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Breng77 wrote:
Personally I still favor the idea that you only get chapter(or equivalent) bonuses (tactics/stratagems) if your entire army has that faction keyword. So if you want to have "allies" you benefit from having a ton of options but don't get your faction specific buffs. I think using CP is not enough of a penalty when plenty of these ally choices can fill out a brigade, or second battalion, or have characters that give you CP.

So my Inquisition lead force, in which I'm already punished for using by paying points to take an atrociously bad Inquisitor in order to fit my army's fluff, should be punished further by losing all of its faction benefits because I decided to play my force according to its background. Right.

 Fafnir wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Personally I still favor the idea that you only get chapter(or equivalent) bonuses (tactics/stratagems) if your entire army has that faction keyword. So if you want to have "allies" you benefit from having a ton of options but don't get your faction specific buffs. I think using CP is not enough of a penalty when plenty of these ally choices can fill out a brigade, or second battalion, or have characters that give you CP.

So my Inquisition lead force, in which I'm already punished for using by paying points to take an atrociously bad Inquisitor in order to fit my army's fluff, should be punished further by losing all of its faction benefits because I decided to play my force according to its background. Right.

Yes, you should. This is a game balance concern, not a fluff one (despite the erroneous argument given in the OP). There needs to be genuine drawbacks for cherry picking the best units, and if some deliberately unoptimized lists get caught in the crossfire then so be it.

So people just shouldn't ever use Inquisitors, Assassins, Sisters of Silence, or Custodes then? Because many smaller, fluffy factions that exist to act as supplementary forces don't deserve to be nerfed into unplayability because a few exploitative builds exist.

I'm pretty sure Assassins would still be used because Assassins are, well, very good. The fact that none of the other auxiliaries you listed are any good is a different, but equally important problem.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
I'm pretty sure Assassins would still be used because Assassins are, well, very good. The fact that none of the other auxiliaries you listed are any good is a different, but equally important problem.

So the solution is to make allying unattractive, but then make units like that so strong that they're still worth taking? Have you thought about what that'd mean if you simply brought just these over-powered allies?

Fixing the broken units is the way to go, not breaking the game and fixing units that then need fixing just because you decided to break the game in the first place.

 Fafnir wrote:
So people just shouldn't ever use Inquisitors, Assassins, Sisters of Silence, or Custodes then? Because many smaller, fluffy factions that exist to act as supplementary forces don't deserve to be nerfed into unplayability because a few exploitative builds exist.

That's a different matter. All the factions you listed are not independent ones, they should not even be considered allies since they're not armies. They're just other options that imperium armies can take.

I'm against mixing real armies like SM or sisters and AM. I'm not saying that I want all kind of alliances banned but some strong limitations that prevent soups from being more competitive than lists with a single faction. One efficient rule could be disallowing to bring named characters if there are more than a single faction in the list, and of course it should be the characters faction: for example celentine couldn't be taken in a list with AM or SM units but only with SoB and/or inquisitors. Or maybe disallowing to spam units from an allied force, which means a SM list can't take more than a single unit of conscripts. And of course allies should have their detachment, they cannot be taken as part of another faction detachment. You want seraphims in your AM list? Bring a canoness and two other units of seraphims for an outrider detachment or just a canoness and a battle sister squad for a patrol detachment.

 Fafnir wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Personally I still favor the idea that you only get chapter(or equivalent) bonuses (tactics/stratagems) if your entire army has that faction keyword. So if you want to have "allies" you benefit from having a ton of options but don't get your faction specific buffs. I think using CP is not enough of a penalty when plenty of these ally choices can fill out a brigade, or second battalion, or have characters that give you CP.

So my Inquisition lead force, in which I'm already punished for using by paying points to take an atrociously bad Inquisitor in order to fit my army's fluff, should be punished further by losing all of its faction benefits because I decided to play my force according to its background. Right.

I've addressed this in another thread it is an easy fix, give Inquisition its own set of Ordo Traits, allow them to take only Non HQ units from any imperial army, improve inquisitors. But essentially this becomes your "I get to mix stuff and get a trait" faction.


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 Fafnir wrote:
So people just shouldn't ever use Inquisitors, Assassins, Sisters of Silence, or Custodes then? Because many smaller, fluffy factions that exist to act as supplementary forces don't deserve to be nerfed into unplayability because a few exploitative builds exist.

Also easy enough to make exceptions (see the IG codex) for these select few units. "Any imperial army may include units from this faction without forgoing their trait.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Personally I still favor the idea that you only get chapter(or equivalent) bonuses (tactics/stratagems) if your entire army has that faction keyword. So if you want to have "allies" you benefit from having a ton of options but don't get your faction specific buffs. I think using CP is not enough of a penalty when plenty of these ally choices can fill out a brigade, or second battalion, or have characters that give you CP.

I see the appeal here, but you end up punishing some very fluffy armies for being fluffy. Any of the armies mentioned by Champion of Slaanesh are great examples. Why should Word Bearers be worse at summoning daemons because their army includes daemons?

From a mechanical perspective, we aren't really seeing armies that become "OP" by virtue of mixing units from different factions AND having access to their faction-specific rules. Guilliman + conscript spam aren't a potent combo because of the Ultrasmurf chapter tactics, for instance; they're powerful because both of those options are extremely effective on their own and become even better in tandem.

For the most part, the faction-specific bonuses are fluffy and powerful but not game-breakingly powerful. So taking away faction-specific bonuses for mixed armies punishes a ton of fluffy armies without fixing the primary problems that make OP units OP in the first place.

TLDR; if you fix individually OP units, then cherry picking isn't as big of a deal, and you don't have to punish fluffy, casual mixed-faction armies.

It doesn't stop mixed armies from being good, what it does is give incentives to people that don't want to take those mixed forces and still want to be able to compete. Guilliman + conscript spam isn't powerful because to the tactics, but it is better with "chapter tactics" and chapter/faction specific strategems.

As for fluffy armies word bearers could just summon in the daemons and not have an issue, or could have an exception made for their specific legion if the rules wanted to allow for them to be the "we mix with daemons" legion.


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Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
I disagree
Yes your trying to nerf op aies but your also gonna ruin perfectly fluffy ones.
Whats so game breakingly powerful about a word bearer host with some allied daemons?
Sisters with guard?
Inquisition pulling different branches of the imperium together?

I'm not trying to nerf OP armies, I'm trying to present a scenario where you are rewarded for sticking to a single faction, while not adding power to already powerful armies.

Word bearers with allied daemons is fine, they could summon them in, or maybe their CT could have allowed the allying without penalty.

Sisters + guard is extremely powerful right now, why do they need the added benefit of CT to still be a great army.

Already addressed how I'd like to see inquisition handled.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My overall point was CP are not a huge incentive to reward people that stick (or are stuck) with one faction. Right now I see a scenario where we have armies that can pick and choose their detachments to maximize their potency. In IG, say I have a spearhead full of Basilisks, well those will be catachan, and then my battalion with conscripts will be say mordians, and Then my last detachment will be tempestus, so my scions will get their bonuses as well.

I'd prefer a scenario where playing all catachan is what gets you their benefits.

Breng77 wrote:

It doesn't stop mixed armies from being good, what it does is give incentives to people that don't want to take those mixed forces and still want to be able to compete. Guilliman + conscript spam isn't powerful because to the tactics, but it is better with "chapter tactics" and chapter/faction specific strategems.

As for fluffy armies word bearers could just summon in the daemons and not have an issue, or could have an exception made for their specific legion if the rules wanted to allow for them to be the "we mix with daemons" legion.

Superman wearing a kevlar vest is technically more bullet proof than Superman without a kevlar vest, but you don't beat Superman by taking off his vest and then shooting him. Or, put without using a convoluted metaphor: I'm not convinced at this time that faction-specific rules will be so dramatically powerful in soup armies that people need to be punished for taking them. I am willing to revise my opinion if we start seeing armies winning tournaments on the merit of multiple faction-specific rules, but I don't think that's where we're at at this time.

Guilliman and conscripts are better with chapter tactics and regiment rules than without, but I'd much rather see the spammyness of conscripts and the general super poweredness of Guilliman curbed rather than simply punishing every army in existence that takes units from multiple factions. The proposed changes feel like they'd be punishing a ton of thematic armies for the sins of a couple competitive combos.

As for making exceptions for fluffy armies... If you have to go through and make a ton of exceptions to your general rule for thematically appropriate combos, your general rule might need to be reconsidered. And if we're considering the fluffy stamp of approval grounds to not punish allied armies, then consider that a lot of efficient soup armies are actually pretty thematic. Celestine leading a bunch of conscripts (especially if you treat them as the ecclesiarch-lead PDF contingent) is actually pretty fluffy. So is a force of space marines complimenting a guard regiment. Magnus hanging out with daemons and random psykers (malefic lords) doesn't seem all that farfetched either. Most armies consisting of eldar soup can be explained away as being some form of Ynnari, even if you aren't actively benefitting from soul bursts due to Yvraine not being at hand.

Also, I'd generally rather see players rewarded for sticking strongly to a given theme rather than punished for not following someone else's fluff notions. Perhaps armies consisting entirely of models with the same <chapter> or <craftworld> keyword should receive bonus CP (to help pay for their faction-specific stratagems) rather than making inquisitorial armies worse than they are or punishing thematic multi-faction armies.

Giving armies a bonus for doing x, and punishing armies for not doing x are 2 ways of looking at the same thing.

"If your entire army has the same <chapter> keyword you get chapter tactics." Is a bonus to armies that stick within a narrow theme. You only consider it a punishment because that isn't how it works right now.

CP bonuses are generally not that great of an incentive to do things if doing otherwise would be stronger. So if I get 3 co for staying as just space marines, so I would have say 12 cp, or I can have 9 and include Imperial guard in my army. I'm including the guard because they will do way more than 3 cp. Now if I were to lose my chapter specific benefits I might consider not allying in guard. Tournaments at some level always punish some fluffy build,

Further you can fluff justify anything...this is about balance and rewarding sticking to a faction, not about what fluff we can draw up to justify out soup army. In addition you can still take those armies, you just won't get the same benefit as someone running solo faction. As for exceptions being a problem, in reality I see like 4 that I would honestly give. 1.) Imquisition as stated above are their own chapter with their own benefits. 2.) assassins, SOS, custodes don't count against you.

That is honestly all I think you would need to do to have things be fine.
Ynnari already is its own thing, no need to make an exception. GSC already has an IG ally rule which could easily be incorporated, word bearers can summon daemons with no penalty (fluffy).

Beyond that you can make whatever you like you just don't get the bonus for being single faction. Which isn't a penalty it is the lack of a bonus.

It won't make top soup armies go away, but it will give non soup armies some tools to begin with. Remember as soon as an army gets a codex they can soup within their own faction to use the best traits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another possibility that might work is forcing players to choose a "primary <chapter> faction keyword". Only detachments of that keyword get their tactics.

You make some solid points. Let's see if I can figure out how to break up quotes as I attempt to respond to them.

Breng77 wrote:
Giving armies a bonus for doing x, and punishing armies for not doing x are 2 ways of looking at the same thing.

"If your entire army has the same <chapter> keyword you get chapter tactics." Is a bonus to armies that stick within a narrow theme. You only consider it a punishment because that isn't how it works right now.

Fair enough, but it is how things are now. Currently, I have the ability to team up infiltrating Raven Guard with IG so I can fluff them as Alpha Legion and their relatively well-trained cultists. The proposed rules take away my ability to do that. I'm left with fewer options and fewer ways to represent my army on the tabletop. Which I perceive as a negative. I also don't see such a combination as inherently overpowered or game breaking, so I perceive relatively little mechanical benefit to offset the fluff/hobby downsides.

Breng77 wrote:

CP bonuses are generally not that great of an incentive to do things if doing otherwise would be stronger. So if I get 3 co for staying as just space marines, so I would have say 12 cp, or I can have 9 and include Imperial guard in my army. I'm including the guard because they will do way more than 3 cp. Now if I were to lose my chapter specific benefits I might consider not allying in guard. Tournaments at some level always punish some fluffy build,

Good point. It's probably important to draw a distinction between tounament and non-tournament play here though. I'm actually in favor of a lot of additional restrictions to list building for tournament purposes. But I feel that such restrictions probably belong in the rulesset for a specific tournament; not as general rules to be applied to 40k in general. Running a mono-faction-mono-detachment tournament with no superheavies could be a lot of fun, but I don't think we need to ban Word Bearers from hanging out with non-summoned demons in casual games to support that tournament play style.

So yes, tournaments always punish some fluffy build. I'm not planning on fielding my marine/guardsman army competitively because it's not a competitive list. I just also don't want to be punished for taking a fluffy, non-OP option in casual games.

Breng77 wrote:


Further you can fluff justify anything...this is about balance and rewarding sticking to a faction, not about what fluff we can draw up to justify out soup army. In addition you can still take those armies, you just won't get the same benefit as someone running solo faction. As for exceptions being a problem, in reality I see like 4 that I would honestly give. 1.) Imquisition as stated above are their own chapter with their own benefits. 2.) assassins, SOS, custodes don't count against you.

That is honestly all I think you would need to do to have things be fine.
Ynnari already is its own thing, no need to make an exception. GSC already has an IG ally rule which could easily be incorporated, word bearers can summon daemons with no penalty (fluffy).

Fair enough for the most part. I'd point out that being Ynnari means giving up other baked-in benefits, so it's less of a "chapter tactic" and more like trading ATSKNF for like... Furious Charge or something. I'd also point out that the downsides of summoning would definitely be a downside to word bearers, especially if you had to summon huge chunks of your army in order to have decent daemon representation. But i get your point.

Breng77 wrote:

Beyond that you can make whatever you like you just don't get the bonus for being single faction. Which isn't a penalty it is the lack of a bonus.

Except that this lack of a bonus can result in players being unable to play fluffy, balanced armies that fit certain themes. My aforementioned counts-as Alpha Legion with well-trained cultsits army wouldn't be able to sneak up on the enemy with Raven Guard stratagems because my supply of CP would be too low to infiltrate a decent presence. The Word Bearers that try to summon in half their army would be at a marked disadvantage next to the Night Lords player whose fluff doesn't call for daemonic allies. Not getting a bonus due to representing the fluff of your army while your opponent gets a bonus for representing the fluff of his (mono-faction) army is essentially still a penalty. The reason I like the idea of rewarding bonus CP instead of taking away CP (and/or faction-specific rules) from players that use allies is that those faction-specific rules and the CP that fuel them are part of where an army's flavor comes from. White scars without chapter tactics or stratagems can still take bikes, but you're only as White Scars-esque as the Imperial Fists player who also fielded a bunch of bikes for some reason.

"You're not being punished with a lack of food rations for insulting the guard. It's just that you aren't being rewarded with food rations for not insulting the guard."

Breng77 wrote:

It won't make top soup armies go away, but it will give non soup armies some tools to begin with. Remember as soon as an army gets a codex they can soup within their own faction to use the best traits.

I acknowledge the innate advantages of soup armies. Most xenos factions get the short end of the stick in this regard compared to Imperials, eldar, and chaos. But sucking the flavor out of someone's fluffy army seems like a sub-optimal solution to a balance issue. Especially if we're talking about friendly games rather than tournament ones. Again, I think certain restrictions make more sense when we're only talking about tournament play and not 40k as a whole.

Breng77 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another possibility that might work is forcing players to choose a "primary <chapter> faction keyword". Only detachments of that keyword get their tactics.

I think this idea has merit. This would let my "Alpha Legion" sneak up the enemy alongside their guard buddies, let word bearers summon better than the next heretic without forcing them to start with half their points off the table, and would let you splash a little imperial soup into a primarily space marine army without dramatically limiting your effectiveness or your ability to distinguish your whtie scars from some imperial fists.

To me matched play = competitive play (this is the only area I would put these rules in) so if people are playing at home for fluff they could just chose not to use these rules, or add them as a "suggestion" like the detachment limit (which in theory also limits people ability to make fluffy armies but is GW approved)

To me your alpha legion idea comes off as power gamey more than fluffy. You could easily make alpha legion using cultists from the CSM book, but you want better "cultists" so you run IG and Space Marines instead of running Alpha legion with cultists.

In an ideal world my prefered method would be increasing benefits to running more restricted armies. SO 2 part chapter tactics maybe so you get some flavor in general, but more benefit to being "pure"

So Raven guard for instance maybe get +1 Cover save in a soup army, but then also get -1 to hit if they are pure. Further maybe some strategems would work differently. Take the infiltrate strategem, maybe you can only use it once per game (or twice) in a soup army, but are not limited in pure Ravengaurd.

The issue with things like soup for that type of strategem is that IG allows people to cheaply fill out battalions or even brigades, so now I can infiltrate my entire ravenguard part of my army at what amounts to little cost tactically later in game.

Just spitballing, another solution I would be ok with for Soup and CT would be that you lose your CT if your army contains more than a Patrol detachment of "allies"(units without keyword) So all detachments must be pure to get it, and if you have more than a patrol (so Aux support/super heavy, or patrol). This would make it impossible to ally for extra CP, force armies that get the CT to be primarily in one faction, but still let people splash in other factions at no "cost".

Breng77 wrote:
To me matched play = competitive play (this is the only area I would put these rules in) so if people are playing at home for fluff they could just chose not to use these rules, or add them as a "suggestion" like the detachment limit (which in theory also limits people ability to make fluffy armies but is GW approved)

I never go to tournaments and I only play by Matched Play rules. They're the default for the entire gaming club I play in. Yes, we do add some house rules (e.g. discard unachievable cards), and we don't use all of the advanced rules, but we always play with Matched Play rules.
I don't play "for fluff", I play for fun. Matched Play offers the most balanced version of 40k right now, and that makes it more fun than the other ones. Narrative Play I'd do by adding a narrative component to a Matched Play game, done. Open Play just doesn't appeal to me at all.

The issue with things like soup for that type of strategem is that IG allows people to cheaply fill out battalions or even brigades, so now I can infiltrate my entire ravenguard part of my army at what amounts to little cost tactically later in game.

You loose initiative for sure, how is that "little cost"? For 9 CP you'll add at the very least 3HQ6Troop3Elite3Heavy3FA units, that's 18 drops. And you can't mitigate that without investing further points for transports. And if you leave all of those units bare-bone, you're wasting a quarter of your army at 2000pts.

Just spitballing, another solution I would be ok with for Soup and CT would be that you lose your CT if your army contains more than a Patrol detachment of "allies"(units without keyword) So all detachments must be pure to get it, and if you have more than a patrol (so Aux support/super heavy, or patrol). This would make it impossible to ally for extra CP, force armies that get the CT to be primarily in one faction, but still let people splash in other factions at no "cost".

There are armies that can't field a Patrol detachment - no Troops.

Yes we should go back to the dark ages no more allies for every one . For nid players I'm all in for this hahaha
just 1 type of army .and i can still spam 18 command points in 2 K.

8th edition has really no balance take what ever you like and dish out the meanest combo you ever seen... We had this
back in second edition 2 but then to there where a few rules to balance it out
you had a rule no more then 25% of your army could be allies.
500 points in 2k is oke but i would like to go 1 step further in the old rules 25 to 50% of your army must come out of your troop section this will make more of a even match.
8th edition really does have no balance . I see army lists with 120 points of troops in 2K games . they needed 2 characters extra and get 3 command points at a tax of 120 points
of garbage troops what in they're head are garbage any way.
in the old day you also get point for controlling table quarters you get 1 point at the beginning of your turn if it was not contested . so if you where willing to bring the fight to the other player you
could be in a advantage control your own table quarters and deny your opponent points . at the end of the game you would have 12 points in your pocket about the same like the objectives we have now most of us are just to busy trying to table the other instead of playing the game.

just my thoughts on the matter

nekooni wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
To me matched play = competitive play (this is the only area I would put these rules in) so if people are playing at home for fluff they could just chose not to use these rules, or add them as a "suggestion" like the detachment limit (which in theory also limits people ability to make fluffy armies but is GW approved)

I never go to tournaments and I only play by Matched Play rules. They're the default for the entire gaming club I play in. Yes, we do add some house rules (e.g. discard unachievable cards), and we don't use all of the advanced rules, but we always play with Matched Play rules.
I don't play "for fluff", I play for fun. Matched Play offers the most balanced version of 40k right now, and that makes it more fun than the other ones. Narrative Play I'd do by adding a narrative component to a Matched Play game, done. Open Play just doesn't appeal to me at all.

The issue with things like soup for that type of strategem is that IG allows people to cheaply fill out battalions or even brigades, so now I can infiltrate my entire ravenguard part of my army at what amounts to little cost tactically later in game.

You loose initiative for sure, how is that "little cost"? For 9 CP you'll add at the very least 3HQ6Troop3Elite3Heavy3FA units, that's 18 drops. And you can't mitigate that without investing further points for transports. And if you leave all of those units bare-bone, you're wasting a quarter of your army at 2000pts.

you lose very little for getting CP from allied guard, if you are already going to take allied guard. Take a battalion you can do that in guard for ~150 points for 3 CP, not you can infiltrate 3 Ravenguard units for the cost of 150 points that can still claim objectives and screen. Remember that you already were taking some of these units so the cost is likely even less than that if I'm taking 2 Conscripts squads, a commander, and a commissar already, then getting that battalion costs me 40 points. If I was taking 3 conscripts squads then it costs me nothing. to get these 3 CP. If I was already taking this + 2 more commissars, then again even the brigade isn't that many more points.

Just spitballing, another solution I would be ok with for Soup and CT would be that you lose your CT if your army contains more than a Patrol detachment of "allies"(units without keyword) So all detachments must be pure to get it, and if you have more than a patrol (so Aux support/super heavy, or patrol). This would make it impossible to ally for extra CP, force armies that get the CT to be primarily in one faction, but still let people splash in other factions at no "cost".

There are armies that can't field a Patrol detachment - no Troops.

Those armies could be taken as Aux support, or you know you could put a single troop unit from your "primary" faction in that patrol detachment. I mean I really cannot think of to many armies that have no troops at all. You are looking at Inquisition, Sisters of Silence, Assassins. Am I missing any "armies" lacking troops. Custodes have no HQs, so again would need to be in a patrol with a separate HQ or aux support. Of these only inquisition can actually fill out any of the detachments right now as none of the others have HQ choices. So unless you are giving up your CT or including them in a separate detachment with an HQ from some other faction nothing changes here. I guess Knights? So you could only have a single knight without giving up your Chapter tactic.

Theres a reason csm armies dont use summoning its crap
1 the character wanting to summon has to stand still
2 you then have to declare a chaos god
3 you then have to hope you roll high enough to get what you want
4 you better hope you dont roll any doubles ir triples ir your taking mortal wounds
5 because of how summoning works beyond turn 2 its difficult to use due to the fact you have to land them more than 9" away from the enemy.

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
Theres a reason csm armies dont use summoning its crap
1 the character wanting to summon has to stand still
2 you then have to declare a chaos god
3 you then have to hope you roll high enough to get what you want
4 you better hope you dont roll any doubles ir triples ir your taking mortal wounds
5 because of how summoning works beyond turn 2 its difficult to use due to the fact you have to land them more than 9" away from the enemy.

I disagree summoning can be very useful just not for large units, beyond that if you were allowed a patrol of daemons who would not get their trait (when they actually have one), and the rest of your CSM army I see no problem.

In general top CSM armies aren't bringing daemons at all right now, but those I have seen that do have used summoning for them. Unless they are running Super chicken, which again would be an aux detachment so...no issue there.

Breng77 wrote:
you lose very little for getting CP from allied guard, if you are already going to take allied guard.

When I have to invest half of my points into a brigade of AM just to get 9 CP, you tell me "Well you wanted to do half an army of AM anyway then"? Don't you think that kinda defeats the "just to get 9 CP" argument you came up with?
And I went off of the brigade because you claimed both brigades and battalions are easy CP grabs.

Brenq77 wrote:Remember that you already were taking some of these units so the cost is likely even less than that if I'm taking 2 Conscripts squads, a commander, and a commissar already, then getting that battalion costs me 40 points. If I was taking 3 conscripts squads then it costs me nothing. to get these 3 CP. If I was already taking this + 2 more commissars, then again even the brigade isn't that many more points.

Which wouldn't be the case if you'd leave the ally system alone and just fixed the units that are a problem - like Conscripts. Those guys don't get better by allying them with stuff, they're just too good on their own. Fix that, then they're no longer an autoinclude.

But then we come back around to your claim that a brigade is composed of auto-includes and super-cheap - while it's not. It's one or the other at best. If you want to spam conscripts (pre-Codex), you'd invest 150 points per Troop slot, for 450 points, and then add at least a Company Commander and a Commissar which brings you up to over 500 points. Quite a bit more than the Intercessors, and they're just a simple example I came up with.

Brenq77 wrote:Those armies could be taken as Aux support, or you know you could put a single troop unit from your "primary" faction in that patrol detachment.

Well, the later option is just great, now you have your Space Marine chapter on the table, but that one Tactical Squad of idiots is too stupid to use their Chapter Tactics - what a great idea! And the Aux one you had excluded (it's not a Patrol detachment), so I didn't use it. But then again it'll severely limit what you can play - What if I want to include e.g. a squad of DK Rough Riders (HQ+3FA), for example? I'd have to pay 4 CP to do that, or lose my Chapter Tactics. How would I play even a slightly fluffy AM list? The Tank regiment won't have Troops at all. It's a Tank regiment. It's what the Spearhead Detachment was made for, it's why there's no longer a way to switch e.g. Bikes to a Troop slot and so on.

Brenq77 wrote:I mean I really cannot think of to many armies that have no troops at all. You are looking at Inquisition, Sisters of Silence, Assassins. Am I missing any "armies" lacking troops. Custodes have no HQs, so again would need to be in a patrol with a separate HQ or aux support. Of these only inquisition can actually fill out any of the detachments right now as none of the others have HQ choices. So unless you are giving up your CT or including them in a separate detachment with an HQ from some other faction nothing changes here. I guess Knights? So you could only have a single knight without giving up your Chapter tactic.

Exactly, and I play two of the three armies you listed off the top of your head. I'm just saying it creates new problems we don't HAVE to introduce. And if your argument is "well you can still add a single knight without being punished" that's a pretty poor argument. Why exactly is having - for example - a Captain on Bike and 3 Squads of Bikers worse than bringing 1 Superheavy, and therefore cannot be allowed?

All you're achieving is forcing people to "monoarmy" just because you don't want to fix individual units, or don't like that people play "multiarmy" at all.

You seem to be missing the point, the point isn't "just fix every broken unit" it is "give benefits to people that choose to play mono-faction." Sure it discourages people splashing in for broken units, why is that an issue, the strength of units is different in different armies thus allowing whatever you want, means people make very few choices.

nekooni wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
you lose very little for getting CP from allied guard, if you are already going to take allied guard.

When I have to invest half of my points into a brigade of AM just to get 9 CP, you tell me "Well you wanted to do half an army of AM anyway then"? Don't you think that kinda defeats the "just to get 9 CP" argument you came up with?
And I went off of the brigade because you claimed both brigades and battalions are easy CP grabs.

They are, but few people are just allying in for CP, so I assume they will be taking some units that they were planning on taking, so it is dishonest to say "well it cost them 1/4th of their army to get those CP" as if they get nothing in return.

Brenq77 wrote:Remember that you already were taking some of these units so the cost is likely even less than that if I'm taking 2 Conscripts squads, a commander, and a commissar already, then getting that battalion costs me 40 points. If I was taking 3 conscripts squads then it costs me nothing. to get these 3 CP. If I was already taking this + 2 more commissars, then again even the brigade isn't that many more points.

Which wouldn't be the case if you'd leave the ally system alone and just fixed the units that are a problem - like Conscripts. Those guys don't get better by allying them with stuff, they're just too good on their own. Fix that, then they're no longer an autoinclude.

But then we come back around to your claim that a brigade is composed of auto-includes and super-cheap - while it's not. It's one or the other at best. If you want to spam conscripts (pre-Codex), you'd invest 150 points per Troop slot, for 450 points, and then add at least a Company Commander and a Commissar which brings you up to over 500 points. Quite a bit more than the Intercessors, and they're just a simple example I came up with.

Sure conscripts get better when allying them with things, or more specificially the things they are allying with get better. A space marine gunline with RG is better if it can take 120 conscripts to block for it But conscripts are also somewhat better when they have better counter assault units than guard typically has. Without conscripts Space marines are getting what for that cost 40 scouts to screen for them? So 1/3rd of the wounds.

Brenq77 wrote:Those armies could be taken as Aux support, or you know you could put a single troop unit from your "primary" faction in that patrol detachment.

Well, the later option is just great, now you have your Space Marine chapter on the table, but that one Tactical Squad of idiots is too stupid to use their Chapter Tactics - what a great idea! And the Aux one you had excluded (it's not a Patrol detachment), so I didn't use it. But then again it'll severely limit what you can play - What if I want to include e.g. a squad of DK Rough Riders (HQ+3FA), for example? I'd have to pay 4 CP to do that, or lose my Chapter Tactics. How would I play even a slightly fluffy AM list? The Tank regiment won't have Troops at all. It's a Tank regiment. It's what the Spearhead Detachment was made for, it's why there's no longer a way to switch e.g. Bikes to a Troop slot and so on.

My original quote

Just spitballing, another solution I would be ok with for Soup and CT would be that you lose your CT if your army contains more than a Patrol detachment of "allies"(units without keyword) So all detachments must be pure to get it, and if you have more than a patrol (so Aux support/super heavy, or patrol). This would make it impossible to ally for extra CP, force armies that get the CT to be primarily in one faction, but still let people splash in other factions at no "cost".

I see aux support included, so you are wrong about that.

You would not be able to include those detachments in most matched play so no -4cp so it would be your CT or leave them at home. Or you could bring 1 IG troop and 2 Rough riders in your patrol. Such a huge difference. How would you play a fluffy AM list? Bring a single Regement? You can play all cadian all day. etc. Sure no bikes to troops, guess if you want a biker army you are looking at running that as your primary not a splash in, or you are taking a scout squad and 2 squads of bikes. It seriously is not as huge a deal as you are making it out to be.

Brenq77 wrote:I mean I really cannot think of to many armies that have no troops at all. You are looking at Inquisition, Sisters of Silence, Assassins. Am I missing any "armies" lacking troops. Custodes have no HQs, so again would need to be in a patrol with a separate HQ or aux support. Of these only inquisition can actually fill out any of the detachments right now as none of the others have HQ choices. So unless you are giving up your CT or including them in a separate detachment with an HQ from some other faction nothing changes here. I guess Knights? So you could only have a single knight without giving up your Chapter tactic.

Exactly, and I play two of the three armies you listed off the top of your head. I'm just saying it creates new problems we don't HAVE to introduce. And if your argument is "well you can still add a single knight without being punished" that's a pretty poor argument. Why exactly is having - for example - a Captain on Bike and 3 Squads of Bikers worse than bringing 1 Superheavy, and therefore cannot be allowed?

All you're achieving is forcing people to "monoarmy" just because you don't want to fix individual units, or don't like that people play "multiarmy" at all.

Not forcing anyone to mono-army, you have a choice, mono-army with restricted allies and get all your chapter benefits, or use the flexibility of not going mono-army and the power that entails and build whatever list you would like.

But I get it you want fully unrestricted army construction and no benefit for being mono-faction. Which is worse for balance, and blatantly unfair to factions that lack allies. Personally I don't like multi-armies, and would prefer that allies not be a thing at all in match play because it makes balancing the game much easier. Restricting to detachment for benefits is not even a hinderance. So right now if you have the option to soup, there is no reason not to do so beyond not wanting to. But given that is not happening, I would have preferred they made it only CT if you had full army of single faction, (or some other significant benefit to sticking to one faction) as it is I see armies all being constructed as follows.

Person plays IG

Well catachans faction gives the best buff to these tanks, so I'll take a spearhead of say catachans. Vostroyans give the best buff to my infantry so my battalion with conscripts will be Vostroyans, and Then these drop scions will be in my third tempestus detachment. So I get benefits from all 3 factions, essentially meaning I don't need to make any choices when I list build I just bring the best of everything.

OR instead the guy will replace his scion detachment with infiltrating ravenguard to engange unit turn 1. etc.


To me all the complaints read "I want to power game so I want all the chapter benefits regardless of my army composition." If it was about fluff why to tactics matter?

It could be even worse Valkyries flying around dropping off genestealers. ooh thats happening al ready

Breng77 is right 8th edition is about finding the best loopholes and then hammering your opponent in to the ground as hard as posible. dont get me wrong i like 8th edition a lot it does a lot of things right but the ballance is totally off .
i think its because GW wants to sell more cool stuff . coolstuff = $$ reguar toops and file are not so expencive

Redinc wrote:
It could be even worse Valkyries flying around dropping off genestealers. ooh thats happening al ready

Breng77 is right 8th edition is about finding the best loopholes and then hammering your opponent in to the ground as hard as posible. dont get me wrong i like 8th edition a lot it does a lot of things right but the ballance is totally off .
i think its because GW wants to sell more cool stuff . coolstuff = $$ reguar toops and file are not so expencive

Wanting to sell models is why what I would like to be the case never will. They want all imperial players to buy Celestine and Rowboat, they want players to buy across factions because it is what is best for sales. For instance Conscripts =$$. A box of IG is troops is $25-$30, for 10 models. So buying 120 of them means 12 x that amount or $300-$360 for about the same amount of points. They are among the most expensive per point models in the game. Big stuff by comparison is relatively cheap per point and Imperial Knight is ~$150 and is 3 times that many points.

@Breng77:
As you've stated that you see the proposed rules being used primarily in tournament play, I'll disregard considerations of how the proposed rules would impact other forms of gameplay as well as the notion that everyone who plays Matched Play is playing competitively and the comment about how my desire to have my "Alpha Legion" marines teach my "cultists" how to hold sniper rifles and and veteran weapons makes me a power gamer.

So in the context of tournament play...
If we acknowledge that imperial armies (and to a lesser extent, aeldari armies) have a marked advantage over other armies due to being able to "cherry pick" units from a wide variety of factions, and if we agree that the intent of a CP penalty or the loss of faction-specific rules is to mitigate that advantage, AND if we agree that we're prioritizing game balance over the ability to field a thematic army in a tournament context... then I would suggest that any kind of CP penalty or faction rule removal is kind of a half measure that will displease more people than it pleases.

Such penalties end up punishing mixed armies and rewarding mono armies in the name of balance while not directly addressing the "cherry picking" issue. You're treating symptoms instead of the cause, but you're doing so in a way that doesn't fully address the initial cause and introduces a lot of secondary problems.

So with that in mind, could we all agree that (in a tournament context), we might be better off banning multi-faction armies and then introducing special rules for those exceptions that don't work as their own armies? For instance, you might decide that your entire army has to share a <chapter> or <regiment> or <forgeworld> key word with the exception that custodes, anything inquisitorial (including Deathwatch, GK, and henchmen), sisters of silence, etc. can be included in an imperial army as part of whatever detachment(s) you're fielding?

So basically...
*Detachments would be unchanged
*Those tiny factions that don't work on their own would still be able to hang out with their more fleshed out counterparts
*You'd still get your faction-specific rules and stratagems, but they wouldn't affect those "microfaction" allies.
*You'd still get your normal number of CP.
*Cherry picking wouldn't be a thing beyond whatever benefits you can take form those microfactions.

You could work out a similar setup for genestealer cults, ynnari, and maybe harlequins (since they only kind of work as a monofaction army).

Thoughts?

I think that straight up banning allies could work, but would upset far more people than had GW designed the rules in such a was as to provide additional benefits to people who restrict themselves to a single faction. In the end anything not written by GW makes people unhappy.

Right now there is absolutely no benefit to sticking to a single faction. The only reason you see people receiving additional benefits for being single faction as a punishment to those that don't is because right now they don't get anything and basically nothing is restricted.

Let me put it this way if <chapter> tactics had originally been formatted as follows:
"IF you have a detachment of wholly of <chapter> you get X benefit, in addition if your entire army is wholly composed of <chapter> you get Y benefit"


Would you have considered that "punishing" mixed armies. If so you do sound like a power gamer because it reads as "unless my guys always get to be at their optimal power, regardless of my choices, I'm being punished."

For instance, nothing stops you in my suggested system of taking your "Alpha Legion" and allying in Guard. IN my original suggestion you simply don't get your chapter benefits, if all you care about is fluff, that shouldn't matter much. In my second suggestion (one patrol or aux which themselves get no chapter tactics) would allow you to take your guard, and run with your tactics, but the guard wouldn't be as good as they are in a guard army.

Breng77 wrote:


Let me put it this way if <chapter> tactics had originally been formatted as follows:
"IF you have a detachment of wholly of <chapter> you get X benefit, in addition if your entire army is wholly composed of <chapter> you get Y benefit"


Would you have considered that "punishing" mixed armies. If so you do sound like a power gamer because it reads as "unless my guys always get to be at their optimal power, regardless of my choices, I'm being punished."

I get your point. If GW had introduced faction-specific rules differently, I would feel differently. The thing is that we've all started getting used to having access to faction-specific rules, so it's going to feel like we're losing options if we... er... lose options.

"We're not taking away your internet access to punish you, Timmy. We're just implementing a new reward-based system where you gain access to the internet by not hanging out with that pesky guardsman friend of yours any more." There may be merit to Timmy's parents' new system, but Timmy probably isn't going to be happy about the change.

Breng77 wrote:

For instance, nothing stops you in my suggested system of taking your "Alpha Legion" and allying in Guard. IN my original suggestion you simply don't get your chapter benefits, if all you care about is fluff, that shouldn't matter much.

In the case of the Alpha Legion example, I mostly want chapter tactics so that I can infiltrate, thus representing the sneaky ambush tactics favored by Alpha Legion. In the case of the Guard, I mostly want to show that my AL marines took the time to train and supply their cultists/sparatoi rather rather just herding them into a blender. In both cases, it isn't about winning games and getting an edge over my opponents to prove my virility through tabletop gaming. It's about telling a story. Sure, I could play non-infiltrating, non-sneaky marines that rush forward bolters blazing alongside a horde of mindless cultsits, but that tells a very different story from the marines who lure the enemy in with a contingent of mortal "cultists," only to spring from the shadows and close the jaws of the trap. Without the faction-specific ability to infiltrate my marines, I could just as easily be playing word bearers or imperial fists. It's like trying to run a fluffy white scars list without bikes.

"Trust me. I know nobody is riding a bike, but they all have bikes back at base, and their preferred method of waging war is with said bikes. This squad of assault marines moves fast, so you can kind of pretend they're fighting like bikers, okay?"

But yeah. No. I'm clearly only interested in fielding guard and marine models together for the sake of power gaming.

Breng77 wrote:
In my second suggestion (one patrol or aux which themselves get no chapter tactics) would allow you to take your guard, and run with your tactics, but the guard wouldn't be as good as they are in a guard army.

I personally would be okay with this. The above example of my alpha legion army would be represented just fine without the guardsmen getting extra bonuses. That said, I could see a player feeling that his theme is not so well represented if both factions of his army relied on certain stratagems to feel like that faction. If someone wants to field Iron Hands terminators alongside that admech forgeworld that does all the teleporting to represent a teleportation-crazed custom chapter and their mortal allies, I say go for it. As I've stated above, I think there's a lot of merit to banning allies in competitive play. I see no need to also restrict people in more casual games, and some of us do, in fact, use matched play rules for casual games.

I'm aware of how GW released things my idea is more how I wish they had done it rather than thinking it will actually change (it isn't going to). My wish before codices were released was to see things like chapter tactics be things that encouraged you to run single faction (which is kind of what I heard was going to be the case) but they don't in any meaningful way.

As to the power gaming of it you could infiltrate with scouts instead, but like I said I would probably lean to the second option in general. If you are interested in story why not just play narrative with points (nothing prevents this) matched play already puts some restrictions on "story" (limits on reserves, psychic focus) and suggested detachment limits.

I understand not everyone plays tournaments as matched play, but almost everyone using matched play is interested in having "competitive" games where things are balanced. Story and Balance in 40k are somewhat at cross purposes. Fluffy space marines would not be balanced, fluffy rules allow for the broken "allies" system where some factions get 10 choices of allies and others get none.

The way I look at it is this, in purely casual games nothing stops you from doing anything you want, house ruling things etc. If no one is concerned about "winning" which to me defines competitive (if you care about winning the game you are being competitive), if you want to tell a cool story on the table and don't care win or lose then nothing prevents you from doing anything.

The issue with "do x in tournaments" but not in Casual is unless they are separate written rules it hurts casual play because tournament rules trickle down to many casual environments, and the ones in which they don't, don't need permission to do whatever they want.

Maybe it is just my meta and every store I've been to, but I rarely see people making armies like you suggest, unless it is for the purpose of their army being more capable on the table.

SO "my AL trained these cultists to be elite" is typically just a fluff justification for running say tempestus scions with their "Alpha Legion"

That may not be the case for your group, but it is my experience.

In the end I was really hoping GW would give some benefit for sticking to a faction because a lot of people want factions to stand alone. They have chosen not to do that at all, and I think the game is worse for it. Because as I said, it leads to things like

"these marines are raven guard, and these marines are iron hands, and these over here are ultra marines, yeah the ones standing next to Rowboat."

I understand you can fluff justify that army, but usually it is

"I want -1 to hit and infiltrate on these units, I want FNP and x relic on these, and I want Rowboat and re-rolls."

IG really reinforce this feeling for me because I really think I'll end up seeing one regiment of infantry, and another of artillery etc.

Breng77 wrote:

IG really reinforce this feeling for me because I really think I'll end up seeing one regiment of infantry, and another of artillery etc.

What's the problem with that? IG regiments are supposed to be monolithic. Combined arms regiments are the exception not the norm.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

IG really reinforce this feeling for me because I really think I'll end up seeing one regiment of infantry, and another of artillery etc.

What's the problem with that? IG regiments are supposed to be monolithic. Combined arms regiments are the exception not the norm.

And combining those regiments to cover each other is also the norm.

Because it is power games, and no I don't remember tons of fluff about cadian infantry deployed with catachan artillery. Further evern fewer people will model it appropriately, but instead just use the most powerful rules.

Apparently in order for fluff to work these days people want no restrictions on the game, which is something I don't find balanced or enjoyable.

Yep, it's effective on the table and it's fluffy. That's perfect and more of that would be great.

Also, there is loads of fluff about regiments from different worlds being deployed together. See the gaunt series, just for example - every deployment sees regiments from multiple worlds deployed together.

Breng77 wrote:
Because it is power games, and no I don't remember tons of fluff about cadian infantry deployed with catachan artillery. Further evern fewer people will model it appropriately, but instead just use the most powerful rules.

Apparently in order for fluff to work these days people want no restrictions on the game, which is something I don't find balanced or enjoyable.

Well it's not anyone elses fault if you're ignorant of the Imperial Guards organizational structures. I don't know if there's an instance of specifically Catachan Artillery and Cadian Infantry, but some exerpts from http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Astra_Militarum :

Almost without fail, regiments are composed of one primary service arm, be it artillery, infantry, armour, or specialists such as Abhumans."

Some planets are able to raise a variety of regiments. Cadia or Armageddon, for example, are huge worlds embroiled in seemingly endless wars whose populace are given ample opportunity to train in various aspects of warfare. By comparison, other worlds take great and often justifiable pride in their reputation for training a specific kind of regiment to exceptional standards. The pale-skinned, dark-eyed stealth infantry of the Night World Prometheron or the clockwork discipline of the Kalatian artillery brigades are excellent examples of this. Feral or Feudal Worlds, on the other hand, often provide only infantry or Rough Rider regiments, thus circumventing a huge potential culture shock.

As a result of this policy, regiments are required to work together in combined arms formations known as battle groups or task forces.

Just look up pretty much any engagement the Imperial Guard had. It's pretty rare that a multi-regiment encounter is NOT sourced from multiple planets.

The issue with things like soup for that type of strategem is that IG allows people to cheaply fill out battalions or even brigades, so now I can infiltrate my entire ravenguard part of my army at what amounts to little cost tactically later in game.

You loose initiative for sure, how is that "little cost"? For 9 CP you'll add at the very least 3HQ6Troop3Elite3Heavy3FA units, that's 18 drops. And you can't mitigate that without investing further points for transports. And if you leave all of those units bare-bone, you're wasting a quarter of your army at 2000pts.

I often run my Guard with a lot more than 9CP, just Guard. A proper build can get you 23 CP for 2000pts, taking advantage of how Guard have models that grant extra CP.