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Three things to make the FOC more relevant:

1) Kill off allies/formations/etc as independent detachments. A 0-1 "support element" choice of allies/a superheavy/etc is fine, but no more taking formations as a way to get more FOC slots or special allies that consist of a single inquisitor/squad/whatever that doesn't occupy FOC slots.

2) Make the FOC into a true organizational system and not just a list of categories. Make it into more of a tree where units have prerequisites. For example, taking the standard HQ unlocks your core troops and one each of the other slots, but you have to take a "heavy support commander" HQ that unlocks more heavy support choices underneath them. And make these things mutually exclusive: an army that takes certain elements of the chain of command should have limited or no access to others.

3) Make the FOC different for each army, where appropriate. For example, an IG armored company might have more heavy support slots but limited elites and troops, while a marine army would be heavy on elite infantry but have limited tank support. The FW 30k game does this and it makes choosing your army a lot more interesting.

In short, make the diagram of the FOC relevant and interesting, so that you have to look up what it offers your new army instead of having an "organizational chart" that is purely decorative.

Great ideas actually. Requires lots of work and ballancing but if done correctly will be cool.

Interesting. But I'm a little leery of making the FOC that much more restrictive. Even in real-life armies with actual Tables of Organization & Equipment, units get task-organized all the time into bizarre blends of different formations -- and that's before you start taking casualties and picking up bits and pieces of other units along the way.

This was the FOC I was working on:

Building Your Army

Required: 1 HQ + 2 troops slot

For every 2 troops slots that are filled (at least 1 troop slot must contain 75% or more of the maximum number of troops*), including the initial 2 troop slots, the following slots are opened up:

1 elite slot
1 fast attack slot
1 heavy support slot
1/2 HQ slot (i.e., you can take an extra HQ w/ 4 troops, 6 troops or 8 troops)

* note: if at least one of your two initial troop slots does not contain at least 75% of the maximum number of troops, you gain NONE of the above slots. This could be important for Allies.

If you take the same type of unit in a non-troop slot that you have already included in your army (such as a 2nd heldrake), you pay +25 points for the 2nd copy, +50 points for the 3rd copy, +75 points for the 4th copy, and so on. Note that if a single slot allows you take multiple models (such as 3 Leman Russ as a single Heavy Support slot), it counts as only one copy.

You may add Allies to your army, starting with 1 HQ + 2 troops slot, as above. Allies cannot constitute more than 33% of your army. The following premium is added to the cost of allies for every 2 troop slots:
Battle Brothers +50 pts
Allies of Convenience +25 pts
Desperate Allies - No extra cost


------------
What I hope is that this is a system that is troop heavier and makes elites, fast attack and such a bit more rarer in an army. Plus, its infinitely expandable. Want 9 elite units on the board? Sure, if you can afford 18 basic troop units (9 of which have to be at 75% full strength or more...), go for it.

As to fortifications, I think that should be part of the scenario. Dice off for who gets to occupy it, or choose.

As for Lords of War, probably have them count as 2 slots of Heavy Support.

Having to take 75% of a squad is absurd.
And reading the rest of your post, it implies you intend for it to be one half of squads rounding up have this restriction

That means forcing you to take 15 Sisters of Battle, or 15CSM, for NO reason.
Same for Dark Eldar Warriors or Wyches, you're forcing them to be min 15, which means they can't take ANY transports, which means they die.

This doesn't really hurt most 'bad' lists, and cripples a lot of fun and interesting lists and armies.


Also, for your system of multiples, armies with limited options in areas, or struggling are hit hard.

If I want to take 2 squads of 3 Grotesques, (that's already 200 per squad anyway), 2 would now be 425 instead of 400, and 3 would be 675 instead.
Well damn, now I can't take 3 at 2000pts anymore.

With my 2K DE list of 3 Haemonculi, 3x3 Grotesques in Raiders, 2x10 Wracks in Raiders, 3x3 Wracks (Hex Rifle) in Venoms, 2 Talos and a Razorwing, I'm having to pay a tax of 100pts.
Furthermore, I can't take 1 squad of my Hex Rifle Wracks, which means I can't take a Talos or the Razorwing, nor 1 squad of Grotesques anyway.

Sisters having to pay +75pts for 3 Exorcists is stupid.
And for MY sisters list (again, another silly and/or fluffy list) Celestine, 3x10 Repentia, 2-4x5 BSS, 1 Seraphim, 3x3 Penitent Engines, I have to pay a 150pt tax, on what's already considered overpriced units.
Oh, and I can't anyway, because I don't have the prerequisite min 60 Battle Sisters to take the 3 Repentia and 3 Penitent Engines.

Furthermore, my silly 6 Vindicator Army (one of only 2-3 that use the Double FoC) is just crippled, as it would need +20 Space Marines (so +280 for no reason), and have to pay a 375pt 'tax'.

I don't think I have a single list that wouldn't be completely crippled by these rules, and almost all of them only use the 'standard' original FoC anyway!

Oddly enough, I think a simple solution is to modify something that has been done in WHFB for a while now.

1-999
1 x HQ (Compulsory)
4 x Troops (1 Compulsory)
2 x Elites
2 x Fast Attack
2 x Heavy Support

1 x Fortifications

For each increment of 1000 pts (ie 1000-1999, 2000-2999, etc), a player adds the following:
1 x HQ
2 x Troops (1 Compulsory)
1 x Elite
1 x Fast Attack
1 x Heavy Support

1 x Lords of War
1 x Fortifications

So a majority of games/lists will actually use the current FoC since the 1500-2000 range seems to be common, so not much is going to change. I'm aware that this would also mean that a a player would be allowed to take 2 Fortifications on what is effectively a single FoC, but I feel allowing access to more Skyfire options outweighs the potential abuse. (I also dislike the players who ADD fortifications to existing terrain, which is what I feel is the major problem that players have with them.)

The under 1k games dynamic changes. It prevents armies from spamming 3 non-troop units which again, seems to be one of the problems with smaller point games. It'll also give a little more flexibility to those armies with higher Troop costs by only requiring one Troop choice instead of spending over 1/2 your points on required stuff. This also has the added benefit of making the Battleforces more playable without having to buy/convert/proxy/split the Troop choice to make a legal army, and could really help new players ease into the game.

The over 2k game changes as well, but really only affects those lists that spam 5-6 non-troop choices. It'll still give them access to more of those units that they love without going over the top. (I don't care if you're one of those people who've already spent the money on 6 Heldrakes, or 5 Wraithknights. If GW cared about that, then they wouldn't have made all the money I spent on Demons and Chaos Marines illegal!) Other noticeable changes are that at this points level are the 3 required Troops, which to be honest is okay. Most competitive lists are only taking 3 Troops that do anything with the 4th being a filler anyways. Mono Comp HQ I don't see being an issue, with 2 more optional I can't see being an issue with, of course, those players who 'spam' those options as well, like FMC's or SW Rune Priests, etc.

The allies Matrix would work if they came out of the standard FoC instead of adding their own. This is more of a change to the Allies rules than the FoC, so not going to say too much more on it. In relation to what is being said here, it would keep allies out of the <1K games, which would make it easier for newer players to get a handle on the rules without having to deal with potential combos to worry about. Tyranids would also be happier since they don't have access to allies right now, they won't be hit with something that other <2k armies have access to right now. Even if you allowed the Allies FoC as they are, I would probably put in there the 1k+ restriction, but this would be more up to the TO/FLGS owners, so would be fine with it either way at this time. I would even go so far as to disallow FW at <1k games, but again that's more of a decision for the TO/FLGS owners to decide.

I'm completely okay with both the Fortification and Lords of War slots as they both don't really have a place in the existing FoC. This suggestion really just keeps the LoW out of the <1k pt games, and Im aware that over 2k Games you'd get access to two of them. We have the Escalation rules, and from the sounds of it, they're going to be in the next edition, so just gotta go with it.

The last thing I'd like to see, and it's more of an individual unit rule than an FoC, is that certain units take up more than one slot. Imperial Knights are one example, let them take up 2 Heavy Support choice (or 2 Troops in an IK army), rather than this weird thing in between. This cleans up the FoC a bit, and could apply to other units (I won't say which ones). True it cuts out some of the spammier lists like 3 Vindicators backing up the Imperial Knight, but I don't see too many of those anyways.

Let's think on pre-request table. The thing i've noticed is that in general, troops are pretty well ballanced amongst themselves. So, probably they should be a main requirement for taking other stuff.

For example: For every 2 troop choices you can take 1 Heavy, 1 elite, 1 fast.

Some special characters can open extra slots, for example: Master of the Forge allows one extra Heavy support slot. Chaptain allows one extra elite slot, etc. That may depend on the army and some special characters can allow other slots or even more of them.

The problem still remaining is with dedicated transports like wave serpents or nightscythes. While nightscithes are not so rediculous, they're still flyers and many lists just can't do anything to them, waveserpents are always annoying and often gamebreaking. What about creating another slot - Elite Transports. And wave serpents, nightscythes, landraiders, battlewagonz will fall in such category. And we might work on the rules to maintain this slot and make it ballanced for everyone.

Hmm. The thing is, "elite transports" would be creating a FOC category that many armies don't have anything in: Guard, Sisters, Tau....(Well, and Tyranids have no transports at all).

I am beginning to think a straightforward WHFB-style system is best: for each unit of Troops, you get one specialist unit -- Elite, Fast Attack, or Heavy Support -- and you can't take more than half your specialists from the same category. Or something.

Hmmm, reprise. That seemed a lot clearer in my head.

 Peregrine wrote:
Three things to make the FOC more relevant:

1) Kill off allies/formations/etc as independent detachments. A 0-1 "support element" choice of allies/a superheavy/etc is fine, but no more taking formations as a way to get more FOC slots or special allies that consist of a single inquisitor/squad/whatever that doesn't occupy FOC slots.

2) Make the FOC into a true organizational system and not just a list of categories. Make it into more of a tree where units have prerequisites. For example, taking the standard HQ unlocks your core troops and one each of the other slots, but you have to take a "heavy support commander" HQ that unlocks more heavy support choices underneath them. And make these things mutually exclusive: an army that takes certain elements of the chain of command should have limited or no access to others.

3) Make the FOC different for each army, where appropriate. For example, an IG armored company might have more heavy support slots but limited elites and troops, while a marine army would be heavy on elite infantry but have limited tank support. The FW 30k game does this and it makes choosing your army a lot more interesting.

In short, make the diagram of the FOC relevant and interesting, so that you have to look up what it offers your new army instead of having an "organizational chart" that is purely decorative.

I like this, especially the individual tables.

I totally agree with Peregrine about using prerequisites to get proper organization.

However, if we re names the 'slots' to show rarity, rather than function /area of selection.

This might allow us a 'skeleton' F.O.C that applies to all armies.

But can be 'Themed' for each type of force available for each race.

EG Choose a HQ,
This HQ unit allows you to pick a 'Support Unit'. (This can be a current ' lord of War' OR a 'Fortification,' OR an 'Allied HQ*'.)
And you must take 2 to 8 Common units, as determined by the HQ.

For every 2 Common Units taken you may take ONE Specialist Unit.

For every 2 Specialist Units taken you may take ONE Restricted Unit.

Note Allied HQs MUST bring 2 Common units (that count towards prime list total.).And do not entitle you to additional support units.
Any Specialist units the Allied HQ bring reduce the number of slots available in the parent list,
And Allied Specialist Units do not count toward the prime force Restricted Unit requirement.

I may need to explain that a bit better?

Just use three categories: HQ, troops, support.

Make three tiers of HQ. Tier 1 would be the cheapest, weakest HQs, Tier 3 the strongest.

Basic starting point is 1 Tier 1 HQ and 2 troops. You may take 1 support unit for every troop unit in the army. You may take a Tier 2 HQ when you have 3 troops squads, and a Tier 3 HQ when you have 5 troops squads.

A tier 2 HQ allows you to take allies with a tier 1 HQ, troops, support.

A tier 3 HQ allows Tier2 allied HQ, troops, support.

To build a themed army like a biker gang, you may pick any support unit. That unit type becomes your troops unit, all troops units become suppport units.

@Gwailhirsbrother.
I can see the appeal of allowing the army to 'grow up levels'.

However , would your suggestion just make most armies 'top heavy ' and specialist rich?

So 5 troops squads allows 1 level 3 HQ.An allied level 2 HQ.And a mix of 5 troop and 5 support units from multiple lists?
(I may have misunderstand what you proposed?)

I think it is important to let themed armies be created, but with enough restriction to prevent optimized 'cherry picking '.

Looking at historical and old 40k background lists.I would like the flexibility they had, but present it in a more cohesive way.
(Not rely on special models to unlock features for example.)

I guess I didn't explain the allies part very well. The ally would start building its own separate force org with its own requirements to access its units. So a level 3 HQ in primary detachment requires 5 troops. To get a level 2 ally HQ you would have to have 3 allied troops. So 8 troops total to get those.

My last line about themed armies probably needs refinement. It was just a starting thought. And it is more a result of my thinking up a rule set that cuts ties with current 40k rules. It is a quick way to allow themes out of one codex without doing a different codex for every small variation in the army.

A solution to the cherry picking would be a hard cap of 3 on any unit selected. Accomplishes the same thing as the current force org chart's limits on elites/heavy/fast attack without bothering with those designations.

And here's an idea to eliminate spam, but can I communicate it? The number of each type of unit in your army has to look like this: 4,3,2,1. It can't be 4,2,,2,1,1. A gap of two or more between your most common and second most common unit isn't allowed. This holds true with your second and third most common unit, etc. 3,2,2,1,1 is allowed, 3,1,1,1,1 isn't. Gap from 3 to 1 is not ok. 5,4,3,2 is ok, 5,3,2,1 isn't as gap from 5 to 3 breaks rule.

It seems pointless to me to complain and come up with hypothetical ideas on how to fix 40k rules. They're not going to listen to us.

You're right, GW won't listen to us, but we listen to us, and tournament organizers may listen to us. Proposed Rules are things to try with your local group or if you're organizing one of the less orthodox tournaments, not open letters to GW.

Rumor is that they have somewhat, but that it isn't what we think.

Again, RUMOR is that he new FOC with be Fantasy-like, where you must take at least 25% of your force as Troops, then no more than 25% in any other category (HQ, ELite, Fast Attack, and Heavy).

Allies would still be around, but count towards the percentages like normal.

True? Not true? Not sure, but that's the scuttlebut. On the one hand, usable, but on the other, I'm not sure how many of today's mono-builds would handle it. At 1500, that'd put a cap of 375 on any slot, while 1850 (A point level that they seem to want gone as the same rumor says that games should be in 250 pt incrimments) would cap at 463.

Would 1500 be the new standard that everyone plays? 1750? 2000? Once that shakes out, you'd see a lot of current issues clear up.

Triptide? Gone. Tyranid Skyblight? Gone.

Some issues would still remain, like Necron flying transports and wave serpents, but a LOT of stuff would clear out as well.

Wonder how the community would feel about it?

Johnnytorrance wrote:
It seems pointless to me to complain and come up with hypothetical ideas on how to fix 40k rules. They're not going to listen to us.

This is the proposed rules forum though, for suggestions, homebrew and such.

So people can create their own rules and fixes to use.

Hence, here solely to call peoples ideas pointless, in the place specifically for coming up with new ideas and such, seems a bit silly.

THREAD RELEVANT:
I'm thinking that a (relatively) easy balancing act, if not would be to keep what's above.
This then doesn't invalidate anything, and is easier than coming up with individual fixes army to army.

HOWEVER:
You get the Primary Detachment (whichever you choose).

Everything else is listed as a 'Support' Detachment.
No more than 50% of any list can be Support.

This means that in a 1500pt list, at least 750pts must be the primary detachment.

This stops crazy lists with say, JUST an Inquisitor then a ton of formations, or min 1Troops + 2HQ, with big old Lords of War / Titans / Fortifications / Allies / Whatever.

 Peregrine wrote:
1) Kill off allies/formations/etc as independent detachments. A 0-1 "support element" choice of allies/a superheavy/etc is fine, but no more taking formations as a way to get more FOC slots or special allies that consist of a single inquisitor/squad/whatever that doesn't occupy FOC slots.

This alone would make a world of difference, I know some tournaments have already implemented something along these lines.

Which is an example of how this kind of discussion can have an impact.

this isn't the "chicken little sky is falling" that the OP thinks it is.

this is the full FOC that explains everything's place. so if you want LotD and a Knght with your Dark Angels, you may, here's how. I seriously dou t anyone will find too many ways to use a large portion of this chart in one list.

I don't think the sky is falling. It's just the sheer messy inconsistency of the current system offends me aesthetically -- as well turning a simple and largely air-tight system into a giant maze of loopholes.

Now, if someone finds a way to take main detachment, allies, a formation, a fortification, a superheavy, Knights, Inquisitors, and Legion of the Damned in a single game that's not Apocalypse, I'd honestly be more impressed than appalled.

I think this is the problem 40k is currently facing.
It is trying to cover the ground that was originally 3 or 4 separate game types.(Space Crusade/Hulk, AND Necromundia/inquisitor, AND 40k large skirmish, AND Epic large battles.)

So the rules for the 'large skirmish game' have been out dated.
The rules for the battle game now cant cope with all the new added on bits.
And so the rules for the Epic battle games in 28mm, look too daunting/confusing /diffuse for lots of new players.

The ideas the game devs had for 40k, were ok at the time they were implemented.(ish)
But the game keeps having to cover more and more stuff .

How do you feel about using the Army selection used in EPIC Space marine.

You pick a 'Core Company' (HQ and common units.)
This allows you to select up to 4 support units.

Is this the sort of thing you had in mind Gwaihirsbrother?

(I often wonder if GW plc focused on getting good game rules for basic 40k, they would retain enough players, as not to have to make obvious money grabs every year?)

The local store I play all my tourneys in has some house rules that clean up the FOC a little for our player-base.

1 Primary detachment (+1 at 2000+)

1 Allied detachment OR 1 dataslate (+1 at 2000+, must be same as first)

Lords of war only in games of 2250+

No stronghold assault in games under 2250

Not anything new, but surprisingly effective here. We also imposed a slight nerf to D weapons, as they ruin tournament settings quickly. If I were to make my own changes to the FOC, I would probably do something like a percentage system based on points. List building would take a little longer, but everyone would have a much more balanced and fun list to play. No more death stars (guilty of O'vesa star myself), no more FOC slot spams, and that horrible annoying flying circus would finally be over.

Something along the lines of:
HQ-No more than 10%
Troop- At LEAST 20%
Elite-No more than 15%
Fast-No more than 30%
Heavy-No more than 30%
Allies/Dataslate- No more than 50% of your army, and further limited to previous restrictions

Man, reading these proposals make my eyes bleed.

Perhaps it's because I've been playing with them for so long, but the 40k FOCs do make sense to me, especially fluffwise.

I fail to see the problem with the existing FOC specifically.

I think the FOC is all fine & well for the most part, but the Inquisition and Dataslates need to be corraled into the greater FOC structure.

IMO, Iquisition should be an ally (taking up the ally FOC) and Dataslates should be expunged from the game. Formations (printed ones like those in C:MT) are a neat idea, but that could be me being bias to printed literature vs. digital only.

 Pryamarch wrote:
The local store I play all my tourneys in has some house rules that clean up the FOC a little for our player-base..... We also imposed a slight nerf to D weapons, as they ruin tournament settings quickly

How'd you handle Destroyer weapons? I'm very curious because the patches I've seen generally reduce them to Strength:10 AP:1, which while potent seems going a bit overboard in the direction of nerfvana....

We make d weapons str10 ap1 ignores cover and rr passed inv saves, so they punish deathstars quite brutally, but there is a small chance to survive, originally the ignores cover and rr successful inv save wasn't house ruled, buy we saw a leap in 2+ cover and inv armies appear, so we added them, the biggest issue we found our players had with d weapons is the auto wound and how many hits\/wounds they did.

My work with the FOC while setting up my rewrite rules has led me to a system drawing a bit on 40k and a bit on Battlefleet Gothic. The idea is you've got several different sorts of Platoons, each one with restrictions on what can be taken within it (these depend on your army list, mind), each sort of Platoon gets classed as a Core, Elite, or Rare platoon. If you're playing a one-Platoon game you must use a Core platoon, otherwise you must have more Core platoons than Elite platoons and more Elite platoons than Rare platoons, so in practice you've got a lower bound requiring two Core to start taking Elite and three Core and two Elite to start taking Rare (multi-Platoon games also have a required Command unit). Different squads can be taken in different places in different platoons, in practice a Core platoon might have 0-1 Space Marine Veteran Squad or Tau Crisis Team in it; Elite platoons have a higher density of elite units but they also have stricter caps on their size (Elite platoons include 100% armoured platoons, a Leman Russ tank squadron is in practice an Elite Platoon under these rules), and Rare platoons are pretty much just Superheavies (and if you've got three Core and two Elite platoons already you're approaching the size of an Apocalypse game anyway). Allies factor into this as limited numbers of platoons from other armies, their platoons count against your caps on that type but don't increase your cap for the next type over (so if I have a 2 Core/1 Elite Space Marine army and I want to take a Russ squadron I need a Guard Core platoon but that doesn't increase my Elites cap so I need another SM Core platoon before I can take the Russ Squadron platoon).

 SisterSydney wrote:

 Pryamarch wrote:
The local store I play all my tourneys in has some house rules that clean up the FOC a little for our player-base..... We also imposed a slight nerf to D weapons, as they ruin tournament settings quickly

How'd you handle Destroyer weapons? I'm very curious because the patches I've seen generally reduce them to Strength:10 AP:1, which while potent seems going a bit overboard in the direction of nerfvana....

We allow invuln saves to be taken against D weapons, but successful passes must be re-rolled. We also took away the insta-gib-ness when it applies to monstrous creatures, doing 1d6 wounds instead. Gargantuan creatures can take feel no pain saves against D weapons if they have them. To counter this, instead of a character immune to instant death only receiving one wound, they take 1d3 instead. Basically, D weapons still own face, but you don't lose major players by having a base clipped by a pie plate.

So do D weapons still have the potential to inflict multiple Wounds or Hull Points in a single hit? I know that's one of the things many people hate about them, but if every shot takes at most one HP, killing a super-heavy is gonna take a loooooooooooong time....unless you roll a lot of 6s on the vehicle damage table, I guess.