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 JNAProductions wrote:
6 Squads of Cultists is 300 points-you're saddled with a mandatory champion.

Fair point. I forgot all about that.

And hey-what if I don't own 60 flipping Cultists models, and have no desire to own that many?

Then invest in some chaos space marines or cult troops.

It's not that complicated.

There are far more refined and simpler solutions.

The 30k one is a well proven method. Has Low limits, controls on point levels and more.

If it ain't broke... Don,t reinvent the combustion engine.

Chaos Space Marines suck. They are, quite honestly, worse point-point than Cultists. (Cultists are at least CHEAP.)

And now you're looking at 450 points for 6 squads-6 five man squads with absolutely no upgrades.

Oh, but take Cult Units you say! Yeah, like Berserkers (which aren't very good) or Thousand Sons (which are utter trash) or Noise Marines (which have decent options-still too pricey for what they do, but they're not terrible) or Plague Marines (okay, they're actually good. No arguments there-they could use a point drop, but they're a decent unit).

Also? I don't recall the prices of anything but Plague Marines offhand, but Plague Marines? Run you 720 for 6 squads. No upgrades.

Except now you need a Marked Lord (for everything but TSons) which is even more points or a Marked Sorcerer (which, it should be noted, has to roll on the Tzeentch table. That awful, awful table).

 JNAProductions wrote:
Chaos Space Marines suck. They are, quite honestly, worse point-point than Cultists. (Cultists are at least CHEAP.)

Ok. So your objection has nothing to do with your not wanting to own x, y and z models. Your objection ultimately collapses into the "BUT THAT MEANS I CAN'T RUN AS MANY HELLDRAKES, FORGEFIENDS AND RENEGADE KNIGHTS!"

To which I'll answer: "Yes. That's the point."

And now you're looking at 450 points for 6 squads-6 five man squads with absolutely no upgrades.

Out of 1850 points total. And that's assuming you want to fill all 3 of a given FOC slot or run a LoW.

If you only want to use 2 of a given FOC slot and you don't want to run a LoW, you could get away with less.

If your list is so packed full of cheddar that you can't spare a couple hundred points, then maybe your list can stand to be toned down. Just saying.

This sounds more like you want to kill as much creativity as you can rather than fix anything.

pm713 wrote:
This sounds more like you want to kill as much creativity as you can rather than fix anything.

300 points out of 1850 leaves 1550 points. You can't be creative with 1550 points?

 Traditio wrote:

pm713 wrote:
This sounds more like you want to kill as much creativity as you can rather than fix anything.

300 points out of 1850 leaves 1550 points. You can't be creative with 1550 points?

You're right. Forcing me to spam one or two units just to make a list isn't forcing me into lists at all. It would take about a fifth of my points in troop taxes to remake most of my lists. That's just spamming the minimum size of the cheapest troop which I hate doing. So yes it's a problem and really forcing everyone to spam troops just makes the game boring.

 Traditio wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Chaos Space Marines suck. They are, quite honestly, worse point-point than Cultists. (Cultists are at least CHEAP.)

Ok. So your objection has nothing to do with your not wanting to own x, y and z models. Your objection ultimately collapses into the "BUT THAT MEANS I CAN'T RUN AS MANY HELLDRAKES, FORGEFIENDS AND RENEGADE KNIGHTS!"

To which I'll answer: "Yes. That's the point."

And now you're looking at 450 points for 6 squads-6 five man squads with absolutely no upgrades.

Out of 1850 points total. And that's assuming you want to fill all 3 of a given FOC slot or run a LoW.

If you only want to use 2 of a given FOC slot and you don't want to run a LoW, you could get away with less.

If your list is so packed full of cheddar that you can't spare a couple hundred points, then maybe your list can stand to be toned down. Just saying.

I'm addressing points which can be addressed pretty objectively. You can't address taste objectively-but yeah, that's a big thing.

And Tradito? Do me a favor. Play CSM. Play them for two years. Then tell me how you feel.

 Traditio wrote:

My dark eldar warriors can take a blaster, but that lone blaster means that at least 3 other guys in his squad (kabalites can take AT weapons) will be sitting around doing nothing if the blaster guy wants to shoot at a tank.

Are blasters not a good anti-infantry weapon? Do no dark eldar players stuff kabalites with a single lone blaster into 6 or so pirate ships?

If anything, dark eldar players would be least effected by this change. The most competitive dark eldar build involves spamming troops.

You mean that list that just got nerfed to oblivion by the FaQ?



Also you are killing player creativity. You're 3x more delusional than I initially thought if you think requiring 700+ points of basic models before upgrades doesn't kill creativity. There's a reason no one takes the Ork or IG decurions, and a reason almost no one takes the Daemon decurion.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

My dark eldar warriors can take a blaster, but that lone blaster means that at least 3 other guys in his squad (kabalites can take AT weapons) will be sitting around doing nothing if the blaster guy wants to shoot at a tank.

Are blasters not a good anti-infantry weapon? Do no dark eldar players stuff kabalites with a single lone blaster into 6 or so pirate ships?

If anything, dark eldar players would be least effected by this change. The most competitive dark eldar build involves spamming troops.

You mean that list that just got nerfed to oblivion by the FaQ?



Also you are killing player creativity. You're 3x more delusional than I initially thought if you think requiring 700+ points of basic models before upgrades doesn't kill creativity. There's a reason no one takes the Ork or IG decurions, and a reason almost no one takes the Daemon decurion.

The 700+ number I gave was for tactical marines + heavy weapons or special weapons + rhinos.

You don't need to spend nearly that much to hit the magic number "6" for troops. 6 unupgraded scouts squads is only 330 points. Even Necrons would only need to spend roughly 500 points on troops.

 Traditio wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Chaos Space Marines suck. They are, quite honestly, worse point-point than Cultists. (Cultists are at least CHEAP.)

Ok. So your objection has nothing to do with your not wanting to own x, y and z models. Your objection ultimately collapses into the "BUT THAT MEANS I CAN'T RUN AS MANY HELLDRAKES, FORGEFIENDS AND RENEGADE KNIGHTS!"

To which I'll answer: "Yes. That's the point."

And now you're looking at 450 points for 6 squads-6 five man squads with absolutely no upgrades.

Out of 1850 points total. And that's assuming you want to fill all 3 of a given FOC slot or run a LoW.

If you only want to use 2 of a given FOC slot and you don't want to run a LoW, you could get away with less.

If your list is so packed full of cheddar that you can't spare a couple hundred points, then maybe your list can stand to be toned down. Just saying.

First of all, there's a difference between not wanting to field crummy units and wanting to field cheese. In my earlier example, I want to run multiple squads of howling banshees. That's a farcry from wanting to be a cheesemonger. Please stop assuming that everyone who dislikes being forced to spam troops is some WAAC cheesebeard. You say that I'll have plenty of points left over after filling out your troops tax, but let's look at what that really means.

To field my fluffy Iybraesil banshee list with three squads of banshees, I'd need 6 troops just for the banshees. So let's say I go with guardians because they're the least expensive (in terms of actual cash) to get ahold of. I believe they cost about $35 per squad at the moment. So that's an investment of $210 plus tax before I can even start looking at taking my 3 banshee squads, plus I have to pay another $70 plus tax for every FA or HS I want to field, and that's before you even look at the cost of the dark reapers or shining spears or what have you that I'm actually taking.

To be fair, some of us (including myself) actually have plenty of troops models sitting around, so I wouldn't have to actually go out and bye anything new. So let's look at it from a points perspective. For the sake of argument, I'll pretend I have a limitless supply of rangers because they're the cheapest bare bones troop choice coming in at 60 points per minimum sized unit. So 360 points to fill out my first 6 troops slots, plus 120 points for every option I want to take after that. So we'd be looking at something like...

100 points for a farseer
360 points for 6 units of rangers
~240 points for three small squads of banshees with exarchs
For a total of about 700 points.

Now I want to add, let's say, some falcons as ranged support that can also carry those banshees (probably not optimal, but they're a middle-of-the-road cost HS).
So that's another...
100 points for a farseer
360 points for 6 rangers
~360 points for 3 different falcon units
For a total of about 1520 when added to my first batch of units. That leaves me with 330 points to flesh out an 1850 list. So let's take...
100 points for a third farseer
120 points for 2 squads of rangers
110 points for a minimum squad of warp spiders or something.

So at this point, I've taken...
3 farseers (two more than I particularly want)
3 banshee units
3 falcons
1 unit of warp spiders
14 units of rangers.

I get that you like troops, but should I really have to take 14 units of rangers just to get 3 units of banshees, a couple falcons, and a single different unit? Again, in 5th edition I would only need to fit 2 ranger units into my list to run a somewhat fluffy banshee-themed list. That's... that's taking troop tax to a whole new level.

Now realistically, I'd probably be replacing some of those ranger squads with guardians meaning I'd be paying more per troop squad than I have here. Which means I'd be taking fewer troops but that I'd also have even fewer points available to buy something other than troops.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

My dark eldar warriors can take a blaster, but that lone blaster means that at least 3 other guys in his squad (kabalites can take AT weapons) will be sitting around doing nothing if the blaster guy wants to shoot at a tank.

Are blasters not a good anti-infantry weapon? Do no dark eldar players stuff kabalites with a single lone blaster into 6 or so pirate ships?

If anything, dark eldar players would be least effected by this change. The most competitive dark eldar build involves spamming troops.

You mean that list that just got nerfed to oblivion by the FaQ?



Also you are killing player creativity. You're 3x more delusional than I initially thought if you think requiring 700+ points of basic models before upgrades doesn't kill creativity. There's a reason no one takes the Ork or IG decurions, and a reason almost no one takes the Daemon decurion.

The 700+ number I gave was for tactical marines + heavy weapons or special weapons + rhinos.

You don't need to spend nearly that much to hit the magic number "6" for troops. 6 unupgraded scouts squads is only 330 points. Even Necrons would only need to spend roughly 500 points on troops.

The thing is that "6" isn't even all that magical a number in your system. It's 6 units of troops, hundreds of physical dollars and a large chunk of your total army, just to take a couple non-troop units. It's great that you enjoy playing with tons of troops, but I think it's safe to say that many people don't share your love for spamming the same handful of units over and over again. That doesn't make people cheesy players who just want to spam wraithknights or whatever. It just means that we're turned off by the idea of spending $40 or $80 on a couple troop units for each different thing we want to field.

Traditio: Everyone must eat two servings of salad for every side dish or entree they want to eat.
Others: That's a lot of salad, man. Salad isn't particularly tasty, and the salads around here aren't especially well done.
Traditio: Your aversion to salad clearly means you only want to eat candy bars and steak for the rest of your life!
Others: I mean... steak is nice. I kind of just wanted to eat some corn or sushi tomorrow.

I like how he's accusing a CSM list of being so full of cheddar that it can't afford to take troops.

Oh, and Wyldhunt? Awesome post.

Wyldhunt:

You've misunderstood my proposal.

Under my proposal, taking 6 troops would unlock all of the other FOC slots in the CAD.

So 1 HQ and 2 troops would unlock 1 of each of the other FOC slots, except LoWs (not just one of your choice; you'd be able to field 1 of each).

So what it would actually look like is:

You take your farseer (1 HQ).

You then add your 6 rangers (6 troop choices)

You then throw in your 3 howling banshee squads with exarchs (which would exhaust your 3 elite FOC selections):

You then throw in the 3 falcons (thus exhausting your 3 heavy support selections):

You then throw in the warp spiders (exhausting 1 fast attack selection).

According to battlescribe, prior to any upgrades, this comes out to a grand total of 1194 points prior to any upgrades.

In an 1850 game, you'd still another 656 points to play with.

That's enough to field at least 2 more warp spider squads and a wraithknight.

You'd only need to add more rangers and HQs if you wanted to have more than 2 HQs, more than 1 loW or more than 3 of any of the other FOC selections.

Wyldhunt wrote:
That's true in some cases, but not all cases. The eldar decurion, for instance, provides a command benefit that lets units automatically run 6". That's not really a problem. The fact that this decurion allows you to take multiple wraithknights in a highly cost-effective fashion (you can skip taking multiple CADs) is something of a problem. Similarly, the aspect host lets you spam warp spiders. That the aspect host also makes those warp spiders BS5 is part of the problem, but being able to field 60 spiders without taking a CAD is something of an issue. The triptide wing's benefits are annoyingly good, but part of the problem with that formation is that it lets you take lots of riptides without taking a CAD or anything. So you can just ally in some triptides with your multiple wraith knights without either detachment having to take a CAD anywhere along the way.

@Lance845: I'm not terribly familiar with 30k. Based upon your description of its army composition, however, I'd be very interested in trying out something similar for 40k.

Unit Spam exists with Unbound. And it should be fluffy to be facing a huge number of Aspect Warriors, depending on the location and Craftworld.

Part of the reason for Formations is to take more of a unit than you normally could in a CAD without adding Role-changing dynamics. Part of it is to sell those models that are in low Slot number positions, but also because players have been asking for similar things for a long time now. As bad as Riptide spam is, how much fear did Knight spam bring if your collection is crap against that many Hull Points?

Would it really be better if the Aspect Host was built with the same number of units in mind, but was listed a X Number of Elite/Fast Attack/Heavy Slots? Or if it made all those Aspects in its list Troops? Also keep in mind that you brought up one of the benefits of the Aspect Host as a reason not to spam Warp Spiders. Indeed, unit spam fear tells more about the problem with the unit itself, not with the organization that supports it.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I like how he's accusing a CSM list of being so full of cheddar that it can't afford to take troops.

Oh, and Wyldhunt? Awesome post.

You're very kind! Feel free to hit that Exalt button on the post if you like.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:
Wyldhunt:

You've misunderstood my proposal.

Under my proposal, taking 6 troops would unlock all of the other FOC slots in the CAD.

So 1 HQ and 2 troops would unlock 1 of each of the other FOC slots, except LoWs (not just one of your choice; you'd be able to field 1 of each).

So what it would actually look like is:

You take your farseer (1 HQ).

You then add your 6 rangers (6 troop choices)

You then throw in your 3 howling banshee squads with exarchs (which would exhaust your 3 elite FOC selections):

You then throw in the 3 falcons (thus exhausting your 3 heavy support selections):

You then throw in the warp spiders (exhausting 1 fast attack selection).

According to battlescribe, prior to any upgrades, this comes out to a grand total of 1194 points prior to any upgrades.

In an 1850 game, you'd still another 656 points to play with.

That's enough to field at least 2 more warp spider squads and a wraithknight.

You'd only need to add more rangers and HQs if you wanted to have more than 2 HQs, more than 1 loW or more than 3 of any of the other FOC selections.

My mistake! That does change things up significantly then. I'm still not a fan of being required to spam that many troops, but this is certainly less of a hassle than the system I thought you were proposing. I still maintain that an Iyanden list shouldn't be required to spam guardians/rangers/avengers/bikes when its defining feature is having lots of wraith units. Similarly, a Deathwing army should not be required to take a bunch of green marines when its focus should be on taking lots of terminators. I feel something like the 30k system where units like wraith guard or even wraith lords could become troops when you take a spirit seer as your HQ might be the better way to go. Plus, books with better troops will still have an edge in this system whereas the current system allows books with bad troops to work around their poor troop units rather than being forced to spam them. I'd be very receptive to a discussion about fixing various problem troops (read: underpowered troops), but that's a different discussion.

Wyldhunt wrote:

@Lance845: I'm not terribly familiar with 30k. Based upon your description of its army composition, however, I'd be very interested in trying out something similar for 40k.

Google img search "30k detachment" and scroll down a bit and you will see the basic FOC.

The additional information needed is that a LoW can only be taken in games 2k points and higher and cannot cost more than 25% of your total army value.

Everyone has at least 1 generic HQ. Anything that is not this generic HQ has a rule that allows you to make use of Rites of War. That rule also stipulates that you cannot have more than 1 unit with that special rule for every 1k points in your army. The limit of 1 RoW activating HQ per 1k points is also a nice limiter that cuts out the majority of many HQ team up shenanigans.

So for example, if this was used in 40k, A Tyranid Prime would be the generic HQ option for Nids with Hive Tyrants being 1 for every 1k in the army and opening up Rites of War.

Other major benefits of 30ks general design choices include the way units are costed. Unit wide upgrades have a flat value instead of ppm (20 points for Adrenal Glands for the entire unit of Hormagaunts instead of 2 points per model) and a reduction in cost for additional models (If a unit of 3 warriors costs 90 points then it's 22 points for each additional warrior instead of 30) which means MSU builds maintain all the benefits of bringing MSU lists but come at a cost because the most efficient point expenditures are to build up the units you have.


Overall 30k has a much stronger baseline to build armys. But it still suffers from many of the other problems with the core rules of 7th ed. It doesn't fix the game. But it does fix army list building.

 Charistoph wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
That's true in some cases, but not all cases. The eldar decurion, for instance, provides a command benefit that lets units automatically run 6". That's not really a problem. The fact that this decurion allows you to take multiple wraithknights in a highly cost-effective fashion (you can skip taking multiple CADs) is something of a problem. Similarly, the aspect host lets you spam warp spiders. That the aspect host also makes those warp spiders BS5 is part of the problem, but being able to field 60 spiders without taking a CAD is something of an issue. The triptide wing's benefits are annoyingly good, but part of the problem with that formation is that it lets you take lots of riptides without taking a CAD or anything. So you can just ally in some triptides with your multiple wraith knights without either detachment having to take a CAD anywhere along the way.

@Lance845: I'm not terribly familiar with 30k. Based upon your description of its army composition, however, I'd be very interested in trying out something similar for 40k.

Unit Spam exists with Unbound. And it should be fluffy to be facing a huge number of Aspect Warriors, depending on the location and Craftworld.

Part of the reason for Formations is to take more of a unit than you normally could in a CAD without adding Role-changing dynamics. Part of it is to sell those models that are in low Slot number positions, but also because players have been asking for similar things for a long time now. As bad as Riptide spam is, how much fear did Knight spam bring if your collection is crap against that many Hull Points?

Would it really be better if the Aspect Host was built with the same number of units in mind, but was listed a X Number of Elite/Fast Attack/Heavy Slots? Or if it made all those Aspects in its list Troops? Also keep in mind that you brought up one of the benefits of the Aspect Host as a reason not to spam Warp Spiders. Indeed, unit spam fear tells more about the problem with the unit itself, not with the organization that supports it.

I'm not sure I follow what you're saying. Unbound certainly introduces the possibility that a player will spam a given unit, but I'm under the impression that unbound isn't really something that happens outside of pre-negotiated friendly games. No tournaments that I've seen allow unbound, and players generally talk to their opponents in advance when they do want to use unbound.

I'm afraid I'm not comprehending what your point is about riptides and knights.

The aspect host would still be problematic if it allowed you to take warp spiders as troops or if it allowed you to take 3 Elite/FA/HS choices as part of the formation instead of aspect warriors. The formation's bonuses are nice, but the problematic part of it is that it allows you to spam overpowered units (specifically warp spiders). I agree that that has a lot to do with the unit balance rather than the formation itself, but my point was that the formation makes it easier to take a bunch of OP units without paying the normal HQ and troop tax. So a knight army can ally in 30 warp spiders with an aspect host instead of 30 spiders plus an HQ plus two troops. (Bad example; scatbikes are awesome troops, but you get the idea.)

Does that make sense? I'm not sure I'm following you very well. ^_^;

I think he's saying that the issues will go away if the units themselves are fixed-it doesn't matter if you can spam Warp Spiders if Warp Spiders aren't broken.

Wyldhunt wrote:My mistake! That does change things up significantly then. I'm still not a fan of being required to spam that many troops, but this is certainly less of a hassle than the system I thought you were proposing. I still maintain that an Iyanden list shouldn't be required to spam guardians/rangers/avengers/bikes when its defining feature is having lots of wraith units. Similarly, a Deathwing army should not be required to take a bunch of green marines when its focus should be on taking lots of terminators. I feel something like the 30k system where units like wraith guard or even wraith lords could become troops when you take a spirit seer as your HQ might be the better way to go. Plus, books with better troops will still have an edge in this system whereas the current system allows books with bad troops to work around their poor troop units rather than being forced to spam them. I'd be very receptive to a discussion about fixing various problem troops (read: underpowered troops), but that's a different discussion.

1. Game balance > Fluff.

2. I'm not entirely convinced that it's all that fair to talk about "better troops" if troops are mandatory. No, those ork boys aren't going to be as effective as tactical marines in certain circumstances. But if you have 60 boys and I have 30 tactical marines, (with me being at a point disadvantage I paid 420 points, but you only paid 360), or if you have 60 termagaunts and I have 30 tactical marines (again, me being at a disadvantage in points: you only paid 240 points for those termagaunts), then all of a sudden, those "bad" troops don't look all that bad any more, do they? The fact that we both have a higher troop requirement means that those troops actually have something to do other than camp objectives.

 Lance845 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

@Lance845: I'm not terribly familiar with 30k. Based upon your description of its army composition, however, I'd be very interested in trying out something similar for 40k.

Google img search "30k detachment" and scroll down a bit and you will see the basic FOC.

The additional information needed is that a LoW can only be taken in games 2k points and higher and cannot cost more than 25% of your total army value.

Everyone has at least 1 generic HQ. Anything that is not this generic HQ has a rule that allows you to make use of Rites of War. That rule also stipulates that you cannot have more than 1 unit with that special rule for every 1k points in your army.

So for example, if this was used in 40k, A Tyranid Prime would be the generic HQ option for Nids with Hive Tyrants being 1 for every 1k in the army and opening up Rites of War.

Other major benefits of 30ks general design choices include the way units are costed. Unit wide upgrades have a flat value instead of ppm (20 points for Adrenal Glands for the entire unit of Hormagaunts instead of 2 points per model) and a reduction in cost for additional models (If a unit of 3 warriors costs 90 points then it's 22 points for each additional warrior instead of 30) which means MSU builds maintain all the benefits of bringing MSU lists but come at a cost because the most efficient point expenditures are to build up the units you have.


Overall 30k has a much stronger baseline to build armys. But it still suffers from many of the other problems with the core rules of 7th ed. It doesn't fix the game. But it does fix army list building.

I really like the idea of the HQ choices opening up different rites of war. I'd love to see a spirit seer making wraithguard into troops or a bikeseer turning jetbikes into troops. Being able to unlock bonuses for lictors by taking death leaper or something might also be neat. It seems like a good way to flavor your army while keeping relatively tight limits on your options.

I'm less fond of the flat cost for wargear. It's a fluffy mechanic for 30k where you're mean to be fighting with large units of marines. In 40k, however, I think I'd feel like I was being penalized for taking small units instead of large ones. Sometimes I want to splash in a small bodyguard of incubi for my archon or a small, sneaky team of sternguard that I sent on a stealth mission to outflank the enemy and shoot a tank with their combi-meltas. Some units just make more sense being in small squads, and some armies (like my fragile dark eldar) bleed points fast when you put a bunch of them in one spot rather than spreading them around in small units. That seems like an easy mechanic to divorce from the Rites of War thing though.

And my 450 points of CSM as compared to your 420 of Tacs? I paid more points... For worse models.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

@Lance845: I'm not terribly familiar with 30k. Based upon your description of its army composition, however, I'd be very interested in trying out something similar for 40k.

Google img search "30k detachment" and scroll down a bit and you will see the basic FOC.

The additional information needed is that a LoW can only be taken in games 2k points and higher and cannot cost more than 25% of your total army value.

Everyone has at least 1 generic HQ. Anything that is not this generic HQ has a rule that allows you to make use of Rites of War. That rule also stipulates that you cannot have more than 1 unit with that special rule for every 1k points in your army.

So for example, if this was used in 40k, A Tyranid Prime would be the generic HQ option for Nids with Hive Tyrants being 1 for every 1k in the army and opening up Rites of War.

Other major benefits of 30ks general design choices include the way units are costed. Unit wide upgrades have a flat value instead of ppm (20 points for Adrenal Glands for the entire unit of Hormagaunts instead of 2 points per model) and a reduction in cost for additional models (If a unit of 3 warriors costs 90 points then it's 22 points for each additional warrior instead of 30) which means MSU builds maintain all the benefits of bringing MSU lists but come at a cost because the most efficient point expenditures are to build up the units you have.


Overall 30k has a much stronger baseline to build armys. But it still suffers from many of the other problems with the core rules of 7th ed. It doesn't fix the game. But it does fix army list building.

I really like the idea of the HQ choices opening up different rites of war. I'd love to see a spirit seer making wraithguard into troops or a bikeseer turning jetbikes into troops. Being able to unlock bonuses for lictors by taking death leaper or something might also be neat. It seems like a good way to flavor your army while keeping relatively tight limits on your options.

I'm less fond of the flat cost for wargear. It's a fluffy mechanic for 30k where you're mean to be fighting with large units of marines. In 40k, however, I think I'd feel like I was being penalized for taking small units instead of large ones. Sometimes I want to splash in a small bodyguard of incubi for my archon or a small, sneaky team of sternguard that I sent on a stealth mission to outflank the enemy and shoot a tank with their combi-meltas. Some units just make more sense being in small squads, and some armies (like my fragile dark eldar) bleed points fast when you put a bunch of them in one spot rather than spreading them around in small units. That seems like an easy mechanic to divorce from the Rites of War thing though.

The flat cost for the upgrade is based on the ppm cost of the base sized unit. Literally that upgrade for nids is 2ppm for a unit with a base size of 10 gaunts. So 20pts for the entire unit. If I expand that unit to 30 model it still costs me 20 points. Much more efficient but not actually costing me any more points for a 10 model unit then it does now.

Your not actually penalized for taking the base sized unit with whatever upgrades. Your just provided a bulk discount as you grow the unit.

 JNAProductions wrote:
And my 450 points of CSM as compared to your 420 of Tacs? I paid more points... For worse models.

1. You don't have to take CSM. You could take cultists (but you don't like the models, apparently). Or you could have all kinds of fluffy fun and take cult troops (But that would cost more points).

2. It's not really a fair comparison. 60 of those points are for the mandatory veteran status on the sergeants.

And I wish to emphasize:

I never said that this would fix all of the imbalances in the game. The CSM book is just all around bad. It's full of unappropriately priced units (why the feth does a cultist sergeant cost as much as a space marine?), lack of synergy built into the units (CSM can take a heavy and a special weapons, but can't squad off) and expensive mandatory upgrades (veteran status for all of the sergeants).

Those things need to be fixed separately. That doesn't change the fact that, purely from a gameplay standpoint, you HAVE a 300 point option. And guess what? Cultists hit tactical marines on 4s and wounds on 5s.

And again, if this troop requirement were enforced, game balance would be a whole lot better off.

 Traditio wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:My mistake! That does change things up significantly then. I'm still not a fan of being required to spam that many troops, but this is certainly less of a hassle than the system I thought you were proposing. I still maintain that an Iyanden list shouldn't be required to spam guardians/rangers/avengers/bikes when its defining feature is having lots of wraith units. Similarly, a Deathwing army should not be required to take a bunch of green marines when its focus should be on taking lots of terminators. I feel something like the 30k system where units like wraith guard or even wraith lords could become troops when you take a spirit seer as your HQ might be the better way to go. Plus, books with better troops will still have an edge in this system whereas the current system allows books with bad troops to work around their poor troop units rather than being forced to spam them. I'd be very receptive to a discussion about fixing various problem troops (read: underpowered troops), but that's a different discussion.

1. Game balance > Fluff.

2. I'm not entirely convinced that it's all that fair to talk about "better troops" if troops are mandatory. No, those ork boys aren't going to be as effective as tactical marines in certain circumstances. But if you have 60 boys and I have 30 tactical marines, (with me being at a point disadvantage I paid 420 points, but you only paid 360), or if you have 60 termagaunts and I have 30 tactical marines (again, me being at a disadvantage in points: you only paid 240 points for those termagaunts), then all of a sudden, those "bad" troops don't look all that bad any more, do they? The fact that we both have a higher troop requirement means that those troops actually have something to do other than camp objectives.

1. Sort of kind of partially disagree. Obviously I'm not advocating that space marines should match their fluff and take out entire armies with one squad or that orks should be incapable of winning fights because they're the bad guys, but I also feel that it should be possible to run a flavorful army, especially if that army is presented as one of the "main" options for that codex. White Scars, for instance, would suffer under your system assuming that they can't take bikes as troops. And I don't mean "suffer" in the sense that they'd be nerfed; I mean that the "identity" of a white scars army would be harder to capture because you wouldn't be able to field the bike-heavy forces they're known for.

WS Player: This is my WS army. You can tell they're WS because they favor bikes.
Other Guy: Then why are there literally twice as many infantry squads as bike squads?

2. You make an interesting point here. To be fair, tac marines aren't a very good troop option either, so they probably balance pretty well against ork boyz. Necron warrior spam, however, is a pretty potent option, and a horde of warriors probably wins out against an equivalent number of ork boyz. But putting that aside, something feels off about saying, "Hey, you know all those units that don't stack up well against the majority of other units in your codex? Well they'll be fine now because you're forced to take tons of crummy choices, but so is your opponent. " To over-extend my previous analogy, you're saying that it's okay that you're eating so much salad because the person across the table from you isn't enjoying the majority of their meal much either.

And even if troops balanced well against one another when spammed, I still wouldn't be thrilled about having to take a ton of them in a given army. As I mentioned earlier, one of the main reasons I never got into fantasy was that I was turned off by the notion that I would have to take more and more troop models (which I often found uninteresting in terms of rules, fluff, or model design) before I'd be able to take the units that actually drew me to a given army. If you're really fond of troops, this isn't a problem, but I don't think I"m alone in my concerns here. I can tolerate taking a tac squad and a scout squad as part of the jump pack heavy marine army I'm putting together. I'd probably stop building the army if I had to take two units of tacs or scouts for each assault marine squad I wanted to bring.

Yeah, Cultists hit on 4s and wound on 5s, at 12", with a 6+ armor save. They might have twice the bodies, but at a lower toughness and a crap armor save. They're not worth the same as 6 Tac squads.

The Force Org Chart (or lack thereof, with Formations) is not the issue. Certain formations are an issue (Riptide Wing, for instance) but imbalances between codices regardless of formations is far worse.

Edit: Also, agreed on Wyldhunt. I find troops pretty boring, for the most part. I like fielding my small, elite armies. I don't like spamming hordes of guys.

 Lance845 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

@Lance845: I'm not terribly familiar with 30k. Based upon your description of its army composition, however, I'd be very interested in trying out something similar for 40k.

Google img search "30k detachment" and scroll down a bit and you will see the basic FOC.

The additional information needed is that a LoW can only be taken in games 2k points and higher and cannot cost more than 25% of your total army value.

Everyone has at least 1 generic HQ. Anything that is not this generic HQ has a rule that allows you to make use of Rites of War. That rule also stipulates that you cannot have more than 1 unit with that special rule for every 1k points in your army.

So for example, if this was used in 40k, A Tyranid Prime would be the generic HQ option for Nids with Hive Tyrants being 1 for every 1k in the army and opening up Rites of War.

Other major benefits of 30ks general design choices include the way units are costed. Unit wide upgrades have a flat value instead of ppm (20 points for Adrenal Glands for the entire unit of Hormagaunts instead of 2 points per model) and a reduction in cost for additional models (If a unit of 3 warriors costs 90 points then it's 22 points for each additional warrior instead of 30) which means MSU builds maintain all the benefits of bringing MSU lists but come at a cost because the most efficient point expenditures are to build up the units you have.


Overall 30k has a much stronger baseline to build armys. But it still suffers from many of the other problems with the core rules of 7th ed. It doesn't fix the game. But it does fix army list building.

I really like the idea of the HQ choices opening up different rites of war. I'd love to see a spirit seer making wraithguard into troops or a bikeseer turning jetbikes into troops. Being able to unlock bonuses for lictors by taking death leaper or something might also be neat. It seems like a good way to flavor your army while keeping relatively tight limits on your options.

I'm less fond of the flat cost for wargear. It's a fluffy mechanic for 30k where you're mean to be fighting with large units of marines. In 40k, however, I think I'd feel like I was being penalized for taking small units instead of large ones. Sometimes I want to splash in a small bodyguard of incubi for my archon or a small, sneaky team of sternguard that I sent on a stealth mission to outflank the enemy and shoot a tank with their combi-meltas. Some units just make more sense being in small squads, and some armies (like my fragile dark eldar) bleed points fast when you put a bunch of them in one spot rather than spreading them around in small units. That seems like an easy mechanic to divorce from the Rites of War thing though.

The flat cost for the upgrade is based on the ppm cost of the base sized unit. Literally that upgrade for nids is 2ppm for a unit with a base size of 10 gaunts. So 20pts for the entire unit. If I expand that unit to 30 model it still costs me 20 points. Much more efficient but not actually costing me any more points for a 10 model unit then it does now.

Your not actually penalized for taking the base sized unit with whatever upgrades. Your just provided a bulk discount as you grow the unit.

...And blob units have inherent disadvantages in that they can't take transports and tend to be susceptible to blasts and whatnot. So offsetting those disadvantages with an increase to cost-effectiveness is a reasonable way to address that. This makes a lot of sense. That sounds like really solid game design. I am sold, sir. Please let me know if you post some 30k-style 40k detachment rules.


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 Traditio wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
And my 450 points of CSM as compared to your 420 of Tacs? I paid more points... For worse models.

I never said that this would fix all of the imbalances in the game. The CSM book is just all around bad. It's full of unappropriately priced units (why the feth does a cultist sergeant cost as much as a space marine?), lack of synergy built into the units (CSM can take a heavy and a special weapons, but can't squad off) and expensive mandatory upgrades (veteran status for all of the sergeants).

That's partly the problem though. CSM does have a lot of bad options, and some of those bad options are found in the troop slots. So you can either spend a fortune getting enough cultists together to spam them (they can work in large units if you make them fearless, but we're talking ~$30 for every 10 guys), or you can take a bunch of chaos marines or cult troops who are all largely considered to be bad for their cost. Meanwhile my eldar can bringdire avengers who are relatively good all-rounders.

So basically, copy+pasting the same "good" troops over and over gets boring for many people, and mixing things up by taking worse-but-different troop options just means you're making your army that much less cost-effective. Which doesn't feel great. It makes you choose between being bored out of your mind or making you feel like you're playing an uphill fight because you've been forced to take even more cost-ineffective units than normal. If you don't get bored of fielding the same squad over and over again, this isn't an issue, but many people don't like buying 6 units worth of the same thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yeah, Cultists hit on 4s and wound on 5s, at 12", with a 6+ armor save. They might have twice the bodies, but at a lower toughness and a crap armor save. They're not worth the same as 6 Tac squads.

The Force Org Chart (or lack thereof, with Formations) is not the issue. Certain formations are an issue (Riptide Wing, for instance) but imbalances between codices regardless of formations is far worse.

Edit: Also, agreed on Wyldhunt. I find troops pretty boring, for the most part. I like fielding my small, elite armies. I don't like spamming hordes of guys.

Agreed on liking small, elite armies. Horde armies are all well and good, but sometimes I'd rather be sending my elite speartip in to break the enemy lines rather than always tossing my rank and file against the foe. It's about having the ability to tell different stories or give your army a unique flavor. Enforcing troops tax does make it harder to spam problem units, but it also homogenizes armies and potentially handicaps armies that depend heavily upon taking lots of non-troops.

Wyldhunt wrote:


...And blob units have inherent disadvantages in that they can't take transports and tend to be susceptible to blasts and whatnot. So offsetting those disadvantages with an increase to cost-effectiveness is a reasonable way to address that. This makes a lot of sense. That sounds like really solid game design. I am sold, sir. Please let me know if you post some 30k-style 40k detachment rules.

And MSU has inherent advantages. Like mobility, being more targets the enemy has to fire at, each small unit being able to target different units reducing wasted shots for killing off small units. There is a reason MSU is the name of the game in 40k. It's just better when it's one of 2 viable choices instead of the only choice that makes sense.

Wyldhunt wrote:1. Sort of kind of partially disagree. Obviously I'm not advocating that space marines should match their fluff and take out entire armies with one squad or that orks should be incapable of winning fights because they're the bad guys, but I also feel that it should be possible to run a flavorful army, especially if that army is presented as one of the "main" options for that codex. White Scars, for instance, would suffer under your system assuming that they can't take bikes as troops. And I don't mean "suffer" in the sense that they'd be nerfed; I mean that the "identity" of a white scars army would be harder to capture because you wouldn't be able to field the bike-heavy forces they're known for.

WS Player: This is my WS army. You can tell they're WS because they favor bikes.
Other Guy: Then why are there literally twice as many infantry squads as bike squads?

That's complete bunk. There's nothing about the white scars identity that you HAVE to run only bikes. The White Scars are a codex adherent chapter who place greater tactical significance on speed and mobility. You could represent this in an all bike army. But you don't have to. Khan's special ability also applies to rhinos and razorbacks.

Take 6 tactical squads. Put them in rhinos.
Take 2 bike squads as fast attacks.
Take a couple of devastator squads. Put them in rhinos.
Take a command squad. Put them on bikes.
Take Khan. Put him on a bike.

You got points left?

Take a stormraven or 3.

It has the white scars feel. It's codex compliant. And it's CAD compliant.

At any rate, you don't hear the super competitive types complaining about how their white scars battle companies with hundreds of free points in rhinos and loads of grav cannon doesn't have enough of a "white scars feel."

At the end of the day, balance matters more than fluff.

2. You make an interesting point here. To be fair, tac marines aren't a very good troop option either, so they probably balance pretty well against ork boyz. Necron warrior spam, however, is a pretty potent option

Marines can take special and heavy weapons. Necron warriors can't. It's basically a wash.

and a horde of warriors probably wins out against an equivalent number of ork boyz

The boyz are outnumbering the necrons 2:1, and once the boyz charge, the necrons can't shoot their guns any more.

And even if troops balanced well against one another when spammed, I still wouldn't be thrilled about having to take a ton of them in a given army. As I mentioned earlier, one of the main reasons I never got into fantasy was that I was turned off by the notion that I would have to take more and more troop models (which I often found uninteresting in terms of rules, fluff, or model design) before I'd be able to take the units that actually drew me to a given army. If you're really fond of troops, this isn't a problem, but I don't think I"m alone in my concerns here. I can tolerate taking a tac squad and a scout squad as part of the jump pack heavy marine army I'm putting together. I'd probably stop building the army if I had to take two units of tacs or scouts for each assault marine squad I wanted to bring.

And once again, this whole thing comes down to: "BUT I WANT TO FIELD THE MOST OP STUFF IN MY CODEX! I DON'T WANT TO TAKE THE NON-OP STUFF!"

Sorry. But I don't sympathize with you.

 Traditio wrote:
1. Game balance > Fluff.

It's pretty amusing to see this coming from the same person who wrote this long essay on how important it is to play games with the fluff you enjoy.


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 Traditio wrote:
And once again, this whole thing comes down to: "BUT I WANT TO FIELD THE MOST OP STUFF IN MY CODEX! I DON'T WANT TO TAKE THE NON-OP STUFF!"

Never thought I'd see the day when someone who wants to take lots of assault marines is accused of "only wanting to field the most OP stuff in their codex"...

Peregrine wrote:Never thought I'd see the day when someone who wants to take lots of assault marines is accused of "only wanting to field the most OP stuff in their codex"...

That's not even an option. Unless you go unbound, there is no CAD or formation compliant way of only running assault marines.