Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Fantasy is using this percentage based system, and I've been wondering
Is that the main reason for that games balance?
And what would this system do to 40K? The same?
God I hope so
Lets talk
What would a percentage based force organization do to the game of 40k?
Break it?
Make it better?
Or would things be the same?

50% in wave serpents . then 25% in ally and HQs is more or less the seer star.

Initially break it as people scramble to work out how to make their lists legal and then eventually everything g settles down and new ways to abuse the system crop up.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Initially break it as people scramble to work out how to make their lists legal and then eventually everything g settles down and new ways to abuse the system crop up.

I can see that happening

 Njal Stormpuppy wrote:
Fantasy is using this percentage based system, and I've been wondering
Is that the main reason for that games balance?
And what would this system do to 40K? The same?
God I hope so
Lets talk
What would a percentage based force organization do to the game of 40k?
Break it?
Make it better?
Or would things be the same?

The reason why WHFB is much much more balanced is because the worst model in the game can be useful by tying up the best enemy hammer for the full length of the game.
The very best example is Skavenslaves. They are the lowest of the low. Imperial Guard Conscripts were champions compared to Skavenslaves... and yet Skavenslaves is the main reason why Skaven have been doing great since 8th came out.
So how can the worst model in the game be the best unit in an arguably powerful army?

Because there is a use for everything in WHFB. Not the case in 40k. Conscripts can be butchered to a man by a single character and he can do it in time to go out and be more than useful in the game. Not to mention that moving him away from the block is laughably easy. You won't get stuck there in the first place.
In WHFB you can't just jump pack him away to his intended target.

It also largely depends on how the perentage based FOC is implemented.

To low a percentage in any category makes certain units unplayable, too high makes ceratin units too good.

As it is 40k is not set up to use this system without a lot of categories.

For instance say you make it minimum 25% troops. WIth no cap that means armies with great troops (or dedicated transports) can spam them a ton.

Say you then cap Heavies to 25% max. There are some units that won't fit this in certain point levels at all. etc.

 Purifier wrote:

 Njal Stormpuppy wrote:
Fantasy is using this percentage based system, and I've been wondering
Is that the main reason for that games balance?
And what would this system do to 40K? The same?
God I hope so
Lets talk
What would a percentage based force organization do to the game of 40k?
Break it?
Make it better?
Or would things be the same?

The reason why WHFB is much much more balanced is because the worst model in the game can be useful by tying up the best enemy hammer for the full length of the game.
The very best example is Skavenslaves. They are the lowest of the low. Imperial Guard Conscripts were champions compared to Skavenslaves... and yet Skavenslaves is the main reason why Skaven have been doing great since 8th came out.
So how can the worst model in the game be the best unit in an arguably powerful army?

Because there is a use for everything in WHFB. Not the case in 40k. Conscripts can be butchered to a man by a single character and he can do it in time to go out and be more than useful in the game. Not to mention that moving him away from the block is laughably easy. You won't get stuck there in the first place.
In WHFB you can't just jump pack him away to his intended target.

I guess when I think about it, that is true. I dabble in fantasy with my vamp counts. And while looking through the army book, I couldn't find a unit that wouldn't be useful in some manner
Wherein my Space Pups have units that are useless in every sense of the word

This would not be a bad idea.

Three Helldrakes, three Maulerfiends, allied with Necrons: two Night Scythes.

The percentage based system is better IMO, as armies with cheap elites/FA/HS can take more of them to show how they are more numerous without having to do silliness like "take 2 per slot" or "take squadron of X" or "does not count toward FOC". Also the fact it forces you to take more Troops than simply 2 cheap units.

But, it will still be unbalanced. Fantasy is more balanced largely because it's less rock-paper-scissors in the army list building stage. It's not a case of "my opponent may take 5 X, so I need to take 5 Y to counter it". 40k, if you take an equal amount of rocks, papers and scissors, that's what we call a TAC list, but because of all the facets of the rock-paper-scissors game, it easily creates imbalance (high armour save models, low armour save models, flyers, superheavies, D weapons, certain fortifications, many low AV vehicles vs a small number of high AV vehicles). That's compounded by the fact GW have no idea how to assign abilities and points values in a balanced manner.

Maybe it would not improve balance, but at least the armies will look like armies. Not “Are those guys playing the same game ? This one look like he is playing some skirmish game with much bigger scale models !”

 wuestenfux wrote:
This would not be a bad idea.

Three Helldrakes, three Maulerfiends, allied with Necrons: two Night Scythes.

You can already do that though. Drakes are FA, Maulers are HS and Night Scythes are DT for Crons.

Good codexes get better and bad codexes get worse. Also, that weird guy who wants to run 30 Scout Bikes or 9 Vypers no longer can.

Yay! Progress! Fun!

Thud wrote:
Good codexes get better and bad codexes get worse. Also, that weird guy who wants to run 30 Scout Bikes or 9 Vypers no longer can. Yay! Progress! Fun!

Depends on how they divide things up. I mean WFB uses percentages and puts a cap on numbers of units you can take in certain slots (Special and Rare for them, so FA and HS if it happened to 40k). So if it goes that route (basically doubling down and making you focus more on the core of your army instead of everything else) then it could get more balanced....if they also limit DT points as well.

Or nerfed Wave Serpents.

Thud wrote:
Good codexes get better and bad codexes get worse. Also, that weird guy who wants to run 30 Scout Bikes or 9 Vypers no longer can.

Yay! Progress! Fun!

The FOC already stops you doing things you might want to do. I'd like to take 3 Predators and 3 Whirlwinds to make an armoured SM army, oh wait, I can't.

Besides, we already have things like characters that shift models from FA/Elites/HS to troops, a percentage based system wouldn't change that.

Also I'm not really sure how it makes good codices better and bad ones worse, it might mix some things up, but I can't see it as a blanket statement like that.

I'd really like to play around a bit with the rumored system. I think that the percentages leave a lot of room for armies to be more interesting and those armies it hurts (Tyranid) are often the ones it helps as well.

It'd clear up ally issues by and large, especially if ally rules get simplified, stomp on things like triple Riptide, and give us some fresh air.

The downside, of course, is Troops Spam, or more precisely Dedicated Transprt Spam. You'd have to address the issue of Night Scythes and Wave Serpents. After that, the rest largely shakes itself out.

Wonder what the new typical battle size would be? 1500 is always nice, but what becomes the new 1850? 1600, for nice even 400 point chunks?That'd be my guess, but I don't know.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
The FOC already stops you doing things you might want to do. I'd like to take 3 Predators and 3 Whirlwinds to make an armoured SM army, oh wait, I can't.

Yes, you can. Second detachment at 2k points.

But even if you couldn't, you're still forced to take a lot more of stuff you might not want. Back when WD used to be good, they had some articles on something they called "Nemesis Armies" which were basically silly spam armies. One of them was the Ultramarines 1st Company. Calgar, 30 Terminators and ten Scouts ('cause you have to). That's my kind of army. I can accept ten dudes, but if I have to spend about 500 points on troops that kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Also I'm not really sure how it makes good codices better and bad ones worse, it might mix some things up, but I can't see it as a blanket statement like that.

I play Eldar. If I'm forced to spend more points on troops... Oh no, guess I'll have to break out my Wave Serpents again, and drop my Vypers. Sucks to be me.

I also play Blood Angels. Assault Marines and Death Company! Yaaaaaay! Fear my unbeatable army of doooooom!

A percentage based books favour armies with strong units in every force org slot and punishes armies without. I think it would only serve to widen the gap between the top tier and the rest of 40k.

I don't possibly see how it would balance out 40k, most of the truly abusive lists don't really break what most would likely place the limits at unless you made them much more limited than what Fantasies current limits are.

What happens with special characters that allow elites to be taken as Troops? Do the elites now count towards the Troops % or are they still the Elite %? This will get messy.

 Purifier wrote:

 Njal Stormpuppy wrote:
Fantasy is using this percentage based system, and I've been wondering
Is that the main reason for that games balance?
And what would this system do to 40K? The same?
God I hope so
Lets talk
What would a percentage based force organization do to the game of 40k?
Break it?
Make it better?
Or would things be the same?

The reason why WHFB is much much more balanced is because the worst model in the game can be useful by tying up the best enemy hammer for the full length of the game.
The very best example is Skavenslaves. They are the lowest of the low. Imperial Guard Conscripts were champions compared to Skavenslaves... and yet Skavenslaves is the main reason why Skaven have been doing great since 8th came out.
So how can the worst model in the game be the best unit in an arguably powerful army?

Because there is a use for everything in WHFB. Not the case in 40k. Conscripts can be butchered to a man by a single character and he can do it in time to go out and be more than useful in the game. Not to mention that moving him away from the block is laughably easy. You won't get stuck there in the first place.
In WHFB you can't just jump pack him away to his intended target.

What your forgetting about is what makes shaven slaves so effective is how many you can have in a single squad. If 40k allowed for such squad sizes(40+) at 2pts a pop even chapter master beak stick and the krumpas would get tied down the whole game.

And skaven slaves arent a good example because 40k has no equivalent.

Rustican wrote:
What happens with special characters that allow elites to be taken as Troops? Do the elites now count towards the Troops % or are they still the Elite %? This will get messy.

Elites could get their own slot. HQs that make things count as Troops (or other FOC moves) would still work the same, the points would just have different minimums/maximums.

Thud wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
The FOC already stops you doing things you might want to do. I'd like to take 3 Predators and 3 Whirlwinds to make an armoured SM army, oh wait, I can't.

Yes, you can. Second detachment at 2k points.

Well you can take 9 Vypers in an army of about 2200pts if you have 25% fast attack, same with the 30 scout bikers... not sure how this is any different.

But even if you couldn't, you're still forced to take a lot more of stuff you might not want. Back when WD used to be good, they had some articles on something they called "Nemesis Armies" which were basically silly spam armies. One of them was the Ultramarines 1st Company. Calgar, 30 Terminators and ten Scouts ('cause you have to). That's my kind of army. I can accept ten dudes, but if I have to spend about 500 points on troops that kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

But that's the point of special characters that mix up the FOC. We already have that... using percentages wouldn't change it.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Also I'm not really sure how it makes good codices better and bad ones worse, it might mix some things up, but I can't see it as a blanket statement like that.

I play Eldar. If I'm forced to spend more points on troops... Oh no, guess I'll have to break out my Wave Serpents again, and drop my Vypers. Sucks to be me.

You take more than 25% Vypers already? That's a lot of Vypers, lol. Also you can already take a ton of Wave Serpents. Changing to a % based system doesn't really change that. If you use the Fantasy system, you can have 75% of your army things that aren't Troops, all it changes is you can't take multiple very expensive selections in a single slot and you can't take very expensive selections at all in a small game (for example, you can't take Arachnarok in less than 1200pts, you wouldn't be able to take a Land Raider in less than 1000pts and even at that level, you wouldn't be able to other HS).

I also play Blood Angels. Assault Marines and Death Company! Yaaaaaay! Fear my unbeatable army of doooooom!

I'll wait for Martel to come along and tell you how that sucks But really, if you were maxing out on troops in the current rules, you were probably spending close to 75% on awesome spammy troops anyway and your army wouldn't really change.

Makumba wrote:
50% in wave serpents . then 25% in ally and HQs is more or less the seer star.

This. No fixes are possible until models are costed appropriately.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I don't possibly see how it would balance out 40k, most of the truly abusive lists don't really break what most would likely place the limits at unless you made them much more limited than what Fantasies current limits are.

I personally don't think it would help balance all that much, I mostly just think it's a better system. I can take 6 Zoanthropes and 3 Venomthropes grouped in to 3 units... I can take 2 Zoanthropes and 1 Venomthrope all as single models... but I can't take 2 Zoanthropes and 2 Venomthropes as 4 individual models because why?

You can take 3 super rare Land Raiders for 750pts even in a 1000pt army. But I can't take 5 Predators for 720pts in a 1500pt army?

There will still be exceptions, like IG would have their own % system that allows them to take more tanks, a certain SM character will let you build a 1st Company that shifts Terminators to Troops and so on.

I actually think dropping the troops/elites/FA/HS in favour of core/special/rare would be better as well, then special could be a higher % than rare and you could have fast units in all slots and heavy choices in all slots. Predator would most likely be "special", Land Raider would more likely be "rare".

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Well you can take 9 Vypers in an army of about 2200pts if you have 25% fast attack, same with the 30 scout bikers... not sure how this is any different.

Do you play many 2200 point games? Yeah, me neither.

As it is, I can make cooky armies that can do okay if I practice with them, that are something my opponents certainly don't see every day, and are nowhere near OP. With a percentage based system, I can't do that anymore. Why not? Because Seer Councils are OP. Super! Great game design!

But that's the point of special characters that mix up the FOC. We already have that... using percentages wouldn't change it.

Yes, it would. It would remove options that currently exist, while not providing new options.

You take more than 25% Vypers already? That's a lot of Vypers, lol. Also you can already take a ton of Wave Serpents. Changing to a % based system doesn't really change that. If you use the Fantasy system, you can have 75% of your army things that aren't Troops, all it changes is you can't take multiple very expensive selections in a single slot and you can't take very expensive selections at all in a small game (for example, you can't take Arachnarok in less than 1200pts).

Yes, I do. Because I love Vypers. And I know I can already take lots of Serpents. That's one of the much-maligned OP armies. The change to a percentage based system does nothing to change that, but it does screw over my fun armies.

And have you given any thought to how the percentage meta will look? Tau gunlines and WS spam. Great. Now you have something new to complain about and I still can't use my weird armies.

I'll wait for Martel to come along and tell you how that sucks But really, if you were maxing out on troops in the current rules, you were probably spending close to 75% on awesome spammy troops anyway and your army wouldn't really change.

It does suck. That was my point. Of course I don't max out BA troops currently. If I wanted to auto-lose, I'd just bring a pure LotD army. Armies with crappy troops already suck and now get a kick in the nuts. And so do deathstars. So that leaves armies with good troops crush everyone else.

Who said that Dedicated Transports would count towards the 25%? This would also help tone down Necron Flying Circus which really has never gone away.

Thud wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Well you can take 9 Vypers in an army of about 2200pts if you have 25% fast attack, same with the 30 scout bikers... not sure how this is any different.

Do you play many 2200 point games? Yeah, me neither.

Again, how is this different to me wanting 3 predators and 3 whirlwinds? I can take them in games above 2000pts... but I don't play games above 2000pts. It's the exact same thing, you are limited in how many things you can take, you just shift the limit from "selections" to "percentage".

Depending on their equipment you could actually take 10 Vypers in 2000pts if you had 25% FA.

But that's the point of special characters that mix up the FOC. We already have that... using percentages wouldn't change it.

Yes, it would. It would remove options that currently exist, while not providing new options.

Yes, it does provide new options. Now you can take more smaller units. If you happen to have a lot of cheap fast attack choices, not you can have more of them than before... if you only had a few really expensive fast attack options, now you can take less.

And you can still take your Terminator wing by choosing the character that shifts Terminators from elites to Troops.

You take more than 25% Vypers already? That's a lot of Vypers, lol. Also you can already take a ton of Wave Serpents. Changing to a % based system doesn't really change that. If you use the Fantasy system, you can have 75% of your army things that aren't Troops, all it changes is you can't take multiple very expensive selections in a single slot and you can't take very expensive selections at all in a small game (for example, you can't take Arachnarok in less than 1200pts).

Yes, I do. Because I love Vypers. And I know I can already take lots of Serpents. That's one of the much-maligned OP armies. The change to a percentage based system does nothing to change that, but it does screw over my fun armies.

And have you given any thought to how the percentage meta will look? Tau gunlines and WS spam. Great. Now you have something new to complain about and I still can't use my weird armies.

Well what about if we actually went to the full Fantasy system (which I think is the better way of doing it anyway), your Vypers become "special", so you can now take 50% Vypers if you really want. Now you can take 15-20 Vypers in 2000pts, yay for you! A % based system doesn't close off options unless those options are expensive options that shouldn't be seen frequently anyway.

Breng77 wrote:


Say you then cap Heavies to 25% max. There are some units that won't fit this in certain point levels at all. etc.

This has got me thinking. Introducing a limitation like that would sort of reintroduce the old 0-1 restriction for certain units. Example, for a riptide there would be a certain range of points where you could legally fit one into your list, and as points of the game increased you could add more to your list, and you would certainly expect to see more riptides in a large battle. Percentages like this have the potential to be very balancing and scalable. Much better then an arbitrary 0-1, and much better then no limitations at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rustican wrote:
What happens with special characters that allow elites to be taken as Troops? Do the elites now count towards the Troops % or are they still the Elite %? This will get messy.

As I understand, those rules turn the Elite into a Troops, so it would come from the Troops section.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
A percentage based books favour armies with strong units in every force org slot and punishes armies without. I think it would only serve to widen the gap between the top tier and the rest of 40k.

I'd think that a system like this would be a huge blow to some top tier
Death-stars would most likely be dead, enough of that trickery


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I don't possibly see how it would balance out 40k, most of the truly abusive lists don't really break what most would likely place the limits at unless you made them much more limited than what Fantasies current limits are.

I personally don't think it would help balance all that much, I mostly just think it's a better system. I can take 6 Zoanthropes and 3 Venomthropes grouped in to 3 units... I can take 2 Zoanthropes and 1 Venomthrope all as single models... but I can't take 2 Zoanthropes and 2 Venomthropes as 4 individual models because why?

You can take 3 super rare Land Raiders for 750pts even in a 1000pt army. But I can't take 5 Predators for 720pts in a 1500pt army?

There will still be exceptions, like IG would have their own % system that allows them to take more tanks, a certain SM character will let you build a 1st Company that shifts Terminators to Troops and so on.

I actually think dropping the troops/elites/FA/HS in favour of core/special/rare would be better as well, then special could be a higher % than rare and you could have fast units in all slots and heavy choices in all slots. Predator would most likely be "special", Land Raider would more likely be "rare".

And that's right! 40k would have to have more categories of units, hadn't thought of that.

And SOB's elits section would need help. As it is, there's nothing worth taking there. If I have to spend 25% on Repentia I might as well call it a game before I roll the first dice.
I say it would be easier just to nerf Riptides, seercouncils and Waves serpants.