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I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm not saying get rid of individual formations but would the game be more balanced if there was no bonus for the mega detachments.

Maybe.....but that dont sell models

The formations are only the tip of the iceberg in what makes 40k an unbalanced mess.

I disagree. The Decurion-style/Formation Detachment gives people a lot more variety and choice when building their army. It's a better fit for many armies than the standard CAD, and encourages lore-friendly list building.

If you want to balance out the Formation Detachments, look into balancing the special rules they provide as benefits.

I don't think Formations should have benefits. It seems like the main draw of formations *should* be to take a more fluffy list since, really, the CAD is basically designed as how Space Marines/IG would run their army. The Decurions *should* exist just as a way to run a fluffy army, since most races wouldn't structure their forces the same way. I never really understood why formation bonuses exist to begin with, the formation should be the bonus in and of itself.

I like that Formations have benefits, but you should pay for them like you do in Apocalypse and did in Spearhead. Giving them something for nothing is undeniable, inexcusable codex creep.

Formations are perfectly fine. The issue is that some of the bonuses aren't worth it.

I mean, if I started an Eldar army, I'd NEVER use their Decurion because that actually limits how good the army can be.
Tactical Marines still aren't worth free Razorbacks; that applies to both Dark Angels and the vanilla codex.

I guess you just use whatever formations on top of it. Save your Elite slots with he 1st Company formation, and don't ever purchase Aspect Warriors in the CAD.

That said, the other ones I've seen or used or played against are pretty cool. The Blood Host allows for more chart grabbing, Necrons are back to being as durable as they were in the 3rd Edition Codex, Tau rely on supporting each other and getting bonuses for it, and the Imperial Guard looks decent from what I've seen (though granted I have yet to see it used yet).

It just needs a little more tweaking is all.

Decurion detachments are not the problem. The problem is that not every army has them yet, which is of course compounded by the fact that of the 6 armies to get them so far (Necrons, Eldar, Khorne, SM, DA, and Tau), 3 of those (Necrons, Eldar, SM) are top tier armies, with one (Tau), maybe 2 (DA) being just below them, at the upper middle of the pack. Once every army has it's own Decurion style detachment, the balance will be more in line, potentially better than it was pre-Decurion.

Yay another petulant thread whining about the game. That's exactly what the world needs.

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
Decurion detachments are not the problem. The problem is that not every army has them yet, which is of course compounded by the fact that of the 6 armies to get them so far (Necrons, Eldar, Khorne, SM, DA, and Tau), 3 of those (Necrons, Eldar, SM) are top tier armies, with one (Tau), maybe 2 (DA) being just below them, at the upper middle of the pack. Once every army has it's own Decurion style detachment, the balance will be more in line, potentially better than it was pre-Decurion.

I hope so but the Guardcurion in the Mont'ka book doesn't look all that promising so far. Its really going to depend on how Nids, Chaos, and Guard turn out in their releases (which should be relatively soon).

I would be ok with them removing the decurion style formation of formations, but I don't use the one in my book and probably never will.

I have seen formations begin to ruin 40k. This is why the local gaming 40k community has shrunk over the past two years. Formations give benefits for free that game be game changing and inexcusably imbalanced. This power creep and imbalance is the entire problem. Fact is they are only present to sell a large amount of unnecessary models. Greed and profits are not a good way to drive a game forward, balance and community care is (healthy community spawns more gamers and more purchasing anyway, higher cost, imbalance, and required purchases drives folk away... which the community has seen repeatedly and undeniably).

There are two simple remedies... do away with formations, or add point costs as others have said.

Power gamers and cheese fanatics like and defend formation power creep, but fair is fair and imbalanced is unfair. Formations are also not more fluffy than a cad. I have built very fluffy lists for my dark angels since 3rd using the cad. I didn't always win games but had a blast nontheless.

Cad actually stimulated list building, experimentation, and had more options and flexibility than a formation gives.

I liked what they did before in the Ork and Dark Eldar book and provide alternate force org charts that allow for you to bring more of what the army is known for, rather than take these specific units and get crazy bonuses.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I liked what they did before in the Ork and Dark Eldar book and provide alternate force org charts that allow for you to bring more of what the army is known for, rather than take these specific units and get crazy bonuses.

This. Having 3 HQ slots is cool when I want to take a Boss, a Weirdboy, and a Painboy.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
I disagree. The Decurion-style/Formation Detachment gives people a lot more variety and choice when building their army. It's a better fit for many armies than the standard CAD, and encourages lore-friendly list building.

If you want to balance out the Formation Detachments, look into balancing the special rules they provide as benefits.

This. A thousand times this.

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
Decurion detachments are not the problem. The problem is that not every army has them yet, which is of course compounded by the fact that of the 6 armies to get them so far (Necrons, Eldar, Khorne, SM, DA, and Tau), 3 of those (Necrons, Eldar, SM) are top tier armies, with one (Tau), maybe 2 (DA) being just below them, at the upper middle of the pack. Once every army has it's own Decurion style detachment, the balance will be more in line, potentially better than it was pre-Decurion.

Dark Angels were, to be fair, the worst army arguably pre-new codex. Basically the only one actually justified in getting buffs.

Personally I Prefere the decurion style anyway but then again I feel gw has gone about the daemonkin books the wrong way. I feel the first daemonkin book should of been a word bearers codex :p

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
Personally I Prefere the decurion style anyway but then again I feel gw has gone about the daemonkin books the wrong way. I feel the first daemonkin book should of been a word bearers codex :p

Word Bearers got their codex already, it's just disguised under the name Crimson Slaughter.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
Personally I Prefere the decurion style anyway but then again I feel gw has gone about the daemonkin books the wrong way. I feel the first daemonkin book should of been a word bearers codex :p

Word Bearers got their codex already, it's just disguised under the name Crimson Slaughter.

No I mean a proper codex which includes erebus and Kor phaeron and the gal vorbak

Formations were an opportunity to self-contain fancy flavorful rules into a set number and combination of models.
Easier to balance a finite group than something that can affect your whole army.
Unfortunately, it is the same old new model flavor of the month which is destabilizing the game further.
GW is now able to release models as soon as they get them online and then package them with other models to make a formation... I do not see this going away.
You can comment on getting rid of the Decurion style but I think GW is pretty happy with this method of sale, no need to wait for a new codex.

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
Personally I Prefere the decurion style anyway but then again I feel gw has gone about the daemonkin books the wrong way. I feel the first daemonkin book should of been a word bearers codex :p

Word Bearers got their codex already, it's just disguised under the name Crimson Slaughter.

No I mean a proper codex which includes erebus and Kor phaeron and the gal vorbak

Horus Heresy army list for Word Bearer's Legion has all this and more. Might be worth a look for you.

 krodarklorr wrote:

 TheNewBlood wrote:
I disagree. The Decurion-style/Formation Detachment gives people a lot more variety and choice when building their army. It's a better fit for many armies than the standard CAD, and encourages lore-friendly list building.

If you want to balance out the Formation Detachments, look into balancing the special rules they provide as benefits.

This. A thousand times this.

Pretty much all of this.

Don't confuse an Organizational Chart with the rules granted by said chart. It makes sense that the Eldar would organize their military differently from Necrons or Imperial Guard or Ad Mech. We really don't need the over the top special rules for them.

as a necron player, I can't stand how everyone says decurion instead of either learning the detachment's names, or just calling them formation detachments.

Decurion is a necron word, not a generic word.

Aside from that, if you want to play in a meta that doesn't have detachments, try playing at 1k points. Most detachments can't function at low points levels.

If that's not your style, consider just accepting that every army is getting a unique fluffy detachment that is actually good on the table top.

If you are playing a list that doesn't have a detachment yet, considering asking your opponent to scale down for you.

eleven11 wrote:
as a necron player, I can't stand how everyone says decurion instead of either learning the detachment's names, or just calling them formation detachments.

Decurion is a necron word, not a generic word.

Aside from that, if you want to play in a meta that doesn't have detachments, try playing at 1k points. Most detachments can't function at low points levels.

If that's not your style, consider just accepting that every army is getting a unique fluffy detachment that is actually good on the table top.

If you are playing a list that doesn't have a detachment yet, considering asking your opponent to scale down for you.

I'm not against fluffy detachments at all. I just don't agree with over the top powerful bonuses that are unnecessary.

If GW's way to balance the game is escalating formation bonuses to make units good or better than something else, that's lazy and f'ing poor-ass design.

But we all know, honestly, that detachment s have nothing to do with fluff or game design.
It's to buy that new £40 box of miniatures you don't actually want, but must have to play your "detachment" and gain the maximum bonuses for your army.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
I disagree. The Decurion-style/Formation Detachment gives people a lot more variety and choice when building their army. It's a better fit for many armies than the standard CAD, and encourages lore-friendly list building.

QFT. Formations and formation detatchments are potentially the very best way to represent a faction waging war in the manner described in their fluff. The buffs they get at a formation and detatchment level make sense in the context of an army specifically dedicated to fighting a certain way, and in an ideal world this advantage is offset by requiring the formation take one or two less optimal (or even down-right bad) units along for the ride and forcing the player to think creatively to find a use for them.

In practice though. It's been met with a lot if resistance. Putting asside the Hunter Cadre (which I think might just be a sore spot in this thread) you have specific formations like Skyhammer that horrify people, and multi-formation detatchments that utterly steamroll a CAD with the same units. You see a lot of people refrain from taking then against armies that don't have that option, and still others who refuse to run anything but CAD as if its a matter of honour.

 Vankraken wrote:

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
Decurion detachments are not the problem. The problem is that not every army has them yet, which is of course compounded by the fact that of the 6 armies to get them so far (Necrons, Eldar, Khorne, SM, DA, and Tau), 3 of those (Necrons, Eldar, SM) are top tier armies, with one (Tau), maybe 2 (DA) being just below them, at the upper middle of the pack. Once every army has it's own Decurion style detachment, the balance will be more in line, potentially better than it was pre-Decurion.

I hope so but the Guardcurion in the Mont'ka book doesn't look all that promising so far. Its really going to depend on how Nids, Chaos, and Guard turn out in their releases (which should be relatively soon).

Well, its Cadian specific, who are all about the orders. other guardcurions may have different focus.

And dear god, it can deliver tons of orders, with high range, order count and success rate. its too early to tell just how much of a power boost it is for the guard to deliver orders with such ease-considering just how many orders are there and the versatility of their options.
It doesn't look that hot, but might be stronger on the field than in paper.

Izural wrote:

eleven11 wrote:
as a necron player, I can't stand how everyone says decurion instead of either learning the detachment's names, or just calling them formation detachments.

Decurion is a necron word, not a generic word.

Aside from that, if you want to play in a meta that doesn't have detachments, try playing at 1k points. Most detachments can't function at low points levels.

If that's not your style, consider just accepting that every army is getting a unique fluffy detachment that is actually good on the table top.

If you are playing a list that doesn't have a detachment yet, considering asking your opponent to scale down for you.

I'm not against fluffy detachments at all. I just don't agree with over the top powerful bonuses that are unnecessary.

If GW's way to balance the game is escalating formation bonuses to make units good or better than something else, that's lazy and f'ing poor-ass design.

But we all know, honestly, that detachment s have nothing to do with fluff or game design.
It's to buy that new £40 box of miniatures you don't actually want, but must have to play your "detachment" and gain the maximum bonuses for your army.

If the formations that are made from a mix of rational, well mixed forces do not provide an edge over "spam your best options" that is the CAD (lets be honest, its EXACTLY what people do with it), what's the point in taking formations?

Don't get me wrong, fluffy is fun and cool-but many players, especially in turnies, will NOT downplay themselves in the name of flavor. just like we don't take subpar units in a CAD, we will not take them in formations either, unless there is a carrot attached.

By making the dethacments the go-to power option, your are in fact enforcing the fluffy armies as the norm, making people turn to the CAD only when they want to pull out some oddlot combination that isn't on them because its not a "fluff force", but still packs a punch due to how the units interact.

Nobody is forcing you to do anything, you can play just fine without formations-and many of them play around units you will have anyway if you were playing the army-as it fits it's style. the dawn blade contingent for example-I can play it right off the bat only with the models I owned beforehand, because its a damn FSE force. same for the hunter contingent-I could play it just with what I owned. my necron friend can play his decurion with only the things he owned beforehand (TBH though, he as insane model count), the cadian detachment-practically the unit list my IG friend owns.
The formations fit right in to what people WANTED to play anyway, its just now not shooting oyurself in the leg-you can play the power game, without giving up on fluffy fun lists of true combined arms. (because lets be honest, the CAD detachment promotes you to do everything besides a well balanced combined arms type army with the way its set up.)

455_PWR wrote:I have seen formations begin to ruin 40k. This is why the local gaming 40k community has shrunk over the past two years. Formations give benefits for free that game be game changing and inexcusably imbalanced. This power creep and imbalance is the entire problem. Fact is they are only present to sell a large amount of unnecessary models. Greed and profits are not a good way to drive a game forward, balance and community care is (healthy community spawns more gamers and more purchasing anyway, higher cost, imbalance, and required purchases drives folk away... which the community has seen repeatedly and undeniably).

There are two simple remedies... do away with formations, or add point costs as others have said.

Power gamers and cheese fanatics like and defend formation power creep, but fair is fair and imbalanced is unfair. Formations are also not more fluffy than a cad. I have built very fluffy lists for my dark angels since 3rd using the cad. I didn't always win games but had a blast nontheless.

Cad actually stimulated list building, experimentation, and had more options and flexibility than a formation gives.

What, so just because I want to field my Eldar in a more lore-friendly way I'm a powergamer and cheese fanatic?

The fact of the matter is that the CAD only does a good job of representing how the Imperium fights and organizes their armies. Tyranids have been consistently strangled by their reliance on the CAD due to its lack of flexibility. The use of modified CADs and Formation Detachments has given people more options and therefore greater flexibility in building their armies. The only list-building creativity and flexibility allowed in a CAD is trying to spam or squeeze as many good units as possible into its confines.

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
Decurion detachments are not the problem. The problem is that not every army has them yet, which is of course compounded by the fact that of the 6 armies to get them so far (Necrons, Eldar, Khorne, SM, DA, and Tau), 3 of those (Necrons, Eldar, SM) are top tier armies, with one (Tau), maybe 2 (DA) being just below them, at the upper middle of the pack. Once every army has it's own Decurion style detachment, the balance will be more in line, potentially better than it was pre-Decurion.

IG got a decurion in the new tau book and it sucks. Decurions not always make an army good. The eldar clowns have one too, or I at least I think they do, as no one plays them here.

What, so just because I want to field my Eldar in a more lore-friendly way I'm a powergamer and cheese fanatic?

Your "fluff" friendly eldar are better then some armies tournament lists. Is that enough. Plus the most fluffy eldar wild riders army is made out of bikes, tanks and WL in the fluff. Behold the same thing is also one of the best, if not the best tournament army.

I think it should be mentioned that some armies have no way of taking a "Decurion" style formations.

Whereas MT, Harlequins, and Knights have formation dataslates, there is no way to play them with a Decurion.

They just don't have enough models to create something like that.

eleven11 wrote:
as a necron player, I can't stand how everyone says decurion instead of either learning the detachment's names, or just calling them formation detachments.

Why call them a 'formation detachment' when the Decurion (and most others) can be fielded without any formations?