frustrate opponents (the same way miracle dice do). Mechanically, these auto-sixes don't seem to change my playstyle a ton, but they do encourage me to make riskier plays if I happen to end up with the right types of auto-sixes. For instance, I might put a unit in a riskier position if I know I can automatically pass my saves against my opponent's first few lascannon shots, or I might go for a long bomb charge if I know one of the dice will be a 6.

In terms of fluff, I have a slight problem with this one in that it seems to represent the same thing my psychic powers do. Guide, Doom, Fortune, and probably some powers from the other tables are all meant to represent my psykers looking into the future and nudging things into a favorable direction. So it seems like we're double-dipping on that bit of fluff by also making it our doctrine equivalent.

Luck of the Laughing God: Harlequins get some extra rerolls because Laughing God. You can gamble to potentially get extra rerolls, but you might get fewer rerolls instead. This one kind of seems like an afterthought. It doesn't really tell me a story, and it doesn't change my playstyle so much as it just makes my rolls a bit more reliable. This one just kind of feels like power creep for the sake of it.

Sorcery Points Thousand Sons are extra super good at magic, you guys, and sometimes they help each other out when casting spells. You get a number of points each turn based on the number of psykers in your army, and you can spend those points to basically do D&D metamagic, tweaking the effects of spell or the spellcasting rules. I actually like this one quite a bit. It's thematic, helps make Thousand Sons feel like a cut above other marine psykers, gives you a whole toolbox of interesting decisions in the psychic phase, and gives you a reason to not ally in generic CSM units missing from the Thousand Sons 'dex. Of all the ones I've mentioned, this is the one that most feels like it has a reason to exist.

How about you? How much does your doctrine-equivalent add to your experience? Is there a good idea in there worth keeping, or should GW consider just scrapping it?

Miracle dice are fantastic. Which is why I'm still a bit salty that Eldar just get Miracle Dice +1.

Not ork waaaaghs, that’s for sure.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Not ork waaaaghs, that’s for sure.

Really? Army wide advance and charge and +1 attack for two turns? Popped either turn one or two, you are covering 90% of the part of the game where stuff actually gets done. I'd trade doctrines for Waaagh in a bunch of my marine lists.

 Carnage43 wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Not ork waaaaghs, that’s for sure.

Really? Army wide advance and charge and +1 attack for two turns? Popped either turn one or two, you are covering 90% of the part of the game where stuff actually gets done. I'd trade doctrines for Waaagh in a bunch of my marine lists.

Powerful=/=interesting.

And it’s less powerful and more required for Orks to do any good.

Personally I'm a huge fan of the Ultramarine +1Ld and the Fall Back and shoot mechanic. It leans into the traditional marine strength of heroic discipline in the face of dire odds. It's really the current implementation of how And They Shall Know No Fear used to work.

I think it's a super good ability too.

You also have to factor that it's only Ork CORE and character units that can utilize the advance and charge, even though it would heavily benefit guys like Killa Kanz and Dreadz. So it's not terrible but also kind of a weird consolation prize when it used to be available already through Ork warboss' aura in the previous edition. I know a lot of Ork players were hoping for something closer to the WAAAGH! points table from AoS.

I quite like the Tau Philosophies of War from a fluff perspective. It is a shame they made one so much stronger than the other.

They did do some stuff right with the mechanics of it. The timing of when you choose, having strategems and a warlord trait that are stronger under one philosophy than another, etc. Again they messed up the balance there too.

I'd love to see them nerf the points of the Tau units but then give Kauyon buffs via the philosophy, the WL trait and strats.

It bother me that BA’s doctrines are theirs Flaw, which is not a martial doctrine but a charachteristic of this Chapter.

Red Thirst and Black Rage are peculiarities, they should not be a straight bonus but somethings balanced through a bonus and a penalty of equal but opposed value.

Than give them a doctrine that try to make their Flaw be their streght

The Waagh definitely feels more limited than it needs to be. On some aspect I do think it fits the orky lore, the big, huge crash as the ork hoard hits the enemy line like a sledgehammer. When the previously thought witless and bumbling greenskins reveal their true ferocity. The problem is that by limiting to the warboss and speedboss you can't really do something like a dreadwaagh! with a big mek or have an Old Zogwort-esque Warphead as your warlord. It's weird they actually removed the warlord trait that lets the HQ use Waagh if he didn't already when it would have been more useful here.

Idk, I quite like Power from Pain and always have. I think the current system is relatively straight forward - and a lot less of a win more mechanic than the old version. (I say old, its... 8 years now?)

Fluffwise I think DE are always struggling between "Dark Elves in Spaaace" and "Cursed Sire of Slaanesh literal Emotional Vampires". The sort of divide between Kabalite Dave, who is basically just a pirate-gangster, and basically everything higher up the food chain that goes full on weird.

Blade Artists is kind of lame. Its just a tedious mechanic to have to pick out the sixes. I don't think its bad that DE units should be choppy (and a lot have not been bad at it in previous editions) - but yeah. Just give them the raw stats to be so and price them accordingly if that's what you want.

Crossfire for GSC is pretty fun. I can see the argument of "shouldn't ever army have this?" - but it does encourage moving stuff around which I think is sort of fun/interactive for both players.

Ork Waaagh is probably not a terrible idea - but its awful in terms of execution. Speedwaaagh is just good the end. Regular Waaagh has more contingencies but is obviously good.

Mont'ka is just bad for the game. Giving Tau more movement is not a terrible idea - but it was sort of obviously broken the moment it was revealed. I think it should be dramatically tuned down. And as everyone said, no one is ever going to take Kauyon while its there like that.

None. Doctrines are power creep made up for the sake of power creep.

 Carnage43 wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Not ork waaaaghs, that’s for sure.

Really? Army wide advance and charge and +1 attack for two turns? Popped either turn one or two, you are covering 90% of the part of the game where stuff actually gets done. I'd trade doctrines for Waaagh in a bunch of my marine lists.

It's not really a doctrine though. The two buffs only lasts one and two turns respectively and it can only be triggered if there's a warboss on the table. So he can't be embarked or sniped, otherwise no waaagh.

SM doctrines are in play since turn 1 till the end of the game, no matter what units are killed, embarked, in reserve, etc... and all units get the buffs as long as they carry the appropriate weapons. Waaagh and speedwaaagh only affect specific units instead.

SM doctrines is much more powerful overall.

I agree with AnomanderRake, doctrines should be removed.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
None. Doctrines are power creep made up for the sake of power creep.

space marines before doctrines were a non entity army. And they only stay relevant when they had the 2.0 rules and the PA books, when 9th came around ton of marine factions , those that had their chapter doctrines linked to devastator, suddenly stopped working , because their core faction buff was active in a turn, where everyone is always hidden.

Let me give you an idea of the thrills of using Power from Pain - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

It's a dull, non-interactive mechanic in a codex already bereft of options and interactive mechanics.

To add to the thrills, the bonuses it gives are also completely passive.

Better still, it feels like your units abilities were taken away, just so they could be given back under the guise of a buff. As an example, Dark Eldar natively had Fleet (i.e. charge after running) right up until 8th edition when that was removed. Oh but it's okay, now you can get that back from turn 2 onwards. Unless you dare to use allies (including Ynnari), then your space-elves forget that they're elves at all for some reason.

You can, perhaps, imagine my joy that this rule (that replaced the far more interesting and interactive one in 5th) has been latched to the DE codex like a limpet mine since the dismal waste of ink that was the 7th edition book.


Anyway, while not a Doctrine Equivalent per se (though nor was Power from Pain until GW asked a haddock to write the 9th edition codex), I will say that I do really like the Miracle Dice/Acts of Faith mechanic. In addition to being much more interactive from the get-go (shock of all shocks, there are actually decisions to be made! I know, what a concept.), it also feels far more integrated into the actual codex. Not just in the base mechanic but also with the abilities that allow you to sacrifice Miracle Dice for other effects, or which give bonuses for using Acts of Faith (like the warlord trait that lets the Canoness heal every time she performs one). This also means there's plenty of room for expansion with similar mechanics, should they be needed.

While by no means perfect, it would seem an example of a system where a lot of thought and effort went into it, while in contrast the only thought that went into Power from Pain was in locating 'Ctrl', 'C', and subsequently 'V' on the keyboard.