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.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
How on earth did this thread devolve to tau bashing as well?
We JUST had Adepticon results, tau didn't have a single top 10 entry (highest tau was 11) with 4 armies having vastly better results (DA, codex marines, daemons and naturally eldar)

FFS, we know Tau are good, top tier even, but enough already, we clearly don't have a codex nearly as overpowered as you make of it. A handful of outlier crutch guns/formations,but the rest is fair enough. Give it a godamn rest.

How is getting 11th not proof they are good?

Second paragraph, first sentence. Please bother reading the entire post before replying.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
How on earth did this thread devolve to tau bashing as well?
We JUST had Adepticon results, tau didn't have a single top 10 entry (highest tau was 11) with 4 armies having vastly better results (DA, codex marines, daemons and naturally eldar)

FFS, we know Tau are good, top tier even, but enough already, we clearly don't have a codex nearly as overpowered as you make of it. A handful of outlier crutch guns/formations,but the rest is fair enough. Give it a godamn rest.

How is getting 11th not proof they are good?

Second paragraph, first sentence. Please bother reading the entire post before replying.

I did read your post. How is getting 11th at a major tournament somehow proof they aren't good enough to be complained about?

Because the amount of sheer gak hitting us every other day is greater than the amount of gak received by the top four codcies combined, and frankly I'm getting sick and tired of it.

Saying tau are good/top tier/slightly over the top is one thing. Daily calling to nerf every single unit in the codex and that the army as a whole shouldn't exist is disgusting.
Not saying it's personally you, but it happens. See sidstyler for example. Going out on tau, not a word about marines, dark angels or daemons. Despite each of them being more powerful, and having far more teeth gnawing tools in thier potential arsenals.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Because the amount of sheer gak hitting us every other day is greater than the amount of gak received by the top four codcies combined, and frankly I'm getting sick and tired of it.

Saying tau are good/top tier/slightly over the top is one thing. Daily calling to nerf every single unit in the codex and that the army as a whole shouldn't exist is disgusting.
Not saying it's personally you, but it happens. See sidstyler for example. Going out on tau, not a word about marines, dark angels or daemons. Despite each of them being more powerful, and having far more teeth gnawing tools in thier potential arsenals.

Sidstyler is a Tau player...

Well, now I feel like an idiot.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Well, now I feel like an idiot.

Uh...

...

...

If it helps validate your previous rant:

Feth Tau?

I mean, I truly do despise the Tau and everything they stand for, and would love few things more in 40k than to see them wiped from the rules entirely.

That's not what this thread is about, though.

Eight, formations and balance.

Have we come to a concensus that formations as a whole are a great idea, and that the formations containing a single unit type are the issue? (riptide wing, aspect shrine, librerius, etc)

 BoomWolf wrote:
Have we come to a concensus that formations as a whole are a great idea, and that the formations containing a single unit type are the issue? (riptide wing, aspect shrine, librerius, etc)

Oddly enough?

We have not reached that concensus.

I am largely in agreement with you, though. My proposal in this thread is "MANDATORY GLADIUS STRIKE FORCES FOR EVERYONE!"

Traditio wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Have we come to a concensus that formations as a whole are a great idea, and that the formations containing a single unit type are the issue? (riptide wing, aspect shrine, librerius, etc)

Oddly enough?

We have not reached that concensus.

I am largely in agreement with you, though. My proposal in this thread is "MANDATORY GLADIUS STRIKE FORCES FOR EVERYONE!"

So make everyone have play space marines?

CrownAxe wrote:So make everyone have play space marines?

Mutatis mutandis.

Tradito here is the problem with your idea

Formations aren't balanced at all so limiting people to only taking formations won't fix the game

At which point you need to fix formations to make it work. But at that point why don't you just fix the actual game. That way you won't need to ban detachments.

Fix the game, not the symptoms.

Why on earth will you need to ban formations? Even the op ones don't do anything that force organization charts don't match in breaking potential, and they at times unlock new interesting game style. (Adepticon winner took one formation and four FOCs, for your information)

 BoomWolf wrote:
Why on earth will you need to ban formations? Even the op ones don't do anything that force organization charts don't match in breaking potential, and they at times unlock new interesting game style. (Adepticon winner took one formation and four FOCs, for your information)

Who are you referring to?

 BoomWolf wrote:
How on earth did this thread devolve to tau bashing as well?

It didn't*. I literally just brought it up, and as someone with quite a bit of Tau stuff lying around I'm sure as hell not "bashing" them.

*Well, maybe now it has. Oops. Oh well.

I spent the majority of my post complaining about problematic Eldar units that somehow just slipped by the design team and questioning how the hell that's even possible. I'm not bashing Tau or calling for GW to nerf literally the entire codex, but you can't deny that there's more than a couple things in the Tau codex that shouldn't have slipped through, either. A lot of the Tau formations are nuts and provide bonuses for running units that we really didn't need an incentive to run in a formation anyway, because they were already more than good enough. The Riptide Wing is the most infamous example of that. Personally I don't think I like any of them, they're either stupidly powerful or just useless (like the auxiliaries formation). Same problem with all formations, either they leave you scratching your head and wondering why you would ever, or they're so fething amazing you'd have to be brain-dead to run the army in any other way...kinda like the SM Gladius, LOL.

All I was really getting at is that the GW design studio doesn't play Tau the way everyone else plays Tau, or else we'd have a very different codex. I can imagine why certain things in the Eldar codex probably slipped through, but it's hard for me to see how they did it with Tau.

Traditio wrote:
I mean, I truly do despise the Tau and everything they stand for, and would love few things more in 40k than to see them wiped from the rules entirely.

Well that sucks, because that's never gonna happen. Sisters of Battle will be Squatted before anyone even so much as considers doing the same for Tau. Tau make GW bank (which is why they keep getting attention, GW doesn't often throw good money after bad) and getting rid of them would be pretty fething stupid.

Also, is this an admission that formations alone can't "fix" 40k and that the game is in a much worse state than you're willing to admit? Because if that was true then why would there be any need to get rid of Tau at all? Why couldn't Tau be made more balanced or fit into the game a lot better using properly-designed formations? Axing an entire faction is pretty fething drastic and makes pretty much no sense, it's a colossal waste of time and money and generates a feth ton of bad will from all your loyal customers who bought the product under the impression it would continue to be supported. GW has done this once before with Squats and people won't ever let them forget about that...it got so bad that if I'm not mistaken GW just started ignoring questions about Squats at events, or they told people not to even bother asking. If they do it again with any faction then it's really going to hurt them in the end because it makes investing into 40k look like a huge risk if you buy anything other than Space Marines. You can waste thousands of dollars and your faction could just disappear whenever the mood strikes them. And when the 40k community is largely okay with this, like you yourself seem to be, because "Oh well, that's what you get for playing dirty xenos filth. Not my problem!" then that attitude puts people off the game even more.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Even the op ones don't do anything that force organization charts don't match in breaking potential

Well, there's the OSC that, if I'm not mistaken, lets you hit rear armor no matter what your facing is. That's kinda broken and also completely unnecessary, since the ghostkeel is a pretty solid unit without that. What was that Space Marine one, the Skyhammer? The one that lets you break the rules and assault after deepstriking, which you can only do with the formation? That's pretty broken and obviously something you can't do with a regular FOC, it's only enabled by broken formation special rules.

I just don't like them, and I will probably never accept them even if they could theoretically be balanced somehow, because it's too obvious to me that they're made to push sales of models and nothing else. "If people want this broken advantage in their games they have to buy these gakky models that no one's been buying for years!", or "We're not sure if this new unit is broken enough, so we'll guarantee sales by making a broken formation for them!"...the Skyhammer was fething hilarious as it was pretty blatantly pay to win, and I guess they figured the only real way they would have been able to sell new Assault Marines to people.

Anyway, that Adepticon list that got posted earlier is just trash. It's everything I feared would happen to 40k when allies were first introduced in 6th. Even if it doesn't really abuse formations it's still ugly to look at; it doesn't even look like an army, just the worst kind of min/maxing you can imagine.

Also, mixing Dark Angels and Space Wolves in the same army? I'm pretty sure the fluff says those chapters are rivals, and it isn't exactly a "friendly" rivalry either, if I remember right.

I won't be surprised if the current trend of adding formations into hardcovers continues. If GW continues to do this they'll have players buying more books to buff their armies without actually needing to develop an entirely new codex (all while encouraging players to buy the units needed for that formation.)

Unquietemu wrote:
I won't be surprised if the current trend of adding formations into hardcovers continues. If GW continues to do this they'll have players buying more books to buff their armies without actually needing to develop an entirely new codex (all while encouraging players to buy the units needed for that formation.)

I don't know about that, I haven't bought a single Ork unit for the purposes of a formation ever. I happened to have a lot of the units necessary to field certain ones, "Green tide". But I never went out of my way to purchase stuff for others. Granted that might have something to do with the fact that ALL of the ork formations are utter garbage. "Ohh If i take 5 Battlewagons, they all gain scout! AWESOME!, ohh but troops inside are specifically forbidden from assaulting turn 1, well WTF is the point of that?"

LOL I could continue but, honestly at this stage, from someone who has a rather large collection of unarguably one of the worst armies in this game, formations aren't helping balance, they are merely providing the haves with more and the have nots with less.

I can't even fathom GW's policies anymore because if they were attempting to do this for a profit then they would provide every army with some kind of incentive to purchase new units, or units that aren't commonly seen. For Orks they could have buffed Storm Boyz and sold tons of them, or Killa Kanz, or Stompas, or hell just about any unit outside of Bikes and Boyz. Instead they provided us with a bunch of garbage which if it did boost sales at all will be so minor that the increase in profit will barely cover the costs/effort associated with it.

Throwing my hat into the ring, I have to agree with one of the previous posters. I really like the idea of Formations (taking units in a non-CAD for some bonuses), but I agree that some of the bonuses are just insane (looking at you Gladius and Librarius Conclave). I would be all over Formations if they toned the power level down, but I doubt that will happen.

If you tone them too much down though, people will just stick to the CADs.

The key is to avoid single unit spam formations, the only one I know that isn't bonkers is the drone network, and that's mainly because it let's you spam an otherwise poor unit, and not a unit you wanted to begin with.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you tone them too much down though, people will just stick to the CADs.

The key is to avoid single unit spam formations, the only one I know that isn't bonkers is the drone network, and that's mainly because it let's you spam an otherwise poor unit, and not a unit you wanted to begin with.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Because the amount of sheer gak hitting us every other day is greater than the amount of gak received by the top four codcies combined, and frankly I'm getting sick and tired of it.

Honestly, as a bystander watching all the hate, you're seeing your own gak and ignoring others.

Eldar gets the most hate, by absolute miles. Then arguably Tau in position two. But I can explain that. It's not about how Tau are so incredibly broken that they can't be beaten (although they are very broken against most armies that aren't those top armies.) It's not that they are *the most powerful.*

It's that when a Tau army shuts you down, they do it in a way where they can kill your whole army and never sustain more than a scorch at the edge. The field is just a shooting range to them, and cover has little to no meaning. It's frustrating as gak to play against. So no, they're not the hardest to kill, but they are good enough to kill most armies most of the time and when they do, they can make the game incredibly dull for the person that they are killing, because their whole thing is to take you down before you get to them.

A game where I manage no charges and can't protect any of my units is far worse than one where I send a hundred Vanguard to simply get crushed on a daemon. At least I got to charge and roll some dice.

All that said, I welcome any game and I think the new Tau are fairly balanced towards the other top tier armies. Just too bad that's like 5 of the armies and the rest get to play pinata.

 BoomWolf wrote:
If you tone them too much down though, people will just stick to the CADs.

And what a tragedy that would be. Could you imagine 40k with only CADs? Madness.

The key is to avoid single unit spam formations, the only one I know that isn't bonkers is the drone network, and that's mainly because it let's you spam an otherwise poor unit, and not a unit you wanted to begin with.

With the alternative being that every formation consists of multiple unit types? No thanks, I'd rather not be forced to take a unit I don't want to take a unit I do want.

Instead of formations and their bonuses, why not pass down those benefits to the individual units where appropriate and just not have to deal with the extra complication that is formations.

 Blacksails wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
If you tone them too much down though, people will just stick to the CADs.

And what a tragedy that would be. Could you imagine 40k with only CADs? Madness.

I would welcome it. As much as I love seeing my DA finally seeing some competition play, it disgusts me that they only get taken because of how broken the Ravenwing are.

 Blacksails wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
If you tone them too much down though, people will just stick to the CADs.

And what a tragedy that would be. Could you imagine 40k with only CADs? Madness.

my god...how could anyone ever play a game like that?

I mean...that'd be like every game from 1998 through 2014!

Dark time those were (well from my I started anyways). Do you remember all the bitching about not having enough bonuses and USRs for our units if we took a certain combination of them or enough of them? Dark times indeed.

You seem to forget one major flaw of the CAD times.
It was literally "take HQ and troop tax, then spam best unit"
Zero army veriaty, zero fluffiness in force composition, just spam all day.

Formations can give you incentives to do otherwise.

 BoomWolf wrote:
You seem to forget one major flaw of the CAD times.
It was literally "take HQ and troop tax, then spam best unit"
Zero army veriaty, zero fluffiness in force composition, just spam all day.

Formations can give you incentives to do otherwise.

Spam whatever gives the biggest bonuses you mean,

Formations have done nothing to reduce spam, if anything they increase it.

How is that any different from take formation A, then spam the best unit?

There needs to NOT BE A BEST UNIT.

 BoomWolf wrote:
You seem to forget one major flaw of the CAD times.
It was literally "take HQ and troop tax, then spam best unit"
Zero army veriaty, zero fluffiness in force composition, just spam all day.

Formations can give you incentives to do otherwise.

As opposed to "spam best formation"? Pretty much the same end result; zero army variety, zero fluffiness in force composition, just spam formations all day.

Plus, if we're going to argue theoreticals about how formations could be improved/balanced, the same arguments can be made for the CAD by adding more force org slots/alternative troop choices, a la marine bikers.

Blacksails wrote:While this is only tangentially related, I'll cover the basics.

40k's basic rules are not intuitive at all. Rolling to hit, then wound, then a save doesn't make sense and involves a whole step most games have done away with (with good reason). Cover saves being an either/or save and not a modifier is poor game design and counter intuitive. Armor saves being all or nothing is equally counter intuitive and poor design. The mismatch of individual unit rules (closest model, random wound allocation, challenges) with much larger game sizes and giant constructs (and their lack of granularity) is equally counter intuitive, and results in a bizarre game scale. The army sizes coupled with the game scale coupled with the table size, and weapon ranges easily reaching half way across the table for basic infantry, and the lack of strict terrain rules means movement isn't particularly important outside of grabbing as many objectives as possible in the equally ridiculous and schizophrenic Maelstrom missions (also counter intuitive and excessively random).

This isn't even touching on the constant removal of player decision making and replacing it with tables, random dice rolls, and sheer luck. Good, intuitive game design wouldn't have developed Maelstrom. Maelstrom is random piled on top of random with a touch of random added on top. Same goes for psychic powers, warlord traits, mysterious terrain and a dozen other faction specific tables.

Point is, the core is a jumbled mess of platoon level skirmish gaming mixed with battalion level 15/6mm mass battle gaming that uses archaic rules from the 80s and replaces player impact with random rolling. On top of all that, the faction books are terribly balanced, both internally and externally.

I do agree with you about the randomness. About the other stuff...? You should consider making another thread on this.

Well with examples like that, there's not much sense debating the point. What about an army of nothing? I have that option too. I also have the freedom to cheat, or ignore the rules I don't like.

An army of drop pods is just as legitimate as the army of sternguard that you mentioned earlier. What makes an army of empty drop pods inherently any less "cool" or what have you compared to any other army list in your "the player should be able to do whatever he wants" worldview?

Most sensible armies (ones built with something, like, say a CAD) would be perfectly viable if the player ensures they cover the basics.

If I have to take a CAD, then my options have been limited.

An army of sternguard doesn't fit into the CAD.

Again, you and I both know this example of empty drop pods is ridiculous.

What makes it ridiculous?

I'm not arguing total abject freedom where the player can do anything.

You certainly appeared to be arguing for that earlier. I believe you mentioned an army of just sternguard.

I'm arguing that the basic building block of the army should be at the unit level vice the formation level and that some structure is needed for balancing purposes. Within that structure, as much player options as possible can be reasonably included, like the old 5th ed force org swaps, which allowed for nearly any type of army you wanted by shifting units around. It was fluffy, fun, and mostly balanced, depending on the units involved.

Point is, you still need to build an army that can, you know, do something.

Please explain to me how my fluffy, GW approved and promoted, and CAD compliant army of 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, all in rhinos, are going to beat an army of just Leeman Russes (which is CAD compliant, mind you).

The simple fact is that spamming a single unit type will be able to confer a massive advantage over a TAC list every time.

Rigid formations prevent that.

In theory, yes, at the army list level, formations will have less combinations. However, when writing/balancing the factions, you still have to spend the same time balancing the individual units in both a formation system and a non formation system. With formations though, you have the extra work of writing the formations, assigning a relevant bonus, and balancing those bonuses and the formation composition.

Now, even if the total number of army list combinations is less in a formation system, and therefore theoretically requires less balancing/testing at the army level, it still requires more balancing/testing at the unit and formation level. The end result is that even I take your premise that it takes less effort to balance whole armies, I'm working under the premise that it takes more effort at the formation level to balance, therefore (at best) negating each other.

I have to disagree with this. If the game is to be balanced, truly balanced, then the developers have to try all of rules compliant lists and compare them to each other. Formations cut out a ton of those lists.

Let's just take 6 lists:

A. A list with 3 wraithknights.
B. A list with 2 wraithknights
C. A list with 1 wraithknight

D. A list with 5 leeman russes
E. A list with 2 devastator squads
F.A list composed entirely of flyrants

If, right off the bat, we assert that lists A, B, D and F are not rules compliant, that makes balancing things a lot easier.

And before you disagree with me, then consider the opposite. What is the result when more army lists become rules compliant?

Just consider unbound and allied detachments. Did that make the game more or less balanced?

Which then means that if both systems are roughly equal in terms of balance effort, why go with the more complex one and restrictive option?

Because they're not actually equal either in terms of effort or result. Again, consider unbound and allied detachments. What I'm suggesting essentially is the opposite. If the opposite of what I am suggesting made the game less balanced, necessarily, what I am suggesting would make it more balanced.

You'll find that in most real world examples, games took the simpler option that opens up more player choice and don't have formations (or similar). Remember why 40k has formations. Its all about the money.

Probably. That's probably also why the execution has been terrible.

Their goal has been to buff everything enough to get people to buy stuff. Not to balance the game and make sure people have roughly equal chances against each other.

Which is where we disagree. The work involved in coming up with formations that are a combination of fluffy, effective, have the right amount of openness and restrictions, assign relevant bonuses that are properly worded and don't contradict any of the units involved, then balance those bonuses against the formation within the same book, then as a force against other books, just sounds like way more work then testing individual units within the context of an army.

You could make the same argument about force multiplying units like psykers.

Remember that I'm not advocating for total free for all freedom here.

Earlier, you literally argued for an army of just sternguard.

My stance is that the right structure was the CAD and modifcations within it. It worked, its similar to how other games work because its a good system.

What makes the CAD any more fluffy and balanced than a formation?

Why shouldn't I be able to bring more than 3 units of sternguard?

It may be balanced, but it wouldn't be enjoyable. No one wants to be stuck with the unit equivalent of their lame kid brother.

And this comes down to the meat of the issue. You don't object to my proposal because you don't think it would balance the game. You object to the proposal because you like spamming the best units in the codex.

At any rate, it wouldn't be "the unit equivalent of their lame kid brother" if EVERYONE is doing it. All of a sudden, tactical marines would actually have things to shoot, khorne berserkers would have things to charge, ork boys would have things to WAAAGH at, etc.

Yes, it would be an overall nerf to everybody, but it would be a massive buff to the weaker units.

If you cut out formations, you get the same balance, but with less overhead.

I disagree, for the previously stated reasons.

Explain to me how my CAD compliant battle company is going to beat an army of just leeman russes.

Well, that's not really good balance. You've just forced a handicap, one they probably don't want or may not even have, forcing them to buy something they don't want. Not a good solution for anyone.

That's already true in the CAD. Suppose a marine player doesn't want to buy scouts or tactical marines.

He still has to take 2 because of the CAD. You're forcing him to buy something he doesn't want.

I still say it's perfectly acceptable.

But then how many formations would there be per book? There's already so many its genuinely tedious keeping track of them. It was bad enough keeping track of all the USRs for the units and their wargear, but now you'd be adding even more formations that need to be tracked in addition to the units themselves.

How many common playstyles can you think of for marines? How many formations can you come up with based on the fluff? I can think of 3:

1. They fall from the sky
2. They all ride in on bikes
3. They ride in on razorbacks/rhinos

And an army of Tyranids is a variable thing. It could be a monster mash, or a horde, or a flying list, or an elite specialist force, or any combination thereof.

Which may or may not be CAD compliant. You're arguing against yourself. Either you are in favor of Unbound, or else, you can't say what you are saying right now.

No, I'm in favour of the right amount of structure. Having army construction be at the unit level is more free than having at the formation level

I disagree that freedom in and of itself is necessarily desirable as a goal.

And again, there's freedom even within the GSF, even within the more limited variation that I'm proposing.

If by spam you mean literally having an army of a single unit, then sure, that's not good. But a CAD naturally limits that anyways.

How many leeman russes can an IG player bring in a CAD?

If by spam you simply mean not having 2+ of any given unit, then I disagree it should be limited.

That's not what I had in mind.

I don't know. Cheese: you know it when you see it.

Yes, serpents were overpowered. That doesn't mean putting 10 razors on the table is perfectly acceptable. Apples and oranges. Its quite clear based on tournament results and overwhelming feedback that being able to put down 10 scoring vehicles for free that either drop in where you want them or can help shoot and move troops around will win games. One razor isn't an issue. Two isn't problematic. Three is annoying. Five is an issue. Ten is a problem for all but the most powerful lists.

But now we're circling back to your thread where you were defending the GSF as being fine and balanced. It was handily demonstrated to you by nearly everyone that the GSF is playing with the top dogs and will easily squash anything not using one of the top dexes.

I'm not wanting to defend the "razorback spam" that the GSF allows (though I think it would be perfectly fine if they were fielded with 10 man squads).

I'm only pointing out that it's difficult to complain about "spamming" relatively weak units. 10 razorbacks isn't spam in the bad sense. They're dedicated transports. The problem is that you can get them for free with minimum 5 man squads.

Wave serpent spam was spam in the bad sense. What Eldar players did was take a clearly unbalanced, OP unit and take as many of them as possible.

There is no sense in which a razorback is unbalanced/OP.

In fact, it might even be overcosted/underpowered.

4 less transport capacity than a rhino and a twin linked heavy bolter = 20 points more than a rhino? Should a twin-linked heavy bolter really cost that much?

It doesn't even get 2 heavy bolters. It gets one heavy bolter that can reroll misses.

Traditio wrote:

Blacksails wrote:While this is only tangentially related, I'll cover the basics.

40k's basic rules are not intuitive at all. Rolling to hit, then wound, then a save doesn't make sense and involves a whole step most games have done away with (with good reason). Cover saves being an either/or save and not a modifier is poor game design and counter intuitive. Armor saves being all or nothing is equally counter intuitive and poor design. The mismatch of individual unit rules (closest model, random wound allocation, challenges) with much larger game sizes and giant constructs (and their lack of granularity) is equally counter intuitive, and results in a bizarre game scale. The army sizes coupled with the game scale coupled with the table size, and weapon ranges easily reaching half way across the table for basic infantry, and the lack of strict terrain rules means movement isn't particularly important outside of grabbing as many objectives as possible in the equally ridiculous and schizophrenic Maelstrom missions (also counter intuitive and excessively random).

This isn't even touching on the constant removal of player decision making and replacing it with tables, random dice rolls, and sheer luck. Good, intuitive game design wouldn't have developed Maelstrom. Maelstrom is random piled on top of random with a touch of random added on top. Same goes for psychic powers, warlord traits, mysterious terrain and a dozen other faction specific tables.

Point is, the core is a jumbled mess of platoon level skirmish gaming mixed with battalion level 15/6mm mass battle gaming that uses archaic rules from the 80s and replaces player impact with random rolling. On top of all that, the faction books are terribly balanced, both internally and externally.

I do agree with you about the randomness. About the other stuff...? You should consider making another thread on this.

Its been done to death a dozen times. I'm sure you could search one.

Well with examples like that, there's not much sense debating the point. What about an army of nothing? I have that option too. I also have the freedom to cheat, or ignore the rules I don't like.

An army of drop pods is just as legitimate as the army of sternguard that you mentioned earlier. What makes an army of empty drop pods inherently any less "cool" or what have you compared to any other army list in your "the player should be able to do whatever he wants" worldview?

An army of drop pods is not legitimate, and you know it. Its a ridiculous example. My example also wasn't sternguard, it was a Firedrake Cadre, as in what the old DA rules for Deathwing; an army of terminators with a captain and other 1st company support elements. But in theory could consists of entirely terminators and a single captain in terminator army.

If you can't see the difference between that and putting a dozen drop pods on the table, I have no desire to continue on.

Most sensible armies (ones built with something, like, say a CAD) would be perfectly viable if the player ensures they cover the basics.

If I have to take a CAD, then my options have been limited.

An army of sternguard doesn't fit into the CAD.

In the DA book, an army of terminators as per my above example fits in the CAD, or did anyways, don't have the new one.

Again, you and I both know this example of empty drop pods is ridiculous.

What makes it ridiculous?

That its an army of drop pods? I don't want to insult your intelligence explaining how stupid of an example this is, so I'll let you figure it out.

I'm not arguing total abject freedom where the player can do anything.

You certainly appeared to be arguing for that earlier. I believe you mentioned an army of just sternguard.

I clarified for you, since you seem to be misremembering. I never argued for total freedom, I argued for more freedom than what a pure formation system would offer. Distinct difference.

I'm arguing that the basic building block of the army should be at the unit level vice the formation level and that some structure is needed for balancing purposes. Within that structure, as much player options as possible can be reasonably included, like the old 5th ed force org swaps, which allowed for nearly any type of army you wanted by shifting units around. It was fluffy, fun, and mostly balanced, depending on the units involved.

Point is, you still need to build an army that can, you know, do something.

Please explain to me how my fluffy, GW approved and promoted, and CAD compliant army of 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, all in rhinos, are going to beat an army of just Leeman Russes (which is CAD compliant, mind you).

The simple fact is that spamming a single unit type will be able to confer a massive advantage over a TAC list every time.

Rigid formations prevent that.

That army of Leman Russes is also formation compliant. In your formation only world, you'd still have to deal with that same army.

And honestly, if your GSF can't defeat a Russ heavy list, then the issue isn't the lists, its the operator.

In theory, yes, at the army list level, formations will have less combinations. However, when writing/balancing the factions, you still have to spend the same time balancing the individual units in both a formation system and a non formation system. With formations though, you have the extra work of writing the formations, assigning a relevant bonus, and balancing those bonuses and the formation composition.

Now, even if the total number of army list combinations is less in a formation system, and therefore theoretically requires less balancing/testing at the army level, it still requires more balancing/testing at the unit and formation level. The end result is that even I take your premise that it takes less effort to balance whole armies, I'm working under the premise that it takes more effort at the formation level to balance, therefore (at best) negating each other.

I have to disagree with this. If the game is to be balanced, truly balanced, then the developers have to try all of rules compliant lists and compare them to each other. Formations cut out a ton of those lists.

Let's just take 6 lists:

A. A list with 3 wraithknights.
B. A list with 2 wraithknights
C. A list with 1 wraithknight

D. A list with 5 leeman russes
E. A list with 2 devastator squads
F.A list composed entirely of flyrants

If, right off the bat, we assert that lists A, B, D and F are not rules compliant, that makes balancing things a lot easier.

And before you disagree with me, then consider the opposite. What is the result when more army lists become rules compliant?

Just consider unbound and allied detachments. Did that make the game more or less balanced?

You seem to be ignoring all the work involved in writing, balancing, and testing the formations themselves. It only gets more complicated when you have formations within formations within formations.

Which then means that if both systems are roughly equal in terms of balance effort, why go with the more complex one and restrictive option?

Because they're not actually equal either in terms of effort or result. Again, consider unbound and allied detachments. What I'm suggesting essentially is the opposite. If the opposite of what I am suggesting made the game less balanced, necessarily, what I am suggesting would make it more balanced.

We had an edition (several in fact) with no formations. General consensus is that 5th was the most balanced edition. No formations, only units fighting units in CADs. Even if we sit here all day arguing which takes less effort to balance, we have real world application of a no formation game that was significantly better balanced than the current edition with formations.

When we expand our scope to other games, we find more of the exact same thing.

You'll find that in most real world examples, games took the simpler option that opens up more player choice and don't have formations (or similar). Remember why 40k has formations. Its all about the money.

Probably. That's probably also why the execution has been terrible.

Their goal has been to buff everything enough to get people to buy stuff. Not to balance the game and make sure people have roughly equal chances against each other.

Which is exactly why you should dislike it as a player. Its nothing more than a money grab.

Which is where we disagree. The work involved in coming up with formations that are a combination of fluffy, effective, have the right amount of openness and restrictions, assign relevant bonuses that are properly worded and don't contradict any of the units involved, then balance those bonuses against the formation within the same book, then as a force against other books, just sounds like way more work then testing individual units within the context of an army.

You could make the same argument about force multiplying units like psykers.

Not really, considering they come with a point cost (and ideally should be paying for powers too), and eat up force org slot means they're significantly easier to balance. Again, see previous editions.

Remember that I'm not advocating for total free for all freedom here.

Earlier, you literally argued for an army of just sternguard.

Clarified above.

My stance is that the right structure was the CAD and modifcations within it. It worked, its similar to how other games work because its a good system.

What makes the CAD any more fluffy and balanced than a formation?

Why shouldn't I be able to bring more than 3 units of sternguard?

The same argument applies in reverse against formations. Why do I have to take 6 sentinels if I only want 3?

It may be balanced, but it wouldn't be enjoyable. No one wants to be stuck with the unit equivalent of their lame kid brother.

And this comes down to the meat of the issue. You don't object to my proposal because you don't think it would balance the game. You object to the proposal because you like spamming the best units in the codex.

At any rate, it wouldn't be "the unit equivalent of their lame kid brother" if EVERYONE is doing it. All of a sudden, tactical marines would actually have things to shoot, khorne berserkers would have things to charge, ork boys would have things to WAAAGH at, etc.

Yes, it would be an overall nerf to everybody, but it would be a massive buff to the weaker units.

So know you're going to assume my intentions eh? Cause that always works so well for people. How about you argue my points and not infer that I'm some min/maxing WAAC guy.

For the record, all the things I'd 'spam' in the Guard codex are not even the best units.

If you cut out formations, you get the same balance, but with less overhead.

I disagree, for the previously stated reasons.

Explain to me how my CAD compliant battle company is going to beat an army of just leeman russes.

If you have problems against russes with a GSF (or a CAD marine army), you have an operator problem.

Well, that's not really good balance. You've just forced a handicap, one they probably don't want or may not even have, forcing them to buy something they don't want. Not a good solution for anyone.

That's already true in the CAD. Suppose a marine player doesn't want to buy scouts or tactical marines.

He still has to take 2 because of the CAD. You're forcing him to buy something he doesn't want.

I still say it's perfectly acceptable.

Or he could have bikes. In my perfect world, he could also have assault squads or devs or terminators or veterans depending on the person leading them.

But then how many formations would there be per book? There's already so many its genuinely tedious keeping track of them. It was bad enough keeping track of all the USRs for the units and their wargear, but now you'd be adding even more formations that need to be tracked in addition to the units themselves.

How many common playstyles can you think of for marines? How many formations can you come up with based on the fluff? I can think of 3:

1. They fall from the sky
2. They all ride in on bikes
3. They ride in on razorbacks/rhinos

Is there a point here?

And an army of Tyranids is a variable thing. It could be a monster mash, or a horde, or a flying list, or an elite specialist force, or any combination thereof.

Which may or may not be CAD compliant. You're arguing against yourself. Either you are in favor of Unbound, or else, you can't say what you are saying right now.

All of my examples with Nids are CAD compliant.

No, I'm in favour of the right amount of structure. Having army construction be at the unit level is more free than having at the formation level

I disagree that freedom in and of itself is necessarily desirable as a goal.

And again, there's freedom even within the GSF, even within the more limited variation that I'm proposing.

And there's more in the CAD. Especially with more force org slots I'd propose.

If by spam you mean literally having an army of a single unit, then sure, that's not good. But a CAD naturally limits that anyways.

How many leeman russes can an IG player bring in a CAD?

Nine, plus up to 3 more with a Tank Commander and two friends.

If by spam you simply mean not having 2+ of any given unit, then I disagree it should be limited.

That's not what I had in mind.

I don't know. Cheese: you know it when you see it.

Which varies by person. Not a valid benchmark.

Yes, serpents were overpowered. That doesn't mean putting 10 razors on the table is perfectly acceptable. Apples and oranges. Its quite clear based on tournament results and overwhelming feedback that being able to put down 10 scoring vehicles for free that either drop in where you want them or can help shoot and move troops around will win games. One razor isn't an issue. Two isn't problematic. Three is annoying. Five is an issue. Ten is a problem for all but the most powerful lists.

But now we're circling back to your thread where you were defending the GSF as being fine and balanced. It was handily demonstrated to you by nearly everyone that the GSF is playing with the top dogs and will easily squash anything not using one of the top dexes.

I'm not wanting to defend the "razorback spam" that the GSF allows (though I think it would be perfectly fine if they were fielded with 10 man squads).

I'm only pointing out that it's difficult to complain about "spamming" relatively weak units. 10 razorbacks isn't spam in the bad sense. They're dedicated transports. The problem is that you can get them for free with minimum 5 man squads.

Wave serpent spam was spam in the bad sense. What Eldar players did was take a clearly unbalanced, OP unit and take as many of them as possible.

There is no sense in which a razorback is unbalanced/OP.

In fact, it might even be overcosted/underpowered.

4 less transport capacity than a rhino and a twin linked heavy bolter = 20 points more than a rhino? Should a twin-linked heavy bolter really cost that much?

It doesn't even get 2 heavy bolters. It gets one heavy bolter that can reroll misses.

So spam is fine if their DTs and not overpowered? Seems like a weird definition trying to skirt around your own dislike of spam but not for the formation you like.

Traditio wrote:

I'm not wanting to defend the "razorback spam" that the GSF allows (though I think it would be perfectly fine if they were fielded with 10 man squads).

I'm only pointing out that it's difficult to complain about "spamming" relatively weak units. 10 razorbacks isn't spam in the bad sense. They're dedicated transports. The problem is that you can get them for free with minimum 5 man squads.

Wave serpent spam was spam in the bad sense. What Eldar players did was take a clearly unbalanced, OP unit and take as many of them as possible.

There is no sense in which a razorback is unbalanced/OP.

In fact, it might even be overcosted/underpowered.

4 less transport capacity than a rhino and a twin linked heavy bolter = 20 points more than a rhino? Should a twin-linked heavy bolter really cost that much?

It doesn't even get 2 heavy bolters. It gets one heavy bolter that can reroll misses.

Uh, it would be completely silly if you could only take Razorbacks for 10 man units as Razorback can only transport 6. Of course in gameplay you can Combat squad but in terms of fiction, a Commander would be unlikely to bring out a mechanized force where half of each squad has to be left behind when army redeploys.

I find most Formations as incredibly lazy way of forcing armies to be 'fluffy'. The actual way it should be done is to make armies and scenarios such that fluffy armies are good. If you deviate from norm, prepare for potential drawbacks. Razorback as such is not unbalanced (anymore). However when you get it for free, it's very much unbalanced. 10 Razorbacks is 550 points worth of free units. Would you fancy playing CAD vs CAD match where other player has 500 point advantage? Even if we figure that Razorback is overcosted and should only cost 40 points (5th edition cost) it's still 400 points of free stuff. I am sure Pyrovore would be popular if there was a Tyranid formation where you get them for no points cost.

This is the problem with formations. They are completely unintuitive. A Razorback or Rhino is not a 'free, disposable asset' for a Space Marine chapter. They are a limited resource which is not necessarily that easy to replace, not to mention a respected tool, comrade-in-arms, even a relic. They are not handed out like candy by Master of the Forge: "Hey, why don't you muster two more Tactical Squad? I'll give you Rhinos for free if you do!"
Also rigidity of formations. Why do you get these bonuses if you take this exact number of units? It is like Monty Python: "Book of Armaments says that thou shalt take three Predators to gain these bonuses, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt take, and the number of the Predators shall be three. Four shalt thou not take, neither should thou take two, excepting that one is lost during combat from original three, in which case it is not a problem. Five is right out...."