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So we have various groups of players all complaining that their formation has been nerfed into uselessness while other formations are just as if not more powerul haven't been touched.

Wouldn't it just be easier to ban all formations? We managed without them before, why suddenly have they become so essential?

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:
So we have various groups of players all complaining that their formation has been nerfed into uselessness while other formations are just as if not more powerul haven't been touched.

Wouldn't it just be easier to ban all formations? We managed without them before, why suddenly have they become so essential?

Cheers

Andrew

Because there are at least two non-knight Armies ( Skitarii and Harlequins) that removing formations makes entirely unplayable, as they lack requirements for the CAD (in the case of Skitarii and Harlies, HQs.)

 Swampmist wrote:

 AndrewC wrote:
So we have various groups of players all complaining that their formation has been nerfed into uselessness while other formations are just as if not more powerul haven't been touched.

Wouldn't it just be easier to ban all formations? We managed without them before, why suddenly have they become so essential?

Cheers

Andrew

Because there are at least two non-knight Armies ( Skitarii and Harlequins) that removing formations makes entirely unplayable, as they lack requirements for the CAD (in the case of Skitarii and Harlies, HQs.)

Formations and special detachments are two different things. Fleshtearers strikeforce is not a formation, for example.

I share his opinion. Removing formations would remove like 80% of the game's problems at the moment, bringing it back to pretty much just grav, invis, and eldar.

But then there is always the ability to play an unbound army and so throw the old CAD out the window?

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Swampmist wrote:

 AndrewC wrote:
So we have various groups of players all complaining that their formation has been nerfed into uselessness while other formations are just as if not more powerul haven't been touched.

Wouldn't it just be easier to ban all formations? We managed without them before, why suddenly have they become so essential?

Cheers

Andrew

Because there are at least two non-knight Armies ( Skitarii and Harlequins) that removing formations makes entirely unplayable, as they lack requirements for the CAD (in the case of Skitarii and Harlies, HQs.)

Formations and special detachments are two different things. Fleshtearers strikeforce is not a formation, for example.

I share his opinion. Removing formations would remove like 80% of the game's problems at the moment, bringing it back to pretty much just grav, invis, and eldar.

I disagree. There are three problems with this approach:

1. Formations are also detachments, as stated in the BRB. 7th edition was designed from the beginning to be Formation Edition (TM). The problem was in GW's execution, where the design philosophy changed to put a much greater emphasis on formations not even halfway through 7th edition.

2. In my opinion, formations have only benefited the game. The standard Force Org Chart was getting stale, and did not do a very good job of representing or accommodating non-Imperium armies. Now, players have more options than ever before as to how to build and construct their lists, and in ways that much better reflect their armies individual lore. In addition, as previously stated, some armies are now only playable through formations. Should they simply be cast aside?

3. Not all formations are created equal. You cannot honestly tell me that the Blood Angels formations out of their campaign book or some of the formations in the new starter sets are on par with Skyhammer, Canoptek Harvest, or the Optimized Stealth Cadre. If anything, I would simply balance or restrict certain formations rather than completely banning all formations.

Tellingly, the ITC has embraced formations, but has placed restrictions on them. You have a maximum of three detachments you can bring (Formation Detachments count), and you may only bring one duplicate formation either as a standalone or within a Formation Detachment.

I disagree. There are three problems with this approach:

1. Formations are also detachments, as stated in the BRB. 7th edition was designed from the beginning to be Formation Edition (TM). The problem was in GW's execution, where the design philosophy changed to put a much greater emphasis on formations not even halfway through 7th edition.

2. In my opinion, formations have only benefited the game. The standard Force Org Chart was getting stale, and did not do a very good job of representing or accommodating non-Imperium armies. Now, players have more options than ever before as to how to build and construct their lists, and in ways that much better reflect their armies individual lore. In addition, as previously stated, some armies are now only playable through formations. Should they simply be cast aside?

3. Not all formations are created equal. You cannot honestly tell me that the Blood Angels formations out of their campaign book or some of the formations in the new starter sets are on par with Skyhammer, Canoptek Harvest, or the Optimized Stealth Cadre. If anything, I would simply balance or restrict certain formations rather than completely banning all formations.

Tellingly, the ITC has embraced formations, but has placed restrictions on them. You have a maximum of three detachments you can bring (Formation Detachments count), and you may only bring one duplicate formation either as a standalone or within a Formation Detachment.

I agree with you. Overall Formations have been good for the game. They have made it possible in many ways to play a fluffy force and still be competitive for the most part. The nly problem I see with formations is there aren't enough balanced ones and not every army has formations that are competitive.

I think overall the ITC is a good thing. They are at least trying to do what GW should be doing, ie, balance the game. Where I disagree with them on is often it is kind of inconsistent. Some things that should be restricted and/or reduced in effectiveness are not while others are. In some cases it is understandable like an extremely powerful top tier army gets a serious power buff so gets nerfed to be reasonable and a mid tier army's exceptionally stron formation is not nerfed. The difference being the mid tier can better compete in top tier. I still have no clue why they have not voted on making the WK a 100 points more. Seriously, make it cost what it should or start giving IK army wide points drops to reflect their lesser effectiveness. At least that is my opinion.

There's a key difference in normal detachments and formations; normal detachments always have a force organization chart of some capacity (CAD uses a traditional one, Decurion/Gladius uses units instead of battlefield roles), formations use a pre-selected list instead of a force organization chart.

I've just seen a lot of people get confused because Formations also count as a detachment and not know that there is a clear difference between the two, causing some TOs to make weird rulings like a formation's special rules extend to dedicated transports not explicitly forced through the restriction.

TLDR: There's a measurable difference between Detachments and Formations rules-wise, any claims of it being a grey area are simply not informed enough

The concept of the ITC is actually great. It fills the role that GW failed to do. That is an attempt at balancing the game. The problem is that the ITC is doing the same thing as GW. They are throwing "rules" out there for simple opinion. There is no play testing to justify the FAQs.

"This is too Powerful. We need to nerf it."

This is before any real games are done or before any Meta has a chance to adjust.

There should be a couple major events with any new formation before adjustments are made. It may seem too powerful for some, but others may come with a good way to beat it. Currently we will never know. The new thing may not do as good as everything thinks it might. Kneejerk FAQs to Kneejerk design.

People say that they don't playtest at all, but that would imply that they're lying when they say they play plenty of games that they don't stream.

Around the time of the tau CF vote, I specifically heard them say that Frankie was constantly running tau in off-camera games. Why do people think that Tuesday night fight is the only game they play every week?

Perhaps we can agree to refer to the ITC modifications to rules (2++/4++, ranged D, and the re-writing of invisibility, for example) as "ITC Eratta". Referring to the entirety of the faq as ITC fails to describe the two essential parts: Rule Clarification (FAQ) and Rule Modification (Eratta). The ITC, as I understand it, strives to produce an RAW FAQ, generally ignoring questions of 'balance', and an Eratta that does have 'balance' as its goal.

There is an opportunity for confusion due to the manner in which the ITC makes its rulings (i.e voting), and it seems that there is some muddying between FAQ and Eratta. By and large though, some things are rules interpretations, and some things are complete rewrites.

I would love that distinction, since then it would be easy for TOs to determine what they want to use from it.

The only problem arises if a rule that was errata'ed was in need of a FAQ entry if not using the errata - which then might not be present in the ITC FAQ.

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:
There's a key difference in normal detachments and formations; normal detachments always have a force organization chart of some capacity (CAD uses a traditional one, Decurion/Gladius uses units instead of battlefield roles), formations use a pre-selected list instead of a force organization chart.

I've just seen a lot of people get confused because Formations also count as a detachment and not know that there is a clear difference between the two, causing some TOs to make weird rulings like a formation's special rules extend to dedicated transports not explicitly forced through the restriction.

TLDR: There's a measurable difference between Detachments and Formations rules-wise, any claims of it being a grey area are simply not informed enough

The easiest way to think of it is: formations are detachments which specify unit names that you must take or choose from, like a Scout Bike or Tactical Marine; whereas detachments specify unit types, like Fast Attack or Troop to choose from.

However, that said, there IS a grey area, because some formations are very flexible, like the Space Marine Battle Pinion Battle Demi-Company. The restrictions allow you to choose from a pretty big list, and more practically, a pretty useful list. On the other hand, there are highly restrictive detachments, like the Archangels Strike Force, which says "14 Elites", but you're only allowed specific elites, and more practically a mostly useless list excluding a bunch of the great choices... Effectively, they end up being the same thing, because if the Archangels Strike force said, 14 units in any combination from (list of units), plus 1 unit of (list of HQs) it would be called Formation instead of a Detachment.

Therefore, in my opinion, it's not really a useful distinction anymore. There's no game distinction between them; they are both legal-for-play force organization structures. There are sucky formations and sucky detachments, and really powerful ones of both.

TLDR... don't sweat it too much

Splitting the FAQ from errata is a neat idea.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
People say that they don't playtest at all, but that would imply that they're lying when they say they play plenty of games that they don't stream.

Around the time of the tau CF vote, I specifically heard them say that Frankie was constantly running tau in off-camera games. Why do people think that Tuesday night fight is the only game they play every week?

It has nothing to do with "lying." Im sure they play games with it. However, playing in a small group with limited outside insight results in alot of poor decisions. Again, look at GW. Just looking at the old SM codex, 7 playtesters and 1 "writer". Small groups of people often fall into a "group think" rather than often thinking outside the box. Just look at how everyone said Tyranids sucked and yet last year won the LVO and another GT with Lictors, an all around crap unit according to everyone pre LVO. Or the Ork player managing good top 16 results, imagine if more people ran Orks to refine them. Its more about the law of large numbers. Everyone said the Decurion was "broken" when it came out, but we dont see Necrons dominating the metas.

Fragile wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
People say that they don't playtest at all, but that would imply that they're lying when they say they play plenty of games that they don't stream.

Around the time of the tau CF vote, I specifically heard them say that Frankie was constantly running tau in off-camera games. Why do people think that Tuesday night fight is the only game they play every week?

It has nothing to do with "lying." Im sure they play games with it. However, playing in a small group with limited outside insight results in alot of poor decisions. Again, look at GW. Just looking at the old SM codex, 7 playtesters and 1 "writer". Small groups of people often fall into a "group think" rather than often thinking outside the box. Just look at how everyone said Tyranids sucked and yet last year won the LVO and another GT with Lictors, an all around crap unit according to everyone pre LVO. Or the Ork player managing good top 16 results, imagine if more people ran Orks to refine them. Its more about the law of large numbers. Everyone said the Decurion was "broken" when it came out, but we dont see Necrons dominating the metas.

You might be right about the groupthink, but it's an unprovable statement in either direction.

I don't recall saying tyranids suck anytime close to LVO last year, or hearing it really at all, so apparently not everyone.

And the LVO I watched was won by 1100 points of hive tyrants and mawlocs with 6 lictors riding their coat tails to jump on objectives. Saying the lictors won that is like saying my little 200 point BA detachment has been winning when the rest of my list is white scar gladius and an assassin. Sorry, but I always have to jump on that anytime anyone repeats the misinformative "lictors won lvo!!" comment.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
You might be right about the groupthink, but it's an unprovable statement in either direction.

Not really, the latest Tau issue was clearly mismanaged.

I don't recall saying tyranids suck anytime close to LVO last year, or hearing it really at all, so apparently not everyone.

And the LVO I watched was won by 1100 points of hive tyrants and mawlocs with 6 lictors riding their coat tails to jump on objectives. Saying the lictors won that is like saying my little 200 point BA detachment has been winning when the rest of my list is white scar gladius and an assassin. Sorry, but I always have to jump on that anytime anyone repeats the misinformative "lictors won lvo!!" comment.

Sure, show me the other lists with Lictors running around.

Fragile wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
You might be right about the groupthink, but it's an unprovable statement in either direction.

Not really, the latest Tau issue was clearly mismanaged.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
People say that they don't playtest at all, but that would imply that they're lying when they say they play plenty of games that they don't stream.

Around the time of the tau CF vote, I specifically heard them say that Frankie was constantly running tau in off-camera games. Why do people think that Tuesday night fight is the only game they play every week?

Heres the problem though, two guys playing 10 games in a back room on little sleep (I say this because they are always talking about how overburdened they are) against the same opponents over and over using the same FAQ/same missions isn't how you collect useful data anyway.

With the first round of TAU voting they didn't even wait to see the official rules. Remember that vote on allowing 1-3 stormsurge units before the book hit and they did in fact have awesome firepower? Whoops. The hunter contingent vote was way to quick too. Sometimes it's about digesting games and data over time. I can play against a new rule 6 times a day for a weekend and I am sure I'll have worse ideas about facing it then if I played less games over a couple months.

The premise that nobody can call out flaws in a system is bogus. People aren't insulting any ones honer for, they are questioning the method. Because being told, "we play tested it all week countless times" isn't meaningful without context. I have seen them make some wrong conclusions on camera for multiple broadcasts, the assault out of coherency thing comes to mind. They were flat out wrong and were griping on camera about it during games and they were interpreting the rule completely out of whack, which happens at the local shops all the time, and which is fine btw we all get things wrong. But that is why it's important to allow the larger community to digest some of the rules before voting.

ITC is a good thing! It's a great thing, but perhaps it's grown to the point where they need to accept help? IDK, questions and debate are good things!

Edited to tremove my poor attempts at humor that end up looking like im a dink

Different strokes. I think people underestimate how much suckage there is in letting things marinate in the stew too long before changing them. You think people nerd rage about their ITC nerfs now? Wait until you yoink away something they've been using like wraithknights or decurions.

I would much rather they tell me out of the gate that something isn't going to fly rather than wait for me to buy, model, paint, list up, and practice with it.

Taking away makes people a lot angrier than buffing.

 Mulletdude wrote:
Well, not sure if anyone noticed this, but the ITC "FAQ" has been updated with more rule changes.

Most notably:

Tau Empire:

Models in the Piranha Firestream Wing formation may not leave the table using the Rearm and Refuel special rule the same turn that they arrive from Reserves or Ongoing Reserves.
When returning to the table using the Rearm and Refuel special rule, the Piranha unit does so at full strength, including regaining Piranhas that have been destroyed earlier in the game. However, models that have formed their own unit due to being immobilized are not replaced.

All Ghostkeels in a unit activate their Holophoton Countermeasures at the same time.

If a Stormsurge that has deployed its Stabilising Anchors is Tank Shocked, it must Death or Glory in response. If it fails to stop the Tank Shocking vehicle, it suffers D3 wounds and the tank is left in base to base contact with the Stormsurge at the point it made contact with it.

General:

Any shooting attack or rule that requires a hit on a unit that is protected by a Void Shield hits the shield instead. Example: Psychic Witchfires, Marker Lights, etc. This will often nullify these attacks.

This means the drone factory idea is dead in ITC, the Stormsurge might just die to a bunch of Rhinos, and the Ghostkeels you never took in units larger than one has literally no purpose to being bigger than 1 ghostkeel.

The ITC has nerfed Tau so much that it is clearly bias. A democratic process doesnt make it right. If you asked a classroom of kids to raise your hand if you want to go play outside but Tommy has to stay inside what is going to be the result?

It is clearly bias and I will explain, every single new competitive thing Tau got was nerfed!

They got a new decurion detachment that allowed multiple units to shoot at one target at the same time sharing marker lights and special rules. The fear of target lock and the stormsurge shooting at different targets and still getting the special rules made ITC the Space Marine Chaptr take a vote to decide if Tau should get to use their new formation. Instead of making an errata to say only the unit chosen as the target of coordinated firepower can be affected by special rules, the Space Marine Chapter eliminated completely. Its ok for Necrons to get a 4+ re-animation roll or space marines to get free dedicated transports or ad mech to get hundreds of free upgrade points but Tau coordinated firepower is just to strong.

They got a new unit called ghostkeels! Which have a once per game ability to make shots fired at them snap shots. You can take them in units of 3 and get 3 uses of it theoratically right, but oh no the Space Marine Chapter does not want to deal with that so they nerfed that also making it to where you can only use it once even if you buy more than one in a squad. These things come equip with 6 str 7 shots and a twin-linked fusion blaster or a small blast str 8 melta shot very scary I know! The sad part about it is that they have a cool formation but its weaker now so out of the two new things that the codex got so far both are nerfed.

They got a new Lord of War! It has a cool rule where it basically cant move and by doing that it can fire its weapons twice. Very hard to deal with as it has 8 wounds I believe, but the Space Marine Chapter made a rule to where they can tank shock it to death if it is taken advantage of its ability to fire twice. Those free transports that their un-nerfed Decurion have plenty of now have a purpose!

The piranha formation first turn you get drones that a regular piranha squad would get so no benefit there. Second turn you get 140 points worth of drones but the piranha squad cost 200 so you havent made a profit you have 60 points less on the field than you should. Turn 3 you now have 280 points worth of drones remember that drones cannot score nor deny objectives and are ld 7, the formation cannot be combine with the cordinated fire power rule because its in a different formation if you combine it with the drone network to boast their bs you are spending around 900 points on drones and piranhas. If the piranhas are constanly leaving the board what is going to claim the objectives? Do you think you could kill their scoring units? If you make a rule saying you cant leave the board turn one you dont get a profit till turn 4 games can end on turn five so I really dont see whats so scary but when the Space Marine Chapter is determining the rules anything can happen. The way its been changed you get 80 free points on turn 5 which is the same turn the game can end so there is no Drone farm it doesnt exist now.

So instead of having cool inventive list your going to see riptide wings all over the place! Ironically riptides was the only thing the tau codex had going for it before they got a new codex and after the Space Marine Chapter (ITC) nerfs, its the only thing it has going for it now. Luckily space marines have grav-cannons to deal with riptides! How is this good for the game? Do you really want to see dozens of riptide wings? Would it not had been cooler to see Hunter Cadres?

So basically the democratic process eliminated all new elements that the tau could have brought and force them back to the same old riptides which Space Marines already had an answer to!

Its a joke, hopefully the rules were rushed because of LVO and people were scared, These rules should be voted on again where erratas are made and not nerfs.

 CKO wrote:
The ITC has nerfed Tau so much that it is clearly bias. A democratic process doesnt make it right.

This. People need to stop pretending that ITC is an impartial FAQ when it's blatantly a "nerf any army we don't like" set of house rules with no legitimacy at all.

Frankie plays Tau and Reece plays Eldar. Apparently that is just a clever ruse to throw us off as they try to destroy these Tau and Eldar.

THE BALLS THOSE TWO HAVE GOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think they've nerfed Eldar though? Aside the 0-1 Wraithknight, but that was a GW decision to make it LoW.

Rage is strong. I think I'll crawl under a rock, crack on with painting, maybe celebrate Chinese New Years and wait to see what develops.

 Frozocrone wrote:
I don't think they've nerfed Eldar though? Aside the 0-1 Wraithknight, but that was a GW decision to make it LoW.

Rage is strong. I think I'll crawl under a rock, crack on with painting, maybe celebrate Chinese New Years and wait to see what develops.

They nerfed warp spiders

The stormsurge Death and glory is what takes the cake! If the stormsurge have to death and glory because it couldnt move any unit that fired a heavy weapon in the previous shooting phase should have to death and glory! I mean technically they couldnt move, right? If you say they can move out the way the surge can move the restraints are not mandatory!

especially cause, tknow THEY DONT WRITE THE FAQ ANYMORE they got other people working on it

Ah, so now Reece and Frankie are using fake identities for their fiendish plots.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
especially cause, tknow THEY DONT WRITE THE FAQ ANYMORE they got other people working on it

So what your saying is the people that playtest all the time are not the ones writing the FAQ?

They playtest and write, but it isnt just them, it is several people who have a hand in it and help them write it