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oh i'd so do a dreadnought list called the knights of NI! just spam furioso librarian dreadnoughts.

bullyboy wrote:
Unbound......simply will highlight the type of gaming group you have. If that consists of a high level of d-baggery already, it will remain so. Otherwise, I don't think it will make much difference to the game in general, it's not really well balanced currently anyway.

This.


Not worried about Unbound. I am actually looking forward to seeing the crazy fluffy armies my group comes up with.

I'll be withholding judgment until I see the rules.

I think the real doomsaying going on here will be, as it usually is, proven wrong and that the overall impact will be lessened. I think bullyboy has a good point in that it will heavily depend on the group you play with.

You could always play Unbound. You could either play a special game with some people you know, or play a small Apoc game which had no restrictions.

Actually, the more you think about, all GW has done is make every game an Apoc game, just at lower point values.

Anyways, Unbound is a poor idea because its not quite a rule, its the opposite of one. Writing a rule that allows you to just ignore several other rules isn't exactly the pinnacle of game design.

I just think it'll further compartmentalize the players. If you have a small group of like-minded people, nothing will really change. People who play pick-ups and tournaments will have to negotiate all their games and potentially turn down a fair amount, further dividing the different mindsets of players.

Obviously I'll be waiting for the full rules to judge it fully, but I don't think its a good idea, even in a conceptual stage.

i can see it being good for narrative games as you can be a little more true to the theme of a game. but for competitive play i can see it being abused.

im still skeptical its legit, even if it is supposedly from the white dwarf itself (i dont read them so all i know is heresay). But im not really worried about it, as what you said is not only true but then theres the other factor.

Counters.

Say youre facing against a CSM that is known to use 3 helldrakes, you bring something to counter it. If he still brings it and you have a suitable counter, you just neutered most of his power.
It may be harder to predict in some situations, but if you spam something and just HAPPEN to face what counters it then youre boned before you even place anything. Fear of that will keep people using the FOC even after it goes away. All it will change is we might start seeing 4 elites/heavies/FA instead of 3. My Tau will be able to use Sniper Drones for once lol.

Not to mention i would doubt they would bring straight up "anything you want" rules. Theres bound to be HQ requirements and most likely some troops. Even in real life, tank platoons still have people on foot because they cant defend themselves up close that well (if at all in some cases), so if any enemy troops get close enough they can wreck havoc with grenades and C4. Minimums dont really affect anyones list, far as i know though. Maximums on the other hand......least it prevents 8-10 30man boyz squads rofl

 Accolade wrote:
I'm ready for the armies of Lone Wolves for Days!!

"Sir, there's only 40-something marines out there but we can't shoot more than one at a time!"

MON oblits same situation.... or is it worth having 10% more of them


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 curran12 wrote:
I'll be withholding judgment until I see the rules.

I think the real doomsaying going on here will be, as it usually is, proven wrong and that the overall impact will be lessened. I think bullyboy has a good point in that it will heavily depend on the group you play with.

very much agree with this, I dont think there will be as much of the Dbaggery as people are expecting to be honest

 brochtree wrote:
i can see it being good for narrative games as you can be a little more true to the theme of a game. but for competitive play i can see it being abused.

How is having a completely unrestricted army composition any more 'narrative' oriented than one with a logical army composition.

Frankly, just about anything in this game is 'narrative' if you make it that way. The FoC makes perfect sense for all the armies, and the unit selection available within each slot represents quite well how that unit would be used in a battle in the 40k universe.

Making something more 'narrative' is entirely up to the players.

And here I was holding out hope the rules would somehow magically improve, not "lol we cant balance so f it were gonna toss this crap out anyway".

To say that the former number one tabletop company can't "afford" to balance their rules or somehow claim "too many different units" to do so is pathetic and after playing since the launch of 3rd ed, I have finally had enough of less quality for more money efforts.

Zewrath wrote:

 Accolade wrote:
I'm ready for the armies of Lone Wolves for Days!!

"Sir, there's only 40-something marines out there but we can't shoot more than one at a time!"

Hahaha! That would actually be hillarious! Not only will the opponent have to shoot 1 at a time, but you will gain 1 VP for every unit lost! Would be fun to suicide 39/40 of them and have the last one out of LOS, and have 39 VP's at the end of the game.

Just wanted to point out real quick... They give your opponent a VP if they survive, and only in kill point missions. If they die no one gets a VP.

 Sigvatr wrote:
A match doesn't become more competitive because you brought more of the same. A truly competitive match is competitive when it's your personal skill that decides the match, not your wallet. Unbound is the exact opposite of a competitive match.

I would argue that unbound has plenty of room for competetion. If I fear multiple helldrakes, I could now be free to take that stalker/hunter, without hurting my otherwise crowded heavy support selection. Furthermore, I find the "pay-to-win"-argument flawed. How is buying a Tau data slate + the models required + 3 Broadsides & and 2 Riptides in my normal army + a Farseer with a couple of Wave Serpents as allies NOT pay to win?

The main thing I see as silly in the whole anti-unbound movement, except the fact we don't really know the details yet or the fact half the "well, I could pull of XYZ" are legal as it is, is the mind-boggling fact that they fail no notice each of their "super lists" revels on the fact of spamming a single unit that is a problem in its own right.

Nobody comes out with "termie spam" or "legions of scarabs", just spamming a handful of units who are ALREADY a problem, even within the FOC, as they out-do anything else within their own FOC placement.

This leads me to a simple conclusion-unbound itself is not an issue at all, it just gives room for the bigger problem that is lack of balance to reveal itself, however once you cheese-you cheese with or without being unbound, so what difference does it even make?

 BoomWolf wrote:
so what difference does it even make?

The gap between the already disparate levels of balance will only get worse.

Instead of fixing it, GW just shrugged and walked away.

Of course, the full rules might change it, but even the rough concept of unbound is pretty ridiculous.

 Condas wrote:

Zewrath wrote:

 Accolade wrote:
I'm ready for the armies of Lone Wolves for Days!!

"Sir, there's only 40-something marines out there but we can't shoot more than one at a time!"

Hahaha! That would actually be hillarious! Not only will the opponent have to shoot 1 at a time, but you will gain 1 VP for every unit lost! Would be fun to suicide 39/40 of them and have the last one out of LOS, and have 39 VP's at the end of the game.

Just wanted to point out real quick... They give your opponent a VP if they survive, and only in kill point missions. If they die no one gets a VP.

It's like a reverse Death-star. You have to avoid killing them to win.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Condas wrote:

Zewrath wrote:

 Accolade wrote:
I'm ready for the armies of Lone Wolves for Days!!

"Sir, there's only 40-something marines out there but we can't shoot more than one at a time!"

Hahaha! That would actually be hillarious! Not only will the opponent have to shoot 1 at a time, but you will gain 1 VP for every unit lost! Would be fun to suicide 39/40 of them and have the last one out of LOS, and have 39 VP's at the end of the game.

Just wanted to point out real quick... They give your opponent a VP if they survive, and only in kill point missions. If they die no one gets a VP.

It's like a reverse Death-star. You have to avoid killing them to win.

The only way to win is not to play.

 Blacksails wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
so what difference does it even make?

The gap between the already disparate levels of balance will only get worse.

Instead of fixing it, GW just shrugged and walked away.

Of course, the full rules might change it, but even the rough concept of unbound is pretty ridiculous.

So how do you think that it will break balance even more? Care to give examples? (if we pretend the unbound rules are as we think they are ofcourse).

Zewrath wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
so what difference does it even make?

The gap between the already disparate levels of balance will only get worse.

Instead of fixing it, GW just shrugged and walked away.

Of course, the full rules might change it, but even the rough concept of unbound is pretty ridiculous.

So how do you think that it will break balance even more? Care to give examples? (if we pretend the unbound rules are as we think they are ofcourse).

For a number of units, their power cannot be accurately reflected simply with their points cost. Many units get more powerful the more of them you take, because they are designed around being limited to only 3 of them per army.

Let's take Land Raiders as an example. (Some of what I say may not be strictly true, so please don't nit-pick, but try to feel the overall theme.)
Land Raiders are Very Hard to Kill. With AV14 all round, and a decent amount of firepower, they are quite tough. However, a normal army can't take that many of them. Not just because of their points cost, but because of where they are found in the FOC. By reducing their ability to be totally spammed, we can assume that an average all-comers list will have enough firepower to take them out. Most armies will have a squad or two of meltas or something similar which can deal with high AV targets - but only a squad or two, because they likewise know that opponents can only show up with up to 3 high AV targets.
However, once we get to 6 landraiders we have a different story. The two melta units the opponent has will be targetted first, and then there is little to nothing you can do to kill anything. This isn't as big a problem in normal games because you have more than one type of target to shoot at, so if your meltas die then plasmas can still attack other things.

Essentially, it becomes an abuse of target denial/saturation strategy. Target denial is purposefully not taking a particular type of target, so that opponents with TAC forces have elements which are essentially wasted points. The opposite side is target saturation, purposefully spamming a particular type of target so that the specialists the enemy has taken to deal with you can't make a dent. A typical example is Flyers: taking 1 flyer is risky because good strategy is taking 2 units of anti-air - but when you show up with 3 helldrakes/vendettas/6 night-scythes, that becomes a much more difficult proposition.

So have a look at the proposed unbound armies being espoused in the other thread, and look at them through the lens of target denial. You have armies like:

3 Acolytes, x100.
Can your army take out 100 targets over the course of a game? I don't think I could even target that many units.

3 Acolytes, Rhino x39
Heck, I don't think I could even target 39/78 units over the course of a game, let alone kill 40 transports.

12 Leman Russ
Can you take out 12 AV14 vehicles?

11x Basions
2x Basilisks
2x Death Deathstrikes
4x Wyvern
3x Hydra
You can't even see these models to kill them!

and depending on what the rules for the new Daemonology summoning lists turn out like:
Sorcerer (ML 3, Chaos Bike, The Balestar of Mannon)
Sorcerer (ML 3, Chaos Bike, Melta Bombs)
12x Sorcerer (ML 3, Chaos Bike)
18 Farseers OR 26 Spirit Seers OR 52 Warlocks
Again, pure speculation based off White Dwarf snippets... but could you beat an army that can potentially summon 26 Greater Daemons or 260 Bloodletters on to the table? (per turn? wild guessing)


These armies can win games by simply being unkillable by most armies - they might lose 15 Rhinos and 30 acolyte squads, but that still leaves enough models on the board to capture/contest objectives and simply win via attrition. This in turn opens them up to hard counters.
What's a game where forces are invincible except to their hard counters? Rock Scissors Paper. Do we really invest thousands of dollars and years of effort in to armies to play games where the result is literally decided when your opponent is drawn?

Frankly I'm super excited about Unbound for no reason other than the fact that I'm slightly OCD and really want my armies to be symmetrical, which is hard to pull off when the FOC is giving you 3 choices.

Also, it really annoys the heck out of me that I can't field 2 separate Zoanthropes each with a Venomthrope escort. I really want to have a Zoan escorted by a Venom running flanks on my termagant storm, with my tervigons towards the center. But because the stupid FOC is 3 and not 4, I can't do it.

Trasvi wrote:


For a number of units, their power cannot be accurately reflected simply with their points cost. Many units get more powerful the more of them you take, because they are designed around being limited to only 3 of them per army.

Let's take Land Raiders as an example. (Some of what I say may not be strictly true, so please don't nit-pick, but try to feel the overall theme.)
Land Raiders are Very Hard to Kill. With AV14 all round, and a decent amount of firepower, they are quite tough. However, a normal army can't take that many of them. Not just because of their points cost, but because of where they are found in the FOC. By reducing their ability to be totally spammed, we can assume that an average all-comers list will have enough firepower to take them out. Most armies will have a squad or two of meltas or something similar which can deal with high AV targets - but only a squad or two, because they likewise know that opponents can only show up with up to 3 high AV targets.
However, once we get to 6 landraiders we have a different story. The two melta units the opponent has will be targetted first, and then there is little to nothing you can do to kill anything. This isn't as big a problem in normal games because you have more than one type of target to shoot at, so if your meltas die then plasmas can still attack other things.

Essentially, it becomes an abuse of target denial/saturation strategy. Target denial is purposefully not taking a particular type of target, so that opponents with TAC forces have elements which are essentially wasted points. The opposite side is target saturation, purposefully spamming a particular type of target so that the specialists the enemy has taken to deal with you can't make a dent. A typical example is Flyers: taking 1 flyer is risky because good strategy is taking 2 units of anti-air - but when you show up with 3 helldrakes/vendettas/6 night-scythes, that becomes a much more difficult proposition.

So have a look at the proposed unbound armies being espoused in the other thread, and look at them through the lens of target denial. You have armies like:

3 Acolytes, x100.
Can your army take out 100 targets over the course of a game? I don't think I could even target that many units.

3 Acolytes, Rhino x39
Heck, I don't think I could even target 39/78 units over the course of a game, let alone kill 40 transports.

12 Leman Russ
Can you take out 12 AV14 vehicles?

11x Basions
2x Basilisks
2x Death Deathstrikes
4x Wyvern
3x Hydra
You can't even see these models to kill them!

and depending on what the rules for the new Daemonology summoning lists turn out like:
Sorcerer (ML 3, Chaos Bike, The Balestar of Mannon)
Sorcerer (ML 3, Chaos Bike, Melta Bombs)
12x Sorcerer (ML 3, Chaos Bike)
18 Farseers OR 26 Spirit Seers OR 52 Warlocks
Again, pure speculation based off White Dwarf snippets... but could you beat an army that can potentially summon 26 Greater Daemons or 260 Bloodletters on to the table? (per turn? wild guessing)


These armies can win games by simply being unkillable by most armies - they might lose 15 Rhinos and 30 acolyte squads, but that still leaves enough models on the board to capture/contest objectives and simply win via attrition. This in turn opens them up to hard counters.
What's a game where forces are invincible except to their hard counters? Rock Scissors Paper. Do we really invest thousands of dollars and years of effort in to armies to play games where the result is literally decided when your opponent is drawn?

Those are good examples. But if the video that GW has released about the rules is to be believed (looks 100% legit) then battleforged armies will have the objective secured rule and unbound won't have the ability to be denial units, which is pretty huge, considering that acolytes has zero killing power. So hide your units in a rhino and your oponent can litterally do zero against you. I can't comment on the daemon summoning part though, as I am as nervous about it for the same reasons you are (with the given examples).

Zewrath wrote:
Those are good examples. But if the video that GW has released about the rules is to be believed (looks 100% legit) then battleforged armies will have the objective secured rule and unbound won't have the ability to be denial units, which is pretty huge, considering that acolytes has zero killing power. So hide your units in a rhino and your oponent can litterally do zero against you. I can't comment on the daemon summoning part though, as I am as nervous about it for the same reasons you are (with the given examples).

Thats new information that came out after my post. To be honest that is exactly what I picked would be the penalty for playing an unbound army: that you can only win by tabling your opponent.
it depends whether unbound models can't score at all, or can't contest. If they can score, you could still see some of the more ridiculous MSU armies (30 acolytes+30 razorbacks) being able to simply park 10 vehicles / 10 squads directly on an objective.

However, those were all denial armies I listed. What about armies that actually try to be killy? Not having to pay a 'troops tax' or not being restricted by that damn FOC, you can make quite nasty lists even if all it means is you have an extra 200pts to buy another riptide or your 4th broadside squad....

If tabling your opponent is the primary means of winning for an unbound army, then I would imagine that these armies will be much more cheese-centric.

Unbound armies where the opponent just brings anything they have are going to get pounded into the dirt.

"Welcome to the HHHobby, fresh fish!"

bullyboy wrote:
Unbound......simply will highlight the type of gaming group you have. If that consists of a high level of d-baggery already, it will remain so. Otherwise, I don't think it will make much difference to the game in general, it's not really well balanced currently anyway.

So if anything it makes it more unbalanced?

Why do they need to have rules that allow people to pick what they want? That can be done with friends now in 6th edition.

I think the core rule set should be more about achieving some level of balance (despite GW saying they are not into that).

 Smirrors wrote:
Why do they need to have rules that allow people to pick what they want? That can be done with friends now in 6th edition.

I think the core rule set should be more about achieving some level of balance (despite GW saying they are not into that).

Exactly. People I play have no problem with me playing a themed CSM + Daemons + renegade guard list here. You need a good, balanced base to work from on top of which you can then add any house rules you want to customise your experience. You shouldn't need to use house rules to *fix* the game, and then more again to customise your play.

Zewrath wrote:

So how do you think that it will break balance even more? Care to give examples? (if we pretend the unbound rules are as we think they are ofcourse).

Its even as simple as taking an already powerful list using the FoC, and then minimizing poor mandatory unit choices (think Tac marines for codex marines) and only bringing the excellent support units.

Even from a more casual perspective, it frees up units that used to compete for valuable slots, like anti-air units in Codex Marines.

Its a ridiculous rule that flies in the face of competent game design. Part of the whole balancing act in 40k (that GW occasionally did right) was that some units were balanced purely on slot availability in heated areas, like Heavy Support for Guard.

Now you get to ignore that.

Zewrath wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:

Zewrath wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
And then you come across:
15 anni barges
3 nightscythes with 5 warriors and 2 stormteks in each (don't need the overlord tax for 2 royal courts if 'unbound' right?)
None of which require buffing and can take out anything the opponent has with an average of 88 st7 hits and 24 haywire shots. Not including the barges underslung guns and the warriors weapons.
Solves the scoring issue with the nightscythes rules too.
1995pts.

Have people of this community even read the leaked rules? You still have to respect certain restrictions, I can't make an army of 10 SM command squads if I have 0 captains/librarians/chaplains. Overlords are still needed to unlock royal courts.

I can legally field broadsides that pumps out 120 S7/S5 TL shots every turn, and still have points for Riptides, buffmanders and scoring troops, Wave Serpents can get a potential of 48-56 TL S7 ignore cover with impunity.
Dark Eldar can also legally blow up over 200+ poison shots, while still having all their 3/3 heavy slots filled with dark lance spam.

No I haven't. Just read the posts. And applied the literal definition of 'unbound'. Maybe you can't have royal courts without overlords, but my point still stands that you can spam ridiculously undercosted units that don't need buffs whilst still being able to score.

May I ask how that is anything different from the spams we already see, legally? (Like the ones I've mention in my examples above).
Besides, your mentioned list still has very big difficulties in putting a scratch in the dominant deathstar builds that you can still 100% still legally field.

Tbf you make a very good point.

Unbound sounds incredibly unfun. I don't have a closet full of armies to just pick and chose from. If GW goes for pay to win, then I've been forced out.

Now is too early for this. However, I will play.

1750 point list:

10 deathstrike missile launchers with camo cloaks.

Unbound won't be so bad for me as I will simply choose to not play it or against it.

Simply put: Better made rules kills the ability of d-bags to be d-bags. A balanced game makes nearly all choices viable.

Warmachine/hordes is unbound, but do to unit restrictions, you can mix and match all units and still have a great game. Want a fluffier list? THEN you get bonus rules to make them better since non-fluffy lists will be a bit stronger.

Same goes for Infinity with Sectorials.

Bad games allow for d-bags to be d-bags. Don't hate players, hate the game.

After the addition of Allies, Escalation, and White Dwarf Codexes it's not like the FOC means a lot in current 40k anyways. I don't see this being much of a change beyond making it quicker and easier to define "game with no shenanigans".