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Without reading everything, I just wanted to state my (unpopular opinion)

I like formations, I think they are fun, lots of cool bonuses and stuff.

One of my armies has laughable formations (DE specifically)

Another one has a single amazing formation (wulfen murderpack) the rest are eh, still pretty fun.

DW is a whole bach of worms, but I like how they are now, formations mainly let them be there. Harlies are the same. They need the formations to be good.

The Cegorach's revenge formation is really great balance, and does exactly what a formation should. More of Cegorach's revenge less of gladius strike force.

It's so funny to hear people who don't play at a tournament level very often complain about what they think is broken. Oh, it's formations, the game should be CAD only!

Single CAD eldar are stronger than 75% of armies in the game, formation or not. Heck, they're so good baseline that most of their formation benefits(except asprct host) aren't good enough to justify not just taking another scat pack.

ERJAK wrote:
It's so funny to hear people who don't play at a tournament level very often complain about what they think is broken. Oh, it's formations, the game should be CAD only!

Single CAD eldar are stronger than 75% of armies in the game, formation or not. Heck, they're so good baseline that most of their formation benefits(except asprct host) aren't good enough to justify not just taking another scat pack.

What are betting odds Eldar players are the loudest voices howling for CAD?

Back to the OP where do Force Org charts fall in all this?

Free anything is bad for the game as a whole. Its the #1 reason I am completely opposed to formations. It completely defeats the purpose of having a point system in the first place. If there is no balancing metric, then why have point values at all?

For example:

You & your opponent agree upon a 1000pt game

You bring formation (x) which gives you 250pts worth of extra units for free

Your opponent brings a normal list or plays a army without a formation that offers free units


So now before the battle even begins you have 25% more points of units than your opponent when you initially agreed upon a 1000 pt game. That is insane. How any rules writer could ever think this is acceptable is beyond me. That is like starting off a game of monopoly with 25% of the properties already in your possession. Does that sound like a game that anyone would want to play?

Yo dawg we heard you like spending money on plastic toys so you can spend 300$ to get 0 pts to spend another 300$ to fill up your army to spend another 300$ to paint 2 times more minis.
Clever marketing.

But why don't you just pay your opponent 5$ to win the game without playing? That's cheaper and more effective.

 koooaei wrote:
Pay 300$ and get models that cost 0 pts. Clever marketing.

^This. Formations exist solely to promote sale of models that do not sell otherwise or sell models that they want to push. Formations do not exist to improve the game or enhance the narrative.

If free units via formations continue to be accepted by the community we will end up with a game where there is very little diversity or balance. If you see an eldar list, you immediately will know he is taking combination of units (a)(b)(c)(d) instead of unknown. If you see an space marine chapter you know he is taking (a)(b)(c)(d) instead of unknown. This creates boring metas that ultimately impact the game negatively. Instead of unlimited combinations to choose from, players will have 3 or 4.

It would be like if in the competitive pokemon scene Nintendo said tomorrow, "Today we introduce the trinity! Anyone who brings charizard, venosaur and blastoise in the same team gets to bring a 7th pokemon into battle for free!" Not only can you be guaranteed that from that day forward 90% of the teams would compose of those 3 pokemon, but it was almost always insure anytime you saw any one of those 3 on the team, the other 2 would be present for the benefit. If something like this was ever announced in any competitive format basically anywhere else in any other game people would lose their minds. Here in 40k however, its the norm. Its insanity.

Commissar Benny wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Pay 300$ and get models that cost 0 pts. Clever marketing.

^This. Formations exist solely to promote sale of models that do not sell otherwise or sell models that they want to push. Formations do not exist to improve the game or enhance the narrative.

If free units via formations continue to be accepted by the community we will end up with a game where there is very little diversity or balance. If you see an eldar list, you immediately will know he is taking combination of units (a)(b)(c)(d) instead of unknown. If you see an space marine chapter you know he is taking (a)(b)(c)(d) instead of unknown. This creates boring metas that ultimately impact the game negatively. Instead of unlimited combinations to choose from, players will have 3 or 4.

It would be like if in the competitive pokemon scene Nintendo said tomorrow, "Today we introduce the trinity! Anyone who brings charizard, venosaur and blastoise in the same team gets to bring a 7th pokemon into battle for free!" Not only can you be guaranteed that from that day forward 90% of the teams would compose of those 3 pokemon, but it was almost always insure anytime you saw any one of those 3 on the team, the other 2 would be present for the benefit. If something like this was ever announced in any competitive format basically anywhere else in any other game people would lose their minds. Here in 40k however, its the norm. Its insanity.

Have you never played an online game before?

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Commissar Benny wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Pay 300$ and get models that cost 0 pts. Clever marketing.

^This. Formations exist solely to promote sale of models that do not sell otherwise or sell models that they want to push. Formations do not exist to improve the game or enhance the narrative.

If free units via formations continue to be accepted by the community we will end up with a game where there is very little diversity or balance. If you see an eldar list, you immediately will know he is taking combination of units (a)(b)(c)(d) instead of unknown. If you see an space marine chapter you know he is taking (a)(b)(c)(d) instead of unknown. This creates boring metas that ultimately impact the game negatively. Instead of unlimited combinations to choose from, players will have 3 or 4.

It would be like if in the competitive pokemon scene Nintendo said tomorrow, "Today we introduce the trinity! Anyone who brings charizard, venosaur and blastoise in the same team gets to bring a 7th pokemon into battle for free!" Not only can you be guaranteed that from that day forward 90% of the teams would compose of those 3 pokemon, but it was almost always insure anytime you saw any one of those 3 on the team, the other 2 would be present for the benefit. If something like this was ever announced in any competitive format basically anywhere else in any other game people would lose their minds. Here in 40k however, its the norm. Its insanity.

Have you never played an online game before?

You make it sound like that every online game is pay to win. That is wrong. Last time I checked, League, Team Fortress, Planetside and Dota offered no real advantages if you spent money in game.
There are games that follow a pay to win formula, and I avoid those like the plague.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
You make it sound like that every online game is pay to win. That is wrong. Last time I checked, League, Team Fortress, Planetside and Dota offered no real advantages if you spent money in game. There are games that follow a pay to win formula, and I avoid those like the plague.

I'm not making the argument about pay to win, but rather that the range of viable builds continues to narrow. As more and more formations continue to be introduced adding new benefits, you are forced to take certain prerequisites in order to gain said benefits. This leads to is boring predictable metas that you cannot compete with unless you too play into the meta. While competitive metas exist in all gaming, they don't offset the balance of the game by taking any one specific meta.

Per one of your examples: League of Legends

Lets say tomorrow Riot says, hey folks if you take Garren, Blitz, Lux, Vayne, Brand on a team, you get to add an extra player on your side. So now its 6 vs 5. That is basically what formations that add free units are doing. Instead of having a game where each player agrees to 1000 pts, one player is getting hundreds of extra points offsetting the only balancing metric that exists.

 Kellevil wrote:
With all the power creep going on, is it still cheese to bring a gladius with 8 free razorbacks in a double demi company gladius?

Or is that just a necessary tactic to stay viable these days for vanilla space marines?

I have wanted to do it for a long time but never bought the extra vehicles needed because everyone always cried so much. But they dont seem to mind bringing retribition cadres with drone nets and the like...

And is it ok... to spam grav on top of it? Or has that gone too far?

I know some will say it depends on your local meta but but im curious what others think outside of my local game shop.

Perfectly fine with that! Also, I have an houserule for my tempestus, my 580 points of Taurox Primes are used for additional troops, and such transports are free. Also, I hope you don't mind my 6 free Vendettas.

Because if current 40k rule writing is just making stuff up, why I can't, too?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Commissar Benny wrote:
How any rules writer could ever think this is acceptable is beyond me.

I think I found the mistake

Commissar Benny wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
You make it sound like that every online game is pay to win. That is wrong. Last time I checked, League, Team Fortress, Planetside and Dota offered no real advantages if you spent money in game. There are games that follow a pay to win formula, and I avoid those like the plague.

I'm not making the argument about pay to win, but rather that the range of viable builds continues to narrow. As more and more formations continue to be introduced adding new benefits, you are forced to take certain prerequisites in order to gain said benefits. This leads to is boring predictable metas that you cannot compete with unless you too play into the meta. While competitive metas exist in all gaming, they don't offset the balance of the game by taking any one specific meta.

Per one of your examples: League of Legends

Lets say tomorrow Riot says, hey folks if you take Garren, Blitz, Lux, Vayne, Brand on a team, you get to add an extra player on your side. So now its 6 vs 5. That is basically what formations that add free units are doing. Instead of having a game where each player agrees to 1000 pts, one player is getting hundreds of extra points offsetting the only balancing metric that exists.

Yeah, that's another thing I don't like about formations; they kill list building. With CADs you really had to decide what you want in the army. With formations you just copy from the book. It removes player agency, and results in pretty much the same list.

 gummyofallbears wrote:
Without reading everything, I just wanted to state my (unpopular opinion)

I like formations, I think they are fun, lots of cool bonuses and stuff.

One of my armies has laughable formations (DE specifically)

Another one has a single amazing formation (wulfen murderpack) the rest are eh, still pretty fun.

DW is a whole bach of worms, but I like how they are now, formations mainly let them be there. Harlies are the same. They need the formations to be good.

The Cegorach's revenge formation is really great balance, and does exactly what a formation should. More of Cegorach's revenge less of gladius strike force.

thing is the gladius ALSO does EXACTLY what it should, provide a high degree of synergy when taking a standard space marine deployment set up. I'm convinced the "Battle company" set up was more intended for full sized battle companies (not these 5 man stripped down Battle companiues people are cheesing with) for high point apoclypse style games. similker to how some of the Tzeetch units require you to max out a formation to get added bennies.


I do think though that if GW could revise the gladius they'd proably require FILLED squads to get those free rhinos. it's suddenly a lot less desireable if you have to have 6 squads of 10 taticals,

We should just all play unbound. The other day I played a detachment that allowed a reroll on ANY warlord trait, and allowed obsec spam.

Why should my opponents troops be able to ignore the squads that I PAID POINTS FOR to claim objectives!? They shouldn't.

I'm thinking about orks and dark eldar that already spam trukks and venoms. Give them free vehicles and those armies can be top tier. SM are among the best armies even without the formation that gives them free transports. It's not unfair to allow a formation like that one only to a couple of armies, SW have the blackmanes that give them free drop pods AND they all come in turn 1. Give free transports to no one or to everyone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gummyofallbears wrote:

Another one has a single amazing formation (wulfen murderpack) the rest are eh, still pretty fun.

As SW we also have the wyrdstorm brotherhood which is quite powerful. But i agree about the murderpack, it's mandatory and wulfen are my favourite unit in 40k.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Commissar Benny wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Pay 300$ and get models that cost 0 pts. Clever marketing.

^This. Formations exist solely to promote sale of models that do not sell otherwise or sell models that they want to push. Formations do not exist to improve the game or enhance the narrative.

If free units via formations continue to be accepted by the community we will end up with a game where there is very little diversity or balance. If you see an eldar list, you immediately will know he is taking combination of units (a)(b)(c)(d) instead of unknown. If you see an space marine chapter you know he is taking (a)(b)(c)(d) instead of unknown. This creates boring metas that ultimately impact the game negatively. Instead of unlimited combinations to choose from, players will have 3 or 4.

It would be like if in the competitive pokemon scene Nintendo said tomorrow, "Today we introduce the trinity! Anyone who brings charizard, venosaur and blastoise in the same team gets to bring a 7th pokemon into battle for free!" Not only can you be guaranteed that from that day forward 90% of the teams would compose of those 3 pokemon, but it was almost always insure anytime you saw any one of those 3 on the team, the other 2 would be present for the benefit. If something like this was ever announced in any competitive format basically anywhere else in any other game people would lose their minds. Here in 40k however, its the norm. Its insanity.

Have you never played an online game before?

You make it sound like that every online game is pay to win. That is wrong. Last time I checked, League, Team Fortress, Planetside and Dota offered no real advantages if you spent money in game.
There are games that follow a pay to win formula, and I avoid those like the plague.

You put the first sweeping statement down. There's plenty of pay to win games and people haven't lost their minds - 40k has been a pay to win game since it got a point system.
There's only so many ways you can flog off the same tired Rhino kit - making them freebies not only sells the tired Rhino kits it sells the tired Marine kits as well, on top of that the people buying them aren't upset about it.

 Blackie wrote:
I'm thinking about orks and dark eldar that already spam trukks and venoms. Give them free vehicles and those armies can be top tier. SM are among the best armies even without the formation that gives them free transports. It's not unfair to allow a formation like that one only to a couple of armies, SW have the blackmanes that give them free drop pods AND they all come in turn 1. Give free transports to no one or to everyone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gummyofallbears wrote:

Another one has a single amazing formation (wulfen murderpack) the rest are eh, still pretty fun.

As SW we also have the wyrdstorm brotherhood which is quite powerful. But i agree about the murderpack, it's mandatory and wulfen are my favourite unit in 40k.

Ah yes I did forget about the Wyrdstorm brotherhood, it is quite powerful, but I haven't used it too often.

I feel personally like there are so many awesome and fun formations in 40k that get thrown to the side to powergaming, like the heralds of the great wolf (?) (the iron priest, rune priest, and wolf priest that make on unit) is really fun to use, and is hard to kill but that is countered by its cost and lack of transport, that it doesn't hit that hard in combat.

Or the (going back to harlequins) the heroes path, is really, it gives really awesome benefits, but it also removes a huge part of everyones kit (IC) and requires a death jester 'tax' and nerfs the shadowseer.

Free Rhinos scouting forward with 1 Grav Cannon Tac squad is broken, yes. But that is a combination of 3 separate things that are powerful, but not broken on their own.
But played together is frustrating levels of cheese.

Free Razorbacks? No, I don't have a problem with that, You still only start with a Heavy Bolter, have to pay points to upgrade and cannot fire out of it like you can in a Rhino.

Free Razorback, plus Tactical unit with Gravcannon.
Have fun with that one, especially when there are another 15+ Razorbacks there, each carrying a Grav or Melta unit.

Can I have my free chimeras+Russ formation now?

 master of ordinance wrote:
Free Razorback, plus Tactical unit with Gravcannon.
Have fun with that one, especially when there are another 15+ Razorbacks there, each carrying a Grav or Melta unit.

You do realize that Razorbacks do not have fire points? Meaning those Gravcannons are guaranteed not to do much turn 1. Even scouting forward, the Marines have to get out and become limited to only 12" range and only 3 shots (cuz Salvo).
And how the heck are you getting more than 10-12 total free transports? You'd have to be playing well over a 2k pt game for the Marine play to even take that many units to dedicate those transport to. Especially if they are taking expensive Gravcannons

This is a classic example of over exaggeration.
Are getting free Razorbacks good? Heck yeah. Is it broken, probably not.
Scouting Rhinos with Grav spam take that title, though

-

Getting free razorbacks, or free anything, is broken. If you're getting units of tactical value for free with no strings attached other than just taking the intended core units of the army, game balance is broken, like, inherently and fundamentally. Those units have a cost for a reason.

Is it broken relative to the most hideously broken of power builds? Maybe not, but thats a poor measure of balance in the first place.

Formations and their freebies are ultimately what really killed 7E for me, it gets real old playing an 1850pt army against a 2300pt opponent.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Getting free razorbacks, or free anything, is broken. If you're getting units of tactical value for free with no strings attached other than just taking the intended core units of the army, game balance is broken, like, inherently and fundamentally. Those units have a cost for a reason.

Is it broken relative to the most hideously broken of power builds? Maybe not, but thats a poor measure of balance in the first place.

Formations and their freebies are ultimately what really killed 7E for me, it gets real old playing an 1850pt army against a 2300pt opponent.

This. This right here.

'Free' is broken. The argument that other armies get bonus special rules is redundant because the lists that get the freebies also get bonus special rules as well. Seriously. Who thought that giving one player bonus points for free above and beyond an agreed points limit in place was fair, balanced or fun?

Even worse when your 'free points' also remove an inherent weakness as well (looking at you Ad-Mech).

Not like these armies don't already have potent rules attached to them or the formations that form the freebies. It's literally a perk above and beyond every other army which is incredibly unfun as a whole.

I used to be an advocate of formations and decurions in a local meta that refused them, refused allies and only stuck to CADs. But that was prior to the War Conclave. Now? Now I'd much rather just go back to CADs because certain armies have had their formations and freebies run away while others has been left to linger. That or start strongly pushing for local house rulings that state 'you don't get free points of anything. You still pay.'

Because the formation already gives you bonuses that are quite significant. You don't need free points on top.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hells, iirc the complaint about freebies was strongly used by Imperial players to complain about Daemon summoning. Apparently it's cheese and unfair for a daemon player to do that but perfectly fine to show up with 300-500 points of free transports and upgrades of your own.

nareik wrote:
We should just all play unbound. The other day I played a detachment that allowed a reroll on ANY warlord trait, and allowed obsec spam.

Why should my opponents troops be able to ignore the squads that I PAID POINTS FOR to claim objectives!? They shouldn't.

Exalted. The balance isn't necessarily the best, but Freedom Isn't Free, it Costs a Buck-oh-Five.

Points are jacked up to 1850 which allows people to cheese in some of the manners you're describing. It's a bit tougher when the cap is 1500, or 1000 (basically impossible).

Lost in all of this, is that if you take away free stuff from that formation, it would be totally and completely worthless.

Give a formation with free vehicles to everyone or ban that cheese.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Getting free razorbacks, or free anything, is broken. If you're getting units of tactical value for free with no strings attached other than just taking the intended core units of the army, game balance is broken, like, inherently and fundamentally. Those units have a cost for a reason.

Is it broken relative to the most hideously broken of power builds? Maybe not, but thats a poor measure of balance in the first place.

Formations and their freebies are ultimately what really killed 7E for me, it gets real old playing an 1850pt army against a 2300pt opponent.

This. This right here.

'Free' is broken. The argument that other armies get bonus special rules is redundant because the lists that get the freebies also get bonus special rules as well. Seriously. Who thought that giving one player bonus points for free above and beyond an agreed points limit in place was fair, balanced or fun?

Even worse when your 'free points' also remove an inherent weakness as well (looking at you Ad-Mech).

Not like these armies don't already have potent rules attached to them or the formations that form the freebies. It's literally a perk above and beyond every other army which is incredibly unfun as a whole.

I used to be an advocate of formations and decurions in a local meta that refused them, refused allies and only stuck to CADs. But that was prior to the War Conclave. Now? Now I'd much rather just go back to CADs because certain armies have had their formations and freebies run away while others has been left to linger. That or start strongly pushing for local house rulings that state 'you don't get free points of anything. You still pay.'

Because the formation already gives you bonuses that are quite significant. You don't need free points on top.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hells, iirc the complaint about freebies was strongly used by Imperial players to complain about Daemon summoning. Apparently it's cheese and unfair for a daemon player to do that but perfectly fine to show up with 300-500 points of free transports and upgrades of your own.

That's absolute horsedung. Again, if you say "all formations and decurions need to go" then I can totally follow your logic, but you're not. you're whinging about the formation you don't have, but you want to keep your own.

That or start strongly pushing for local house rulings that state 'you don't get free points of anything. You still pay.'

That's just saying "I want my formations that I was also pushing for when no one else had them, but you can't have yours!"

The Convocation IN NO WAY gets rules like Decurion. I have no idea how you can claim this. The true power is the free upgrades. That's it. And it comes at a pretty heavy tally of forced units. If you're running convocation under 2000 points, it's basically going to restrict your army to a very narrow field.

Because of the upgrades, that narrow field is also the most (only) competitive thing AdMech has. Is it a powerful rule? Hells yeah it is. It's very powerful. If you argued "It's TOO powerful a rule" I could even understand you! It CAN be argued that it's too powerful in its current iteration. But you're the guy that was "actively pushing for decurions" WHEN THEY WERE CLEARLY TOO POWERFUL.

Your whine about free upgrades is just that of a child seeing his brother's juice glass as slightly more full than his own. I don't even like the free upgrades, and I don't play them as I will never buy a knight, but to sit and yell that they are unfair while at the same time supporting Decurion is hypocrisy to rival the best of them.

Hells, iirc the complaint about freebies was strongly used by Imperial players to complain about Daemon summoning. Apparently it's cheese and unfair for a daemon player to do that but perfectly fine to show up with 300-500 points of free transports and upgrades of your own.

No, you're twisting things in a crazy manner. They're saying IT'S OK BECAUSE IT EVENS THE PLAYING FIELD. They're saying if one is ok, so is the other. I find that a very easy concept to understand, but you're somehow making it out like they're whining that free demons aren't ok, but free upgrades are. That's YOUR logic, not anyone else's. Everyone is saying "the free upgrades are ok so long as the free demons are." They are ACCEPTING the free demons, and in return asking you to accept the free upgrades. But no. You're unable to see how these things are equal.

Even worse when your 'free points' also remove an inherent weakness as well (looking at you Ad-Mech).

Really, so they're giving AdMech transports that they so direly need? I seem to have missed that, could you point to this dolly and show me where?