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.

This is a ruleset that has been undergoing several modifications. Basically, the idea is to clean up a single CAD, and make it scalable for higher-point games, to make it "emphasize" a particular army-type (Elite-wings, rapid forces, siege lists, etc), and to consolidate the "Formations/Alternate Detachments" that are part and parcel for 7th ed.

Several changes are being done to simplify things.
-Lord Of War is only for superheavy vehicles. LoW characters are moved back to HQ. Generally not for core games.
-A new FOC-type is added, called "Specialist." A specialist is a solo character that is not quite a leader, but has heroic/expert skills. Specialists do not score, nor give up victory points/first blood/etc when destroyed.

Note: The "Specialist" slot is still pretty open and up-for-grabs. I'm not moving any units into it "yet", other than "Slotless characters" (Techpriests/Sanctioned Psykers, etc).

At 1000 points or below, your army has:
1 HQ Slots, 2 Specialist Slots, 2 Elite Slots, 2 Troops Slots, 2 Fast Attack Slot, and 2 Heavy Support Slot.
Above this and your army has:
2 HQ Slots, 3 Specialist Slots, 3 Elite Slots, 3 Troops Slots, 3 Fast Attack Slot, and 3 Heavy Support Slots.

After this, you select a Focus for your CAD. This is a part of the FOC that you put extra emphasis on. You may select an Elite Focus, a Troop Focus, a Fast Attack Focus, or a Heavy Support Focus; I may want to add a "Specialist" Focus as well, but for now am holding off on it. What a Focus means, is that you have twice as many slots for that slot-type, but you *must* take a minimum of half as many. (So 2+2, or 3+3 depending on if you're playing 0-1000, or 1000+ point games).

All CADs allow you to reroll your Warlord Trait. Additionally, depending on the Focus you have, your army gets a different bonus. The bonuses are listed below, and previous discussions/issues which had been brought up/are points of concern are below that.

-A CAD with a Troop Focus gains Solid Backbone: Troops Units (including DTs) receive a 20-point rebate which they can use to buy equipment upgrades (not additional models/transports). Because Necron Troops don't get equipment upgrades, they instead reroll 1s for Reanimation Protocols, and Troop transports ignore shaken/stunned results. Imperial Guard units bought as part of a platoon only have a 10-point rebate due to errors with the Munitorium paperwork.
-A CAD with an Elites Focus gains Special Forces: Each Elites unit in the CAD (except Dedicated Transports) selects two USRs at army creation from the list below. No two Elite units in the same CAD may select the same USRs. The list is below: Deep Strike, Furious Charge, Hit & Run, Infiltrate, Monster Hunters, Move Through Cover, Precision Strikes/Shots, Rampage, Relentless, Stubborn, Stealth, Scouts, Split Fire, Tank Hunters.
-A CAD with a Fast Attack Focus gains Maneuver Warfare: Any Fast Attack unit in this CAD may make a D6" move in the assault phase. "Jet" units (Eldar Jetbikes, Jetpack Infantry, Jetpack Cavalry, etc) roll an extra D6 on their Jetpack move, and drop the lowest.
-A CAD with a Heavy Support Focus gains Big Guns Never Tire: All Heavy Support units in the CAD resolve their Snap Shots at BS 2. You still may not snap-shoot weapons that normally cannot be snap-fired; ergo, you could shoot Autocannons at an enemy flyer at BS 2, but you wouldn't be able to knock them out of the air with a Battlecannon.

Additional proposed rules for this:
-FOC swaps are not encouraged for this system of course.

-Some FOC swaps or redos are advised accordingly, as different unit-types make more sense benefitting from different foci. In descending order:

Tyranids: Move Carnifexen to Elites (Special Forces representing unusual biomorphs), Hive Guard to Heavy Support. Ideally, I'd like to see Lictors/Zoans in Specialists due to being genofixed types, but I do need a good suggestion for a "Specialist Focus."
Necrons: Flayed Ones to Troops (and *mayyybe* shave an attack off while at it).
Chaos Marines: Maulerfiends/Forgefiends to Elites (Heretek of course); move "Cult Marines" to Troops.
Tau: Pathfinders to Troops, & make Pathfinder Markerlights range 18, assault 1. Maybe with the rebate and need to get up close, they might buy their special toys after all. Potentially, move the Riptide to the Heavy Support Slot. Or tweak the Ion Accelerator a bit.
Orks: Flash Gitz to Elites, and a lot more I need to think on.
Eldar: This...is going to be a tough one, just because of their Aspect Warrior System. Grumblegrumble.

Designers Notes/Concerns:
-There used to be a "HQ" focus. I decided to "Axe" it, because the game should be about HQs supporting an army rather than being an army in their own right. It used to be "Modify dice-rolls to pre-determine random powers." In general I'm opposed to random-powers being rolled pre-game, rather than being built into a list at army creation.
-Most of the original design for this CAD ruleset was based off: "1850 points, 2 detachments maximum, no more than one combined arms detachment." How this ruleset would interact with Forgeworld rules is something I've not yet fully looked into (there are a LOT of things for FW...).
-The standard concerns are of the "but you can spam X super-unit now". 6 Riptides, 6 Wraithknights, or what-have-you. Honestly, I feel most of them are fairly unwarranted: Usually, such units give diminishing returns, and such armies usually have massive shortcomings preventing their viability as TAC-lists. *That* said, these rules should generally overrule codex rules that allow you to switch unit FoCs around (Except for Dark Eldar's "Kabalites/Wyches become Elites when upgraded" syntax).
-For armies that roll a D66 for pre-game abilities (see: Chaos Space Marines), you may choose to alter either of the two dice by +-1, but not both. For example, a 45 could become a 44, a 46, a 35, or a 55.
-I'm on the fence as to whether Dark Eldar Combat Drugs should be included as part of the High Command bonus, but currently I'm leaning "No."
-Special Forces is very heavily based off the "Been There, Done That" rule for Ogre Kingdoms Maneaters. As any honorable gamer should, you should clearly state what abilities your units have in your army list, and model the rules in creative ways. Whether its putting an anti-grav harness on a Deep Striking Triarch Stalker, or having Hit & Run Murderfang strike a ninja pose, this rule is meant as much for the hobby side of things ("Doing cool things you normally couldn't) as it is for the gaming side of things. The way "Special Forces" currently works would interface weirdly with Militarum Tempestus Platoons. For Astra Militarum armies, I recommend you remove the Platoon as an option, and instead make a single Tempestus squad an Elite choice, that can upgrade to have a Tempestor Prime/Medkit/etc.

-The original version of "High Command" was 'May choose a Warlord Trait on top of the normal Warlord Trait rolled." It felt too much like "Well, looks like the opponent will auto-pick Master of Ambush." Which turned out to be a true concern: "Master Of Ambush + Green Tide, and add a Void Shield Generator for extra fun."
-The earlier version of Special Forces simply allowed Elites to add an extra die to Leadership checks and discard a die of choice. Compared to the other bonuses, it was super-iffy.
-The original bonus for CADs with a Fast Attack focus was "On Time, On Target:" Fast Attack units could reroll all rolls related to reserves (the reserves dice, scatter, outflank, etc). As opposed to making Fast Attack about mobile warfare, it made Fast Attack about "I materialize on the table and alpha-strike."

Comments, criticisms, potential horrid gamebreakers, or cool ideas are always appreciated.

Will I still be able to abuse list building by getting minimal tax and maxing out fast or heavy slot?

Initially, "Yes." In theory, each army should be based upon one of several themes.

"Troops=Attrition", "Fast Attack=Speed", "Elites=Technical" and "Heavy Support=Dakka."

Foot Marines, loyalist or otherwise still have their issues, but getting an equipment rebate out of the deal (be it melta/combimelta, orplasma/meltabomb) is something of a band-aid patch. Add the Rhino discount to flavor, and there's a dramatic difference between a CSM Squad with Melta/Combimelta in Rhino w/ Dozer Blades & Havoc costing 110 points instead of 147 points.

The bonus would admittedly do more to favor MSU rather than "Big Squads", and armies like Tyranids would still have issue with the fact their troops are still pure anti-infantry, but it's still a step beyond "ok, 2 mucolid spores, mass flyrants." Plus, the rebate would favor "cheap" transports (Rhinos/Venoms/etc) more than "expensive" ones (Serpents, etc), simply because 20 points tacked onto a 35-point transport is a *massive* difference from 20 points tacked onto a 120-point transport.

It would also mean a unit of Ard Boyz is 80 points rather than 100 among other amusing observations.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
this rule is meant as much for the hobby side of things ("Doing cool things you normally couldn't) as it is for the gaming side of things

Then it's a bad rule. Write rules that are balanced even when people want to use them to optimize their army, don't depend on them being "honorable" and not exploiting your balance mistakes.

A certain level of honor is expected *regardless* of rules being played or otherwise. For example, I would expect my foes not to magnetize their dice, to provide legible armylists, and not accidentally "tip" over dice indicating how many warp charge are left...call it optimism or giving players a certain benefit of the doubt, for a note that was basically "dude, use WYSIWYG."

Anyway, a major reason I'm posting here is I'm looking for edge-cases of abusability. Sure, anyone can say "6 riptides, 6 heldrakes, 6 dreadknights, (or previously when there was an HQ focus) 6 flyrants" or some other combo thereof (that said, "4 Max of a unit" might be a potential houserule). It's the less obvious things I'm looking for.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
A certain level of honor is expected *regardless* of rules being played or otherwise. For example, I would expect my foes not to magnetize their dice, to provide legible armylists, and not accidentally "tip" over dice indicating how many warp charge are left...call it optimism or giving players a certain benefit of the doubt, for a note that was basically "dude, use WYSIWYG."

There's a difference between expecting players not to cheat and expecting them to only take "fluffy" options because you made rules that can be overpowered.

Ouch...

 Peregrine wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
A certain level of honor is expected *regardless* of rules being played or otherwise. For example, I would expect my foes not to magnetize their dice, to provide legible armylists, and not accidentally "tip" over dice indicating how many warp charge are left...call it optimism or giving players a certain benefit of the doubt, for a note that was basically "dude, use WYSIWYG."

There's a difference between expecting players not to cheat and expecting them to only take "fluffy" options because you made rules that can be overpowered.

Name something significantly more overpowered than you would expect in an 1850-pt/2 detachment max game of 40k.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Name something significantly more overpowered than you would expect in an 1850-pt/2 detachment max game of 40k.

Wave Serpents with a cost reduction. Riptides with tank hunters and stealth. Vendettas with JSJ.

Anyway, my criticism isn't really even about specific units, it's about your design process. Once you try to use "an honorable gamer will be fluffy about it" as a balancing factor your entire design process is broken. Good rules work fine no matter what fluff or models a player is using, and no matter how much they try to optimize their army for winning games.

Ah, I see where you're coming from. My main justification was "no modeling for advantage. If the model has tank hunters, model it with several killstreaks or so." That said...

The "Elite" bonus prevents USR-duplication intentionally. The Riptide in a Firebase Cadre already gets Tank Hunter & PE (SM)...

The JSJ-like move for Vendettas would be "ok" at best. They are still large targets, and aren't gaining any facing advantage.

Serpents with a cost reduction would be problematic at first, but compared to the cost reduction on cheaper units, it's still a lower percentage saved. Plus, what are the Eldar going to do for their troop rebate, buy Exarches for their Dire Avengers? Versus saving points on dozer blades, meltas/combi-meltas, and maybe throwing in points for upgrades that normally don't get slotted in as much...Free HKMs are never amiss among other things.