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Do you mean, taking an IG brigade, then taking another detachment of marines? I don't see how that's an exploit, bringing a brigade of 'filler' to save what, 2 command points from a battalion?

What i mean is that if you can make a filler army for one in which you can use a specialized detachment to make the meat of your list to not be hit soo much by the penalties if you took say a battalion to make up the extra points.

Say you wanted a hellblaster heavy list with repulsors (so a captain with hellblaster/repulsors only), but you dont want to take any more CP hits because you know what stratagems you need to use, so to fill the rest of the gap you use an army that is easier to get a battalion, in this case IG to fill in the gap.

Since CP in this format is finite, you want to do as many things as possible to ensure you have the most amount of CP for the game. With this setup the person saves at least another 2 CP, whic doesn't sound like much but considering that most good strats are 2 CP, it's a hell of a good investment.

This type of list building would be very common for list such as these, as the hit by taking another detachment hurts when the resource is finite and diminishing

Show me. Post this hypothetical list and we'll see how it breaks this format.


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Also, having 2 CP more is much different from having what a brigade currently gives. I'm not seeing the problem with what you seem to be posting over and over, but not exactly explaining why it's such a 'pitfall.'

If a brigade is the only problem area with this format you can see, why not suggest fixing the brigade? It seems you're just willing to throw the entire idea out because you think you've found some sort of loophole to maintain high CP, which ends up saving... 2 more over a battalion.

I think that mchammadad's point is that instead of taking minimal brigades to spam CP's, a player can instead take minimal brigades to avoid losing CP's instead, so the exploit still exists to a degree, which is a fair point.

That said, it's still not breaking the subtractive system as such as it's a far weaker exploit, and you're still capped by actual game size, rather than number of exploitative detachments taken. Plus you're still losing CP's for the specialist detachment(s) you take, you're not able to counteract that in any way.

It would be a good argument in favour of also adding a points minimum to battalions and brigades, as this will still help to limit their being spammed.

Or different values to prevent abusive options.

Mchagen wrote:
Or different values to prevent abusive options.

The only problem with this is you would probably be playing the equivalent of 40k army builder whack a mole, cause when you change the values of one army to be more points heavy everyone will just go to the next cheapest army, and so on and so on and then you get to the point where guardsmen are 10-12pts a model, then SM's join in the circle and along it keeps on going.

There is no solution to this type of thinking. Point adjustments on their own will not solve anything, but rather a combination of different things (Minimum point requirements for detachments, Limit of datasheets, Adjustments on weapons and not models)

A combination of these things works, but when you only adjust them individually you get nowhere


You must remember, If a game has rules then someone is gonna try and exploit the rules to their benefits

What are you typing? I mean the values for detachments.

Hmm... Adjusting the Detachment slots will kinda make people lean into either detachments that would fulfill their entire army composition in one go without needing useless or "tax" slots or they would lean into detachments that give better bonuses but require a slight increase in "Tax" units

For example, say you made the battalion get an additional 2 heavy support slots in total (So 5 heavy slots per batalion detachment), if you can fufill your army composition with only 4 or 5 heavy slots, then there is no need to ever go for the heavy slot detachment when you know that the batallion would be less of a penalty CP wise, even if you had to pay extra in "tax" troops and an additional HQ.

A second example is that you made the specialized detachments require one "Troop" slot in addition to it's current slot cost, but in exchange the points reduction is reduced to 3 instead of 4, Again. If you can fill out your army composition with this detachment, then it would look to be a much better alternative than taking a battalion and being "taxed" with the requirements of an additional HQ and two more troops

Adjusting the penalties of the detachments themselves will either make some detachments more appealing in terms of army building or look less appealing. I mean the Super heavy detachment looks terrible compared to the auxiliary version. It's basically saying that one lord of war is better in terms of CP than a army of lord of wars(Imperial knights army cries). Tweaking these will need many iterations of play testing and feedback to get the "sweet" spot. But atm we do not have enough data or feedback to see if this current iteration of these rules are what is considered "balanced".

However, the ruleset at this moment is a good foundation to start upon. Slight adjustments based on feedback will make it better as it's played more

But this is only one part of the cookie, the other parts are unit points and universal restrictions

Just make CP based on Point Limit. The argument that "small elite armies should have less CP" is nonsense because every faction other than Necrons can spam two super cheap battalions or are based on two battalions at a minimum anyway.

mchammadad wrote:
I mean the Super heavy detachment looks terrible compared to the auxiliary version. It's basically saying that one lord of war is better in terms of CP than a army of lord of wars(Imperial knights army cries).

I don't know why I need to explain this, but 1 lord or war slot doesn't make an army, 3-5 slots do. Also, when taking 1 lord of war subtracts 3, and taking three min slots subtracts 7, the basic math shows that taking 3 super heavy auxiliary equates to 9 lost CP. That's not terrible comparatively.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Just make CP based on Point Limit. The argument that "small elite armies should have less CP" is nonsense because every faction other than Necrons can spam two super cheap battalions or are based on two battalions at a minimum anyway.

I'm beginning to realize this might be the best option, with some changes on how command points can be used. I think this idea from Wyldhunt in the shenanigans thread has potential;

Wyldhunt wrote:

A while back, I pitched something to the effect of...

*Make all stratagems either minor or major.
* Select X minor stratagems before deployment.
* Select Y major stratagems before deployment.
* You may use either an unlimited number or Z (hadn't settled on which) minor stratagems in a game round.
* You may use one major stratagem in a game round.
* Some stratagems would still be usable before/during deployment. The number of times they could be used would vary from stratagem to stratagem.
*Command points are no longer a thing; you just play the stratagems throughout the game.
*Optionally, include "Medium" stratagems that could be used more often than major stratagems, but less often than minor ones.

The intention was to limit the number of stratagems you had to remember at once, allow players to use the less potent stratagems they'd normally feel iffy about spending CP on, and provide players with yet another way to make their army (and its tactics) more personalized.

Though I still think there should be a total CP available so that stratagems are still valued based on how good they are instead of simply 'major' or 'minor' with set allowable amounts each turn.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Just make CP based on Point Limit. The argument that "small elite armies should have less CP" is nonsense because every faction other than Necrons can spam two super cheap battalions or are based on two battalions at a minimum anyway.

Except that doesn't put any demands on list creation at all. I think they very much want players taking troops. It seems generally pretty healthy for everyone to have a chunk of chaff in their lists.

Chaff already has its own merit. If troops in general need more of a boost, then additional bonuses for scoring could be implemented. An extra VP on a 3+ for scoring an objective with troops choices for example.

 LunarSol wrote:
Except that doesn't put any demands on list creation at all. I think they very much want players taking troops. It seems generally pretty healthy for everyone to have a chunk of chaff in their lists.

I think it's less about forcing you to take troops, and more about discouraging the use of overly specialised armies, or at least, making you pay for it in some way.

An army of all Imperial Knights for example has the potential to steam-roll a more balanced list that may not have quite enough anti-tank to really deal with it, especially if they don't get first turn (so some of that anti-tank is dying right away). Access to stratagems that can deal mortal wounds, help protect those units, or allow you to play to your own strengths can thereby balance things out a bit.

So no, I wouldn't want to have CPs based on game size alone, as this would either break list building or require us to go back to a single force organisation option again. I think if we want freedom in list building then CPs are a decent way to balance choice, so different detachment types still need to have their trade-offs.

Making CP based on points alone wouldn't necessarily require a return to the FoC or break list building. There could be other reasons to take detachments, such as specific game-play options or stratagems available to each detachment.

Also, troops wont go away because they are the only units that reliably get objec secure in this edition if your army is codex forged.

Taking no troop detachments basically means that you are taking a more elite based army but sacrificing your objective staying power by skimming on troops.

There have probably been many games won because someone didn't have troops while the other guy did on that one important objective.

Troops still have a role in this edition, but people shouldn't be forced to take them if they don't want to.

Hense the CP based on points sounds like an excellent idea

I like the suggestion op made to prevent cp farms. Here is my counter suggestion. Everyone gets 10cp with no chance to regenerate them (aka remove those lame traits and relics). All detachments would give +0cp so you can build wathever army. That would remove all the 180pts soup farms and put all armies on an equal playing field.

Gitdakka wrote:
I like the suggestion op made to prevent cp farms. Here is my counter suggestion. Everyone gets 10cp with no chance to regenerate them (aka remove those lame traits and relics). All detachments would give +0cp so you can build wathever army. That would remove all the 180pts soup farms and put all armies on an equal playing field.

This is almost exactly what I've been thinking of play-testing next. Though I still think the command points should scale based on points level. So I'll be testing it at 1CP for every full 150 points. I've added it to the original post.

If needed, bonuses (not in the form of CP) can be added to less appealing detachments. Either game-play options or unlocked stratagems that are gained by taking a specific detachment.

Mchagen wrote:

Gitdakka wrote:
I like the suggestion op made to prevent cp farms. Here is my counter suggestion. Everyone gets 10cp with no chance to regenerate them (aka remove those lame traits and relics). All detachments would give +0cp so you can build wathever army. That would remove all the 180pts soup farms and put all armies on an equal playing field.

This is almost exactly what I've been thinking of play-testing next. Though I still think the command points should scale based on points level. So I'll be testing it at 1CP for every full 150 points. I've added it to the original post.

If needed, bonuses (not in the form of CP) can be added to less appealing detachments. Either game-play options or unlocked stratagems that are gained by taking a specific detachment.

The question is if cp really scales with points. The amount of rounds remain the same for small or big games. So there are only a certain amount of time you can use cp. Now if you had say 20cp @2000pts it would be pretty hard to use them all compared to 10cp @1000pts. Maybe it scales in a non linear fashion.

I think it's pretty obvious that it should be commanders giving command points. Not troops. A supreme command is what should be bringing lots of command points.

Each HQ should basically have a CP value when you purchase them.

Example.
Company commander gives you 1 CP
Lord Commisar gives you 2 CP

Super commanders like Calgar or an Autarch or a custodian hero should give you like 3-4 CP.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I think it's pretty obvious that it should be commanders giving command points. Not troops. A supreme command is what should be bringing lots of command points.

Each HQ should basically have a CP value when you purchase them.

Example.
Company commander gives you 1 CP
Lord Commisar gives you 2 CP

Super commanders like Calgar or an Autarch or a custodian hero should give you like 3-4 CP.

This would probably lead to everyone allying in custodes commanders and blood angel smah captains. For the added cp benefit. We would effectively replace am battallion spam with cheesy hq spam.


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This or IG commander spam for cheap CP

Gitdakka wrote:
The question is if cp really scales with points. The amount of rounds remain the same for small or big games. So there are only a certain amount of time you can use cp. Now if you had say 20cp @2000pts it would be pretty hard to use them all compared to 10cp @1000pts. Maybe it scales in a non linear fashion.

I think it does for games under 2000 points, which for what I play works fine. Using a ratio of 1 to 150 gives 13 CP in a 2000 point game and 10 in 1500 points. I think that's a reasonable average.

CP based on HQs would be another exploitable resource method and would likely be more abusive than the current detachment rules.

Gitdakka wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I think it's pretty obvious that it should be commanders giving command points. Not troops. A supreme command is what should be bringing lots of command points.

Each HQ should basically have a CP value when you purchase them.

Example.
Company commander gives you 1 CP
Lord Commisar gives you 2 CP

Super commanders like Calgar or an Autarch or a custodian hero should give you like 3-4 CP.

This would probably lead to everyone allying in custodes commanders and blood angel smah captains. For the added cp benefit. We would effectively replace am battallion spam with cheesy hq spam.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This or IG commander spam for cheap CP

I still think CP's should be limited to your own faction. So that would fix that problem.



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Mchagen wrote:

Gitdakka wrote:
The question is if cp really scales with points. The amount of rounds remain the same for small or big games. So there are only a certain amount of time you can use cp. Now if you had say 20cp @2000pts it would be pretty hard to use them all compared to 10cp @1000pts. Maybe it scales in a non linear fashion.

I think it does for games under 2000 points, which for what I play works fine. Using a ratio of 1 to 150 gives 13 CP in a 2000 point game and 10 in 1500 points. I think that's a reasonable average.

CP based on HQs would be another exploitable resource method and would likely be more abusive than the current detachment rules.

How would it be more exploitable? Troops are cheaper than HQ's dude. Armies that have cheap HQ's also have cheap troops. The issue with these armies is they can transfer their busted CP generation to armies that can't get command points on their own.

My solution fixes both problems currently involved with command point gerneration.
#1 All armies would be able to effectively produce their own command points.
#2 With command points being limited to your own faction (ie. Custodes would only allowed to be able to use command points generated by custodes).

Pricing on some HQ's might need to change. Plus you could give currently useless options have a use now.
Example.
Captain smash might produce 2 command points - a chaplain could create 3.
A fireblade might produce 2 - an ethereal 3.
(just ideas)

Don't know exactly where the numbers should be but obviously it should be some sort of per point ratio. Meaning - every army should be able to produce command points at about the same rate.

Certain factions it would make sense that it is their specialty (like space marines). Some might not excel at it (like IK) in general though - HQ's are the ones giving command (they should be the ones producing command points).

But it doesn't eliminate value gained from points per CP obtained. So for instance, an IG character gives X amount of CP, compared to a SM character that gives X or Y amount of CP, or even another type of IG character that costs more, but not significantly enough to change the amount of command points gained. Those CP values won't and can't be exactly based on points so there will be a skew which creates the abuse. The cheapest, best value HQs will be chosen to spam CP.

It's trading one abusive system for another.

Mchagen wrote:
But it doesn't eliminate value gained from points per CP obtained. So for instance, an IG character gives X amount of CP, compared to a SM character that gives X or Y amount of CP, or even another type of IG character that costs more, but not significantly enough to change the amount of command points gained. Those CP values won't and can't be exactly based on points so there will be a skew which creates the abuse. The cheapest, best value HQs will be chosen to spam CP.

It's trading one abusive system for another.

You could only abuse it if you were allowed to trade CP between factions. Which is part of my suggestion. I suggest you can't do that first and foremost.

Then - we could look at fixing some stratagems. Since now - every books stratagems know exactly what kind of CP genreation can be expected from within that codex. Some might need to go down in price because of that.

 Xenomancers wrote:
You could only abuse it if you were allowed to trade CP between factions. Which is part of my suggestion. I suggest you can't do that first and foremost.

How would you balance all the different HQ choices in each book against each other. Then make sure that internal balance matches external. Your suggestion would require a significant rework of HQs in order to achieve a balanced system. But you're obviously free to go ahead and do so and post the results. I doubt you'd be willing to do it though. You've not even posted how many 'HQ' points a CP should be valued at. The point is, once you start evaluating the details, the system becomes ridiculously complex to change into something usable without simply creating arbitrary values and sticking them onto each HQ.

I can understand the background concept of HQ choices providing command points, but it requires a significant amount of updates to implement correctly.

Then - we could look at fixing some stratagems. Since now - every books stratagems know exactly what kind of CP genreation can be expected from within that codex. Some might need to go down in price because of that.

That's a topic for another thread.

Whether it be only using your own factions CP, or CP determined by points values, or CP provided by Characters etc. ANY change to the CP system would require extensive playtesting.

My preference at the moment is CP from characters that can only be used for that characters faction, combined with a small pool of CP that can be used by anyone in your army.

If they keep the CP concept roughly as what we have today I would like to see the following for Matched play:

2CP per 250 pts
Gain 1CP per game turn
Make a universal "Grand Strategist" BRB Warlord trait for all factions to take if they want
Give each faction a Relic similar to Kurov's Aquila, only usable from the Warlord detachment, so no stacking from multiple relics.
And finally make faction specific warlord traits and relics worth taking in the sense that you have to really weight the benefits of CP generation to the faction specific traits.

X078 wrote:
If they keep the CP concept roughly as what we have today I would like to see the following for Matched play:

2CP per 250 pts
Gain 1CP per game turn
Make a universal "Grand Strategist" BRB Warlord trait for all factions to take if they want
Give each faction a Relic similar to Kurov's Aquila, only usable from the Warlord detachment, so no stacking from multiple relics.
And finally make faction specific warlord traits and relics worth taking in the sense that you have to really weight the benefits of CP generation to the faction specific traits.

Don't you run into the problem that for certain armies CP is way more valuable then for others?

Not Online!!! wrote:

X078 wrote:
If they keep the CP concept roughly as what we have today I would like to see the following for Matched play:

2CP per 250 pts
Gain 1CP per game turn
Make a universal "Grand Strategist" BRB Warlord trait for all factions to take if they want
Give each faction a Relic similar to Kurov's Aquila, only usable from the Warlord detachment, so no stacking from multiple relics.
And finally make faction specific warlord traits and relics worth taking in the sense that you have to really weight the benefits of CP generation to the faction specific traits.

Don't you run into the problem that for certain armies CP is way more valuable then for others?

That's already a problem today by just having the CP mechanic. By having CP's and letting a faction get more benefit out of them them creates imbalance. One way to handle this is to balance the cost and use of stratagems better.
The value of CP's is in my view one of the more important things that GW uses today when introducing a new codex. It will be more optimized, ergo better. Good old power creep. But hey they wouldn't sell as many new models otherwise. It's the same concept as computer gaming, introduce an OP unit, nerf it in a later patch.

X078 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

X078 wrote:
If they keep the CP concept roughly as what we have today I would like to see the following for Matched play:

2CP per 250 pts
Gain 1CP per game turn
Make a universal "Grand Strategist" BRB Warlord trait for all factions to take if they want
Give each faction a Relic similar to Kurov's Aquila, only usable from the Warlord detachment, so no stacking from multiple relics.
And finally make faction specific warlord traits and relics worth taking in the sense that you have to really weight the benefits of CP generation to the faction specific traits.

Don't you run into the problem that for certain armies CP is way more valuable then for others?

That's already a problem today by just having the CP mechanic. By having CP's and letting a faction get more benefit out of them them creates imbalance. One way to handle this is to balance the cost and use of stratagems better.
The value of CP's is in my view one of the more important things that GW uses today when introducing a new codex. It will be more optimized, ergo better. Good old power creep. But hey they wouldn't sell as many new models otherwise. It's the same concept as computer gaming, introduce an OP unit, nerf it in a later patch.

One would imagine that GW allready makes enough money on their rulebooks, codices, CA and other assorted "must-haves" reccurently no?
Also it is kind of counterproductive to basically restart the ruleset to get rid of the powercreep and basically just pulling a 180 and adding it back in instead with "stratagems".