Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
Looks interesting.

So long as they balance out the existing armies (i.e. they don't balance the tax of taking Fire Warriors against the boost of taking Eldar Jetbikes), this would go a long way towards evening the playing field and removing the worst of the formation abuses.

There will still be the Faction-specific detachments, if rumors/statements hold true, that might unbalance things one way or the other...

But yeah, I'm happy with this.

Provided Jetbikes remain Troops and don't shift back to Fast Attack.

That could be situational, e.g. "If all models in the detachment have the Sam Hain keyword, Jetbikes count as Troops."

Still allows fluffy get Jetbike armies, but also limits what you can combo them with.

Indeed. Though with wider slot availability, regardless of slightly increased minimum requirements, it may be we won't need so many 'if X then Y become Troops' exceptions, as you just choose the Detachment with the widest selection of FA/Elite/HS slots?

This seems to be borrowing from 30K more than AOS, and that's pretty much what I see people do (and what I plan to do) with their 30K lists.

Allows for fluffy lists that don't need broken exceptions or to voluntarily hamstring themselves, and the benefits/restrictions thing can be a lot more interesting than same faction/more CPs, as can be seen in the 30K Rites Of War. One can even potentially take a super heavy in a small points game and not ruin everybody's day!

sturguard wrote:
So how long will it take GW to break the detachment system where some are clearly better than others and everyone takes them (just the same as formations). I would guess the initial free ones will be balanced, but once they start releasing codexes (or what amounts to codexes) and the initial test phase is over they will quickly climb the power creep scale.

Detachments for specific armies will be more focused and have different perks. With these you can take anything in the Imperium. The Blood Angels codex won't be pulling from any other army and may find itself handicapped for certain selections.

That's the goal of the keyword system.

The thing I see a lot of is people with op army choices/combinations are complaining that their armies and/or play styles are ruined. Your getting nerfed. Deal. It should have been done a long time ago when Dogstars and Chaos Rip Tides became a thing.

I personally LOVE the part about "well rounded" armies receiving benefits. This puts more of an emphasis on TAC armies thus making it more accessible to new players who most likely don't have tons of $$$ to invest in this little hobby of ours. Plus it's another step away from Unbound abomination.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Youn wrote:
I would assume stormravens are flyers. I doubt they will make Falcons into that same slot. Though fluff wise they actually can do more the hover.

Flyers isn't a Battlefield Role from what I'm seeing. It's a Unit Type/Keyword.

The reason I brought up Stormravens are, as mentioned, they are similar to Falcons. Neither one is a Dedicated Transport option for a unit--they are purchased separately and something can get into them.

The article literally says Flyers is a battlefield role along with HQ/Troops/Elites/etc.

They did say they were doing main faction books (5 of them) at the beginning. Then they would do campaign books later. Did they say, if they were going to do dedicated codexes or if all of that type stuff would only come out in the campaign books?


The reason for that is assume the 14 basic formations are generic. And that campaign books will have more formations in them related to the Narrative play. It's very easy for tournament organizers to limit out the Campaign books as they do that now in AoS tournaments.

If they start making individual codex, you will get power creep. It happens inevitably . So, we will see where this goes over the next few years.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
It's unwelcome to me. I enjoyed formations.

I despise the "1 HQ 2 Troops" methodology. I loved Skitarii for not having an HQ.

I really dislike this change and think it is a huge step backwards.

Formations in 7th Ed that had been given to all armies and/or points costed would have potentially worked - instead they were flung out willy nilly to power dexes to boost them further and begrudgingly given out to any one else.

Now from those posts it looks like formations will still be there (its even in the first line!) just not called that.

100% agreed. Formations COULD have been awesome, but in practice created some massive power divides. I'm not a fan of free benefits with no downside. That downside could be a points cost (formations were free) or some other sort of restriction.

Putting it bluntly, the problem was very rarely the formations.
It was the way players utilized them.

Skyhammer, for example, could have been easily fixed by making it so that Independent Characters couldn't benefit from it. But people argued till they were blue in the face that it had to confer and GW caved.
Battle Demi-Company and the "free" Dedicated Transports?
Required Tactical Squad sizes of 10--boom, no freebie Razorbacks from the 6 Tactical Squads.

And let's not even start looking at the whole nonsense with "Superfriends" and Librarius Conclaves. That could have been avoided from day one if someone had written "Chapter Tactics" into DA, BA, and SW.

Yeah skyhammer never conferred it's benefits to ICs and the faq confirmed that, anyone who said otherwise was just cheating you. Also white scars battle company didn't usually use razorbacks. In fact Frankie used a build focused around 10 man tac squads for quite a while. And chapter tactics wouldn't of changed much about the SW/DA superfriends star, the bonuses they would have lost were very nearly inconsiquential compared to psychic powers and Azrael.

I don't think you played in many tournaments.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Youn wrote:
I would assume stormravens are flyers. I doubt they will make Falcons into that same slot. Though fluff wise they actually can do more the hover.

Flyers isn't a Battlefield Role from what I'm seeing. It's a Unit Type/Keyword.

The reason I brought up Stormravens are, as mentioned, they are similar to Falcons. Neither one is a Dedicated Transport option for a unit--they are purchased separately and something can get into them.

The article literally says Flyers is a battlefield role along with HQ/Troops/Elites/etc.

I flubbed my reading test today.

In any regards, it doesn't change my point. I gave the example of Stormraven as it was a unit that isn't a traditional Dedicated Transport.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Youn wrote:
I would assume stormravens are flyers. I doubt they will make Falcons into that same slot. Though fluff wise they actually can do more the hover.

Flyers isn't a Battlefield Role from what I'm seeing. It's a Unit Type/Keyword.

The reason I brought up Stormravens are, as mentioned, they are similar to Falcons. Neither one is a Dedicated Transport option for a unit--they are purchased separately and something can get into them.

Maybe you should actually read the article first before spouting rubbish Kan, because this pic says Flyers are a battlefield role now.

v0iddrgn wrote:
I personally LOVE the part about "well rounded" armies receiving benefits. This puts more of an emphasis on TAC armies thus making it more accessible to new players who most likely don't have tons of $$$ to invest in this little hobby of ours. Plus it's another step away from Unbound abomination.

You could make just as nasty lists using Battleforged for the powerful army books as you could in many cases for Unbound.

 Galas wrote:

You can cherrypick units of a great faction (For example, a Imperium army with Space marine elites, Imperial Guard troops, Sister of Battle, etc, etc...) but you sinergies between models will be near 0.

Or you can go with a smaller sample of units in a faction (Dark Angels, Sisters of Battle, etc...) where the sinergies between them allow to compete against the broad of a bigger and more generic faction.

This is very true. On the other hand, in AoS you see armies like Beastclaws + Moonclan becoming entrenched in the meta. Units which stand well on their own don't necessarily need buffs, but I wonder if there will be generic faction traits similar to AoS' Grand Alliance traits.

But my only real concern is just the variety afforded to the Imperium as a faction. But that can really hardly be helped, as Space Marines, much less the Imperium as a whole, are easily the most popular faction. I'm quite happy with the detachments overall (especially as a Chaos Player).

On another note, I'm interested in the HQ requirements for the Battalion and Brigade detachments. 2-3 required HQs is an interesting choice, and I'm quite keen on seeing the Character datasheets once the rules hit.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
It's unwelcome to me. I enjoyed formations.

I despise the "1 HQ 2 Troops" methodology. I loved Skitarii for not having an HQ.

These are three of a great many detachments to choose from though.

You cannot tell me that I can build a list using my Stealth Suits, Pathfinders, Piranhas, and Ghostkeels under the showcased Detachments.

Formations were far, far superior.

Formations were far, far more open to abuse and wild swings of power with no extra points paid for abilities. If that is your definition of "superior", I'll have to disagree. In any case, your example doesn't fit into the 25% of the rumored 12 formations that will be included free in the rules. Luckily for you, you still have 75% more to look at before you can make a real determination. Or you can just fly off the handle jumping to conclusions and instead praise the worst (and fortunately outgoing!) army purchasing building mechanic the marketing department at GW ever came up with.

The real question is do you have to take the traditional types to actually qualify for the dedicated transport.

Do i need a unit of scouts to get a Land Speeder Storm? Or can I take a squad of tactical marines and buy a Landspeeder storm because it has the keyword DEDICATED TRANSPORT listed at the bottom?

 Cryonicleech wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:
Seems fair, you can use all units in the Tyranid Faction or I can use all the units in the IMPERIUM faction to build my list! Why even have any other faction?? Maybe that just means stuff like Inquisition.

Yeah I'm a little skeptical here too.

Hopefully they mean more specific factions, I.E. Black Templars, Dark Angels, Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum, etc. rather than IMPERIUM or CHAOS.

And while I'm ok with formations going away, I still hope that there's some form of allies possible, as under a keyword system you can deal with the shenanigans which arise from Deathstars.

You want allies, ymu take second detachment with different faction. Nm need for formations.

 Kanluwen wrote:

v0iddrgn wrote:
I personally LOVE the part about "well rounded" armies receiving benefits. This puts more of an emphasis on TAC armies thus making it more accessible to new players who most likely don't have tons of $$$ to invest in this little hobby of ours. Plus it's another step away from Unbound abomination.

You could make just as nasty lists using Battleforged for the powerful army books as you could in many cases for Unbound.

Thats why 7th wasn't nearly fun enough to waste time on for a lot of players. Formations going away plus benefits for TAC = big win IMHO.

Youn wrote:
The real question is do you have to take the traditional types to actually qualify for the dedicated transport.

Do i need a unit of scouts to get a Land Speeder Storm? Or can I take a squad of tactical marines and buy a Landspeeder storm because it has the keyword DEDICATED TRANSPORT listed at the bottom?

How are we supposed to answer that until we see all the dataslates with the unit rules on?

I do at least hope that Dedicated Transports will be limited to Infantry units, it would be very strange for you to be able to take a Raider as a dedicated transport for a Ravager tank.

I would assume items like Rhino actually will say.

ASTARTES units may embark on these transports. Which means Black Templars could load up on a Dark Angels transport because they are both ASTARTES. While the ADEPTUS MILTARIUM unit would not be able to climb onto the Rhino because they aren't.

I also, would guess that their Chimera says ADEPTUS MILTARIUM units may embark and not IMPERIAL units may embark.

tneva82 wrote:

 Cryonicleech wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:
Seems fair, you can use all units in the Tyranid Faction or I can use all the units in the IMPERIUM faction to build my list! Why even have any other faction?? Maybe that just means stuff like Inquisition.

Yeah I'm a little skeptical here too.

Hopefully they mean more specific factions, I.E. Black Templars, Dark Angels, Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum, etc. rather than IMPERIUM or CHAOS.

And while I'm ok with formations going away, I still hope that there's some form of allies possible, as under a keyword system you can deal with the shenanigans which arise from Deathstars.

You want allies, ymu take second detachment with different faction. Nm need for formations.

And probably less if any Command Points.

tneva82 wrote:

 Cryonicleech wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:
Seems fair, you can use all units in the Tyranid Faction or I can use all the units in the IMPERIUM faction to build my list! Why even have any other faction?? Maybe that just means stuff like Inquisition.

Yeah I'm a little skeptical here too.

Hopefully they mean more specific factions, I.E. Black Templars, Dark Angels, Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum, etc. rather than IMPERIUM or CHAOS.

And while I'm ok with formations going away, I still hope that there's some form of allies possible, as under a keyword system you can deal with the shenanigans which arise from Deathstars.

You want allies, ymu take second detachment with different faction. Nm need for formations.

Just realized this, you're right.

Hopefully we get more tidbits on list construction throughout the month. It's probably one of the most important aspects 8th needs to address well, and I'm quite interested to see where everything goes.

v0iddrgn wrote:


And probably less if any Command Points.

Yeah, seems like running two patrol-level detachments offers no benefits to command points.

I like this system, because there are likely to be very freeform, but not highly command-point heavy detachments out there.

This means that when a skewy list with, say, almost all vehicles faces off against a balanced TAC list with a mix of anti-vehicle and anti-infantry units, the TAC list can use command points to protect their anti tank assets and still stand a chance.

In theory, it's a very nice system that can make an important change over what we see now. But agin, at this point we have almost no info confirmed.

v0iddrgn wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

v0iddrgn wrote:
I personally LOVE the part about "well rounded" armies receiving benefits. This puts more of an emphasis on TAC armies thus making it more accessible to new players who most likely don't have tons of $$$ to invest in this little hobby of ours. Plus it's another step away from Unbound abomination.

You could make just as nasty lists using Battleforged for the powerful army books as you could in many cases for Unbound.

Thats why 7th wasn't nearly fun enough to waste time on for a lot of players. Formations going away plus benefits for TAC = big win IMHO.

Isn't going to do a thing to make it cheaper though, cheap hobbies aren't easy to find.

 warboss wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
It's unwelcome to me. I enjoyed formations.

I despise the "1 HQ 2 Troops" methodology. I loved Skitarii for not having an HQ.

These are three of a great many detachments to choose from though.

You cannot tell me that I can build a list using my Stealth Suits, Pathfinders, Piranhas, and Ghostkeels under the showcased Detachments.

Formations were far, far superior.

Formations were far, far more open to abuse and wild swings of power with no extra points paid for abilities. If that is your definition of "superior", I'll have to disagree. In any case, your example doesn't fit into the 25% of the rumored 12 formations that will be included free in the rules. Luckily for you, you still have 75% more to look at before you can make a real determination. Or you can just fly off the handle jumping to conclusions and instead praise the worst (and fortunately outgoing!) army purchasing building mechanic the marketing department at GW ever came up with.

It's only 21%. 3 out of 14. Less than 10 words of his last 3 posts have been factually accurate,

In case it hasn't been mentioned before, if you click on the "Imperium" link out of the keyword faction examples, EVERY single Imperium faction, including all the Marines, is pre-selected in the product filter.
But as Blood Angels are given as another example, I wonder how the differentiation for the organization chart will be between the Imperium keyword and the individual factions. There must be a benefit for picking e.g. fielding an IG or Space Wolves only army without any other Imperium picks, otherwise they wouldn't have given those two examples, as Blood Angels are included in the store filter as well. Of course with Marines likely getting their own "Grand Alliance" book the store link might not be an indication for the final rules after all. EDIT: Nevermind, posts higher up already explained how the keyword system will likely work (like the one in AoS).

Also regarding those three charts, no reason to panic yet considering we only have seen 3 out of 16 (I think) organization charts.
Also jumping on the "good riddance" train concerning formations as well, stuff like the Gladius Strike force shouldn't have existed in the first place, it was one of the main reasons balance in 7th edition was so fethed up. I think it also means I'll pick up two 'start collecting Tau' boxes when I come back home in two and a half weeks, I wouldn't be surprised if they pull those boxes from the market considering they all have formation sheets included.

I think it is also save to assume that "lords of war" are former Apocalypse stuff like Superheavies and gargantuan Creatures? If yes then I'll be super happy if those organization charts keep them out of snormal matches and confined to "pretty much 2500+ points matches because of minimum troop/HQ/other requiements" charts, considering there are zero slots for them in the three charts shown and the last one is pretty big pointswise.

 Imateria wrote:

v0iddrgn wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

v0iddrgn wrote:
I personally LOVE the part about "well rounded" armies receiving benefits. This puts more of an emphasis on TAC armies thus making it more accessible to new players who most likely don't have tons of $$$ to invest in this little hobby of ours. Plus it's another step away from Unbound abomination.

You could make just as nasty lists using Battleforged for the powerful army books as you could in many cases for Unbound.

Thats why 7th wasn't nearly fun enough to waste time on for a lot of players. Formations going away plus benefits for TAC = big win IMHO.

Isn't going to do a thing to make it cheaper though, cheap hobbies aren't easy to find.

What I meant by that is simple. When I started this hobby I had very limited funds. I wanted to have a 2000 point army so I could play 40K at the concensus points level most everyone played and thus get in games more consistently. With my limited cash I was only able to hone my list into a TAC style since I didn't have a cache of models sitting around waiting for the right opponent or formation to come around. I bet a lot of new players have similar experiences with 40K as it IS very expensive.

*Edit* The TAC buff is nice also because I feel 7th has demolished casual play and TAC players typically play casually.

Good news for Forge World fans as no formations likely makes it easier to use FW units in any army, as they will just slot into the detachments.

 Ragnar Blackmane wrote:
In case it hasn't been mentioned before, if you click on the "Imperium" link out of the keyword faction examples, EVERY single Imperium faction, including all the Marines, is pre-selected in the product filter.
But as Blood Angels are given as another example, I wonder how the differentiation for the organization chart will be between the Imperium keyword and the individual factions. There must be a benefit for picking e.g. fielding an IG or Space Wolves only army without any other Imperium picks, otherwise they wouldn't have given those two examples, as Blood Angels are included in the store filter as well. Of course with Marines likely getting their own "Grand Alliance" book the store link might not be an indication for the final rules after all.

Also regarding those three charts, no reason to panic yet considering we only have seen 3 out of 16 (I think) organization charts.
Also jumping on the "good riddance" train concerning formations as well, stuff like the Gladius Strike force shouldn't have existed in the first place, it was one of the main reasons balance in 7th edition was so fethed up. I think it also means I'll pick up two 'start collecting Tau' boxes when I come back home in two and a half weeks, I wouldn't be surprised if they pull those boxes from the market considering they all have formation sheets included.

I think it is also save to assume that "lords of war" are former Apocalypse stuff like Superheavies and gargantuan Creatures? If yes then I'll be super happy if those organization charts keep them out of snormal matches and confined to "pretty much 2500+ points matches because of minimum troop/HQ/other requiements" charts, considering there are zero slots for them in the three charts shown and the last one is pretty big pointswise.

+1!

 Kirasu wrote:
Seems fair, you can use all units in the Tyranid Faction or I can use all the units in the IMPERIUM faction to build my list! Why even have any other faction?? Maybe that just means stuff like Inquisition.

Command bonuses making up for it perhaps? Imperium having only the most generic and likely useless uses for command points, while Blood Angels had summon Sanguinis for 9 points or something? I doubt Imperium would have access to anything resembling chapter tactics.

I'm glad to see that the formations are gone. I grew to despise them. They became an annoying straitjacket that limited the army building. Instead of choosing the units I liked, I had to choose those specified in some silly OP formation if I wished to have any chance of winning.

ERJAK wrote:

 warboss wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
It's unwelcome to me. I enjoyed formations.

I despise the "1 HQ 2 Troops" methodology. I loved Skitarii for not having an HQ.

These are three of a great many detachments to choose from though.

You cannot tell me that I can build a list using my Stealth Suits, Pathfinders, Piranhas, and Ghostkeels under the showcased Detachments.

Formations were far, far superior.

Formations were far, far more open to abuse and wild swings of power with no extra points paid for abilities. If that is your definition of "superior", I'll have to disagree. In any case, your example doesn't fit into the 25% of the rumored 12 formations that will be included free in the rules. Luckily for you, you still have 75% more to look at before you can make a real determination. Or you can just fly off the handle jumping to conclusions and instead praise the worst (and fortunately outgoing!) army purchasing building mechanic the marketing department at GW ever came up with.

It's only 21%. 3 out of 14. Less than 10 words of his last 3 posts have been factually accurate,

Warhammer Community wrote:
If your army is built using Formations right now, you’re going to be fine. In their place are a dozen new game-wide Detachments that are available to all factions. These are flexible enough that all of your current forces can be fit into them to form a Battle-forged army. The advantage of these is that all factions now have an even playing field of list building mechanics, rather than some having loads and some having to stick with the trusty Combined Arms option for every game.

Source
Where has the "14 Detachments" been coming from?

Source on the 14 detachments is the Q&A livestream.