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Does anyone feel as though a shift to a 3 source model from the current 2 source model for list building is an inevitability given the last few codices that GW has released?

Yes, if not more... unfortunately, this has partly resulted in my deciding not to go through the huge effort of updating my nids to 7th edition standards, at least for now. It seems like the game could change anytime, and while I know that has always been the case, it seems faster than before.

I felt quite safe painting up 150 gaunts for AdeptiCon earlier this year, thinking I'd get to run them for some time... but, a new edition hits 23 months after the last, and now competitive nid lists seem to mostly field 0 or at least very few gaunts. Letting other units claim objectives was huge, and throwing the FOC out was huge. The trend seems to only continue, if not get even steeper on the curve of new releases.

It's ironic because people often wanted GW to update more frequently - but I think the idea with that was giving new rules to old 'dexes... not making a completely new base ruleset 2 years after the last

So, yes, I think if anything, the source limit may go away entirely for at least some events... but there may need to be some form of alternate 40k for the more casual player that is more restricted at events, too, since I know I am far from the only one who is daunted by the rapid and not-necessarily-for-the-good change.

It's basically a matter of degrees - I start to wrap my mind around bringing a formation, and that's cool... and then I start to look at self-allying, and that's cool too... and then when I look at doing both together, suddenly I've passed the point where I find it reasonable and it seems that I could just chuck anything on the table and have multiples of whatever good unit I feel like spamming. I no longer have a good structure to build towards... I can only guess that with GW is thinking "unlimited structure = more purchases", but it can have the opposite effect as the size of an investment becomes daunting (much as fantasy has for many players).

It's not even the money for me, but the time... I just have so many options now, and the meta is changing so quickly, that building a competitive army seems difficult. By the time I've planned it out and painted it, I'm worried things will have changed again... much like last time.

Sorry for the long response, but this is something I've been pondering quite a bit, so that's my (long-winded) take on it! Would love to see other's thoughts on whether moving more and more to unlimited is going to be a good or bad thing... but this idea of an "inevitable" shift to completely unlimited really took the wind out of my modelling sails. Maybe once it's gotten there, but I'd hate to get caught in the rapid transition again :-/

 AesSedai wrote:
Does anyone feel as though a shift to a 3 source model from the current 2 source model for list building is an inevitability given the last few codices that GW has released?

Source is an inappropriate word here. You need to be thinking in terms of detachments. Inside one CAD, I can legally field from up to 4 source rule books (Codex, data slate character, FW model and Stronghold Assault) without breaking most tournament rules. The goal with a 2 detachment limit is to force trade offs in list building (I.e. you get to bring the Knight or the servo skull inquisitor but not both). I think 2 detachment rules will stay the norm because it's a solid natural limit to preventing über combinations.

I don't think we're going to see a shift to completely unlimited. That said I do think you're going to start seeing 3+ Detachments become available. How it's done will again differ because no one can agree on a standard but I do think after Adepticon this year most events will shift to 3+ detachments in some form or another.

 Hulksmash wrote:
I don't think we're going to see a shift to completely unlimited. That said I do think you're going to start seeing 3+ Detachments become available. How it's done will again differ because no one can agree on a standard but I do think after Adepticon this year most events will shift to 3+ detachments in some form or another.

How do people carry all these rules around? In 3rd/4th, during the Index Astartes/Chapter Approved craze, it wasn't uncommon to carry at least 3 extra books/rules sources around to play the game. I remember folks liking the variety, but lamenting the number of books you had to carry around with you, but at least they were all softback codicies and White Dwarf mags right? (For example, I had a rulebook, Chaos Codex, Abbaddon's Black Crusade Supplement, the Index Astartes: World Eaters White Dwarf, and I want to say there was an additional source with either some demon rules or something too.) That was a lot of stuff to carry.

Nowadays though, it seems like we're back to the same thing, but now all the books are bigger and hardback!!?!??! How does anybody do it?

We call them "Tablets". Many books, one source

Not sure what will happen here.

I think you're as likely to see people start adopting Highlander as you are to see adoption of 3+ Detachments. There's a point at which the game becomes defacto Battle Forged, which is ridiculous for large competitive/fair-focused events. Even at places like NOVA where Overall is based in enormous part upon soft scores, you still will see all kinds of brokenhammer lists once an event gets large enough to draw enough of each player type.

PS - Highlander is pretty awesome! :p Never thought I'd find myself saying something like that.

I actually see no positives in running unlimited formats. In fact im witnessing a pushback on letting all out battleforged due to a couple of events recently trying to use that format.

Having played some Highlander games recently I love it.

 whitedragon wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
I don't think we're going to see a shift to completely unlimited. That said I do think you're going to start seeing 3+ Detachments become available. How it's done will again differ because no one can agree on a standard but I do think after Adepticon this year most events will shift to 3+ detachments in some form or another.

How do people carry all these rules around? In 3rd/4th, during the Index Astartes/Chapter Approved craze, it wasn't uncommon to carry at least 3 extra books/rules sources around to play the game. I remember folks liking the variety, but lamenting the number of books you had to carry around with you, but at least they were all softback codicies and White Dwarf mags right? (For example, I had a rulebook, Chaos Codex, Abbaddon's Black Crusade Supplement, the Index Astartes: World Eaters White Dwarf, and I want to say there was an additional source with either some demon rules or something too.) That was a lot of stuff to carry.

Nowadays though, it seems like we're back to the same thing, but now all the books are bigger and hardback!!?!??! How does anybody do it?

Well, you don't *have* to carry them around, because you don't have to take that many books if you don't want to. I have a tablet, but even that is unwieldy when your rules are spread through four books. I'd rather just limit myself to a couple of books as it'll make the game a hell of a lot more fun for me!!

It's self-policing.

MVBrandt wrote:
Not sure what will happen here.

I think you're as likely to see people start adopting Highlander as you are to see adoption of 3+ Detachments. There's a point at which the game becomes defacto Battle Forged, which is ridiculous for large competitive/fair-focused events. Even at places like NOVA where Overall is based in enormous part upon soft scores, you still will see all kinds of brokenhammer lists once an event gets large enough to draw enough of each player type.

PS - Highlander is pretty awesome! :p Never thought I'd find myself saying something like that.

zedsdead wrote:
I actually see no positives in running unlimited formats. In fact im witnessing a pushback on letting all out battleforged due to a couple of events recently trying to use that format.

Having played some Highlander games recently I love it.

Highlander sounds quite tempting. However, doesn't that really hurt old books that have few options?

I have to wrap my mind around it... but I'm intrigued. Is this pretty standard for highlander format (found on the google)?

There can be only one! This is a 1500 point 40k event with the following special limitations. No allies are allowed. There is no unit duplication allowed, at all, not even dedicated transports. Units like IG Priests and Blood Angel priests who come multiples for one slot are also limited to one per army. You may bring forgeworld to this event, but you are required to use the official model and supply the rules. Forge world units taken in this even must also be standard force organization choices for the army you are using. Forge World army lists are permitted provided all of the previous restrictions are observed. If your army list has only one troop choice available to it (example: Sisters of Battle) then you are only required (or permitted) to field one troop choice.

It seems like you have to use it to limit troops too, if you're going to use it at all, or else wave serpent / drop pod / etc spam still rules the day. Do you generally see only one of anything allowed even if able to be taken in "broods"? Carnifexes come to mind (only one allowed, or only one brood of 3?).

That kind of format has the possibility to save 40k for me...

Pretty close. The only exception is that you can duplicate troops if you've already taken one of each of the troops you have and even then they have to be different somehow (equipment/number/sergeants/wargear etc.). And since you can only have 1 Wave Serpent or 1 drop pod or what have you it's can be fun.

My issue stems from a worry of certain units being almost impossible to kill since some armies won't be able to get the CC or shooting numbers needed. But I haven't played the format enough to know if my fears are justified.

 RiTides wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
Not sure what will happen here.

I think you're as likely to see people start adopting Highlander as you are to see adoption of 3+ Detachments. There's a point at which the game becomes defacto Battle Forged, which is ridiculous for large competitive/fair-focused events. Even at places like NOVA where Overall is based in enormous part upon soft scores, you still will see all kinds of brokenhammer lists once an event gets large enough to draw enough of each player type.

PS - Highlander is pretty awesome! :p Never thought I'd find myself saying something like that.

zedsdead wrote:
I actually see no positives in running unlimited formats. In fact im witnessing a pushback on letting all out battleforged due to a couple of events recently trying to use that format.

Having played some Highlander games recently I love it.

Highlander sounds quite tempting. However, doesn't that really hurt old books that have few options?

I have to wrap my mind around it... but I'm intrigued. Is this pretty standard for highlander format (found on the google)?

There can be only one! This is a 1500 point 40k event with the following special limitations. No allies are allowed. There is no unit duplication allowed, at all, not even dedicated transports. Units like IG Priests and Blood Angel priests who come multiples for one slot are also limited to one per army. You may bring forgeworld to this event, but you are required to use the official model and supply the rules. Forge world units taken in this even must also be standard force organization choices for the army you are using. Forge World army lists are permitted provided all of the previous restrictions are observed. If your army list has only one troop choice available to it (example: Sisters of Battle) then you are only required (or permitted) to field one troop choice.

It seems like you have to use it to limit troops too, if you're going to use it at all, or else wave serpent / drop pod / etc spam still rules the day. Do you generally see only one of anything allowed even if able to be taken in "broods"? Carnifexes come to mind (only one allowed, or only one brood of 3?).

That kind of format has the possibility to save 40k for me...

I'm a big fan of what I guess is Highlander light? You're allowed to duplicate Troops once you've taken all Troop types w/in a detachment. You're allowed to take multiple detachments, but all books are Allies of Convenience with each other - or, better said, there are no battle brothers. Also, things like Tigurius = Librarian, so you can't take Tiggy and a Libby or any other equivalent, rendering most books down to 1-2 psykers at most that can actually buff a unit.

It takes things from 11 to 8, as has been said, and once you select it, you can more or less freely allow battle-forged rules (things don't get much crazier).

Knights break highlander pretty bad.
They must take 4 of the same model, and most armies cannot bring the required firepower to take out 4 knights if you limit them to 1 of their best anti-tank choice.

Trasvi wrote:
Knights break highlander pretty bad.
They must take 4 of the same model, and most armies cannot bring the required firepower to take out 4 knights if you limit them to 1 of their best anti-tank choice.

The variant we've been playing, Knights are basically illegal. You could take one as an ally. It's made up either way (Highlander), kinda like 40k as a whole is (the rules might as well have been made up during a coffee break, for their quality/precision), so it's the kinda thing where if you did it, that's what you tweak to prevent.

PS - Since they aren't Troops, and a Knight is a Knight is a Knight, the only way to run Knights would be to run one, so you couldn't use them as a Primary and would be stuck thereafter.

 RiTides wrote:

There can be only one! This is a 1500 point 40k event with the following special limitations. No allies are allowed. There is no unit duplication allowed, at all, not even dedicated transports. Units like IG Priests and Blood Angel priests who come multiples for one slot are also limited to one per army. You may bring forgeworld to this event, but you are required to use the official model and supply the rules. Forge world units taken in this even must also be standard force organization choices for the army you are using. Forge World army lists are permitted provided all of the previous restrictions are observed. If your army list has only one troop choice available to it (example: Sisters of Battle) then you are only required (or permitted) to field one troop choice.

It seems like you have to use it to limit troops too, if you're going to use it at all, or else wave serpent / drop pod / etc spam still rules the day. Do you generally see only one of anything allowed even if able to be taken in "broods"? Carnifexes come to mind (only one allowed, or only one brood of 3?).

That kind of format has the possibility to save 40k for me...

There are different formats. For an upcoming tournament my group is putting together, we're doing this:

1,500 points
1 Detachment
Everything is 0-1 (including Priests, Heralds etc). This means one unit of Carnifexes of 1-3 models, for example.
FW is OK.
Special characters count as their type (Mephiston is a Librarian etc).
Pick one Troop unit (cannot be a transport) that becomes 0-2

The point limit is crucial to which restrictions are imposed. At 1,500, for instance, you're not forced to include a lot of dead weight, and a lot of units can suddenly become very viable. Also, with no allies there will be no mega combo armies that are pretty much all 0-1 anyway.

Well, I basically love this idea. I hope it catches on more! I didn't realize how widespread it had become already... but yeah, it was the idea of building and painting 4 flyrants to be competitive that had me relegating my nids to the shelf... this would likely get me to bring them out again

Yeah, Nids do Highlander pretty well. Fitting 3 FMC's is nice when you get to combine it with a bunch of foot stuff

I was hoping we'd see a highlander event for Adepticon. I think it'd be fairly popular actually. Locally we're looking at setting one up in either December or January after the Renegade Open which is our local GT here in November.

I'm looking forward to three sources or more plus multi cad. This is the obvious direction the game is going. I think some restrictions can help such as CADs cannot be same faction.

I'm not sure if 3+ detachments is a great idea as it seems that the people pushing for it are trying to come up with game breaking combos and that should be discouraged. Limiting to 2 shuts down some of the shenanigans (not all). I think lowering the tournament standard to 1500 points is a better option for everything. It limits the amount of abuse a person can put in their list no matter the number of sources.

With the new books, I do believe that it is inevitable that we will move to 3 detachments. Grey Knights is always a great example... lost assassins, lost inquisitors... so for them to even think about getting it back, they will need access to 3 books.

Allowing for multiple detachments also can help even the playing field for armies such as Dark Angels, Blood Angels, etc.

March Madness, which I have been promoting from my Local store will have 3 detachments... one of which must be a Combined Arms Detachment. Most of our local gaming community is excited about the combos and access that they have been given.

While you guys seem to think this is a bad way to go, I also think that limiting me to a single unit per slot is a terrible way to go. I would hope that troop duplication could be possible; otherwise, there are several armies with a very limited amount of troops that can be selected. Grey Knights have very few good choices (why even show up). When you start restricting too much, you will destroy the love of the game.

Hopefully someone will find a great way to run tournaments that will make everyone happy, something to which I will not hold my breath for. I usually turn to Frontline Gaming for insight and trends. They have been doing a fantastic job with their events, which is why March Madness is modeled after their tournaments.

Just a few pennies from me...

It is time to play some seventh edition .

: )

I agree, "7th edition" is moving more and more towards unlimited sources. However, I've found, the more I've looked at it, that that just isn't for me.

There are lots of other games I can play, and I'll still attend AdeptiCon this year regardless (to play in an alternate format 40k event, or other events like Infinity and Dropzone Commander, if offered).

But for the good of the game and to avoid erosion of the player base, I think people might want to be flexible on formats. It's pretty clear there's not going to be a "one ring to rule them all" format, like things were trending towards back in 5th edition, or heck even in 6th. MechaniCon this past weekend went full unrestricted, and while I think the event was a great success overall, it's not like people were beating down the door to get a ticket. I think events with at least some restrictions will continue to do the best attendance-wise.

That said, what really puts me off is the idea of GW continuing to ratchet up the ante on how much spam you can take. People need months to put together a good army, and at the rate GW keep putting things out, it's hard for folks to plan, or think they'll have much of a window to use that army in before updates make it obsolete. This has always been the case, but it's greatly accelerated now, and that in and of itself is a major turnoff... and is why something like Highlander sounds so attractive for casual players wanting to run all of one army and not a "skittles army" a la the one that won MechaniCon.

Quoting it over from the MechaniCon thread:


Grey Knight purifiers deepstriking in Space Wolf drop pods, with an Ultramarines Centurion Star popping out of the escape hatch of a bunker 12" upfield. Now that's forging a narrative

In all seriousness, I'm totally OK with people wanting to play unrestricted 7th edition (MechaniCon as an event was really awesome! As I was there for the other events ). However, it's definitely not something I want to do myself... if that trends and events take notice, maybe there will be more / alternate 40k formats proffered to keep folks like me playing, but really there are a lot of games vying for gamer's attention now, and to me the above just isn't something worth participating in. Especially when I can go to the exact same event, but compete in something with a much more worthwhile tournament format / ruleset.

@RiTides - "Highlander" type formats have been around for a long time. We used to play similar formats in 3rd / 4th, but given the state of 7th are definitely getting more interest as people look and embrace a wide variety of formats.

There is no "Magic Bullet" format for 40K anymore that appeals universally to all players. On another note we have some Dropzone Commander lined up for AdeptiCon, and 40k "Highlander" format on the schedule as well.

Well, that sounds great muwhe! I might bring my 40k too for the Highlander event (or the team tourney again, which I've always had a great time with!). Lots of time till then, but not lots of time to decide since things sell out so fast!

Totally agreed on the lack of a "magic bullet", and like this past weekend at MechaniCon I think it is great for there to be events that are more unrestricted too, for players that want that (and I know there are a lot of folks like that, too). Awesome that you'll be offering both!

I remember playing a Blood Angels army at an Ard Boyz final with both GK and SoB allies. It's not really anything new.

Highlander, 1000pt games, 2 lists. Start following the successful games lead for competitive play at this point since GW won't. Smaller games are faster and list chicken, more so with force organization restrictions (*gasp* instead of "take everything!) makes for more interesting lists and match ups.

I'd probably start playing if that was adopted. Armies would be cheaper and games would be more exciting.

Here's a multi source list I recently saw:

Note - it took best overall at an event.


> GK Nemesis Strike Force:
— Librarian w/ Book and Hammer
— Terminator Squad
— 2 Purifier squads
— Dreadknight with Hammer

> Allied Detachment Ultramarines:
— Tigurius
— Sniper Scouts
— 3 Dev Centurions (grav cannons)

> Space Wolves CAD:
— Rune Priest
— 2 Blood Claw squads
— 2 Drop Pods (FA)

> Fortification:
— Imperial Bunker w/ Escape Hatch

Purifiers in the drop pods - with Tiggy for Endurance giving Purifiers with psycannons relentless.
CentStar in the bunker with hatch 12" up field.
Libby and Terminators deepstrike.

Turn 1 Alpha Strike:
- Terminators deep strike
- One Purifier squad pods in and split into combat squads
- CentStar pops out of the hatch, moving 6"

Broken ?

I quoted that list in the spoiler tags above, since it just won MechaniCon. I also commented on it after, not in spoilers...

Trying to get a highlander event going locally, seems like people are down, lots of lists being posted and from a diverse amount of codex's.

The problem with the "can we just play 7th edition crowd" is that at least locally, no one really wants to run an event like that, likely because of the monumental task it entails. That and god knows they'd get guff if they dared to actually have standardized missions.

I just don't understand the need to completely throw out any restriction on army composition and that's why highlander is so appealing see combined arms force with a variety of units from their codex, like, instead of a pile of crap.

So, if I'm reading Highlander right, it nerfs Eldar (Wave Serpents), Guard (No multiples of the same Leman Russ, no multiple Veteran Squads),Tau (Riptides), while buffing things like Centurions (well, no Draigo, but still tigurius/Shield Eternal CM)?

I like the Highlander Idea, and it nerfs a lot of the lame spam in the game, but... eh.

I'd almost prefer just letting people go crazy and seeing what evolves from there.