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One of the frustrating things of 7th is how everything in terms of list design and gameplay is literally up in the air as each player needs to agree on the "terms of engagement" before playing the game.

This poses a problem for organized or tournament play as there is no one official way to play the game...like at all. Therefore as I personally think about army lists, I can't help but be a bit frustrated as I have no clue what criterion to use to build a list because of a distinct lack of format.

There are also the problems of if the changes in 7th are actually good for balanced/competitive play, so below is what I think is a decent start for a format that can be easily modified by any community to suit thier needs...So while some of them are restrictive, that is part of the point of coming to an agreement on a format, you restrict certain aspects of the game in a manner that seems fair and conducive to balance play.

(1) 1 primary and 1 allied detachment (so 2 sources max and if taking like inquisition as allies, limited to allied detachment rather than inquisitorial) AND you can ally with yourself (something GW seems to have messed up again in how they wrote the rules IMO).

This seems like a solid limitation to cap certain potential spam that would otherwise be unbalanced. There should be a common limit to what can be taken for all armies/players in terms of what a standard force org+allied org slot provides.

(2) No come the apocalypse allies.

While possibly fun, doesn't seem to make sense from a fluff/balance issue as some armies SHOULD be restricted from being able to ally...somehow chaos space marines and eldar doesn't make ANY sense in any way.

(3) No lords of war/fortifications.

While D weapons are toned down and a lot of people have come to enjoy fortifications, I think the players should stick with what is available in thier army books. Keeping it simple in this way makes sure we are playing Warhammer and not lord of war/fortification hammer.

(4) Non-walker vehicles can never score or contest.

Scoring drop pods, wave serpents or even landraiders does not seem like a good thing for the game, and the game was just fine without vehicles scoring or contesting. Walkers being able to score/contest does seem to make them more viable, perhaps and does make sense since they are generally act as infantry in many respects.

(5) Units in transports cannot score or contest

I think the change in 6th that units cannot score while embarked was a good one that added a level of tactical depth to the game-and we got used to it. Right now it's not entirely clear if units score while embarked (because I don't think they are actually counted a being on the board while embarked?) but regardless a unit that wants an objective should be forced to expose itself to enemy shooting/assault to get it IMO.

(6) Limit of 1 summoned unit per turn which cannot generate or cast powers the turn it arrives.

This is mainly to limit the potential effect of summoning more units...essentially, I don't think it is goo for the game to be able to get units for "free" as this really is a quick way to unbalance a game. Other units like tervigons are priced appropriately to consider the spawning of new units-nothing else in the game is. This is something the community as a whole should play test and figure out though.

(7) Max 24 warp charges a turn.

There probably should be some upper limit on warp charges that does not unduly limit armies that want a lot of warp activity and 24 mastery levels is a ton of power already, this number feels right but should be adjusted by play testing things out.

So how do these sound?

Restrictions 1-5 seem kind of pointless. Perhaps before proposing restrictions you could give some examples of the game-breaking lists that require them? For example, why do the scoring rules need to be changed to exclude vehicles? Why should your heavy support unit score while mine doesn't, just because yours is a MC while mine is a vehicle?

Restriction 6 seems kind of pointless. If you want to stop summoner armies, target summoning, not warp charges. (Although I would wait until at least a few tournaments are out of the way first before deciding whether it is broken). Daemon factory vs Guard or Grey Knights or Eldar are going to be in for a very rough time.

One of the best and most natural ways to cap summoning armies is to enforce that people have the models and aren't using proxies/legs on bases. Painting score takes in to account all the daemons you have available to summon. While the 60-horror army might be a possibility, significantly less people are going to have 5 bloodthirsters as well... Not a complete solution, but it means you're only going to have the absolute most dedicated pay-to-win players fielding the ridiculous 10-bloodthirster forces, in which case they would just buy the next most powerful army anyway so what's the point in restricting them further?


I think rather than 4/5, just make it: Dedicated Transports taken for Troops units do not gain the Objective Secured rule. We know that Wave Serpents in particular are deadly, durable, fast, and now to give them super-scoring... Drop pods as well - potentially 12 super-scoring units dropped directly on objectives is going to be a tough army to beat.

The 2 sources max thing is one that we saw coming up more and more in 6th edition. We've already seen the very powerful armies that can arise from this (Eldar/Deldar/Inquisition, Tau/Eldar/Inquisition, X/Y/Inquisition...), and it will potentially get worse now that CTA allies can actually be on the field together (Nids+Tau Firebase? Why not!). I see Marines/Grey Knights/Guard being very powerful.

I need to play some more games before I can say for sure.

Trasvi wrote:
One of the best and most natural ways to cap summoning armies is to enforce that people have the models and aren't using proxies/legs on bases.

No, this is a really bad idea. You never balance things based on the cost of obtaining the models, because people will always find a way to get them. Allowing overpowered stuff to stay in the game because the models are expensive just rewards the person with enough money to have a broken army commission painted, and punishes the people who can't afford to buy their own army to compete with it.

 Peregrine wrote:

Trasvi wrote:
One of the best and most natural ways to cap summoning armies is to enforce that people have the models and aren't using proxies/legs on bases.

No, this is a really bad idea. You never balance things based on the cost of obtaining the models, because people will always find a way to get them. Allowing overpowered stuff to stay in the game because the models are expensive just rewards the person with enough money to have a broken army commission painted, and punishes the people who can't afford to buy their own army to compete with it.

... and like I said, if people have enough money to buy 10 bloodthirsters and 200 horrors, they certainly have enough money to buy whatever other power army is out there once you cripple Malefic.

I'm still entirely unconvinced that Daemon Factory is overpowered or even competitive. Powerful, boring, slow, maybe. But it is static, vulnerable to alpha strikes, vulnerable to barrages, relies on highly risky/unreliable tactics to do anything, gives up kill points like crazy, and has next to no offensive capability for the first 3 turns of the game. So far we have only anecdotes of maxed summoning armies vs unoptimised lists, before the complete 7th ed rules (FAQs) are available, in non-tournament settings, which the daemons don't even necessarily win.

Trasvi wrote:


I'm still entirely unconvinced that Daemon Factory is overpowered or even competitive. Powerful, boring, slow, maybe. But it is static, vulnerable to alpha strikes, vulnerable to barrages, relies on highly risky/unreliable tactics to do anything, gives up kill points like crazy, and has next to no offensive capability for the first 3 turns of the game. So far we have only anecdotes of maxed summoning armies vs unoptimised lists, before the complete 7th ed rules (FAQs) are available, in non-tournament settings, which the daemons don't even necessarily win.

I've already gathered intel from 10 games, mostly through proxies and some vassal, to see firsthand how they hold up. We ignored purge the alien and maelstrom of war missions, as we wanted to see how they dealt with all the objective missions. The opposing armies were:
1 ork green tide. Tabled easily.
2 CSM lists, one with 3 drakes. Both trounced, 3 drakes ignored and laughed at.
2 C:sm lists, 1 grav star, 1 bikers. Trounced, bikers just short of tabled.
1 wolf pod list. Bloody for both sides, but ended up with just some drop pods not near objectives at the end.
1 tau farsight/shadowsun bomb. Overrun. 2 riptides were in combat at the end.
1 IG armored co with a baneblade LOW. Screamers. Screamers and exploding tanks everywhere.
1 Eldar/dark eldar seer council + serpent spam. Couldn't get fortune past the daemons the whole game, got cornered and overwhelmed around turn 6.
And lastly, a BA force with a reaver Titan LOW Double laser blasters and apocalypse missile launcher. Lots of screamers just like the IG game. The reaver was gone in turn 4.

We've had multiple people play the role of the daemon commander, and so far, every game has been a daemon victory. The only one I've seen at all that wasn't was that one Frontline gaming batrep where the tactical objective cards tried to hand the game to the non-daemon player, and it was still close.

Being able to snag free models is powerful. Being able to pick exactly what you want from an entire codex for free is insane. A good pilot behind a summon factory will end anything in front of him. The only things stopping it from being the universal god of lists is kill points and tactical objectives, as well as general time limits of turns in a tournament setting. Even on vassal with easy group click movement, that psychic phase is insane.

Also the psychic bookkeeping is enough to drive a man to chaos.

Now try it without proxying, so that you have tons of every type of daemon troop, and Fast attack option, and herald, and Greater Daemon.

What about IG barrage spam to take out the units doing the summoning?

What about something like beast star multi assaulting and causing mass instability tests?

What about Grey Knights with Sanctic powers, and the same number of dispel dice?

Too many changes in the OP. Obviously, folks need to give the new rules a chance.

I think "composing an army" is the main thing that needs looking at quickly. Events will have to decide if they want multiple Combined Arms Detachments allowed or not (i.e. 2 FOCs).

I think that's too much, and armies should be limited to one Combined Arms Detachment, and given a source limit of either 2 or 3 sources total (for dataslates/allies).

But changing what can contest objectives and what can't is too much of a knee jerk reaction, imo...

I think vehicles scoring and potentially contesting is actually a counter to death stars so I'd want to keep thqt in the game.

I also think that generating a lot of warp charges is a very decent counter to a lot of the death stars armies. As a seer star even though it generates 20 dice or so will have a hard time winning a GT if it runs into a few armies that generate enough dice to deny it powers 2-3 times a game. So I don't want to limit psychic dice I just want to limit abuse of psychic powers. IMO best way to do that is to just straight ban abusive psychic powers. We nerf or ban invisibility and ban the summoning powers. The summoning powers really have no place in competitive 40k anyway as they basically allow you bring significantly more points to the game than your opponent which is just not fair. In chess I don't get to play with 2 times as many pawns as you.

This is the second thread on the matter. We can combine the two if you all want. Some of your changes seem to jump back to 6th edition completely.

niv-mizzet wrote:

Trasvi wrote:


I'm still entirely unconvinced that Daemon Factory is overpowered or even competitive. Powerful, boring, slow, maybe. But it is static, vulnerable to alpha strikes, vulnerable to barrages, relies on highly risky/unreliable tactics to do anything, gives up kill points like crazy, and has next to no offensive capability for the first 3 turns of the game. So far we have only anecdotes of maxed summoning armies vs unoptimised lists, before the complete 7th ed rules (FAQs) are available, in non-tournament settings, which the daemons don't even necessarily win.

I've already gathered intel from 10 games, mostly through proxies and some vassal, to see firsthand how they hold up. We ignored purge the alien and maelstrom of war missions, as we wanted to see how they dealt with all the objective missions. The opposing armies were:
1 ork green tide. Tabled easily.
2 CSM lists, one with 3 drakes. Both trounced, 3 drakes ignored and laughed at.
2 C:sm lists, 1 grav star, 1 bikers. Trounced, bikers just short of tabled.
1 wolf pod list. Bloody for both sides, but ended up with just some drop pods not near objectives at the end.
1 tau farsight/shadowsun bomb. Overrun. 2 riptides were in combat at the end.
1 IG armored co with a baneblade LOW. Screamers. Screamers and exploding tanks everywhere.
1 Eldar/dark eldar seer council + serpent spam. Couldn't get fortune past the daemons the whole game, got cornered and overwhelmed around turn 6.
And lastly, a BA force with a reaver Titan LOW Double laser blasters and apocalypse missile launcher. Lots of screamers just like the IG game. The reaver was gone in turn 4.

We've had multiple people play the role of the daemon commander, and so far, every game has been a daemon victory. The only one I've seen at all that wasn't was that one Frontline gaming batrep where the tactical objective cards tried to hand the game to the non-daemon player, and it was still close.

Being able to snag free models is powerful. Being able to pick exactly what you want from an entire codex for free is insane. A good pilot behind a summon factory will end anything in front of him. The only things stopping it from being the universal god of lists is kill points and tactical objectives, as well as general time limits of turns in a tournament setting. Even on vassal with easy group click movement, that psychic phase is insane.

Also the psychic bookkeeping is enough to drive a man to chaos.

Out of those lists, it seems like ANY msu army could have beaten a lot of them. Deathstars in general don't do well when facing multiple weak targets.
I'm surprised that the Seer council had such a hard time getting its powers off though. They have sufficient casting dice that if they really need to get off a particular blessing, they can just dump all their power dice minus one into casting, use Ghost Helm to negate the perils, and laugh as the Daemon player tries to dispel against 7 successes even with 30 dice.
The Guard army I think should have had a chance if they were running Wyverns. Got to compare apples with apples here - tournament list vs tournament list. 3+ wyverns should be a staple from here on out (especially as triple force org is a legal thing) and they can make easy work of 10 horrors + tzerald per turn.
The C:SM Bikers and the Wolf Pod list sound the best suited to take on Daemons and they sound like the closest games.

Now wait a few weeks until Coteaz + 6x(Psyker, 2 Acolytes, Psyback) becomes a staple in tournament lists...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pony_law wrote:
In chess I don't get to play with 2 times as many pawns as you.

You get 2x as many pawns if you promise not to take any of my pieces for the first 5 moves of the game. Because that is pretty much the Daemon army. It has no offensive punch until the third turn.

Pony_law wrote:
I think vehicles scoring and potentially contesting is actually a counter to death stars so I'd want to keep thqt in the game.

I also think that generating a lot of warp charges is a very decent counter to a lot of the death stars armies. As a seer star even though it generates 20 dice or so will have a hard time winning a GT if it runs into a few armies that generate enough dice to deny it powers 2-3 times a game. So I don't want to limit psychic dice I just want to limit abuse of psychic powers. IMO best way to do that is to just straight ban abusive psychic powers. We nerf or ban invisibility and ban the summoning powers. The summoning powers really have no place in competitive 40k anyway as they basically allow you bring significantly more points to the game than your opponent which is just not fair. In chess I don't get to play with 2 times as many pawns as you.

Blood angels pay more points than marines for the same stuff that's just not fair
summoning will not be a problem. it will be a list but it will not be top tier at events. too random. maybe we should pay the game as it is for a couple of events instead of trying to fix problems that don't exist.
also any demons summoned should be laid out with army for paint judging.

Some of the changes may be seen as knee jerk reactions and some do take us back to where we were in 6th, but that is because I think the changes in 7th are not conducive to balanced/competitive play in a tournament setting. These proposed changes are how I am guessing a balanced format would look like and after the dust settles from 7th and we see a few events I will be curious to see how close to my proposed format tournaments end up. Specifically, I listed my changes as I did because I don't think the way some things are handled (or not handled) in 7th is good or a balanced/competitive environment and a conservative approach is what I favor most in coming up with formats.

Also, while my thread is similar to TK's it's still it's own proposal which I think is different enough as I focus on my specific proposals but whatever a mod wants to do is fine.

I gotta say I'm liking a lot of what I see here.