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Hey dakka, I love competitive play, and think its just as valid as thematic or campaign style games. However, I can't stand two parts of it - the whole 'spam builds' thing, and the overwhelming advantage given to players on pure chance via the Seize the Initiative mechanic, and to a lesser extent, things like Warlord traits. So I'm trying to come up with some home-rules that I can apply that would allow me to have competitive games but limit the issues that I feel these aspects of competitive play have.

I just want to stress again, this is not some attempt to remove spam builds from all of 40k, or to change the rules or whatever for you, just for if I was to run a games day, a tournament, or even just random competitive games, these are some rules I am considering to help keep those games interesting. I'm not some self-appointed 'internet expert' who thinks he knows how to make a better game than the one you currently enjoy - so don't go getting any ideas like that!

Not all of these rules will be good. Maybe none of them will be good. So I'd like to hear which ones you agree with, and which ones you do not. Feel free to suggest rules of your own!

Possible rule #1 is; No more seize the initiative

Going first is a major advantage. Placing second is a major advantage as well, one that can balance out going first. But a player who both places second and moves first has pretty much won the game already. So simply put, I'd remove the possibility of this happening - no more seize the initiative rolls. If you place first, you'll go first, full stop.

Possible rule #2 is; you must fill up the FoC

Since the games would have both objectives to hold, and kill points, players who skimp on troops, who say "screw this, here's my six ten man cultist squads you dick, now I'mma spend the rest on Helldrakes!" are going to be handing over a heck of a lot of points to the other side.

Possible rule #3 is; Kills in close combat award double kill points

So much shooting in this game, I think maybe an incentive for a little more close combat is required.

Possible rule #4 is; kills by troops choices award double kill points and/or only troops can contest objectives

Instead of emphasizing close combat, maybe we need to reward players who beef up their basic troops choices?

Possible rule #5 is; there is *always* night fighting

I'm not a big fan of seeing half my army blown away on turn one. This would help limit the effects of that.

Possible rule #6 is; less random traits and powers

Instead of simply rolling for these at the start, the two players take turns vetoing powers or traits from the selected list until you've got the right amount filling out your character's requirements. Alternatively, your opponent can veto X options and you can pick freely from the rest. The more traits or powers your army is built to benefit from, the more likely you are to end up with the advantage you want, and it brings an element of mind-games to it - they'll be trying to figure out what powers benefit you the most and veto them, while your trying to hide the true intention of your army in order to grab the power you want.

And finally, the last rule I had in mind; no multiples of any non-troops unit

I know, half the players will need to leave two vendettas at home, but I'd like to see something else on the board for once.

At a fundamental level, 40k is not a balanced, tight, or competitive ruleset. The codex system further exacerbates this problem, but overall, the game is woefully inadequate as a real measure of skill in wargaming. The general lack of movement and maneouvring/positioning and the ability to easily fill up most of your deployment area in 2000+ games means a lot of the game is decided from the list and good deployment. Further to this, the game can be decided by a few key dice rolls on table of varying importance. While I haven't played some contemporary games like WarmaHordes, I have played several space ship battle games which incorporate both more positioning and actual tactical movements, as well as dice rolling that tends towards predictable averages.

Your rules try and address some of the symptoms of 40k's general lack of tightness, but overall fail to address the problem itself. You also will invalidate a lot of people's lists, or force them to bring they either can't build because of models, or don't want to field.

I'm generally fine with #1, so no worries. However, #2 is where it gets bad. Filling up the FoC is nigh impossible at 1500pts, and very difficult for many armies at 2000+. I should never be forced to build my list a different way than what is stated in the rule book. You can politely ask your opponents to make accommodations, such as no double FoC at 2000pts, but forcing people to fit a certain criteria that may or may not be possible or hurt their list is in poor form.

Rule #3 is interesting, and I'm not sure if I like it. A powerful Ork list could then easily generate more kill points than a Tau or IG list simply based on the fact the Tau or IG will have to kill twice as many units. I see what you're trying to do, but I think it ultimately fails in its aim as it could potentially allow for people to min/max an all assault list.

Rule #4 grossly favours codices with naturally strong troop choices, and punishes the ones with weak choices. Orkz and IG will rejoice and stock up on Boyz and platoons. C:SM will be crushed, as a basic Tac squad is not good, no matter how you tool it up. Every codex behaves differently, and some have awesome troop choices, while others are only meh. This rule would further break that balance.

Rule #5 first of all doesn't make sense from a theme perspective, as not every battle is fought in some kind of darkness or noticeable haze. I know what you're trying to address here, but some armies benefit more than armies. Tau now have a lot of night fight ignoring rules, while some older armies would struggle greatly with this. Again, blanket rules like this affect some codices more than others and rather than create balance, will only create more imbalance. Your example of losing half your army would still happen against Tau, who will happily ignore night fighting and still blow you off the table.

Rule #6 is where I really agree with you. Random powers and leadership traits are not good, and players should be able to select them. 100% fully agree on this point.

And your last rule, I'd refer back to my earlier point about filling the FoC. You think 'spammy', I think 'fluffy'. My IG list has a bunch of vets or squads in chimeras, with a few russes, and some support, all of which are in multiples of at least 2. Your rule would 100% completely invalidate my list, and I don't have enough variety in my models to field a legal one. Forcing people to fundamentally change their list is a poor rule, as I wouldn't be allowed to play in your event. I imagine there are many others who would be in the same boat, or just simply wouldn't want to bring a bunch of sub-par units they hate (both model wise and rule wise) that don't fit in their list, just to meet your requirement. Point is, many fluffy lists *have* to take multiple of the same unit. IG operate in squadrons, so taking three seperate Vendettas as FA choices, is both fluffy and competitive.

Basically, I don't see many blanket style rules creating much in the way of better balance or gameplay due to the rules themselves, or the codex system and how every army operates in a different fashion. You'd have to spend hours analyzing every possible competitive army list for every codex and eachother using these rules to truly understand how it would affect gameplay. Making assault more worthwhile only benefits assault oriented armies and punishes those who only shoot. Night fighting grossly favours those with easy access to Night vision and acute senses, while punishes the rest.

Sorry, and I hate to be mostly a downer, but I personally would refuse to play against 5/7 of these rules. Though #6 is right on the money. Never forget when making restrictions, that other people may have smaller armies, or specialized, focused ones with no extra units. Making them change their list or invalidate them will only generate sour feelings.

You see it as penalizing players with certain lists and what not. I see it as creating a different environment to be competitive in, forcing players to adapt. If people are able to bring the same army to every tournament, that seems like pretty boring play to me. And if they don't like it, they are free to play elsewhere at one of the many places that aren't using particular restrictions - like I said, I'm not at all trying to tell people how to play their game in their spare time, or to make some kind of tournament standard ruleset, because that would be a real douchebag move.

I think we might have a different gaming culture over here in NZ. Counts-as is fine, and restrictions and rules and such are pretty commonplace - for instance, a Warhammer Fantasy tournament I'm going to in a few months limits the number of "shots" your army can field, puts limits on maximum cost for any one unit, maximum number of units of a specific type, and so on. I take no issue with the blanket restrictions, but only with the ones that target a certain army or unit - ie, maximum of X Skink Skirmisher units on the table, which is why I'm trying to find such blanket rules to apply in this situation. If you find yourself confronted with a "maximum unit cost of 200pts" blanket rule, and have to change your army around to fit it, I'd call that a good thing because it encourages thinking outside the box, and using strategies, units etc that you'd typically leave in the closet. It brings out the unpredictability GW has tried to achieve with random powers and such, but in a way that doesn't suck

One thing I do take contention with though, is what you said about filling up a FoC at 1500 or 2000 points. This can be done quite easily man. I just slapped together an Ork army that fills every slot for 645pts. Chaos Space Marines can do the same for 935pts. Sure, by no means is either list any good, and it probably isn't balanced between codexes, but thats every slot filled, and plenty of points left over. The Ork list is cheaper than the Chaos one, but its got six units of Gretchin - six easy kill points for his opponent - and if he wants to upgrade them to boys, he might have to ditch that shiny battlewagon he wanted to use, and so on. The balance between needing to buff your compulsary units to make them useful (or at least deny a killpoint), and needing to put points into something specific for your strategy, may be an interesting tournament mechanic which is why I want to explore it.

Anyway, rather than seeing this as your disagreeing with five choices, I see it as your accepting two of them, actually the two most important ones tbh. I'd be interested to see if you've got any alternatives you could recommend? Pretty much, I'm tired of seeing three Helldrakes, or three Vendettas, or Imperial Guard allies in every list, and what not.

I have a lot of concerns with these as well, but I'll go through the list, I may need to group a few of them out of order for the sake of logic.

1. I don't see it as bad as you do, but I don't really disagree with it. I'm of the perspective of if you deploy so recklessly that you can be wiped with a seized initiative,p it is not the seizing's fault. But I'm not that strongly opposed or support, so whatever.

2 and 7. These are very shortsighted and can create instant nonwinning situations for some armies. For example, I'm a Sisters of Battle player, I have only 2 choices for Fast Attack. Fast Attack FOC has 3 spots. What do I do because I can't repeat a unit either. Likewise, in order to suit these rules, I have to spread my slots around in a way that has a lot of points in a unit that simply does not fit how the SoB play, the Penetient Engines. This is not a matter of strength, but the codex supports a shooting army, and the Engines are simply out of sync, hurting my ability to put together a strategy because I am saddled with something designed to punish other unit spamming.

3. If the reasoning behind a new rule is "well X is too strong" then I don't support it. This is not a successful balance, it is an imbalance in the contrary direction.

4. Blacksails put it perfectly here.

5. Quite frankly, I hate this. This is not a balancing or competitive change. This is you not liking "half (your) army blown away on turn one." I'm gonna be blunt with you on this, this seems like a self-serving request to punish armies who counter you wrapped up in the name of "competitive balance."

6. I agree with this to a point. In many instances, there's a lot of no-brainer Warlord Traits that a person can safely ignore given their opponent. For example, let's run down what is considered the 'best' of the BRB Warlord traits (At least by measure of my local meta), the Strategic traits:

1 - Move through Cover and Stealth Ruins (good)
2 - Choose Night fighting (useless under your new system)
3 - Acute Senses for Outflankers (situational and only if I have Outflankers)
4 - Re-roll Reserves (situational good)
5 - Enemy has -1 to Reserves (situational good)
6 - Redeploy units (random and low use)

The "mind games" my opponent would need to do is simply veto 2 to 3 of them easily and I've got no worthwhile traits while the new codices tend to have universally useful traits (especially Tau). This is not a shortcoming of your system, though, this is just a sign that it can only really be implemented with a revamp of the Warlord Traits, or additional tables for each army. The same applies for Psychic Powers and so on, there are always clearly better choices, so there's never a chance for a mind game.

The only complaint of #6 that I really have is that it would really bog down the game's flow.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Possible rule #1 is; No more seize the initiative

No. Sieze the initiative exists for a very good reason: so that the person who gets to deploy first has to choose between a conservative deployment that minimizes the impact of seizing the initiative or an all-out alpha strike that risks being overextended and punished severely if the opponent seizes the initiative. Remove that risk and now the person who is getting the first turn can deploy as aggressively as they want without any risk of failure.

Possible rule #2 is; you must fill up the FoC

How does this even work when most armies can't fill up the FOC before running out of points?

Possible rule #3 is; Kills in close combat award double kill points

Completely pointless. Assault armies don't need to be exactly equal to shooting in a scifi game. If anything, assault armies are already over-represented.

Possible rule #4 is; kills by troops choices award double kill points and/or only troops can contest objectives

No. The missions already reward taking lots of troops. There is no need to add even more incentives.

Possible rule #5 is; there is *always* night fighting

Completely pointless. The best shooting armies already pretty much ignore night fighting (blacksun filters, searchlight spam), so this only makes your problems worse.

And finally, the last rule I had in mind; no multiples of any non-troops unit

no. This is a terrible rule. Banning armies that you don't enjoy is really bad for the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dakkamite wrote:
If you find yourself confronted with a "maximum unit cost of 200pts" blanket rule, and have to change your army around to fit it, I'd call that a good thing because it encourages thinking outside the box, and using strategies, units etc that you'd typically leave in the closet.

No, it doesn't encourage thinking outside the box, it just encourages thinking inside a different box. Imposing a limit like that just changes what the best strategy is, there's still going to be a best strategy that can be optimized and spammed.

Sure, by no means is either list any good, and it probably isn't balanced between codexes,

And that's the problem. What you're saying is that in a low-point game you have to spend tons of points on garbage units just to fill up the FOC as cheaply as possible. And sorry, but taking garbage units isn't fun.

Pretty much, I'm tired of seeing three Helldrakes, or three Vendettas, or Imperial Guard allies in every list, and what not.

So stop playing in tournaments? "I don't enjoy unit X" is a terrible starting point for making a balanced competitive metagame, and is almost guaranteed to make things worse.

3. If the reasoning behind a new rule is "well X is too strong" then I don't support it. This is not a successful balance, it is an imbalance in the contrary direction.

If something is imbalanced, and restricting it is not an option, then the only option that remains seems to be to let the unbalanced option dominate the game. The result is todays meta where 75% of any given codex is never seen in competitive play, and everythings some variation of flyer spam or gunline.

5. Quite frankly, I hate this. This is not a balancing or competitive change. This is you not liking "half (your) army blown away on turn one." I'm gonna be blunt with you on this, this seems like a self-serving request to punish armies who counter you wrapped up in the name of "competitive balance."

No, and I'm kind of insulted that you'd suggest that.

Rule #5 an attempt to put an end to the issue of "the gunline that shoots first wins the game", and to reduce the strength of gunlines in general. By limiting the strength of massive long range pie plate droppers and such, we make other units and strategies relatively more viable. By shortening the overall distance at which battle takes place, we get a greater emphasis on things like "movement" and "assault" - stuff thats virtually unknown in some armies these days, and stuff I'd like to see more of in the game.

Something I'd like to ask you guys. A tournament that plays Kill Points only missions for example, will disproportionately favour say, Space Marines over Orks, or one players army over another. It will make certain lists and units much weaker, and other lists units much stronger, just like some of my suggestions. I don't see any difference between that situation, and say, a tournament where every battle is night fighting, where someone is only allowed one Elite/FA/HS choice, where melee gets you double victory points, heroes winning challenges give you some benefit, or any number of alternatives. Another instance may be a tournament where every mission has that meatgrinder special rule (whatever it was called), where troops automatically come back to life when wiped out. Now troops have a huge advantage, and other choices do not, my Orks would benefit but your Space Marines would be weaker. Or a tournament on a smaller or larger board, or perhaps one with a low points count for armies (at 500pts, Orks are pretty damn strong). Would such games really be deserving of scorn? I'd like to know if you think so, and if so, whats the difference, between such situations and say, a tournament using one of my possible rules, in your mind.

 Dakkamite wrote:
The result is todays meta where 75% of any given codex is never seen in competitive play, and everythings some variation of flyer spam or gunline.

Restricting the most powerful units isn't going to make the other 75% viable, it's just going to make a different 25% dominate with a different 75% never seen.

Rule #5 an attempt to put an end to the issue of "the gunline that shoots first wins the game", and to reduce the strength of gunlines in general.

You have yet to establish that gunlines are overpowered and need to be reduced in strength.

Would such games really be deserving of scorn?

Yes, all of them deserve scorn. Removing objectives or adding weird special rules that favor one type of army is bad for competitive play.

Restricting the most powerful units isn't going to make the other 75% viable, it's just going to make a different 25% dominate with a different 75% never seen.

If I run one tournament, with one particular set of rules, there isn't time for the almost evolutionary process of elimination to weed the lists down.

You have yet to establish that gunlines are overpowered and need to be reduced in strength.

I think they are. Some dude thinks Skink Skirmishers are overpowered so he restricts them. I think that army after army of pie plate droppers isn't something I want to play against, so I restrict them.

Yes, all of them deserve scorn. Removing objectives or adding weird special rules that favor one type of army is bad for competitive play.

We've got different ideas of competitive play then.

For me its the process of making a strong army to fit any given predetermined (or not!) scenario or set of scenarios. Making a 'all night fighting' tournament would be fine in my book. Or a tournament with all the FoC slots having to be filled, or unlimited HQ slots, or whatever, because those are all different types of predetermined rulesets for players to adapt to, each creating a different environment for competitiveness. And where some armies straight up suck in a 'standard' competitive environment (what is that anyway?) and never get used, perhaps others will fall out of favour in this one.

You seem to see competitive play as something like the "final destination, fox only, no items" joke I saw floating around on the net awhile ago. That theres perhaps one mission type or a very limited range of mission types, maybe a certain amount of terrain that must be on the board, maybe a certain points value, and so on, in order to qualify as 'competitive'. If thats the case, thats fine by me, but then we're really talking about two different things.

Edit: Woah, seems I'm talking to a totally different guy. I didn't even see your previous post and only replied to the one before it.

Replies to that;

How does this even work when most armies can't fill up the FOC before running out of points?

Which armies are those?

No. Sieze the initiative exists for a very good reason: so that the person who gets to deploy first has to choose between a conservative deployment that minimizes the impact of seizing the initiative or an all-out alpha strike that risks being overextended and punished severely if the opponent seizes the initiative. Remove that risk and now the person who is getting the first turn can deploy as aggressively as they want without any risk of failure.

The second player can deploy in response to the first players deployment. Thats a huge advantage and one better suited to countering the "aggressive deployment" advantage of the first player because its not based on pure chance.

No, it doesn't encourage thinking outside the box, it just encourages thinking inside a different box. Imposing a limit like that just changes what the best strategy is, there's still going to be a best strategy that can be optimized and spammed.

A different box that nobody has 'solved' yet. By your logic, theres no point fixing anything, updating the rules etc, as it'll just lead to some other broken build. I don't seek to prevent all broken builds, just to play a fun game in the interim before people could analyse the rule changes to the point of finding the must-have and auto-win units and spamming the crap out of them.

And sorry, but taking garbage units isn't fun. Assault armies overrepresented. Etc

Everything else is just your opinion against mine. Thats not really worth discussing here.

I think those FOC restrictions are simply not workable.

The cheapest possible army I can make from the Tyranid codex, that fills every slot and has no duplicates outside Troops, costs 1080 points.

Of the 17 units at that point, nine are units that would normally never see play. Not just in a competitive torunament list, but even in a "game for fun" list, as they are seen as utter garbage.

If I change just those 9 units to the lowest costed unit that fits the rules and is actually somewhat playable, it already goes up to 1365 points.

For 1500 points that leaves 135 points to play with. So it's not going to help much with thinking outside the box because... I have no box left. Those 135 points vanish in a puff of smoke on upgrades that the units I have at this point, pretty much always get. And just before I'm done with that, 1500.

It does meet one requirement though, you'd see something else on the board.

I quite like the idea of highlander lists, I do like competitive play and considering myself to be a above average player so the next few games I have I will be using highlander rules for my list building but I do not expect my opponents to use it

Sorry but I would have to disagree with most of those suggestions. The only one to my liking is really the warlord trait selections. As previously mentioned its really because of the benefit it contributes is more significant than others. For one's like constant night fighting, it would benefit orks immensely as the majority of their ranged weapons are within 24", but for other's like IG it could hit them hard (true they normally have alternatives like searchlights but still...). Some of the problems are just down to the game mechanics and I don't think there's any small fixes to this, other miniature games I've played like infinity and FoW I've been quite impressed but to even try and incorporate some of their rules would be difficult (especially on the d20).

I won't suggest any alternatives to the problem since I feel my knowledge of 40k is too limited to the armies I play, and a couple of others. In order to make a real improvement I believe you'd need to know all armies thoroughly so that there would be no bias through not knowing how a proposed rule would really effect other armies. And TBH, if the main issues of competitive play you feel are the prevalence of 'spammy' armies, whatever you do wont fix this. I don't think its possible to make an army with 25 different units that are perfectly balanced in all situations. There will always be the better ones, and in the competitive spectrum these will always be focussed on. Really some of the rules proposed I would expect to see in campaigns, such as constant night fighting. This makes for a different game and normally the armies fielded are a bit different, other than thematic reasons, isn't being able to change/add your own rules part of why people do campaigns?

On a side note I quite like seize the initiative. Pretty much for the reason peregrine said; it makes deployment a lot more interesting. Player 1 doesn't want to be too aggressive and get caught out and player 2 too defensive and then not be able to capitalise on seizing the initiative.

 Dakkamite wrote:


No, and I'm kind of insulted that you'd suggest that.

I calls em like I sees em. I'm pretty sure you play Orks, but if I am incorrect, I apologize. But anyway, this is what I've seen going through your list of rules:

1. Benefits Orks, if you deploy first, you have no worries about an aggressive deployment.

2. Benefits Orks, as they have a huge variety of unit types and relatively few "throwaway" units that will never see the light of day. They have some, of course, but far less than other armies.

3. Benefits Orks.

4. Benefits Orks.

5. Benefits Orks.

6. Neutral.

7. Like number 2, this benefits armies like Orks who have a far wider selection.

Not to call it out like this, but when 6 out of your 7 competitive balance ideas directly benefit your army, I have a hard time believing that this is done in the spirit of balance. If you feel something is overpowered, speak to it directly, let's not just completely hose over the armies that lack the variety.

Rule #5 an attempt to put an end to the issue of "the gunline that shoots first wins the game", and to reduce the strength of gunlines in general. By limiting the strength of massive long range pie plate droppers and such, we make other units and strategies relatively more viable. By shortening the overall distance at which battle takes place, we get a greater emphasis on things like "movement" and "assault" - stuff thats virtually unknown in some armies these days, and stuff I'd like to see more of in the game.

Scratch movement out of that. A shorter table doesn't add emphasis on mobility, it just shortens the distance to assault, which seems to be what you are narrowed in on. You want more assault and want more benefits to assault, and dang it you are going to hose anything that might mess that up. That's the impression that I get.

And, as a follow up on forcing players to fill up the FOC, this is not encouraging strategy. List building is part of the strategy of the game, and if a player is forced to fit a template, then they are not able to think of strategies and synergies. You force armies to spread their abilities all thinly, and to hell with a player's plan. What if I want an army that is focused on assault? Well too bad, I can only have one assault unit before I have to fill that FOC slot with shooty stuff.

I agree with everyone who's posted here except Dakkamite. These rules are heavily biased towards ork units, and completely screw other armies.
Adding restrictions doesn't increase competitiveness, it just changes metas to armies that can work under those restrictions.
Going down the line on your rules...
1. Gets rid of risk for first-turn rollers, and without risk there's no reason to use any caution.

2. Screws every army with an old codex, or any army with a poorly done codex, or any army with a codex designed for a couple units to work well together in tight, elite combos. Also, how would you recommend armies like Grey Knights fill out the slots in a smaller game? Taking a hundred different worthless squads doesn't help competitiveness. It also makes it nearly impossible to take heavy hitting squads because you spend so many points filling up the chart.

3. How would you recommend Tau do this? Or Guard? Or... Well, how about literally any gunline army? Tank heavy groups? Unless your army is actually designed for combat, this screws you over. It doesn't increase competitiveness, it just changes meta so that close combat armies ALWAYS win.

4. The same problem as above, for different armies. Orks, some chaos I think, and maybe Nids would benefit from this, and other armies would get their asses collectively handed over because they have no good troops.

5. Screws over gun line armies that aren't Tau or some Guard. Making armies obsolete doesn't increase competitivety in the slightest, it just means that choppy armies will always beat shooty armies.

6. This one isn't so bad, but it allows you to screw over psyker armies by crossing out all of the good powers. In certain lists, some powers are simply better than others. What's that? I'm playing against five tervigons? Let's just get rid of Iron Arm and Enfeeble to get started.

7. This not only is stupid, it counteracts fluff too. Guardsman aren't known for taking single tanks that work disjointedly with medium sized infantry lines. They're known for either taking a bajillion troops or a bajillion tanks by themselves. Tyranids, when assaulting a planet, used massed forms of the same thing to win fights. They'll take three trygons in a deep striking mass or 5 tervigons to support the troops, not a long range unit, a deep striking squad, and a mid-range team that can't work together. It also kills armies that don't have as many good choices and relies on the few ones we have.


These rules, in other words, are terrible. And you aren't listening to anything anyone else has to say, you're disagreeing with every criticism and ignoring good points just because you don't like the way some metas function and want to completely change them.


Tell you what: Why don't YOU follow these rules for building your chart, intentionally take the bad psychic powers, and then refuse to seize the initiative when offered the chance. Don't make your opponent follow those rules, just yourself. Tell me how well that works for you.

Personally I wouldn't play with these rules. Although there are good intentions behind them (particular ones I would even concur wirh), they aren't really fair.

First of all, I will agree that assault really is not equal to shooting. People say they shouldn't be equal in a sci-fi environment but all this means is shutting down Blood Angels, Chaos Daemons, Tyranids, and Orks. However, 40k is sci fantasy . It is a world where magic flies from the hands of psykers, enemies can deny flames from wounding them, one can level a field with ranks, and two of the top three threats to humanity are assault focused. Claim assault is overrepresented? Look at any competitive game and watch how few assault armies are up there. They should be equal to allow games to be tense and fun not having one blatantly better than the other. That being said, night fighting (which is worthless against tau) and 2 points for close combat favours assault far too much. To top this off, forcing armies to fill the FOC isn't really fair as it forces armies (particularly older codeces and armies with higher priced units) to create unbalanced armies. It also removes much of the customization depriving individuals from the desire to play mechguard or Khorne only and the sorts.

I will update this with a more thorough opinion later on.

Our local club and the two clubs around ours already use a modified Warlord system:
Roll THEN pick the Chart.
It allows some flexibility to get something usable but still allows for enough randomness to keep the cheese at bay.


Most of your suggestions work on the theory that the problem is ONLY with the top units/builds. The problem is in the internal balance of the Codex most of the time(6th Edition Codexes are better than the 5th at this). So removing what is currently the cheese just allows new cheese to rise to the top.

The only way to really create a better environment is for GW to make the internal Codex balance better so that certain units aren't obviously better choices than others (P.S - I wouldn't want this job, as it'd be nearly impossible to accomplish).

Seems most people disagree with my ideas, which is fine, I did post them up here for C&C for a reason. Theres been some legit criticism, such as "rules that benefit troops benefit Orks more than other teams", and contrary to certain opinions, I have not just been disregarding them. I know Orks like the back of my hand but am less well versed in the other sides, thats why I put the ideas I had up for discussion, so I could hear about issues like that one that could arise from the use of certain rules and change or remove the rules as needed.

Theres been plenty of decent discussion in here, but then there are some people who seem to be... I dunno, like they're taking offense that someone would want to play their game a little differently? And that clearly the only possible reason for wanting to do that is to give 'their army' an automatic win with rules that strongly benefit it. Thats the vibe I'm picking up here.

Thats not the case at all. Rather, I'm just looking for rules like the "highlander" ones that MarkyMark so helpfully put a name to. If you saw a tournament, a games day, or even just a game request using those rules, you'd look at them and either think "yeah, sounds like fun" or "nah, not my cup of tea". What you should not be thinking is "Look at that jackass, he's playing with rules that benefit him! Scumbag!" or "he's ruining my game by playing like this!"

Like I said, theres already a clear precedent for such rules in NZ tournament settings. The one I'm going to in a few months for Fantasy bans certain units, limits the max points cost of others, limits the maximum power dice you can generate, and so on, because without those rules the TOs believe that certain armies get an unbeatable advantage. I dislike certain aspects of this, namely the restrictions on certain specific units, but have no problem with game-wide restrictions that force people to play differently for those games.

I'm just looking for similar rule changes that can, well, change up the game a bit, and simple fixes like the one in the previous post, blanket changes rather than "hurr durr no Hellturkeys" that should in theory affect all armies to if not an equal degree, then at least in the same way. Would be keen to hear any others that people know of.

This screams of "I'm losing, so let's balance things by making rules that benefit me, and penalise you."

Space marine army's, in other word's, half the armies in the game, genuinely -can't fill a FOC under 2000 points. Because they are elite armies.

Gunlines have a hard counter. Being fast enough to tear them up before they tear you up. Or being resillient enough to weather the storm long enough to get in and assault them.


If people want to play minimum troops, to maximise killing, that -is- a strategy, with the advantage of killing power, but the weakness of objective holding power. You act like not using troops isn't being tactical, but it's a tactical, and personnal choice for a player to make. Also, not every army, has a focus on their troops choice. Some armies, like orks, can rely on their troops to be the real workhorse behind the army. Other's, like say, nurgle daemons, can't rely on their troops for much more than scoring, with them being slow, unable to shoot, and not effective in most melee combat's. Each army tend's to have one area in the FOC that they excel in. I'd say -

HQ superiority - Daemons, Tyranids
Troop superiority - Orks, blood angels.
Heavy support superiority - Guard

And so on. Forcing everyone to focus on a part of the game they do not do well in, is not going to make the game more balanced, it will actually seriously scew the balance of the game in favour of troops-dependant armies.

 Dakkamite wrote:
I think they are. Some dude thinks Skink Skirmishers are overpowered so he restricts them. I think that army after army of pie plate droppers isn't something I want to play against, so I restrict them.

Thinking that something is overpowered is not the same as establishing that it is. What this sounds like is a bunch of wild speculation based on what you personally have trouble winning against or don't enjoy, not an objective and carefully analyzed attempt to balance the entire game.

We've got different ideas of competitive play then.

You're right, mine involves a level playing field for everyone. Yours apparently involves changing random stuff every week just for the sake of change.

For me its the process of making a strong army to fit any given predetermined (or not!) scenario or set of scenarios. Making a 'all night fighting' tournament would be fine in my book. Or a tournament with all the FoC slots having to be filled, or unlimited HQ slots, or whatever, because those are all different types of predetermined rulesets for players to adapt to, each creating a different environment for competitiveness. And where some armies straight up suck in a 'standard' competitive environment (what is that anyway?) and never get used, perhaps others will fall out of favour in this one.

And the point is that all of those things help some armies more than others. I could make a 1500 point tournament that says all IG players get an extra 5000 points, which would certainly be within the rules and give a new scenario for everyone to adapt to. But it wouldn't be balanced and competitive.

Which armies are those?

Every army. In a small game every army is going to have trouble filling the entire FOC unless they take garbage units (like a veteran squad with nothing but lasguns) just to fill up FOC slots. And some armies just can't do it at all, if you have a 1000 point tournament with those rules C:SM isn't a legal army anymore.

The second player can deploy in response to the first players deployment. Thats a huge advantage and one better suited to countering the "aggressive deployment" advantage of the first player because its not based on pure chance.

You're completely missing the point. It MUST be based on chance so that the player deploying first has RISK. You clearly just don't understand how this works. I play IG, and I like getting first turn. However, I have a choice to make: I can deploy aggressively and ensure that all of my units will have a perfect shooting position and deliver the maximum possible alpha strike, or I can deploy conservatively and ensure that all of my units are in cover and/or out of range if my opponent seizes the initiative. If I know that I'm getting to go first no matter what there's no more risk factor and I can make full use of my first-turn benefits and shoot you off the table.

A different box that nobody has 'solved' yet. By your logic, theres no point fixing anything, updating the rules etc, as it'll just lead to some other broken build. I don't seek to prevent all broken builds, just to play a fun game in the interim before people could analyse the rule changes to the point of finding the must-have and auto-win units and spamming the crap out of them.

So we have two choices for our competitive game:

1) Establish a single set of competitive rules, doing our best to ensure a level playing field for all armies and a diverse and interesting metagame.

or

2) Randomly change stuff every week so that nobody can figure out what is best.

Sorry, but #2 is a terrible idea. Not only does it remove a huge strategic element (list building) from the game and replace it with random guessing, the fact that you're changing things so frequently almost guarantees that you're going to screw up game balance with poorly-tested ideas.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Evileyes wrote:
Space marine army's, in other word's, half the armies in the game, genuinely -can't fill a FOC under 2000 points. Because they are elite armies.

Actually you can do it at 1100:

HQ: 2x 100 point HQ, no upgrades
Elite: 3x techmarine, no upgrades
Troops: 6x scouts, no upgrades
Fast: 3x single attack bikes, no upgrades
Heavy: 3x Predators, no upgrades

Is it a garbage army that will auto-lose to pretty much everything, and probably require models that most people don't have? Sure. But that's the OP's whole point, remove spam by requiring everyone to fill their FOC with garbage units and have too few points left to upgrade all of them to anything decent.

And so on. Forcing everyone to focus on a part of the game they do not do well in, is not going to make the game more balanced, it will actually seriously scew the balance of the game in favour of troops-dependant armies.

Yep, I realize all that now. Like I said at the start, I'm no expert, thats why I posted my ideas up so I could hear what was wrong with them.

There is a point where the ninth or tenth person to come in and say "I dislike your rules" gets a bit superfluous (not that I don't like your analysis of the game). So I'm forgetting about my suggested ideas and looking for ideas from others who have a better idea of how to balance the game:

I'm just looking for similar rule changes that can, well, change up the game a bit, and simple fixes like the one in the previous post, blanket changes rather than "hurr durr no Hellturkeys" that should in theory affect all armies to if not an equal degree, then at least in the same way. Would be keen to hear any others that people know of.

Edit: Just saw your post Peregrine. Your attitude isn't one that should see the light of day outside of "You make da call", and as I've already said, the thread is now about "what suggestions would you make" instead of talking about the rules I suggested in the first post.

Y'know, I don't see what is so wrong about Peregrine's post, and heck I usually don't agree with him, but I think he is spot on and pretty respectful in this case. What is the big problem about his analysis? He's taken a clear amount of time to thoughtfully explain his position and then you just dismiss him for a bad attitude?

Peregrines posts sofar have been very aggressive, which is something I don't want to deal with. I'm not here to have a shouting contest with anyone, or have some stupid argument over the internet.

I have gone out of my way to accept and not be dismissive of others ideas. Least I can ask for is the same in return.

seizing the initiative has always seemed rediculous to me. You've already rolled off for turn order, and the advantages of going both first and deploying second are very apparent to me.
I have seen several games where seizing the initiative has ruined the player who was supposed to go first.

it should be punishment enough that your deployment can be easily countered by the 2nd player

 Zheak wrote:
seizing the initiative has always seemed rediculous to me. You've already rolled off for turn order, and the advantages of going both first and deploying second are very apparent to me.
I have seen several games where seizing the initiative has ruined the player who was supposed to go first.

See previous posts explaining it: the whole point is that it limits how aggressively you can deploy for a first-turn alpha strike because there's always that 1/6 chance you're going second and your over-extended army gets massacred.

yeah i saw the other posts and it hasnt really changed my opinion : /

Turned out to be quite a bashing thread... well one thing I'd like is to see a range modifier for weapons introduced like what they have in infinity. But the difficulty with 40k is that being on a d6, adding + or - 1 to the BS is very significant, on a d20 the effect is still noticeable but not as drastic. I dont know if this would exactly improve competitive play, but I think that gunline armies wouldn't be as powerful on large boards and it wouldn't completely screw them over either. Range modifiers have been discussed in numerous other threads so I'll leave that there.
If your main issue is spam armies, I think you need to define what these entail. For example my orks consist of 6 units of walking boys with pretty much the same outfit, multiple units and kind of spammy but when there's only 2 unit choices... there's not much to work with.

or play on a d12, and then modify the stats charts so you get a bit more moderation. Some things dont quite feel right stats wise like a ork and an guardsmen being S3. Yet I wouldn't expect the average ork to be equal to a marine. But this is relating rules to fluff and we know how that always works out , anyway its just albeit an ill thought out one.

Well originally, it was any kind of doubling of any non-troops unit. After this thread, not so sure anymore. Also doesn't help with the clarity, is that I just found out that last guy I faced (just a few weeks back) who used a certain Imperial Guard missile launcher cheated and gave it the maximum three shots every turn. Just thinking about the carnage from that thing, multiplied by three should someone just spam the crap out of it, I gotta admit it messed with my head a bit.

I've also made at least one thread about range modifiers, because the current rules for shooting in 40k are like, totally bogus. Problem with that, is that we get into the realm of making 40k into a totally different game. I prefer simple fixes like the one suggested earlier, "roll a dice and then pick the warlord table". Remove Seize the Initiative. Stuff like that.

I could be in the minority of one here.

But to get 40k game play to a reasonable standard for competitive play requires a complete rewrite focusing on the actual game play!
(Rather than pimping the minature releases with a gak-ton of special rules!)

Basic focus should be on INCLUSIVE rules writing rather than EXCLUSIVE rules writing, to cover the maximum amount of game play with straightforward well defined core rules.

My favorite games cover SPECIAL abilities using simple and easily applied mechanics, modifiers, re rolls and or ignore ONE situation/factor.
The DO NOT have to mess with the basic game mechanics , or have to add totally new ones on to the basic system to cover the core game play!

I am basing my opinion on how much better the specialist games are written , Epic Armageddon for example.
Apparently for 'experienced gamers' but manages to cover everything , 40k and ALL its expansions AND codexes does in 138 pages!

just use the 4ed rules, just change the APC rules so everyone takes a wound on a 6+ not 4+ when they bale out of an APC

 rahxephon wrote:
Turned out to be quite a bashing thread... well one thing I'd like is to see a range modifier for weapons introduced like what they have in infinity. But the difficulty with 40k is that being on a d6, adding + or - 1 to the BS is very significant, on a d20 the effect is still noticeable but not as drastic. I dont know if this would exactly improve competitive play, but I think that gunline armies wouldn't be as powerful on large boards and it wouldn't completely screw them over either. Range modifiers have been discussed in numerous other threads so I'll leave that there.
If your main issue is spam armies, I think you need to define what these entail. For example my orks consist of 6 units of walking boys with pretty much the same outfit, multiple units and kind of spammy but when there's only 2 unit choices... there's not much to work with.

or play on a d12, and then modify the stats charts so you get a bit more moderation. Some things dont quite feel right stats wise like a ork and an guardsmen being S3. Yet I wouldn't expect the average ork to be equal to a marine. But this is relating rules to fluff and we know how that always works out :faceplam: , anyway its just albeit an ill thought out one.

You know, I never really thought about it like that. I've had conceptual problems with the way shooting works since I started the game, but like you said, on a d6 there's not much you can do to fix it. That would be one hell of a project, but I would love to try a d12 or even a d8 40k.

 MandalorynOranj wrote:

 rahxephon wrote:
Turned out to be quite a bashing thread... well one thing I'd like is to see a range modifier for weapons introduced like what they have in infinity. But the difficulty with 40k is that being on a d6, adding + or - 1 to the BS is very significant, on a d20 the effect is still noticeable but not as drastic. I dont know if this would exactly improve competitive play, but I think that gunline armies wouldn't be as powerful on large boards and it wouldn't completely screw them over either. Range modifiers have been discussed in numerous other threads so I'll leave that there.
If your main issue is spam armies, I think you need to define what these entail. For example my orks consist of 6 units of walking boys with pretty much the same outfit, multiple units and kind of spammy but when there's only 2 unit choices... there's not much to work with.

or play on a d12, and then modify the stats charts so you get a bit more moderation. Some things dont quite feel right stats wise like a ork and an guardsmen being S3. Yet I wouldn't expect the average ork to be equal to a marine. But this is relating rules to fluff and we know how that always works out :faceplam: , anyway its just albeit an ill thought out one.

You know, I never really thought about it like that. I've had conceptual problems with the way shooting works since I started the game, but like you said, on a d6 there's not much you can do to fix it. That would be one hell of a project, but I would love to try a d12 or even a d8 40k.

Why not XD6? Why not have the To-Hit skill simply give the number of D6's rolled, plus a modifier, and compare that to an evasive set of D6's plus modifiers?

Keeps the "everyone has D6's to toss around" feel, and most models will just have 1D6 of each in any case.