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Lets turn this train around...

Yes.

This.

I have no problem with formations to replace the FoC for funky armies, Deathwing, Armored Companies etc.

But as soon as you start throwing in special rules and freebies you're throwing out whatever balance the game has.

It basically becomes pay to win.

So OP I presume this applies also to special rules? No special rules for formations either. No shroud for 1st turn etc?

Principle is actually same.

So basically: Remove formations from the game.

Formations are fluffy.
Special rules and freebie units are the unbalancing part.

Keep formations for unit selection options, but drop the specials from them.

Short form, allow formations for 'fluffy' funky armies. Trading off limited selection (Vets and Termis only, tanks only, etc) for getting more of that stuff.

Get rid of freebies and special rules.
Get rid of unhinged or whatever it's called.

Basically purge our souls and go back to playing 5th/6th.

It's not just formations tough. Just give a points cost to unlocking their benefit and we're ok. Accept we're not because evey aspect of 40K has some (major or minor) issue(s).

tneva82 wrote:
So OP I presume this applies also to special rules? No special rules for formations either. No shroud for 1st turn etc?

Principle is actually same.

So basically: Remove formations from the game.

There is a grey area. Formations as I see it, are currently being used as a means of fixing the game. The problem with that is, they are not addressing the underlying issues. Those that lay at the codex level. If for example a unit costs (x) points, but it is not worth (x) points... there within lies the problem.

Well...how much is a unit worth? This can be answered in two ways.

1.

2. Look at the statline, special rules, utility & flexibility of said unit and compare it to other similar units across every army in the game.

Why hasn't this been done?



Can formations benefit the game?

Yes, but not until the core issues within the codices themselves are addressed first.

I agree to an extent, I think formations should have an associated points cost, if you want that special rule then pay for it.

I do think that free units should be removed but I don't think it is as bad as you claim, it is more like if your team takes these 3 supports you get a free tank most of the time. Also you would have a better chance if you brought a team that included an adc, a team of better champions does stand a chance against a team of bad champions with an extra member.

While I agree it would be better to have more balanced codecies it isn't always possible, they have limited testing time and can't necessarily test it against everything, although it could be done better than it is now. Also during an edition change some armies will inevitably get better and others worse and if they took more time between codecies to make sure each one was balanced against the others you would still end up with the unbalanced ones being played for more time while they are working on it.

This is a bad meme and a terrible metaphor, for several reasons.

First off, 40k uses a lot more than 5 models. So, that's already not a great comparison.

Second, in League of Legends, each champion increases in power exponentially as time goes on - Equipment and levels lets them bootstrap up, and they cannot suffer permadeath. A 20% increase in units at the beginning will snowball as time goes on.
With 40k though, there are actually penalties in certain circumstances for having lots of models/units - You can lose VPs thanks to killpoints or certain Tactical cards. Plus, once those models are killed, they're gone forever - No getting them back, except in a few rare, specific circumstances for a small number of units. And, of course, they're just going to degrade overtime, not get stronger.

Finally, a LoL formation like you described wouldn't actually win every game, depending on the 6 mandatory champions. Let's say that, instead of getting a 6 units that each have their own roles, the formation required you to take six DPS champs, no tanks, no support, no jungler - Suddenly, it's not any better than a well designed 5 man team. Similarly, the formations in 40k generally reward players for taking otherwise unrewarding army styles - For example, Tactical Marines in Rhinos, which are normally next-to-useless, but are made good by giving them extra gear for free.



Now, I'm not going to defend every single 'Free unit' formation in the game, because some of them really are poorly balanced, but the idea isn't inherently balanced.

Kill formations entirely. Introduce Rites of War to 40k.

Waaaghpower wrote:
This is a bad meme and a terrible metaphor, for several reasons.

First off, 40k uses a lot more than 5 models. So, that's already not a great comparison.

Second, in League of Legends, each champion increases in power exponentially as time goes on - Equipment and levels lets them bootstrap up, and they cannot suffer permadeath. A 20% increase in units at the beginning will snowball as time goes on.
With 40k though, there are actually penalties in certain circumstances for having lots of models/units - You can lose VPs thanks to killpoints or certain Tactical cards. Plus, once those models are killed, they're gone forever - No getting them back, except in a few rare, specific circumstances for a small number of units. And, of course, they're just going to degrade overtime, not get stronger.

Finally, a LoL formation like you described wouldn't actually win every game, depending on the 6 mandatory champions. Let's say that, instead of getting a 6 units that each have their own roles, the formation required you to take six DPS champs, no tanks, no support, no jungler - Suddenly, it's not any better than a well designed 5 man team. Similarly, the formations in 40k generally reward players for taking otherwise unrewarding army styles - For example, Tactical Marines in Rhinos, which are normally next-to-useless, but are made good by giving them extra gear for free.

Now, I'm not going to defend every single 'Free unit' formation in the game, because some of them really are poorly balanced, but the idea isn't inherently balanced.

I agree, LoL isn't the best comparison and the way experience is distributed etc could very well impact the team with more players negatively as opposed to positively. I used LoL as its something most people are familiar with. Its been top of twitch for years and has a large fanbase worldwide.

Regarding the actually champion compositions I chose, yeah I have no idea how well each would perform together. I just chose whomever for the sake of simplicity. I know there are specific metas of champs that are more effective than others, but I haven't played in years. I just wanted to illustrate the fact that adding free units/upgrades is counter intuitive to the reason we have a points system in the first place.

Commissar Benny wrote:

I agree, LoL isn't the best comparison and the way experience is distributed etc could very well impact the team with more players negatively as opposed to positively. I used LoL as its something most people are familiar with. Its been top of twitch for years and has a large fanbase worldwide.

Regarding the actually champion compositions I chose, yeah I have no idea how well each would perform together. I just chose whomever for the sake of simplicity. I know there are specific metas of champs that are more effective than others, but I haven't played in years. I just wanted to illustrate the fact that adding free units/upgrades is counter intuitive to the reason we have a points system in the first place.

It's not a good illustration, though. LoL doesn't HAVE a point system. You might as well say 'Oranges at the grocery store cost five dollars a pound, but I can get a sack of six apples for three dollars, so 40k units shouldn't be free', because it's a pointless comparison.
Free units for taking an otherwise crappy army composition is a fair trade - It's like a reverse 'Model tax'. Instead of spending extra points on small numbers of bad models to get access to good ones, you're spending points on lots of bad models to reduce the cost of those models to make them good. It's an entirely different type of system from the LoL unit selection, and it doesn't run counter to the point selection any more than how model tax runs counter to it.

I wouldn't like to see special rules going away, as they're part of what formations interesting.

Formations should have an added cost, though.

Waaaghpower wrote:

Commissar Benny wrote:

I agree, LoL isn't the best comparison and the way experience is distributed etc could very well impact the team with more players negatively as opposed to positively. I used LoL as its something most people are familiar with. Its been top of twitch for years and has a large fanbase worldwide.

Regarding the actually champion compositions I chose, yeah I have no idea how well each would perform together. I just chose whomever for the sake of simplicity. I know there are specific metas of champs that are more effective than others, but I haven't played in years. I just wanted to illustrate the fact that adding free units/upgrades is counter intuitive to the reason we have a points system in the first place.

It's not a good illustration, though. LoL doesn't HAVE a point system. You might as well say 'Oranges at the grocery store cost five dollars a pound, but I can get a sack of six apples for three dollars, so 40k units shouldn't be free', because it's a pointless comparison.
Free units for taking an otherwise crappy army composition is a fair trade - It's like a reverse 'Model tax'. Instead of spending extra points on small numbers of bad models to get access to good ones, you're spending points on lots of bad models to reduce the cost of those models to make them good. It's an entirely different type of system from the LoL unit selection, and it doesn't run counter to the point selection any more than how model tax runs counter to it.

You are correct. LoL does not have a point system. However, it does have rules. Players are confined to them. Just as they are in 40k.

In a normal match can a team have 6 players vs 5? No, because it is one of the basic balancing metrics that exist in the game.

Similarly, can a player in 40k bring 2000 points into a 1000 point game? No. Unless specified under a narrative, its agreed upon between players, or said player is cheating.

There are rules which define how we play. If for example you are playing a 1000 point game, and your opponent brings a formation that permits him to bring 1500 points of units, you are eliminating the only balancing metric that exists.

To deny this is to say that point values do not exist, or have no meaning.

Commissar Benny wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Commissar Benny wrote:

I agree, LoL isn't the best comparison and the way experience is distributed etc could very well impact the team with more players negatively as opposed to positively. I used LoL as its something most people are familiar with. Its been top of twitch for years and has a large fanbase worldwide.

Regarding the actually champion compositions I chose, yeah I have no idea how well each would perform together. I just chose whomever for the sake of simplicity. I know there are specific metas of champs that are more effective than others, but I haven't played in years. I just wanted to illustrate the fact that adding free units/upgrades is counter intuitive to the reason we have a points system in the first place.

It's not a good illustration, though. LoL doesn't HAVE a point system. You might as well say 'Oranges at the grocery store cost five dollars a pound, but I can get a sack of six apples for three dollars, so 40k units shouldn't be free', because it's a pointless comparison.
Free units for taking an otherwise crappy army composition is a fair trade - It's like a reverse 'Model tax'. Instead of spending extra points on small numbers of bad models to get access to good ones, you're spending points on lots of bad models to reduce the cost of those models to make them good. It's an entirely different type of system from the LoL unit selection, and it doesn't run counter to the point selection any more than how model tax runs counter to it.

You are correct. LoL does not have a point system. However, it does have rules. Players are confined to them. Just as they are in 40k.

In a normal match can a team have 6 players vs 5? No, because it is one of the basic balancing metrics that exist in the game.

Similarly, can a player in 40k bring 2000 points into a 1000 point game? No. Unless specified under a narrative, its agreed upon between players, or said player is cheating.

There are rules which define how we play. If for example you are playing a 1000 point game, and your opponent brings a formation that permits him to bring 1500 points of units, you are eliminating the only balancing metric that exists.

To deny this is to say that point values do not exist, or have no meaning.

Except that nobody 'Just' brings 1000 points of models, unless they're playing Unbound - They are bringing 1000 points of models confined by specific limitations, but with considerable bonuses as well.

You're correct that point values have meaning, but you're acting like those values exist in a vacuum and are not influenced by other factors, which is demonstrably false.

I haven't actually played AoS since Battalions (their equivalent of Formations) were introduced but I understand in that game you pay points for your formations and also the units still count towards your army building requirement (Troops, Fast Attack etc). I may be wrong about this but it led to the following idea:

A similar system would be great for 40k. So you have your CAD that you still need to abide by but you can use formations to grant some bonus rules to certain combinations of units.

One of 40k's biggest problems is it has a set of core rules that the game constantly ignores. Army building is one of the biggest offenders and it directly leads to boring, unbalanced games.

 Lance845 wrote:
Kill formations entirely. Introduce Rites of War to 40k.

30k system isn't all that good either. It's not particularly scalable as it adds effectively maximum size your army can be.

It's not free upgrades that bug me per se, but the scale of which they are rolled out and the difference they make.

Free Jump pack on a chaos lord? not worth noticing.

Free Rhino's on a squad? Makes a difference but it's not entirely game breaking as long as other formations in other armies have an equivalent.

Free weapon upgrades on squads in a formation? this is where it really gets stupid. the costs for these weapons are introduced because these weapons perform much better than the norm. removing this cost defies this simple act of balance and throws the list building strategy element of the game to the wind for what units can I buy VS what can I afford to equip them with.

tneva82 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Kill formations entirely. Introduce Rites of War to 40k.

30k system isn't all that good either. It's not particularly scalable as it adds effectively maximum size your army can be.

You don't need to use the entire 30k system (though I would use like... 80-90% of it). You just need RoW. RoW allow you to adjust your list to build for different tactics and play styles with restrictions to balance out the new options. Every new campaign release/supplement/forge world books can come with new RoW.

Why require a crap ton of formations to play deathwing or ravenwing that hand out "free special rules" for taking specialized units. Just Make a Deathwing RoW that opens up options for DW troop options and places some restrictions to balance it out. No free rules. No trying to balance the unbalancable while constantly escalating the power creep.

Just some CADs and Allied Detachments.

 Lance845 wrote:
Why require a crap ton of formations to play deathwing or ravenwing that hand out "free special rules" for taking specialized units. Just Make a Deathwing RoW that opens up options for DW troop options and places some restrictions to balance it out. No free rules. No trying to balance the unbalancable while constantly escalating the power creep.

Just some CADs and Allied Detachments.

ROW: Alters units you can take and provides bonuses. At the end of the day not that much different to formations. Both still give you extra rules if you limit yourself to certain units.

Tristanleo wrote:

Free Rhino's on a squad? Makes a difference but it's not entirely game breaking as long as other formations in other armies have an equivalent.

There will never be a equivalent. A devilfish is not the same as a rhino or a landraider is not a ghost ark. They don't balance out army to army as different armies utilize them differently. What "transport formation" do nids get that at all makes it equivalent?

"as long as other formations in other armies have an equivalent" is a nonsense idea. It's the equivalent of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It doesn't exist and never will.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Why require a crap ton of formations to play deathwing or ravenwing that hand out "free special rules" for taking specialized units. Just Make a Deathwing RoW that opens up options for DW troop options and places some restrictions to balance it out. No free rules. No trying to balance the unbalancable while constantly escalating the power creep.

Just some CADs and Allied Detachments.

ROW: Alters units you can take and provides bonuses. At the end of the day not that much different to formations. Both still give you extra rules if you limit yourself to certain units.

RoW provide no bonuses. RoW tell you you can purchase different options. PURCHASE different options. These guys can buy a drop pod instead of a rhino as a dedicated transport for example. You still have to buy the drop pod with points. The drop pod isn't any cheaper and it's certainly not free.

The heart of the problem is GW has done a poor job (whenever I say bad or poor I mean either terribly underpowered or terribly overpowered) with rules writing and then they take their poorly balanced rule set and slap on poorly balanaced formations and special detachments on top of it. I see people wanting to go back to a 5th edition style game which somewhat makes sense in that GW's shoddy work isn't as compounded or layered by multiple stacking bad rule sets.

 Lance845 wrote:
RoW provide no bonuses. RoW tell you you can purchase different options. PURCHASE different options. These guys can buy a drop pod instead of a rhino as a dedicated transport for example. You still have to buy the drop pod with points. The drop pod isn't any cheaper and it's certainly not free.

"Any model with the jump infantry type gains hit&run special rule if it did not already possess it"
"All vehicles with tank type that have 3 or fewer hull points gian the fast type if..."
"...Has +1BS at no additional cost"
"...may reroll sweeping advances against enemies with the legiones astartes special rule"
"d3 units in the detachment gain the scout special rule"

Oh really? Guess free special rules aren't bonuses then. Or stat increases.

 Lance845 wrote:

Tristanleo wrote:

Free Rhino's on a squad? Makes a difference but it's not entirely game breaking as long as other formations in other armies have an equivalent.

There will never be a equivalent. A devilfish is not the same as a rhino or a landraider is not a ghost ark. They don't balance out army to army as different armies utilize them differently. What "transport formation" do nids get that at all makes it equivalent?

"as long as other formations in other armies have an equivalent" is a nonsense idea. It's the equivalent of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It doesn't exist and never will.

I never said every army, I'm well aware that some armies transports are different to others. although the option you brought up works both ways, a devilfish has no fire ports, whereas a rhino does so the special weapons on the squad are still usable. a devilfish only has a burst cannon and 2 drones which although aren't terrible, are no way near as effective as Grav Drive-bys.

tneva82 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
RoW provide no bonuses. RoW tell you you can purchase different options. PURCHASE different options. These guys can buy a drop pod instead of a rhino as a dedicated transport for example. You still have to buy the drop pod with points. The drop pod isn't any cheaper and it's certainly not free.

"Any model with the jump infantry type gains hit&run special rule if it did not already possess it"
"All vehicles with tank type that have 3 or fewer hull points gian the fast type if..."
"...Has +1BS at no additional cost"
"...may reroll sweeping advances against enemies with the legiones astartes special rule"
"d3 units in the detachment gain the scout special rule"

Oh really? Guess free special rules aren't bonuses then. Or stat increases.

It's quite possible the RoW in some of the books I have never read have the free special rules. If that is true, my bad. Go back to the basic RoW with no bonuses. If you look at HH book 1 and read the RoW they introduce there it's just new ways to build your list. No bonuses. Do that.

Try running 6 tactical squads in a game without free transports - get smoked easily by literally any list - then come back and tell me that point costs exist for a reason.

Point costs exist but they don't equal game balance because the point cost is wrong on most units in each codex. All formations have done (and its a good thing) is give most armies a way to get more out of their units for a competitive setting. Allowing armies to compete on more even terms.

For the same reason you shouldn't bring 6 tacticals without free transports into a game you shouldn't bring an amy with no formations.Choose your best options and you will have a decent game - choose sub optimal and you will lose to optimal. So OP - your post would only be true IF the base rules in this game were balanced in the first place (they are not).

Interestingly you chose a LOL meme. One of the least balanced games I've ever played over 100 champions and less than 20 are viable and each time they release a new champion - it's the strongest champion in the game. Sounds a lot like another game I know.

 Lance845 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
RoW provide no bonuses. RoW tell you you can purchase different options. PURCHASE different options. These guys can buy a drop pod instead of a rhino as a dedicated transport for example. You still have to buy the drop pod with points. The drop pod isn't any cheaper and it's certainly not free.

"Any model with the jump infantry type gains hit&run special rule if it did not already possess it"
"All vehicles with tank type that have 3 or fewer hull points gian the fast type if..."
"...Has +1BS at no additional cost"
"...may reroll sweeping advances against enemies with the legiones astartes special rule"
"d3 units in the detachment gain the scout special rule"

Oh really? Guess free special rules aren't bonuses then. Or stat increases.

It's quite possible the RoW in some of the books I have never read have the free special rules. If that is true, my bad. Go back to the basic RoW with no bonuses. If you look at HH book 1 and read the RoW they introduce there it's just new ways to build your list. No bonuses. Do that.

Those were all from the first red book(the one without legion specific units etc). Not sure what legion specifics have except sons of horus one provides fleet and rage at least.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Try running 6 tactical squads in a game without free transports - get smoked easily by literally any list - then come back and tell me that point costs exist for a reason.

If only there was some other solution than throwing piles of free gak at poor marine players who have to suffer through the absolute worst troop unit in the game.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Try running 6 tactical squads in a game without free transports - get smoked easily by literally any list - then come back and tell me that point costs exist for a reason.

Point costs exist but they don't equal game balance because the point cost is wrong on most units in each codex.

I agree, point costs are wrong on many units in every codex. If a catachan gets his leg blown off, his first action should be to apply a tourniquet & call for a medic. Not throw a bandaid on it & hope for the best.



Currently formations are being used to treat the wounds that exist within every armies codex. The problem is, most of the point values are way off. As such every army has units that do not meet the formula:



If a unit is not paying for itself in destruction, then it needs to pay for itself in utility. If it does not meet either of these criteria, then it should be considered to have its point cost adjusted as necessary.

I don't think its reasonable to say that formations are trying to help fix anything. The wild differences in power level between formations and codices is immediately obvious and most formations make already powerful units even more powerful, while weak units remain weak because they have weak formations. Let's look at a low tier codex for this; the Guard. The best units in the book are generally considered to be their arty, namely the Wyvern. Conveniently, the already powerful wyvern got a strong formation that made it and its buddies even better. Other units, like say Rough Riders, either got nothing or mediocre formations that everyone ignores. No one is putting down 12 sentinels on the table because all of a sudden you can issue some orders to them.

This isn't an isolated example either.

Formations, as currently implemented, are just bad. They aren't fixing things, they're only making the balance worse than it was before formations. You want to fix bad/too good unit, then just fix them. If the problem is the power creep in the game, then you simply have more fixing to do. Adding formations and running the power creep even harder isn't fixing anything.