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.

 Commissar Benny wrote:

Until GW enforces the following:

Matched play - No allies. No imperial soup lists. Only pure army lists.

Narrative play - Allies, do whatever you want.

IG is going to continue to get screwed over.

As a side effect, this also speeds up the game. People only need to know one Codex's special rules instead of 10, only have one book to search through for profiles or whatever, and the number of edge-case uncontemplated rules interactions goes way down.

I feel ITC will need to do this, as GW won't. ITC needs to set things for better tournament play, whether that's dropping the points of the game, making it so you can't take multiple detachments, limiting to 1 faction, adding a percentage restriction on Lords of War, or whatever it may be.

I don't find anything wrong with that. Its okay to have a tournament pack that changes the base construction rules of the game to ensure a better game. But I don't think GW will do (or is capable of doing) that, so the onus IMHO falls onto ITC as the de facto tournament circuit of 40k. The majority of tournaments seem to use ITC rules anyways, so if they come up with a change it will be almost universally accepted, probably more than if it came from GW.

I think at the very least, there needs to be a limit on the detachments. being able to take 3 detachments to min/max CP is a problem in and of itself. Allowing stratagems gained from one to affect another too IMHO. ITC should curb that. Either it needs to be only 1 detachment, or maybe you cannot take the same detachment more than once, or even detachments after the first award no CP. But they need to do something.

 Arachnofiend wrote:


A) The primarchs were nowhere to be seen on the top tables and B) they nerfed Magnus in the Thousand Sons codex, increasing his points cost by 30 and removing his reroll-invuln-saves aura.

And? The lists at the bottom 10 tables were more than likely also highly overpowered if you look at the game as a whole, not just the tourney scene as a self-selected and highly biased sub-sample of the game.

There are thousands of lists I can think of that will auto-lose against any one of the Primarchs. Just because those lists don't show up in the tournament biotope doesn't mean GW game designers get to ignore those.

Thats my problem with the tournament mentality being so strong in the game. The tournament scene has about 5% of the overall game present, but that 5% is to a lot of people 100% of the game and the rest doesn't matter.

There are thousands of lists I can think of that will auto-lose against any one of the Primarchs. Just because those lists don't show up in the tournament biotope doesn't mean GW game designers get to ignore those.

Very well stated.

Breng77 wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
So let me get this straight.

LVO 2016, 3 of the top 8 lists were Eldar.
LVO 2017, 2 of the top 8 lists were Eldar.
LVO 2018 come 8th edition, 5 of the top 8 lists are Eldar.

Am I missing anything here?

Small sample size. LVO is not representative of all tournaments. Chaos Daemons took the top spot at NOVA or Adepticon at least one of those years.

While I realize international players attend tournaments everywhere these days, there's still a regional element to each one. My bet is that Eldar are well represented by competitive players from SoCal and that's why we see this trend.

To be fair 2 of those 5 Eldar players are from the North East I believe, so I'm not sure there is a SoCal eldar bias.

Good point, and, for that matter, if there were a Southwest Eldar bias, it could be assumed that other regional players would have developed counters to a strong Eldar meta.

But I still don't see the trend as representative. Eldar are not dominating other tournaments. They have a good Codex but not as good as 7th edition, with all the D-weapons and undercosted units.

It's okay for them to win with something a little more balanced. : )

Sunny Side Up wrote:


There are thousands of lists I can think of that will auto-lose against any one of the Primarchs. Just because those lists don't show up in the tournament biotope doesn't mean GW game designers get to ignore those.

There's a limit. You can't just take anything and expect to win. There needs to be some accountability on the player's end.

Funny... I've been reading all the AoS rules of late and it's really interesting to see that are some things in AoS that just... well they just SHOULD be in 40k. And I say this as a player whose first love is Imperial Soup. I have Inquisition, AdMech, Marines, Deathwatch, Guard and a Knight.

So anyway in AoS you choose an Allegiance.
Your Allegiance can be a wide one like ORDER (read: IMPERIUM)
Or it can be a single codex one like SERAPHON (read: ADEPTUS ASTARTES)

The benefits you get from taking a single codex Allegiance seem to be huge. And in a 2000 point list you can only take 20% of allies units before you lose your Allegiance and lose access to all the relics, warlord traits and special abilities that are totally central to the power of the codex.

I would welcome this in 40k Matched play. Yes you can have a CHAOS or IMPERIUM army but you just get the generic and slightly rubbish benefits. If you want the BLOOD ANGELS specific benefits you love so much, your list needs to be 80% that with max 400 points of Soup

It would certainly help the total pick and choose situation we have now.

Why would they create this system for AoS and not use it for 40k?? The only reason I can think is Lords of War who are >400 points... like Imperial Knights... you just flat out couldnt take one without screwing your army up

 auticus wrote:
There are thousands of lists I can think of that will auto-lose against any one of the Primarchs. Just because those lists don't show up in the tournament biotope doesn't mean GW game designers get to ignore those.

I lost to Tyranids, Eldar, tied to Space-Wolves.

I tore super-friends apart.

Rock-Paper-Scissors.

At least that's been my experience so far, but I tore up super-friends at SCO also.

I think the LoW-based armies are really starting to show their flaws. If they don't go first they have serious problems.

 Silentz wrote:
Funny... I've been reading all the AoS rules of late and it's really interesting to see that are some things in AoS that just... well they just SHOULD be in 40k. And I say this as a player whose first love is Imperial Soup. I have Inquisition, AdMech, Marines, Deathwatch, Guard and a Knight.

So anyway in AoS you choose an Allegiance.
Your Allegiance can be a wide one like ORDER (read: IMPERIUM)
Or it can be a single codex one like SERAPHON (read: ADEPTUS ASTARTES)

The benefits you get from taking a single codex Allegiance seem to be huge. And in a 2000 point list you can only take 20% of allies units before you lose your Allegiance and lose access to all the relics, warlord traits and special abilities that are totally central to the power of the codex.

I would welcome this in 40k Matched play. Yes you can have a CHAOS or IMPERIUM army but you just get the generic and slightly rubbish benefits. If you want the BLOOD ANGELS specific benefits you love so much, your list needs to be 80% that with max 400 points of Soup

It would certainly help the total pick and choose situation we have now.

Why would they create this system for AoS and not use it for 40k?? The only reason I can think is Lords of War who are >400 points... like Imperial Knights... you just flat out couldnt take one without screwing your army up

Absolutely. Soup is a huge issue in 40k because you can have your cake and eat it too. You can mix and match detachments that get the best of both worlds, while in AOS mixing armies means you lose out on some specific benefits but gain versatility in unit types. It absolutely should be in 40k. In fact, I think the detachment rules are worse than formations were in 7th

I personally think soup armies are infinitely more interesting than pure armies. I've always found 40k armies a little bland and repetitive, but the soup provides a more varied set of roles on the table with the keyword restriction doing a better job of keeping things aesthetically coherent than the allies system did in the past.

I agree with LunarSol on soup armies (a detachment of Sisters of Battle fighting alongside an Inquisitor with some Guardsmen and Mechanicus forces sounds cool and fun, for example).

 LunarSol wrote:
I personally think soup armies are infinitely more interesting than pure armies. I've always found 40k armies a little bland and repetitive, but the soup provides a more varied set of roles on the table with the keyword restriction doing a better job of keeping things aesthetically coherent than the allies system did in the past.

I definitely think it creates a paradigm where you get to see some really inventive lists (which is probably my favorite part of the game). It has it's problems and makes balancing a nightmare, but I prefer the game with it more than without it.

My issue with soup is that there is no downside (or upside) to not doing it.

Breng77 wrote:
My issue with soup is that there is no downside (or upside) to not doing it.

There is plenty downside. You lose traits unless you pay an HQ tax

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I personally think soup armies are infinitely more interesting than pure armies. I've always found 40k armies a little bland and repetitive, but the soup provides a more varied set of roles on the table with the keyword restriction doing a better job of keeping things aesthetically coherent than the allies system did in the past.

I definitely think it creates a paradigm where you get to see some really inventive lists (which is probably my favorite part of the game). It has it's problems and makes balancing a nightmare, but I prefer the game with it more than without it.

In terms of balance, I agree with you that it causes balance powers yet at same time solves balance issues by creating more tools. So it definitely creates balance problems in many ways that we sort of all agree on in terms of CP batteries, shared stratagems, etc. However, Soup does give you more tools to use to counter a crazy meta list by giving you more options. Instead of being limited to your codex, you now have more tools to counter something. If you were limited to only one faction and you're faction was underpowered or not well-fleshed out, you kind of just had an up the hill battle or was S-O-L. So it's really a back and fro thing.

However, one could argue that Imperium, Chaos, and Eldar don't really need Soup since they are the large popular factions and have always tended to have above average faction rules and models. What about Xenos? Will they ever get to run Soup? If Tau, Orks, and Necrons don't get Soup-like options, then they are going to be at a disadvantage. To compensate, you would have to make an automatically more powerful codex than armies with Soup options since you only have one tool set. Tyranids is just one data point, but I'd be curious to see what happens as more Xenos gets released and what Soup options if any they have...

Soup armies have the potential to be interesting or a good excuse to crack out those two random cool models you like but dont want to build an army around. In practice, most of the time they are cookie cutter mix-n-match lists that are trying to get the best out of multiple worlds without having to eat any drawbacks. Personally, I'd be much happier without soup or having a whole lot more restrictions on them.

Soup lists are also somewhat jarring thematically. In a game the scale of 40k, you wouldnt actually see so many factions interoperating at such a close tactical level so often. It detracts from the setting and immersion when you see the grand panoply of the full Imperium on harmonious display in almost every battle, though I have much the same issue with named characters

 Vaktathi wrote:
Soup armies have the potential to be interesting or a good excuse to crack out those two random cool models you like but dont want to build an army around. In practice, most of the time they are cookie cutter mix-n-match lists that are trying to get the best out of multiple worlds without having to eat any drawbacks. Personally, I'd be much happier without soup or having a whole lot more restrictions on them.

Soup lists are also somewhat jarring thematically. In a game the scale of 40k, you wouldnt actually see so many factions interoperating at such a close tactical level so often. It detracts from the setting and immersion when you see the grand panoply of the full Imperium on harmonious display in almost every battle, though I have much the same issue with named characters

I mean it depends on your narrative interpretation.

I'm reminded of the battle on Chaeronia, which is easily a platoon scale conflict. An Archmagos Veneratus (essentially Cawl version 0.7), 20 Skitarii, and a Tech-Priest data-access lady thing fight alongside a squad of Grey Knight Terminators to retake a Forge World from Chaos Daemons and Dark Mechanicus.

That's like, a platoon scale conflict, with two soup factions on both sides, and makes sense and is conceivably fairly common. I'm not really sure why people would not want this sort of thing to be able to be replicated on the Table Top, even in non-narrative formats.

hoya4life3381 wrote:
To compensate, you would have to make an automatically more powerful codex than armies with Soup options since you only have one tool set. Tyranids is just one data point, but I'd be curious to see what happens as more Xenos gets released and what Soup options if any they have...

Tyranids can soup with GSC and AM at least.

Orks, Tau, and Necrons could use any soup options.

I suspect after they get all the initial codices out and into the wild they may start doing scenario books that contain a units or two for a few different factions. For example, a Battle for Armageddon scenario book may have a couple AM units, a couple Ork units, a couple Chaos units and a couple Space Marine units. Add in a couple relics and/or stratagems also and chances are you're selling that book to a lot of players.

That would be the easy way to gradually adjust balance, introduce new models, and plug holes in various faction lists IMO.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Soup lists are also somewhat jarring thematically. In a game the scale of 40k, you wouldnt actually see so many factions interoperating at such a close tactical level so often. It detracts from the setting and immersion when you see the grand panoply of the full Imperium on harmonious display in almost every battle, though I have much the same issue with named characters

It depends on how they're done. I've always hated how not.... special space marines feel when they're your basic line troop. Including them with guard makes power armor vastly more interesting. I do think the system works a lot better when there's a strong enough incentive to keep detatchments "pure" and while I like named characters, they probably don't quite get the rules they should to keep them from being casually tossed in supreme commands. I think that's a pretty minor drawback overall though and the system as a whole brings the game together in a really exciting way that hasn't worked before. Now if they'd just replace the codex system with something that actually supports this...

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
My issue with soup is that there is no downside (or upside) to not doing it.

There is plenty downside. You lose traits unless you pay an HQ tax

For SM is Celestine a tax?
For DE, is a Farseer or Spiritseer a tax?
For Nids is a GSC Primus a tax?
For SoB is a Captain with 3++, jump, Thunderhammer, or is taking IG Sly Marbo a tax?
For Aeldari is Yvarine a tax?

The answer is no, they are units players will want anyways, or make a use for. A tax is 7th ed Corsairs "Oh you want more than 2 Fast and 1 Heavy? Well you need 1 HQ and 1 Troop to unlock 2FA and 1H" Oh you wanted to play with 4 Heavys? That will be 5 HQ's and 4 troops"

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
My issue with soup is that there is no downside (or upside) to not doing it.

There is plenty downside. You lose traits unless you pay an HQ tax

For SM is Celestine a tax?
For DE, is a Farseer or Spiritseer a tax?
For Nids is a GSC Primus a tax?
For SoB is a Captain with 3++, jump, Thunderhammer, or is taking IG Sly Marbo a tax?
For Aeldari is Yvarine a tax?

The answer is no, they are units players will want anyways, or make a use for. A tax is 7th ed Corsairs "Oh you want more than 2 Fast and 1 Heavy? Well you need 1 HQ and 1 Troop to unlock 2FA and 1H" Oh you wanted to play with 4 Heavys? That will be 5 HQ's and 4 troops"

Correct this is where theory and real practicality fall apart. An HQ choice is a unit selection tax from a construct point of view. However, if it's so good, then it's not a tax. Reminds me of the old Iron Warriors "tax" in 4th edition. They had to give up 2 FA choices which were garbage to get 1 extra HS choice which could be an IG Basilisk. Yeah giving up 2 FA choices was a "tax", but was it really?

Celestine was that way but I think that's been changed. Assassins were actually less common than I expected in LVO from the lists I have seen so I was kind of shocked. I guess everyone just took Primaris psychers in an AM battalion rather than go for Assassins in a Vanguard.

It really is hard to balance this cross-factional world they have developed.

I love the idea of soup-armies, but mainly for narrative play only. I do agree that the unbound/no-penalty nature of them will absolutely up-end and ruin tournaments or the enjoyment some people might get from them. I said many months ago I believe major tournaments will have to create their own limitations on army builds going forward. There's no doubting that something like Chaos or Imperium soup is going to become impossible to counter if you're using just a single codex from another army.

What I'd love to see?

A) I think the "one codex, one army" limitation would be great for tournaments. I do. You'll have a couple of codices which don't cut it, but that's the nature of the game. GW never promised anybody a tight tournament-crushing codex.

B) Something I really wish GW had done was to assign named characters a limitation which applies to the army. Primarchs being limited to an army which shares their specific key word (Guilliman may only be taken if every unit in the army is <Ultramarines>, etc.) and then for lesser named characters - only taken if the detachment matches their specific key word. This should have been introduced (at least in Match Play) from the beginning. However all of my ideas hinder one thing: selling more grey plastic.

GW has moved on 100% away from balance/game rules/fluff. While fun, the game itself is incredibly obviously aimed at pushing more and more plastic. So that means it'll be up to the Tournament organizers to create their own limitations to perhaps balance the game.

What I enjoy hearing though is the teeth gnashing when something ultra-competitive is removed or adjusted. If you think you're good enough to win a tournament, can you prove it without a spammed netlist? I would think a truly competitive player would want the challenge.

 Elbows wrote:
I love the idea of soup-armies, but mainly for narrative play only. I do agree that the unbound/no-penalty nature of them will absolutely up-end and ruin tournaments or the enjoyment some people might get from them. I said many months ago I believe major tournaments will have to create their own limitations on army builds going forward. There's no doubting that something like Chaos or Imperium soup is going to become impossible to counter if you're using just a single codex from another army.

What I'd love to see?

A) I think the "one codex, one army" limitation would be great for tournaments. I do. You'll have a couple of codices which don't cut it, but that's the nature of the game. GW never promised anybody a tight tournament-crushing codex.

B) Something I really wish GW had done was to assign named characters a limitation which applies to the army. Primarchs being limited to an army which shares their specific key word (Guilliman may only be taken if every unit in the army is <Ultramarines>, etc.) and then for lesser named characters - only taken if the detachment matches their specific key word. This should have been introduced (at least in Match Play) from the beginning. However all of my ideas hinder one thing: selling more grey plastic.

GW has moved on 100% away from balance/game rules/fluff. While fun, the game itself is incredibly obviously aimed at pushing more and more plastic. So that means it'll be up to the Tournament organizers to create their own limitations to perhaps balance the game.

What I enjoy hearing though is the teeth gnashing when something ultra-competitive is removed or adjusted. If you think you're good enough to win a tournament, can you prove it without a spammed netlist? I would think a truly competitive player would want the challenge.

So if you can only take Named Characters in armies that match their character...

then why can Guilliman buff Imperium units?
why does Celestine buff Astra Militarum units?
why does Inquisitor Grefax buff Imperium units?
why can Belisarius Cawl repair Imperium units?

Soup is absolutely fluffy (yay!), absolutely intended by the rules (awesome!), can make for a neat-looking army (cool!), and isn't unbalanceable (good!).

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
My issue with soup is that there is no downside (or upside) to not doing it.

There is plenty downside. You lose traits unless you pay an HQ tax

For SM is Celestine a tax?
For DE, is a Farseer or Spiritseer a tax?
For Nids is a GSC Primus a tax?
For SoB is a Captain with 3++, jump, Thunderhammer, or is taking IG Sly Marbo a tax?
For Aeldari is Yvarine a tax?

The answer is no, they are units players will want anyways, or make a use for. A tax is 7th ed Corsairs "Oh you want more than 2 Fast and 1 Heavy? Well you need 1 HQ and 1 Troop to unlock 2FA and 1H" Oh you wanted to play with 4 Heavys? That will be 5 HQ's and 4 troops"

The idea that having access to a variety of units is a downside or can be referred to as a tax is hilarious.

Especially with HQ slots, which tend to provide rather premium units either in cost or ability.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
My issue with soup is that there is no downside (or upside) to not doing it.

There is plenty downside. You lose traits unless you pay an HQ tax

So like I said no real downside, paying a 30 point tax for guard with traits is hardly a downside. Unless you are playing a single detachment this is a non-issue. Most people take extra detachment for CP, so you were already buying HQ choices. At which point no tax exists. Essentially there is no actual downside for playing soup armies.

Should there be a downside to souping?

Souping is the status quo of the game right now, so I'm not really sure why it needs downsides. It's the expected, desired outcome.

It doesn't need a downside, it just needs to be controlled. Bring back the concept of allies and allied detachments. Just heavily restricted. (for example, no humans + tau or eldar + tau nonsense).

 Marmatag wrote:
It doesn't need a downside, it just needs to be controlled. Bring back the concept of allies and allied detachments. Just heavily restricted. (for example, no humans + tau or eldar + tau nonsense).

That's essentially what the keyword system accomplishes, no?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Should there be a downside to souping?

Souping is the status quo of the game right now, so I'm not really sure why it needs downsides. It's the expected, desired outcome.

The down side to souping is that you dont get to benefit from built in benefits like auras (for the most part)

its also too easy to add in additional detachments to avoid losing other benefits like chapter tactics and stuff.

the only real option outside of rehauling the detachment rules is to limit events to 1-2 detachments or a specific detachment that everyone must build into.

 Desubot wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Should there be a downside to souping?

Souping is the status quo of the game right now, so I'm not really sure why it needs downsides. It's the expected, desired outcome.

The down side to souping is that you dont get to benefit from built in benefits like auras (for the most part)

its also too easy to add in additional detachments to avoid losing other benefits like chapter tactics and stuff.

the only real option outside of rehauling the detachment rules is to limit events to 1-2 detachments or a specific detachment that everyone must build into.

Why is souping bad?