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 heckler wrote:
The problem with deciding in a local meta to change list construction is that you omit anyone else from attending your event and put yourselves at a disadvantage when playing in other events. It only really works if the organizers of nationwide events choose a system and it gets adopted by the community at large.

Ultimately 40k will be balanced by fragmenting the playerbase so you have to ask if you're playing BRBhammer, Reecehammer, Traditiohammer or Swedish Comphammer. That Stormraven list flies against the idea 8th was extensively playtested over 2 years.

 Karhedron wrote:
I wonder if we will start to see tournaments placing extra restrictions on which detachments can be fielded or designing missions around objective holding to support players who take infantry rather than spamming units like flyers?

I know the tournament organisers at my local club have very strong views on what a "proper" army should look like so it would not surprise me to see this emerge to some extent.

IMO you should auto lose the game if you don't have a unit on the ground or in hover. It should be a requirement to have units on the board.


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 MagicJuggler wrote:

 heckler wrote:
The problem with deciding in a local meta to change list construction is that you omit anyone else from attending your event and put yourselves at a disadvantage when playing in other events. It only really works if the organizers of nationwide events choose a system and it gets adopted by the community at large.

Ultimately 40k will be balanced by fragmenting the playerbase so you have to ask if you're playing BRBhammer, Reecehammer, Traditiohammer or Swedish Comphammer. That Stormraven list flies against the idea 8th was extensively playtested over 2 years.

I wouldn't say there is anything wrong with the storm raven (it's good but it's fairly priced IMO) - their just shouldn't be detachments that field nothing but flyers.

Detachments are not a problem, they are fine as they are.
The problem is with the troop tax, it is a wrong concept. Troops should never be taken because they are a tax, but because they are the foundation of your army. Only extremely peculiar builds should be able to work without troops.

In this, i find that tyranids respect this concept fairly well. A nid list without troops is 90% of the time a worse list.

The all fliers list is pretty much the only silver bullet to what I play normally. I have started to use a Void Shield Generator just to keep myself a little safer from the alpha strike, but taking out that many high arm fliers is still a pain. It mostly becomes a game of of trying to kill as many as I can before rushing to objectives near the end.

Spoletta wrote:
Detachments are not a problem, they are fine as they are.
The problem is with the troop tax, it is a wrong concept. Troops should never be taken because they are a tax, but because they are the foundation of your army. Only extremely peculiar builds should be able to work without troops.

In this, i find that tyranids respect this concept fairly well. A nid list without troops is 90% of the time a worse list.

Well there is the part that troops aboslutely suck in this game. Except for some really stupid troops. Detachments that have core troops give you more command points...There is no problem here. Flyers are a special unit - they should be pretty limited in your ability to field them- I'm okay with someone taking a spearhead detachment and spamming Predators. I'm not cool with someone taking a flyer wing and spamming flyers.

I foresee an addendum to the matched play rules, specifically tailored for tournament play. As others have written, custom TO rules cause a lot of problems, so it should be something a little more official to ensure the same customization is replicated to all tournaments.

Where I am torn is what these rules should be. I totally love the random mission and objective concept. The fact that you have to design a list that can complete a number of different types of missions usually leads to less gimmicky lists.

Also, I sense some tweaking to alpha striking potential. The current rules encourage keeping your strategically important units in reserve (and to pick units that can be put in reserve) to make sure they at least get to go for a turn before getting destroyed. Combined with the value of going first this leads to an arms race on unit count and reserves. With people going for particularly beneficial "turtle units" to start on the board (flyer in a corner, artillery fully behind cover, transports in cover, etc.). All in an attempt to counter any potential disadvantage of not going first. Ironically, the importance of going first diminishes if players build lists that can counter it, and we might even see players opting to go 2nd because their turtle-deployment can take it. If they do, they effectively get a turn more than their opponent. This THEN leads to list building meant to optimize the "passive" value of going first without deploying your shock reserves.
Net result: list building will be based on deployment shenanigans and not ability to complete objectives. It could use a tweak back towards building tactically solid army lists.

 Klowny wrote:
How did the necrons go?

There were 3 or 4 necron players. One was playing for top 3 but lost to Thomas's marines. His list was a tesseract vault, night bringer (i think), 3 doomsday arks, minimum squad of troops. He was tabled, but was going to lose any ways as Thomas placed all his objectives in ruins and the necron army couldn't actually get close enough to the objectives to score them. But quantum shielding is very good.

The necron army I played was a horde necron. Two big squads of warriors and two 10 man immortals with two squads of deathmarks and supporting crypteks and overlords. Also some wraiths and scarabs. Turns out, he couldn't really damage a land raider and my squad bailed out and charged half his army. Reanimation is a good rule though. His army was just slow and short ranged. He went 3-2 I believe.

That Ultramarines Battalion is missing a second HQ, Guilliman is a LoW.

Spam will be a big thing early on. All these spam lists were already mentioned by the FLG guys as things they tried early on. They have a big head start on list design and play testing. Their "meta" has already moved past these lists. They already predicted a shift towards TAC lists because spam lists tend to be rock, paper, scissors which means very match-dependent.

Median Trace wrote:
Spam will be a big thing early on. All these spam lists were already mentioned by the FLG guys as things they tried early on. They have a big head start on list design and play testing. Their "meta" has already moved past these lists. They already predicted a shift towards TAC lists because spam lists tend to be rock, paper, scissors which means very match-dependent.

The problem with this reasoning is that this still allows any of the rocks, papers or scissors to act as spoilers to the rest of the game. I seriously doubt there was any serious playtesting in that regard. I seriously see this edition being the one where Steamroller "bring 2 armies" becomes a thing, and competitive 40k being dug even further down its grave.

Spam lists shouldn't be a problem if the units that are being spammed are balanced in points. Nobody is upset about one person doing a spam list of full grots. Or killa kanz. Or Piranhas. Because those spam lists are bad.

People don't dislike spam, they dislike OP spam.

The "Troop tax" is just a flawed form of doing a balanced game. Troops should be usable in their own merit, not a balancing factor, forcing you to spend points in useless crap to get access to the good units.

So be honest to yourselves and to what is good for the game. Spam is not the problem. OP and broken units are the problem. If everything is properly balanced, you could made spam lists or take a good chunck of troops and a TAC army and be good still..

 Galas wrote:
Spam lists shouldn't be a problem if the units that are being spammed are balanced in points. Nobody is upset about one person doing a spam list of full grots. Or killa kanz. Or Piranhas. Because those spam lists are bad.

People don't dislike spam, they dislike OP spam.

The "Troop tax" is just a flawed form of doing a balanced game. Troops should be usable in their own merit, not a balancing factor, forcing you to spend points in useless crap to get access to the good units.

So be honest to yourselves and to what is good for the game. Spam is not the problem. OP and broken units are the problem. If everything is properly balanced, you could made spam lists or take a good chunck of troops and a TAC army and be good still..

Here to invalidate your generalization with facts. I am indeed a person and dislike spam, of all kinds.


An army made up of grots units is just as bad an experience as an army made of of knights. One more nail in the coffin for immersion.

How the hell is an Orky spam list not immersive? Spam is quite literally what Orks do in the lore. Hell, Orks pushing huge waves of grots out in front of htem to absorb fire, detonate mines, and distract the enemy is an example of tactics that aren't just plausible for Orks to do, it's canon-- they've already done it!

 Melissia wrote:
How the hell is an Orky spam list not immersive? Spam is quite literally what Orks do in the lore. Hell, Orks pushing huge waves of grots out in front of htem to absorb fire, detonate mines, and distract the enemy is an example of tactics that aren't just plausible for Orks to do, it's canon-- they've already done it!

It's not immersive for the same reason a buffet with 37 steam trays of the same food isn't immersive. There is no deep interest in banality on my part, to each their own. And melissia, its not just fluff, its fluff + actual gaming immersion, something already lacking in this new edition IMO. To my subjective sensibilites, green tide is as un-inspired as an all knight army.

I'm crazy or perhaps combined arms detachments might involve a combination of more than one arm...

Inmersion isn't an argument. Is about personal taste so irrelevant to the general healt of the game.

A full flyer force is totally canon and inmersive if you justify it. Heck, you can have two armies that are only flyers and be totally inmersive.

The same goes for a full bikers army. Or a full tank IG army. Or a full Tempestus Scions army, etc...

So, again isn't about spam. You can not like it, thats totally fine, but that comes down to tastes. Some people don't like Taus, others hate Tyranids. That doesn't mean they are bad for the game. Spam if done right isn't bad for the game, even if you like it or not.

 Galas wrote:
Inmersion isn't an argument.

A full flyer force is totally canon and inmersive if you justify it. Heck, you can have two armies that are only flyers and be totally inmersive.

The same goes for a full bikers army. Or a full tank IG army. Or a full Tempestus Scions army, etc...

So, again isn't about spam. You can not like it, thats totally fine, but that comes down to tastes. Some people don't like Taus, others hate Tyranids. That doesn't mean they are bad for the game. Spam if done right isn't bad for the game, even if you like it or not.

No, it's a bout spam, any army, 30k or 40k comprised of one thing is awful as a concept and generally awful in game. Be that entirely tanks/bikes/jetbikes/knights. You can make up a story to fit any combination of plastic toys. It was never good for the game can continues to exist to its detriment.

If a Spam list by his nature is balanced, should probably lose again'st basically every TAC list out there. Tus, discouraging the spam list.

But if someone wants to have a spam list theres no problem with that. The problem is that 100% spam list are just people using over and over againt the typical undercosted and overpowered unit.

But to be clear here: I never play spam of any kind. But I don't think is at a fundamental level, bad for the game if done right.

What I oppose is the "Troop tax" that people seems to need to balance the game. And thats just awful in itself. You are basically acepting that troops should be crap, and that they should force you to take units that are crap to balance for taking good units.

Spoletta wrote:
Detachments are not a problem, they are fine as they are.
The problem is with the troop tax, it is a wrong concept. Troops should never be taken because they are a tax, but because they are the foundation of your army. Only extremely peculiar builds should be able to work without troops.

In this, i find that tyranids respect this concept fairly well. A nid list without troops is 90% of the time a worse list.

There is some simple math that goes on when you start removing models from the board. At least, this is the math a few of us used back in Spokane. It seemed to work pretty well for most of us...

The basic question you need to ask is "how many wounds does my opponent need to inflict in order to table me?"

First, count up the number of wounds you have in your army.

Second, take all the guns in your army, and calculate how many wounds you will push out per turn.

Finally, assuming proper fire allocation and typical cover advantages (count it if you would spend most of a game using it), If you can table yourself in 1-2 turns without really taking range into account (is that tank in 36"? We don't care. Assume it is. That melta gun @ 12"? Assume you need to advance into position for a turn or two), you don't have enough wounds on the board.
Likewise, if you can't table yourself by the end of turn 4 or 5, you don't have enough firepower on the board.

The idea is that you need a balance between being able to absorb casualties, and dealing them. If you can only do one or the other, you're going to lose.


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 Crablezworth wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Inmersion isn't an argument.

A full flyer force is totally canon and inmersive if you justify it. Heck, you can have two armies that are only flyers and be totally inmersive.

The same goes for a full bikers army. Or a full tank IG army. Or a full Tempestus Scions army, etc...

So, again isn't about spam. You can not like it, thats totally fine, but that comes down to tastes. Some people don't like Taus, others hate Tyranids. That doesn't mean they are bad for the game. Spam if done right isn't bad for the game, even if you like it or not.

No, it's a bout spam, any army, 30k or 40k comprised of one thing is awful as a concept and generally awful in game. Be that entirely tanks/bikes/jetbikes/knights. You can make up a story to fit any combination of plastic toys. It was never good for the game can continues to exist to its detriment.

Honestly, the proper counter for cheesy spam lists like the all flyer list is sideboarding. If I see a full flyer list, and I've properly prepared for that by including a few anti-air units in my side-board, I should be fine unless flyer-spammer-boy has a sideboard with some ground units in it he can trade in.

What I do not agree with is tournament organizers pushing out harsh arbitrary limitations just because they don't like seeing something. I much prefer solutions that introduce enhancements to play, that can make games more interesting, rather than limitations that restrict the things we can see happen.

Basically, I see ideas like "1 detachment per 1000 points" or "must field troops" or "first detachment must be a batallion or a patrol" and I wince because it completely prevents some extremely interesting lists that would ride on tactics, surprise, and execution.

What I would rather see is tournaments going more like:

1750-2000/1750-4000

1750 to 2K worth of units on the board per game.
Up to 4K worth of units in your tournament list.
All units must be organized into detachments.

All army assembly must be done at the detachment level from your initially submitted tournament list, and detachment selection is done before the round begins but after you've had a chance to view your opponent's list (and vice-versa). You do NOT need to tell your opponent which detachments you plan on taking until you begin placing them on the board during the placement phase. You also need to tell your opponent which units are in reserve and what detachment they are a part of in the case of an entire detachment being deployed outside of the deployment phase (like a Tempestus drop troop detachment coming in via grav-chute, or a T'au spearhead of all crisis suits being deployed via manta drop). You must select a combination of detachments that exceed the minimum value allowed at a table, but that does not exceed the maximum (in the example it means your detachments must total more than 1750, but cannot exceed 2000 points. And your total force at the tournament must be enough to qualify for a table deployment of 1750, but cannot exceed 4000 in total on and off the table).

This would introduce a game of guess and second-guess before the actual game where you try to guess what your opponent will deploy based on what you could deploy, rather than saying something like "we hate flyer lists. We think they're all cheese. We're not going to allow them ever, at all, for any reason."
Instead, you would see that your opponent could bring a pair of air wings and nothing else, and then you could choose to bring an anti-air heavy detachment to counter, and hope you chose correctly.

I'm anti-sideboarding as it basically admits your own system isn't as balanced as you tout it to be, and encourages bringing both Scissors and Rock in case your opponent brings Paper and Scissors.

The game should grant diminishing returns on larger numbers of duplicated units, rather than letting them attain a critical mass. Be it increasing intra-unit synergies, adding more options so you don't get "Lascannons are useless versus Hordes", "mortars have minimal options versus armorspam", etc. Be it allowing Scout Bikers to lay cluster mines in-game, or Tau vehicles getting general-purpose "Drone Racks" that can be customised pre-game with mission-specific loadouts, etc. Rather than having to sideboard your army with a second one because the edition made it even harder to build a TAC list.

There are two main ways to keep a spam list from working. One is to make sure counters are very hard, the other is to make everything so even that it doesn't really matter what you bring (so you don't really have counterplay at all).

For an example of the first method, let's say you have Rock, Paper, and Scissors as unit types, with the cycle of counterplay you would expect. If you need to be 100% rock to have any hope of beating a 100% scissors list, spamming any one type will be very strong because you'll only lose to an opposing spam list while beating everything else. But if rock can smash 3x its value in scissors, and every other type is similarly effective against its counterpart, then a 33/33/33 list will beat any spam list of any type reliably, because the fraction of their army that can counter them can do so easily no matter how poorly the rest of the list fares.

Using the second method, if nothing really counters anything then while spam lists would still exist, they wouldn't really be any different from a non-spam list because it doesn't require anything special to counter it. It's just a single uniform plane of sameness.

Maybe, together, we can all admit that 1001-2000pts, 3 detachments, doesn't really control or prevent anything. Add to that flyers getting their own show so to speak. Freeing up fast attack and heavy slots if needed.



I think if events want some semblance of control on spamming, they'll have to limit detachments in some way.

 ross-128 wrote:
There are two main ways to keep a spam list from working. One is to make sure counters are very hard, the other is to make everything so even that it doesn't really matter what you bring (so you don't really have counterplay at all).

For an example of the first method, let's say you have Rock, Paper, and Scissors as unit types, with the cycle of counterplay you would expect. If you need to be 100% rock to have any hope of beating a 100% scissors list, spamming any one type will be very strong because you'll only lose to an opposing spam list while beating everything else. But if rock can smash 3x its value in scissors, and every other type is similarly effective against its counterpart, then a 33/33/33 list will beat any spam list of any type reliably, because the fraction of their army that can counter them can do so easily no matter how poorly the rest of the list fares.

Using the second method, if nothing really counters anything then while spam lists would still exist, they wouldn't really be any different from a non-spam list because it doesn't require anything special to counter it. It's just a single uniform plane of sameness.

Other thoughts:

- Igougo still makes it easy for alphastrike armies to be a thing, as opposed to alternating activations/interrupted turn-based play.
- Big models still have an advantage over small ones in that they have a "kill gap" before they suffer diminished effectiveness. Also, 8e shooting means a Big Thing that gets a wing-tip in range is in range of an entire enemy unit with all of its weapons, but that entire enemy unit isn't necessarily in range.
- There should be more "support" options for units, so they're not "pointless" when they don't have any viable targets. A hypothetical example could be Mortars firing smokeshells or flares to grant/mitigate cover. Another would be Scout Bikers being able to lay AT mines as they move (anti-infantry shooting + hemming in armored movement), which could be cleared by servitors, artillery fire, marching Cultists over them...

You can give units TAC roles without making them "kill anything".

 ross-128 wrote:
There are two main ways to keep a spam list from working. One is to make sure counters are very hard, the other is to make everything so even that it doesn't really matter what you bring (so you don't really have counterplay at all).

For an example of the first method, let's say you have Rock, Paper, and Scissors as unit types, with the cycle of counterplay you would expect. If you need to be 100% rock to have any hope of beating a 100% scissors list, spamming any one type will be very strong because you'll only lose to an opposing spam list while beating everything else. But if rock can smash 3x its value in scissors, and every other type is similarly effective against its counterpart, then a 33/33/33 list will beat any spam list of any type reliably, because the fraction of their army that can counter them can do so easily no matter how poorly the rest of the list fares.

Using the second method, if nothing really counters anything then while spam lists would still exist, they wouldn't really be any different from a non-spam list because it doesn't require anything special to counter it. It's just a single uniform plane of sameness.

This is exactly right.
Unfortunately what is becoming clearer is that 8th is tending towards skews. Its different to 7th but may not be dramatically more fun because of it.
It might be hoped that a meta develops that tells against a skew but I am not seeing it. There is a clear advantage to picking an army which will make most of an opponents army very bad. If you can then go first in most instances and shoot up their effective stuff you are likely to win.

There has to be aome sort of unity buff for having a mix. Currently there isnt. So armour skew or horde skew will be effective. Currently it will be armour because people prefer low model count armies. No one really wants to paint, deploy and move hundreds of conscripts.

Ironically, this is basically what plagued/still plagues (among other things) Warmachine Mk3; skew lists as far as the eye can see, find something that works/can be buffed and take as many of it as you're allowed to. Insanely boring playstyle, a big reason why I had to quit playing because I hated doing it, and refused to bring myself to play like that.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 ross-128 wrote:
There are two main ways to keep a spam list from working. One is to make sure counters are very hard, the other is to make everything so even that it doesn't really matter what you bring (so you don't really have counterplay at all).

For an example of the first method, let's say you have Rock, Paper, and Scissors as unit types, with the cycle of counterplay you would expect. If you need to be 100% rock to have any hope of beating a 100% scissors list, spamming any one type will be very strong because you'll only lose to an opposing spam list while beating everything else. But if rock can smash 3x its value in scissors, and every other type is similarly effective against its counterpart, then a 33/33/33 list will beat any spam list of any type reliably, because the fraction of their army that can counter them can do so easily no matter how poorly the rest of the list fares.

Using the second method, if nothing really counters anything then while spam lists would still exist, they wouldn't really be any different from a non-spam list because it doesn't require anything special to counter it. It's just a single uniform plane of sameness.

Other thoughts:

- Igougo still makes it easy for alphastrike armies to be a thing, as opposed to alternating activations/interrupted turn-based play.
- Big models still have an advantage over small ones in that they have a "kill gap" before they suffer diminished effectiveness. Also, 8e shooting means a Big Thing that gets a wing-tip in range is in range of an entire enemy unit with all of its weapons, but that entire enemy unit isn't necessarily in range.
- There should be more "support" options for units, so they're not "pointless" when they don't have any viable targets. A hypothetical example could be Mortars firing smokeshells or flares to grant/mitigate cover. Another would be Scout Bikers being able to lay AT mines as they move (anti-infantry shooting + hemming in armored movement), which could be cleared by servitors, artillery fire, marching Cultists over them...

You can give units TAC roles without making them "kill anything".

I love for more support roles and actions for different units. Just put a bunch of "markers" in sale to that kind of thing and you can have much more interactive units and a very big array of options to give factions new units. Like hackers in Infinity, where they really don't kill anything but are counters to the robots and big robotic armours.

I'm not terribly worried about the potential rise of flyer spam as admech at least.......the more prevalent it becomes the more common icarus arrays will be on my dunecrawlers. Eventually the problem will dakka itself out.

Feldrance wrote:
I'm not terribly worried about the potential rise of flyer spam as admech at least.......the more prevalent it becomes the more common icarus arrays will be on my dunecrawlers. Eventually the problem will dakka itself out.

It does mean that some armies will need their anti-air buffed.

'crons, for example, have exactly one anti-air option. And it costs almost 500 points, and is all kinds of worthless for its points (friends don't let friends take obelisks).

Hoenstly - limititng armies to 1 detachment at 2000 points might actually produce a competitive game - it makes you have to make choices. Battalion for balanced approach - vanguard or spearhead if you want to dominate with the big guns.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Hoenstly - limititng armies to 1 detachment at 2000 points might actually produce a competitive game - it makes you have to make choices. Battalion for balanced approach - vanguard or spearhead if you want to dominate with the big guns.

1 Detachment at 2k points means that you might as well say "we're not using detachments. Go back to the org chart from previous editions".

It would also cause problems for AdMech. Taking multiple detachments is the only way they can bring other Imperium units without losing canticles.