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At the outset of 8th Ed., GW promised "extra special bonuses for themed armies". I would be fine with limiting stratagems and faction bonuses in ways that limit cross-faction sharing.

I'm going to have to agree that the only stratagems an army may use are the ones available to the Warlord.

Armies will still be able to "soup", and many units not of the Warlord's codex will still be able to benefit from a number of stratagems, but it will make soup less of an "I win" button.

 Grimgold wrote:
Top two predictions, a limit of three non-troops units per army, and you can select one detachment to be your primary and that is the only faction you get stratagems for.

Second one seems prefectly fine, firs tone would be better if it allowed DTs as well IMO

Sure going to cut down on the number of Warlords from armies without Codexes...

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Sure going to cut down on the number of Warlords from armies without Codexes...

That's not the worst thing, as that's already a shrinking number with the release of codexes.

I like fluffy soup. Cypher allows me to run imperial and chaos but I don’t get many strategem to use. Still is fun to play with.

If for nothing else than to watch DA players get all TFG.

well if they limit stratagems to just your warlord, an easy fix/add-on would be to make more generic stratagems anyone can use

Is no reason the game wouldn't be fine with 8 or so generic but useful stratagems everyone could use.

You could even use stratagems some armies have but make them an extra CP in its generic form.

Ynnari dies with ”only the Warlord’s stratagems” meaning no stratagems whatsoever for Ynnari armies. That’s a good thing by the way. It also blocks Eldar from souping a small Drukhari spearhead for ”counterspell” and Imperials for many many all-purpose stratagems. The nearly unbeatable Pox/Cultist horde also needs stratagems from two sources to function and will die with this restriction.

Funnily enough, many tournaments have used this exact comp restriction (3max and only wl gems) for over 6 months already.

Dudeface wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Arguably its just a nice protection for the consumer. Listen bud, if you think something is good enough that you should run 4 of them, its probably good enough that we're going to have to nerf it into the ground, so why don't you be a dear and limit yourself to only buying 3 of them before we make them obsolete. Okay?

I'd love to have more than one unit that GW point priced correctly in the codex, or chapter approved. Untill then you just have to take the least terrible option and attempt to make an army from that.


If you seriously think this will force people into taking larger squads your deluding yourself, thats never happening, squads loose points efficiency as you add models, thats just a quick way to get peiple to shelve armies.

That one unit is not priced correctly or people wouldn't want 6 of them, if everyone thing all units are sub par then they're even, hence balanced in theory.

Yeah its so undercosted and OP. It's the most cost effective units in the codex and they are still not worth being part of an imperial soup tournament list. Yeah for codex marines chasing grey nights into never being seen on a table again.

 Grimgold wrote:
Top two predictions, a limit of three non-troops units per army, and you can select one detachment to be your primary and that is the only faction you get stratagems for.

It's interesting that you have one that makes balance worse and one that makes balance marginally(but not significantly) better.

Are you a GW rules writer from 7th? Because that was absolutely their MO.


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 Carnikang wrote:

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Sure going to cut down on the number of Warlords from armies without Codexes...

That's not the worst thing, as that's already a shrinking number with the release of codexes.

But it's not gonna be zero until at least mid 2019 is it? Cause SoB aren't coming out until then and even with a beta codex, they won't really be a 'codex' army. They'll have a book built around having all of their units cut in half. Imagine if you got all the strategems and other stuff custodes got but still only had the one box of troops and that's about where they'll be at.

ERJAK wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Sure going to cut down on the number of Warlords from armies without Codexes...

That's not the worst thing, as that's already a shrinking number with the release of codexes.

But it's not gonna be zero until at least mid 2019 is it? Cause SoB aren't coming out until then and even with a beta codex, they won't really be a 'codex' army. They'll have a book built around having all of their units cut in half. Imagine if you got all the strategems and other stuff custodes got but still only had the one box of troops and that's about where they'll be at.

I did say that's not the worst thing. I didn't say that it wasn't a bad thing. It's just meh. It really sucks for orks, sisters, Space wolves, Genestealer cult, and those who's codexes come out soon, meaning Knights, Harlies and Deathwatch. Y'nnari are in a weird place as I don't even know if it's been said if they are getting a codex or not at all.
So. You could be Y'nnari.

While I do not think making all units (other than troops and whatever other exceptions are made) 0-3 solves all of the games problems, I am having trouble seeing how it would make the game worse.

I don't know if i have ever written a list or played against a list where i saw 4 or 6 or 8 of the same unit and though "oh yeah this game is going to be interesting." 3 of a unit tends to be about my threshold for where effective redundancy tips over into unimaginativeness.

I definitely think that most of the time we take 3+ of a unit because there is a balance issue of some kind (usually one unit is too good, or every other unit is too bad) and that those issues should be addressed, but in a perfect world of balance it seems to me that a 0-3 limitation would still be fine to promote variety, due to the inherent strength of unit redundancy, which is something that can be hard to balance under the current system.

So it seems to me that with minimal changes, a 0-3 system could work. I would probably be on board with certain factions having some exceptions for fluff reasons (SM bikers, deathwing, etc), and some other rule changes (like probably get rid of or limit most vehicle squadrons).

I am not sure that perfect balance for 40k will ever be attainable, but it seems like it would be easier to reach with a 0-3 limit than without.

 Carnikang wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Sure going to cut down on the number of Warlords from armies without Codexes...

That's not the worst thing, as that's already a shrinking number with the release of codexes.

But it's not gonna be zero until at least mid 2019 is it? Cause SoB aren't coming out until then and even with a beta codex, they won't really be a 'codex' army. They'll have a book built around having all of their units cut in half. Imagine if you got all the strategems and other stuff custodes got but still only had the one box of troops and that's about where they'll be at.

I did say that's not the worst thing. I didn't say that it wasn't a bad thing. It's just meh. It really sucks for orks, sisters, Space wolves, Genestealer cult, and those who's codexes come out soon, meaning Knights, Harlies and Deathwatch. Y'nnari are in a weird place as I don't even know if it's been said if they are getting a codex or not at all.
So. You could be Y'nnari.

Those factions have no stratagems anyway (other than generic and the one CA one), so how does it suck for them? Genestealer cult can't use Tyranids, Sisters can't use marines, Orks can't use anyone. Just means the warlord with warlord trait and relics comes from another faction for now. Or no difference.

Wolves are a little different, as there are a couple of marine strats they can use. But when they do theirs, going to be at least 50% marine anyway

I honestly think all these proposed solutions are just bad.

Hoping this big FAQ isnt nearly as game changing as we all assume.

If all you're stuck with is a single pool of Strategems, then we will just cherry pick units for even more Soupy lists than ever.

Strategems were the only things forcing strict detachment requirements.

Tastyfish wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
Sure going to cut down on the number of Warlords from armies without Codexes...

That's not the worst thing, as that's already a shrinking number with the release of codexes.

But it's not gonna be zero until at least mid 2019 is it? Cause SoB aren't coming out until then and even with a beta codex, they won't really be a 'codex' army. They'll have a book built around having all of their units cut in half. Imagine if you got all the strategems and other stuff custodes got but still only had the one box of troops and that's about where they'll be at.

I did say that's not the worst thing. I didn't say that it wasn't a bad thing. It's just meh. It really sucks for orks, sisters, Space wolves, Genestealer cult, and those who's codexes come out soon, meaning Knights, Harlies and Deathwatch. Y'nnari are in a weird place as I don't even know if it's been said if they are getting a codex or not at all.
So. You could be Y'nnari.

Those factions have no stratagems anyway (other than generic and the one CA one), so how does it suck for them? Genestealer cult can't use Tyranids, Sisters can't use marines, Orks can't use anyone. Just means the warlord with warlord trait and relics comes from another faction for now. Or no difference.

Wolves are a little different, as there are a couple of marine strats they can use. But when they do theirs, going to be at least 50% marine anyway

Sisters have 2 extremely good strategems actually. We can just stop any spell on a 4+ and we can Soulburt when a character dies. Losing those because I had 175pts of Custodes bike captain filling out the SoBs complete lack of options seems excessive.

I agree that having access to 3 codexes worth of strategems isn't something that should be allowed but a lot of the suggestions for fixing them are more punishing to the weaker parts of soup lists than the stronger ones.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
I honestly think all these proposed solutions are just bad.

Hoping this big FAQ isnt nearly as game changing as we all assume.

I agree. I feel like most people here don't even play the game. Adding across the board restrictions should not even be considered at this point. There are really only a handful of actual problematic units/interactions and they should be dealt with on there own. Also, a friend plays Grey Knights and I'm not sure even a 30% points reduction would help. Hopefully they don't have to wait till the end of the year.

Rather then a hard limit, I’d prefer to see a tax on extra duplicate units to make spam less cost effective, but still possible for fluffy reasons.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
restricting how many units you can take'll never happen, it won't touch the high end armies but it will hurt armies like custodes, grey knights and other armies that have limited avaliable options.

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Specialist armies just need an additional sentence in their FAQ stating they ignore the usual unit restriction.

So you are making exceptions and looparounds for stupid blanket restriction that shouldn't exists anyway since it just breaks the balance without actually fixing the problem.

Good job! Actually that sounds a lot like the GW designers would do. They are experts on breaking balance and ignoring problems.


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 Daedalus81 wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
GW had to have a baseline of what they wanted in the FAQ before Adepticon. What could they have possibly added that takes this long to shoehorn in?

The change is drastic enough to force them to play test it. I hope by the end they just open up the process to the community.

Mwahahahahaha. Playtest? GW? As if.

Right I don't get why anyone takes gw at their word they have lied to us over and over.

I never have given the claim that everything was play tested much credence before the codex released but it should be clear by now they either Arnt playtesting with tournament players or they are and ignoring their input.

No way would you beta test grey knights and give your seal of approval, or let necrons release without points drops or a reworking of res protocals.

hobojebus wrote:
Right I don't get why anyone takes gw at their word they have lied to us over and over.

I never have given the claim that everything was play tested much credence before the codex released but it should be clear by now they either Arnt playtesting with tournament players or they are and ignoring their input.

No way would you beta test grey knights and give your seal of approval, or let necrons release without points drops or a reworking of res protocals.

Why not. Grey Knights are arguably still too strong against a large variety of lists. Playtest them against an all-Kroot List in a Cities of Death Game or a Footdar Aspect Warrior List in an Open War Game or a Primaris list made from 2 Starter Sets in a Planetfall scenario, etc.., etc..

Tournament players are irrelevant and unsuited for playtesting, because they don't even play or use 99% of mathematically possible 40K lists, 75% of play modes such as narrative or open play gameing or many point values outside the 1500 to 2000 bracket even within matched play, that stuff needs to be balanced against. Tournaments are such a tiny, tiny sliver of the entirety of 40K, they are utterly irrelevant.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
Right I don't get why anyone takes gw at their word they have lied to us over and over.

I never have given the claim that everything was play tested much credence before the codex released but it should be clear by now they either Arnt playtesting with tournament players or they are and ignoring their input.

No way would you beta test grey knights and give your seal of approval, or let necrons release without points drops or a reworking of res protocals.

Why not. Grey Knights are arguably still too strong against a large variety of lists. Playtest them against an all-Kroot List in a Cities of Death Game or a Footdar Aspect Warrior List in an Open War Game or a Primaris list made from 2 Starter Sets in a Planetfall scenario, etc.., etc..

Tournament players are irrelevant and unsuited for playtesting, because they don't even play or use 99% of mathematically possible 40K lists, 75% of play modes such as narrative or open play gameing or many point values outside the 1500 to 2000 bracket even within matched play, that stuff needs to be balanced against. Tournaments are such a tiny, tiny sliver of the entirety of 40K, they are utterly irrelevant.

Tournament players are pretty much only players you CAN trust to playtest. They are the ones who know actually how the game works. They can spot the problems even without pulling out models from shelf nevermind what they can do with models on board.

GW meanwhile...They don't even know what the word means! Too advanced word for them.

I disagree.

Tournaments, as already covered, introduce a strict time factor the game isn't intended to have.

Which means various and sundry builds just aren't gonna work, ever.

And to say only tournament players are the ones who 'actually know how the game works'. Bit arrogant, wouldn't you agree?

tneva82 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
Right I don't get why anyone takes gw at their word they have lied to us over and over.

I never have given the claim that everything was play tested much credence before the codex released but it should be clear by now they either Arnt playtesting with tournament players or they are and ignoring their input.

No way would you beta test grey knights and give your seal of approval, or let necrons release without points drops or a reworking of res protocals.

Why not. Grey Knights are arguably still too strong against a large variety of lists. Playtest them against an all-Kroot List in a Cities of Death Game or a Footdar Aspect Warrior List in an Open War Game or a Primaris list made from 2 Starter Sets in a Planetfall scenario, etc.., etc..

Tournament players are irrelevant and unsuited for playtesting, because they don't even play or use 99% of mathematically possible 40K lists, 75% of play modes such as narrative or open play gameing or many point values outside the 1500 to 2000 bracket even within matched play, that stuff needs to be balanced against. Tournaments are such a tiny, tiny sliver of the entirety of 40K, they are utterly irrelevant.

Tournament players are pretty much only players you CAN trust to playtest. They are the ones who know actually how the game works. They can spot the problems even without pulling out models from shelf nevermind what they can do with models on board.

GW meanwhile...They don't even know what the word means! Too advanced word for them.

Tournament players are the ones that constantly ruin every single codex that GW has produced. WAAC players that only ever play with a tiny number of units and slaughter every scrap of fluff should be kept as far away from playtesting as possible.

 jhnbrg wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
Right I don't get why anyone takes gw at their word they have lied to us over and over.

I never have given the claim that everything was play tested much credence before the codex released but it should be clear by now they either Arnt playtesting with tournament players or they are and ignoring their input.

No way would you beta test grey knights and give your seal of approval, or let necrons release without points drops or a reworking of res protocals.

Why not. Grey Knights are arguably still too strong against a large variety of lists. Playtest them against an all-Kroot List in a Cities of Death Game or a Footdar Aspect Warrior List in an Open War Game or a Primaris list made from 2 Starter Sets in a Planetfall scenario, etc.., etc..

Tournament players are irrelevant and unsuited for playtesting, because they don't even play or use 99% of mathematically possible 40K lists, 75% of play modes such as narrative or open play gameing or many point values outside the 1500 to 2000 bracket even within matched play, that stuff needs to be balanced against. Tournaments are such a tiny, tiny sliver of the entirety of 40K, they are utterly irrelevant.

Tournament players are pretty much only players you CAN trust to playtest. They are the ones who know actually how the game works. They can spot the problems even without pulling out models from shelf nevermind what they can do with models on board.

GW meanwhile...They don't even know what the word means! Too advanced word for them.

Tournament players are the ones that constantly ruin every single codex that GW has produced. WAAC players that only ever play with a tiny number of units and slaughter every scrap of fluff should be kept as far away from playtesting as possible.

It's always the game to blame, never the player. GW allowed for waac stuff in their books, people will take advantage. This is not the players' fault. Not ever.

topaxygouroun i wrote:


It's always the game to blame, never the player. GW allowed for waac stuff in their books, people will take advantage. This is not the players' fault. Not ever.

Not blaming the players, just saying if thats how rhey approach 40K, it makes them structurally unqualified to playtest, as their perspective is intentionally narrow and skewed to exclude 99% of what makes 40K 40K.

 jhnbrg wrote:

Tournament players are the ones that constantly ruin every single codex that GW has produced. WAAC players that only ever play with a tiny number of units and slaughter every scrap of fluff should be kept as far away from playtesting as possible.

No. It's the GW that ruins codexes. Don't blame players. Blame the ones doing the codexes. Blame lies 100% on GW for not not doing their job.


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Sunny Side Up wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:


It's always the game to blame, never the player. GW allowed for waac stuff in their books, people will take advantage. This is not the players' fault. Not ever.

Not blaming the players, just saying if thats how rhey approach 40K, it makes them structurally unqualified to playtest, as their perspective is intentionally narrow and skewed to exclude 99% of what makes 40K 40K.

They look at what's the most powerful. Pretty much like actually most players. They just do it better. But it's the GW's fault codexes are unbalanced crap.

tneva82 wrote:


They look at what's the most powerful. Pretty much like actually most players. They just do it better. But it's the GW's fault codexes are unbalanced crap.

That‘s fine. They can serve as truffle pigs to identify the most problematic stuff. They just lack the perspective and/or mental capacity and most importantly the experience with the myriad of non-tournament formats of 40K to grasp the game in its entirety beyond their skewed little microcosm.

Things like Grey Knights or Magnus are good examples. Tournament players frequently and erroneously call them too weak or underpowered. They are clearly not and still firmly in the top 25% or 30% of all 40K, thus actually still rather too good/cheap still.

But the tournament crowd is blind too that, because these units/armies/etc are perhaps not in the top 1% or even 5% of the most egregiously broken stuff they see as „normal“ and use as „reference“.


Constant exposure to the extreme numbs you to the normal and consciously limiting yourself to one exotic variant of 40K makes you ignorant if the games‘ full variety and breadth.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
....

Why not. Grey Knights are arguably still too strong against a large variety of lists. Playtest them against an all-Kroot List in a Cities of Death Game or a Footdar Aspect Warrior List in an Open War Game or a Primaris list made from 2 Starter Sets in a Planetfall scenario, etc.., etc..

Tournament players are irrelevant and unsuited for playtesting, because they don't even play or use 99% of mathematically possible 40K lists, 75% of play modes such as narrative or open play gameing or many point values outside the 1500 to 2000 bracket even within matched play, that stuff needs to be balanced against. Tournaments are such a tiny, tiny sliver of the entirety of 40K, they are utterly irrelevant.

And yet at the same time, the tournament scene is also the most consistent place for data and consistent data is important for any action. Tournaments might be small compared (although "tiny, tiny, sliver" is a blatant exaggeration) is a to the total grand total of players in clubs, FLGS, friend's garages and basements, and even online with programs like vassal and tabletop sim, but those places can be extremely different in terms of house rules, attitudes, personal metas, access to models and rules, and even understanding of the rules. How useful is that information if those players don't have someone who plays marines, or bans forge world, or have a house rule that disallows first turn assault. Then that information is actually irrelevant because it doesn't nothing to help. And that's even before considering how would GW would get that information in the first place.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
....

Why not. Grey Knights are arguably still too strong against a large variety of lists. Playtest them against an all-Kroot List in a Cities of Death Game or a Footdar Aspect Warrior List in an Open War Game or a Primaris list made from 2 Starter Sets in a Planetfall scenario, etc.., etc..

Tournament players are irrelevant and unsuited for playtesting, because they don't even play or use 99% of mathematically possible 40K lists, 75% of play modes such as narrative or open play gameing or many point values outside the 1500 to 2000 bracket even within matched play, that stuff needs to be balanced against. Tournaments are such a tiny, tiny sliver of the entirety of 40K, they are utterly irrelevant.

And yet at the same time, the tournament scene is also the most consistent place for data and consistent data is important for any action. Tournaments might be small compared (although "tiny, tiny, sliver" is a blatant exaggeration) is a to the total grand total of players in clubs, FLGS, friend's garages and basements, and even online with programs like vassal and tabletop sim, but those places can be extremely different in terms of house rules, attitudes, personal metas, access to models and rules, and even understanding of the rules. How useful is that information if those players don't have someone who plays marines, or bans forge world, or have a house rule that disallows first turn assault. Then that information is actually irrelevant because it doesn't nothing to help. And that's even before considering how would GW would get that information in the first place.

But it‘s useless data, worse than useless, actually misleading data, because it is a self-selected and highly biased sample.

It‘d be like basing a study on public health only on Olympic athletes or a survey on household spending only on members of a posh counrty club.

Size of the sample is less a problem than its lack of representitativeness.

If you‘re truly serious about making 40K more balanced, you must ignore that data at all costs.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

And yet at the same time, the tournament scene is also the most consistent place for data and consistent data is important for any action.

The problem is that even if the data is consisten it is also completely skewed and flawed. Rogue trader was never intended as a competetive tournamnet game, its like competeing in D&D. Every new edition of 40k comes with less "flavour" and less cool and fluffy rules, all to cater for the tournamnet crowd.

Tournament players are trying to turn 40k into something that it cannot be, a balanced watertight set of tournament rules.
If i didnt have so much time, energy, affection and money invested in 40k i wouldnt care a gak about this.