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I meant "before" as in "before formations."

I know that formations have always been available in the current Eldar codex.

Yes but before the current codex there were no wraithknights with D weaponry and they werent GMC's either. Eldar got all their formations, GMC's, S: D, and scatbikes all at the same time.

I prefer the CAD for traditional reasons and the limits it imposes on tournament play. Formations often get messy and a bit odd with even more minor rules to remember, even ones as basic as higher BS. I don't mind the rules per say, but I prefer the Age of Darkness CADs combined with Rites of War.

The entire game needs a quick-fix in the form of adding points to certain units and abolishing three very specific Formations.

 CrownAxe wrote:
The decurion hasn't forced variety, I haven't seen a necron player use more then Reclamation Legion+Canoptyk Harvest spam ever since their codex dropped. And except for tomb blades, these were already the units people were running before. Everyone is using the same army for a year straight.

Aspect Host the worst culprit of a spam formation. It lets you take 3 units of one of the best units in the game, Warp Spiders, and let you take ONLY WARP SPIDERS and then give them BS5 for free. The apsect Host is the reason the winner of LVO was 45 Warp Spiders (9 units of them). It did the exact opposite of variety.

If you think Aspect Host forces variety you cleary don't understand how formations work.

Well, sucks to be you. I personally use every formation I have available as well as different builds, such as a slightly weaker CronAir. There's also the Destroyer Cult and Judicator Battalion which are good, as well as things like Orikanstar. As far as viable Necron formations go, most of them (barring the Annihilation Nexus) are good. Need I bring up the list with an Obelisk that made it into the top lists at the LVO?

Aspect Host, I agree, is garbage. That is the least restrictive and BS formation out of all of them.

Honestly, most of the "Decurion" style formations have only one or two big offenders in the list of possible choices. Sure, aspect host is dumb, but a CraftWorld Warhost with a Guardian Battlehost and a 2x Striking Scorpion 1x Banshee list is not over powered in any way, and would probably be quite fun to play.

 Swampmist wrote:
Honestly, most of the "Decurion" style formations have only one or two big offenders in the list of possible choices. Sure, aspect host is dumb, but a CraftWorld Warhost with a Guardian Battlehost and a 2x Striking Scorpion 1x Banshee list is not over powered in any way, and would probably be quite fun to play.

Which is the weird thing. The basic formations are all terrible and are hardly worth taking, as far as Eldar are concerned.

The windrider host is solid, but only because Scatbikes are broke, though they get gak-all out of it. With detachment only, I'd expect to see Shuriken Bikes actually make a comeback tbh.

Obvious troll thread is obvious. Remember the similar thread the OP made. This one will end the same way.

 Swampmist wrote:
The windrider host is solid, but only because Scatbikes are broke, though they get gak-all out of it. With detachment only, I'd expect to see Shuriken Bikes actually make a comeback tbh.

The Windrider Host literally hinders the bikes. They gain no benefit, and lose ObjSec.

 Grimtuff wrote:
Obvious troll thread is obvious. Remember the similar thread the OP made. This one will end the same way.

Except this isn't trolling because He's kinda right. Bar the largest offenders (looking at you aspect host) formations help create balanced lists as people stop spamming the same thing over and over. Now, there are obvious ways to help this (no wraith constructs, no repeat auxillaries and only one repeat core, ect.) but the point stands that, as of right now, formations are GENERALLY more balanced than an optimized CAD, and certainly in all but a few cases help increase the diversoty of units in a list.

 oldzoggy wrote:
Modern formations are the worst thing for balance that has ever happened.They give free bonuses making the models in the formation too cheap or the same models outside the formation too expensive. This is really bad.

If formations were mandatory, this objection would be a non-issue. Then the formation bonuses would essentially be factored into the cost of those models.

Formations should cost points for the bonuses they give, and they NEVER should give you free units or upgrades.

Again, if all formations were roughly of equal value, why should they cost points if the use of formations was mandatory?

And why shouldn't they give you free units or upgrades?

I assume, OldZoggy, that you'll tell me that formations should cost points because the rules bonuses that they give have a points value. Do units and upgrades have a points value?

Let us assume that a +1 reanimation protocols is worth roughly 35 points to a group of necron immortals. Is that equal to the points value of a rhino?

If everyone had a Decurian, would we still be having this argument? Do formation really need a point cost?

Formations do nothing to enhance game balance. They do not allow crappy armies to competw with powerful ones except at the most extreme margins, nor do they reduce spam, nor really enhance fluff. They're a web bundle sales mechanism.

They are not clever game design or balance mechanisms. This is justification of power bloat, nothing more. People are trying to justify one poor game design mechanic to, in theory, fix another. This does not work, and event resulta have borne this out repeatedly. This is trying to fix a problem by breaking the mechanism even more.

Fundamentally, formations allow you "cheat" in a condoned manner, getting free special rules, wargear, abilitiez, and units that are not paid for. The idea that this will balance out over and undercosted units is absurd, and is avoiding the *real* issues, which is fundamentally poor unit design and rules support on GW's end, and a dramatic bloating of the scale of the game making it impossible to reconcile granular differences between things like basic infantry in any meaningful manner when theyre essentially all chaff.

Ultimately, this sounds like more "my gladius spam is fine" justification than anything else.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
There used to be a way that 40K balanced powerful units...it was called "0-1". There was another way that the generally powerful stuff was limited...it was called the force organization chart. Unfortunately when stuff started getting undercosted there became more ways to spam the "powerful" units. Between allies and yes, formations the tax units went away.

I understand the OP's point, but how do you believe that balancing a bunch of formations is going to be any easier than balancing a bunch of units? Quite frankly it would be harder, and you would have taken away the creativity in list building that a lot of people value while STILL having to solve the issue of overpowered/underpowered units. While I agree with the premise that it should be all or nothing (cause unequal access to formations with free benefits is really bad), I think a better fix is to balance the units themselves and take away the extreme synergy/buffing that is currently possible so that you can arrive at a fair point cost for them. Once that happens, players can build the lists THEY think are fluffy/competitive and be at least somewhat equally matched against another player.

Because the most unbalanced list are, and always were, to find one overpowered unit and spam it as much as possible and nothing else. Formations, when properly written, make that option at least nonexistent.

except...as we've seen at every major event since their inception, this is not the case. Formations enable and enhance spam, they do nothing to put brakes on it.

I

Look at the faulty formations that exist right now, each and every one of them is a formation that allows single unit spam. Every proper mixed formation, even if very powerful, is manageable at create good game experience. Even the bloody Gladius and decurion - at the very least you got a veriaty of enemy units across the table so you got options at the very least.

Ah yes...gobs of core units given absurd abilities until they break the game as hard as anything else...sounds like spam to me, just if a different flavor.

Traditio wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:
Modern formations are the worst thing for balance that has ever happened.They give free bonuses making the models in the formation too cheap or the same models outside the formation too expensive. This is really bad.

If formations were mandatory, this objection would be a non-issue. Then the formation bonuses would essentially be factored into the cost of those models.

Formations should cost points for the bonuses they give, and they NEVER should give you free units or upgrades.

Again, if all formations were roughly of equal value, why should they cost points if the use of formations was mandatory?

And why shouldn't they give you free units or upgrades?

I assume, OldZoggy, that you'll tell me that formations should cost points because the rules bonuses that they give have a points value. Do units and upgrades have a points value?

Let us assume that a +1 reanimation protocols is worth roughly 35 points to a group of necron immortals. Is that equal to the points value of a rhino?

Except your making the wild assumption all formations are roughly equal which is definitely not the case and never will unless GW does a lot more play testing and errata. As it stands you have a hand full of formations that are very strong and many that are meh or bad. The problem with the free upgrades is it allows me to have units be amplified far more than is reflected in there point value just by taking a combination of them. That distorts power balance even more.

I... What? Spam by definition is taking a ton of the same thing because its powerful. Mist core choices are a mix of a ton of units that become good together. It's, like, the antithesis of spam. The Pale Court, sadly, is the only one thatreally breaks this trwnd, and that's why you see it played. When was the last time you saw a Warhost do well competitively?

 Swampmist wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
Obvious troll thread is obvious. Remember the similar thread the OP made. This one will end the same way.

Except this isn't trolling because He's kinda right. Bar the largest offenders (looking at you aspect host) formations help create balanced lists as people stop spamming the same thing over and over. Now, there are obvious ways to help this (no wraith constructs, no repeat auxillaries and only one repeat core, ect.) but the point stands that, as of right now, formations are GENERALLY more balanced than an optimized CAD, and certainly in all but a few cases help increase the diversoty of units in a list.

Stopped clocks and all that.

It isn't the content so much as the intent.

Besides, the premise is fundamentally flawed. The strongest possibility of army balance is to throw the whole game out the window and rewrite the whole game from scratch with a team of talented rules designers.

Even if you agree that formations can help balance the game, it isn't the strongest, merely the most likely/easiest.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
If everyone had a Decurian, would we still be having this argument?

probably, because its still fundamentally bad game design.

do formation really need a point cost?

Yes, even if everyone had a decurion, since you can still take the formations independently and repeatedly, and they give abilities/units/rule/etc that all factor into the balance, they absolutely should. They also have dramatically different power scales which should be reflected as well.

Formations are not a good way to balance things.

HoundsofDemos wrote:Except your making the wild assumption all formations are roughly equal which is definitely not the case and never will unless GW does a lot more play testing and errata. As it stands you have a hand full of formations that are very strong and many that are meh or bad.

This is true, but I said as much in the OP.

Essentially, what I'm arguing for is the following:

"If every codex had something like the Gladius Strike Force and the player HAD to use it, things would be more balanced."

What is my argument for this?

The GSF forces model variety and limits army variety.
The greater possible army variety, the greater the inherent risk of imbalance (and inversely).
Therefore, etc.

The problem with the free upgrades is it allows me to have units be amplified far more than is reflected in there point value just by taking a combination of them. That distorts power balance even more.

Explain to me how this applies to free rhinos.

Furthermore, this objection stands whether or not the upgrades and models have to be paid for. Regardless of what a scatter laser should cost and regardless of what an eldar bike should cost, the true value of that scatter bike model is simply not accounted for by adding bike + scatter laser.

Not to mention force multiplying units in general. If we grant your argument, then most psychic powers shouldn't exist, or else, all psykers should have a massive points cost increase. [In point of fact, this is probably true.]

My point in saying this? Your objection isn't solely an objection to formations.

Traditio wrote:

If formations were mandatory, this objection would be a non-issue. Then the formation bonuses would essentially be factored into the cost of those models.

This is a horrible idea.

If you can only take units in formations then those formations become the new building blocks of the army. The problem with this is that these new building blocks are huge in comparison to units ( our old building blocks of an army), resulting in less options to build an army.

Again, if all formations were roughly of equal value, why should they cost points if the use of formations was mandatory?

So all formations should be of the same point cost / power lv. This just changed if from a horrible idea to being worse then Age of Sigmar.You are essentially suggesting to throw away point costs and all customisation possibilities. Building an army would just be a collection of x formations who are a prefab collection of models with fixed weapons and unit sizes. This makes building an army just as personal as ordering a subway sandwich.


[Edit]
I feel like I am being trolled. I am out.

while formations in theory increase variety, in practice I find the opposite to happen. Look at how the GSF is taken in a competitive game. I'll use the list from this years LVO as a partial example.

Khan for scout (if not it's usually barebones or smashfether)
Chaplain with minimum upgrades

Command Squads to spam special weapons and get another free Razor back
Six 5 man tac squads with minimal upgrades and more free razobacks with either Las Plas or Assault cannon.
Two 5 man squads of assault and devastators for, you guessed it, more free razorbacks

Then usually either the scout formation or the air defense both which are just spamming either more tanks or getting some speeders in. So little variety compared to what I can bring in a CAD

oldzoggy wrote:This is a horrible idea.

If you can only take units in formations then those formations become the new building blocks of the army. The problem with this is that these new building blocks are huge in comparison to units ( our old building blocks of an army), resulting in less options to build an army.

Since this is a recurring objection in this thread, I am going to answer all objections of this kind here:

The fact is, OldZoggy, the warhammer 40k community collectively, at least on dakka forums, brings to mind a person with split personality disorder.

You people apparently want completely conflicting/contradictory things and apparently are completely oblivious to the fact that these things are conflicting, or else, if not oblivious, at least, not particularly phased by it.

40k community: "Tactical marines are terrible. They are a troop tax and should be kept to a bare minimum in army construction."
"Tactical marines are fairly priced for what they do!"
"YOU WANT TO GIVE TACTICAL MARINES FREE RHINOS? UNFAIR!"

Me: "But just a minute ago, you were telling me that tactical marines and rhinos are terrible..."

Do you really not see how this is just utter madness?

It's the same with the way that you are objecting to me.

You CANNOT in the same breath insist both on a large scale of variety AND demand perfect in-game balance. You have to take your pick. Variety and balance are inherently in conflict.

It's not just warhammer 40k. Think about Magic the Gathering. Think about Dungeons and Dragons. Think about Pathfinder.

Fact is, the more variety you introduce, the greater the probability that some elements in that variety will be inordinately effective, and, in actual fact, actual variety will die out anyway for competitive purposes.

You should already know this, OZ. You play orks.

Do you want variety or do you want balance?

And fact is, even if you vote "variety," in actual fact, for all competitive purposes, you are still casting your vote AGAINST variety.

So all formations should be of the same point cost / power lv.

I never said that. Again, the GSF is a great example of this. You can take devastators or devastator centurions, and you can give them whatever load out you want.

There have to be both balanced mandatory formations and reasonable points costs for the game to be balanced and maintain a reasonable level of variety/customization.

I'm not arguing for the abolition of customization. I'm only arguing that it should be constrained to reasonable limits.

This just changed if from a horrible idea to being worse then Age of Sigmar.You are essentially suggesting to throw away point costs and all customisation possibilities. Building an army would just be a collection of x formations who are a prefab collection of models with fixed weapons and unit sizes. This makes building an army just as personal as ordering a subway sandwich.

That goes beyond what I'm arguing for. Again, consider the GSF. You can take 5 man tactical squads or you can take 10 man tactical squads. You can take assault marines or you can take bikes. You can take scouts or you can take sternguard.

But yes, I am essentially arguing in favor of making the formation the new building block for 40k armies.

Id argue that formations and detachments, as they are now, would be MUCH easier to balance. Most of them reaquire only small tweaks (Aspect host requires 2 or 3 different aspects, take the Wraithknight out of the Wraith Constructs option, male the GSF only rhinoes and pods, ect.) if any at all, and generally they leave you with a fun army with more than 3 units and actual choice for what to bring to be competative. Now, would it be nice if the formations and detachments had more options? Sure! But those are fairly easy to implement later and would be just like adding new units to a codex.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
while formations in theory increase variety, in practice I find the opposite to happen.

Then we are basically in agreement. Ultimately, my conclusions are:

1. Formations provide the best possibility for in-game balance.
2. In fact, formations have been poorly implemented in many or most cases.

Look at how the GSF is taken in a competitive game. I'll use the list from this years LVO as a partial example.

Khan for scout (if not it's usually barebones or smashfether)
Chaplain with minimum upgrades

Command Squads to spam special weapons and get another free Razor back
Six 5 man tac squads with minimal upgrades and more free razobacks with either Las Plas or Assault cannon.
Two 5 man squads of assault and devastators for, you guessed it, more free razorbacks

Then usually either the scout formation or the air defense both which are just spamming either more tanks or getting some speeders in. So little variety compared to what I can bring in a CAD

The problem isn't the GSF. The problem is the razorbacks being free for minimum 5 man squads. If razorbacks were only free for full 10 men squads, this wouldn't be an issue.

And, again, if you want to insist on talking about optimized, min-maxed GSFs...

...why don't we talk about 6th edition wave serpent spam?

What formation was required to field that?

Traditio wrote:


You CANNOT in the same breath insist both on a large scale of variety AND demand perfect in-game balance. You have to take your pick. Variety and balance are inherently in conflict.

Well here's your problem. Nobody reasonable anywhere expects or demands perfect balance. What people want are games that aren't a lopsided mess where player skill is the prime determinant. In other words, they just want balance to be good enough. Where that line is varies from person to person, but with specific regards to 40k, that line almost universally is somewhere better than where it currently is.

When we start working the idea of better balance rather than perfect balance, you can have as much variety as you want.

All of your examples are perfect examples of this. Of course they're not perfect, but they're a hell of a lot better than 40k and generally considered to be quite excellent examples of game design and balance done right, especially given the insane amount of content and variety.

So yes, one can insist on having the variety of 40k with balance equal to many other games on the market.

I'm also going to echo Vaktathi and say that this sounds like more of you justifying the GSF as being fine.

My point is that formations won't balance the game with out major tweaks, just like how the Force Org Chart doesn't balance the game due to individual units being out of whack. All formations do is force people into a rigid structure and limits what I can bring to the table while forcing me to take things I don't want. They don't solve spam or people taking only powerful choices.

Additionally this structure doesn't work for small games, which is why you'll always need some for the CAD. none of the decurian style formations work at lower point level because I need to take to much stuff.

Personally, I plan to leave the CAD for my homebrew stuff, though limiting the amount of allies/secondary detachments to one or two, and give the big Detachments the requirement that they must be your entire army if you bring one. So, if you take a GSF then the entire army must be the GSF.

Zero cost formations are a terrible thing in the game. Thankfully, our local TO realized this and our events are "no formations." Very fun events where any book could win. I've won with BA a couple times, and the last one was taken by some Horus heresy ultramarines.

Eldar may be pretty good in a CAD, but they still tend to have hard times against alpha strikes and drop lists, even from low tier books. The balance chasm from the bottom of BA CSM and IG to the top of eldar is a much smaller one than if you throw in formations and turn several of the high tier books into 11/10 crazy.

 Xerics wrote:
Its the Wraith Construct that is the bad one. It allows you to take a single wraithlord, wraithknight, or wraithfighter. That's the one that lets you have 5 wraithknights in an 1850 list.

Wraith-Construct is an Auxiliary choice for a Warhost. NOT a Formation. At best (or worst depending on your pov) you can only fit 4 WKs into 1850, because you have to field the 400+pts for either a Gaurdian Host or WindRider Host core Fornation to unlock Auxiliaty choices that do not have Formation dataslates (the ones with the 3 skulls in a circle icon on their page). WKs, WLs and the Hemlock do not have the formation icon, thus are not Formations.

GW has actually done a good job with the Formations overall. 95% of them create a fluffy way to play the models that encourages the use of "sub-par tax units". It is the other 5% that gets spammed and causes all the issues and rage. The "Deluxe Formations" like the Decurion, Warhost, etc are just a bit too over the top.

--

Hmmmm. 95%/5%? I'm curious how true that actually is (not saying it's false, just asking the question)

What is the actual, current mix between ridiculous, OP formations, formations in a good spot, and formations that nobody ever uses?

How do you count stuff like "tax formations" people take just to create certain lists (do you look at Rec Legion in a vacuum? Or do you factor in the obviously at least a bit OP buffed up Canoptek Harvest when evaluating it?)

There's detailed analysis for practically every unit in the game. But ATM, formations are all over the place in supplements, WDs, combo-packs, start collecting boxes...etc... it doesn't seem like many people have done a full comprehensive look at them.