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Blastaar wrote:

Andykp wrote:
I’ve said it in other threads and I’ll say it in this one. The game isn’t the problem it’s the players.

If the game is written in such a way that some units are simply superior to others, and they can be taken in large numbers, the fault is the rules that are written so poorly as to allow such abuse. "It's balanced if you ignore the broken units/combos/whatever" is not a good argument to make.

You’re not obliged to take them. I play in a friendly group of like minded people who simply wouldn’t spam such units. We balance the game by playing balanced armies that are fun and thematic. I understand that there is a competitive scene now and that rule helps curb bad behaviour.

What if you don't have a friendly group of like minded people available?

Drop 40k ,sell all your minis?

What if you don't have a friendly group of like minded people available?

Drop 40k ,sell all your minis?

If your only playgroup in a radius of 100km consists of unfriendly people who see the game completely differently than you, then yes, that's probably your best option.

Never heard of it and none of the posts seem to explain what it is (typical)

ValentineGames wrote:
Never heard of it and none of the posts seem to explain what it is (typical)

The rule of 3? Its a proposal in the Beta Rules that in Matched Play you should not be allowed to take more than 3 copies of the same datasheet (aside for Troops & Transports).

GW has - imo correctly - noted that Spam seems to be a major source of imbalance throughout 8th and also creates skewed unbalanced games where the result is a formality. It is not the sole source of imbalance, but creating interesting varied codexes is a lot easier if it doesn't just result in people going "oh, X is obviously the best unit, put 75% of my points into that, plus a few supports/tactical pieces."

This is then provoking certain hostility because while it removes certain armies (7 Flying Hive Tyrants) it doesn't impact others (Most successful Eldar Soups for instance.)
You then have people turning up and saying they only play GK, and their Interceptor spam build used to work, but now they can't even use it, and they are sad.
To which other people are going "you never won a tournament with said build, you scarcely won a game, it isn't meta relevant, no one cares."

Then you have people saying "lists consisting of 3 of the best unit, 3 of the second best unit and 3 of the third best unit are as bad - or even worse - than 7 of the best unit and 2 of something else."
Which on the face of it doesn't make much sense because that is how the game has always worked when FOC or Formations was the limiting factor rather than "yeah, take whatever but include some HQs".

Then you have the "GW should actually do their job and re-write every codex in 40k to create a genuinely balanced game that results in all codexes having a viable tournament build."
Which prompts "they have very little chance of doing that without trial and error, its obviously going to be a work in progress and at least they are trying unlike in the past."
Which prompts "haha! Yeah they never managed in the past. They won't manage this time. I don't know why you idiots even play 40k. GW suck. I don't know why I have spent 5 years of my life reading and posting on a forum about their games."

I don't see much issue with that.
It doesn't restrict troops and transports which are most likely to be taken in large numbers and probably the most useful choices.

And while it may impact theme lists such as a marine 1st company list or guard armoured company list or an ork dread/kan list.
The environment your in isn't for theme. So...

It's not perfect. But I can see why it's done.

So... circumventing the rule of three is actually not that hard. At least for Chaos and Imperial Space Marines, the rule is almost meaningless.

There are a lot of Codex units with very close cousins in the Forgeworld Index that allow you to get up to 6, and the cost of those units makes it so you would never really have a use for more than 6.

For example: 3 Predators are the limit for the Codex, but you can take 3 Hellforged Predators from the Forgeworld Index.

(That could get you 24 lascannons on tanks for around 60% of a 2,000 point list, which is just vicious behind a wall of Cultists.)

For example: 3 Helbrutes are the limit for the Codex, but then you can move into Contemptors. For Imperial Space Marines, there's all the different flavors of Dreadnoughts available.

The units that don't have a close cousin datasheet are bikes, raptors, terminators, Obliterators, possessed and daemon engines. Execpt for Daemon Engines, I'm not sure there would be a reason to spam these units. Even with HQs, you can find something in the Index that's a close approximation.

While I don't think most people would choose to abuse the rule of 3 this way, I did face a 6 Predator list a few weeks ago. It feels like Rule of 3 should be renamed Rule to Stop Spamming Xenos Units.

 techsoldaten wrote:
So... circumventing the rule of three is actually not that hard. At least for Chaos and Imperial Space Marines, the rule is almost meaningless.

While I don't think most people would choose to abuse the rule of 3 this way, I did face a 6 Predator list a few weeks ago. It feels like Rule of 3 should be renamed Rule to Stop Spamming Xenos Units.

Its a step on the road towards a better game rather than the end point though.
To some degree this is a meta choice rather than a philosophical one. If 6 predators was a top list - dominating tournaments - then something might have to be considered.
As it is you would have a very fragile list and I don't think its got anywhere. Hordes just walk over it. Even more mixed armies are going to be able to mop up cumulative objective points if you are forced to sit back and snipe with lascannons.
Not even sure Predators would prove super efficient versus knights, as while they are probably solid with killshot, the Knight likely has longer range and so will tend to get the first shooting phase even if they don't go first.

 Jidmah wrote:
What if you don't have a friendly group of like minded people available?

Drop 40k ,sell all your minis?

Now I still play 40k but I actually prefer the 30k community since I've found that their community is generally driven towards more friendly and narrative games as well as highly encouraging fully painted armies. See if there's a 30k community around you. I know on the East Coast of the US and in the Texas area there's a good amount of 30k players.

But in general, it's not the game system that is at fault, it's the community, if the community was better the rule of three should never need to exist. Playing a game of Warhammer, or any tabletop game for that matter, is an unspoken social contract where I spend a couple hours of my valuable time to play an opponent in which the goal should be to have fun. Expanding on that topic though is a discussion for a different thread.

If the 40k community around you isn't friendly and like minded, try your best to create one.

Ushtarador wrote:

What if you don't have a friendly group of like minded people available?

Drop 40k ,sell all your minis?

If your only playgroup in a radius of 100km consists of unfriendly people who see the game completely differently than you, then yes, that's probably your best option.

How about groups of friendly people who see the game different than you?

How about groups with one or two players who will spam the hell out of whatever is currently broken?

How about groups where people are invited for who they are first and what they play second?

How about friendly groups of people who all want to play competitively?

Extremes are easy, reality is not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RedGriefer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
What if you don't have a friendly group of like minded people available?

Drop 40k ,sell all your minis?

Now I still play 40k but I actually prefer the 30k community since I've found that their community is generally driven towards more friendly and narrative games as well as highly encouraging fully painted armies. See if there's a 30k community around you. I know on the East Coast of the US and in the Texas area there's a good amount of 30k players.

But in general, it's not the game system that is at fault, it's the community, if the community was better the rule of three should never need to exist. Playing a game of Warhammer, or any tabletop game for that matter, is an unspoken social contract where I spend a couple hours of my valuable time to play an opponent in which the goal should be to have fun. Expanding on that topic though is a discussion for a different thread.

If the 40k community around you isn't friendly and like minded, try your best to create one.

If you had to choose between uninviting two friends from games and applying the rule of three, which one would you pick?

 Jidmah wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RedGriefer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
What if you don't have a friendly group of like minded people available?

Drop 40k ,sell all your minis?

Now I still play 40k but I actually prefer the 30k community since I've found that their community is generally driven towards more friendly and narrative games as well as highly encouraging fully painted armies. See if there's a 30k community around you. I know on the East Coast of the US and in the Texas area there's a good amount of 30k players.

But in general, it's not the game system that is at fault, it's the community, if the community was better the rule of three should never need to exist. Playing a game of Warhammer, or any tabletop game for that matter, is an unspoken social contract where I spend a couple hours of my valuable time to play an opponent in which the goal should be to have fun. Expanding on that topic though is a discussion for a different thread.

If the 40k community around you isn't friendly and like minded, try your best to create one.

If you had to choose between uninviting two friends from games and applying the rule of three, which one would you pick?

I'd tell them to cut it out or I won't play them, the rule of 3 makes no difference. I'm not going to spend time deploying just to spend the next hour picking them back up again because they couldn't be bothered to bring a list to actually enjoy the game. I don't think 40k should be played competitively, if you push the game system to the extremes like that it will break down.

I'd choose applying rule of three.

When I dedicate toke to play I'm interested in playing the game by the rules with like minded people, and as they've expressed they have no interest in playing if it's without house ruling, then I guess they've got an opponent in each other I guess. It's their choice not to come and play by the rules and if they don't wanna do that I'm not gonna force them. We'd still remain friends just with slightly different interests hobbywise and thats fine.

Tyel wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
So... circumventing the rule of three is actually not that hard. At least for Chaos and Imperial Space Marines, the rule is almost meaningless.

While I don't think most people would choose to abuse the rule of 3 this way, I did face a 6 Predator list a few weeks ago. It feels like Rule of 3 should be renamed Rule to Stop Spamming Xenos Units.

Its a step on the road towards a better game rather than the end point though.
To some degree this is a meta choice rather than a philosophical one. If 6 predators was a top list - dominating tournaments - then something might have to be considered.
As it is you would have a very fragile list and I don't think its got anywhere. Hordes just walk over it. Even more mixed armies are going to be able to mop up cumulative objective points if you are forced to sit back and snipe with lascannons.
Not even sure Predators would prove super efficient versus knights, as while they are probably solid with killshot, the Knight likely has longer range and so will tend to get the first shooting phase even if they don't go first.

I don't want to turn this into a conversation about the relative merits of lascannons, however, the list I mentioned was designed as a counter to my Black Legion gunline that also features 24 lascannons. My own skew list performs very well on the tabletop, massed lascannons don't snipe so much as level.

My point was that the Rule of Three impacts Xenos far more than Imperials due to the presence of very similar units in the FW Indexes. Tyranids, Eldar, Orks, and even Tau lack close cousins to diminish the impact. I haven't really thought through how this impacts Guard or Mechanicum, given the abundance of armor options that exist for both armies.

But it feels like this should be called the Rule of Xenos more than the Rule of Three. Flyrants, Dark Reapers, and other units do need some upper limit because otherwise these units break the game. But can you think of an Imperial unit - other than an HQ - that you could say the same thing about? And what does this mean about Xenos armies, are they purposefully designed to have units that are so powerful the rules must prevent players from spamming them?

It's interesting to consider.

Tyel wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
So... circumventing the rule of three is actually not that hard. At least for Chaos and Imperial Space Marines, the rule is almost meaningless.

While I don't think most people would choose to abuse the rule of 3 this way, I did face a 6 Predator list a few weeks ago. It feels like Rule of 3 should be renamed Rule to Stop Spamming Xenos Units.

Its a step on the road towards a better game rather than the end point though.
To some degree this is a meta choice rather than a philosophical one. If 6 predators was a top list - dominating tournaments - then something might have to be considered.
As it is you would have a very fragile list and I don't think its got anywhere. Hordes just walk over it. Even more mixed armies are going to be able to mop up cumulative objective points if you are forced to sit back and snipe with lascannons.
Not even sure Predators would prove super efficient versus knights, as while they are probably solid with killshot, the Knight likely has longer range and so will tend to get the first shooting phase even if they don't go first.

It is only a step in the right direction if spamming redundant, but separate datasheets results in the rule of 3 being adjusted. It is a step backward If the problem was that xenos need more than 3 of certain datasheets, but Imperium/Chaos do not. The nerf will make xenos weaker, but as long as they have at least one viable competitive build it will be hard to see that in tournament data. Orcs/Tau are a perfect examples with how at the start of 8th they had maybe 2-4 viable units in the entire index, but could still do well at tournaments because boy/weirdboy/commander spam was effective enough. GW was more than happy to give Tau a unique nerf for Commanders despite them rarely ever getting top8. It wasn't until Hive Tyrant spam was a thing that they considered limits for any other army. Even with the rule of 3 making the Commander nerf largely redundant, the limit isn't going to be lifted. Why would this be any different?

RedGriefer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RedGriefer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
What if you don't have a friendly group of like minded people available?

Drop 40k ,sell all your minis?

Now I still play 40k but I actually prefer the 30k community since I've found that their community is generally driven towards more friendly and narrative games as well as highly encouraging fully painted armies. See if there's a 30k community around you. I know on the East Coast of the US and in the Texas area there's a good amount of 30k players.

But in general, it's not the game system that is at fault, it's the community, if the community was better the rule of three should never need to exist. Playing a game of Warhammer, or any tabletop game for that matter, is an unspoken social contract where I spend a couple hours of my valuable time to play an opponent in which the goal should be to have fun. Expanding on that topic though is a discussion for a different thread.

If the 40k community around you isn't friendly and like minded, try your best to create one.

If you had to choose between uninviting two friends from games and applying the rule of three, which one would you pick?

I'd tell them to cut it out or I won't play them, the rule of 3 makes no difference. I'm not going to spend time deploying just to spend the next hour picking them back up again because they couldn't be bothered to bring a list to actually enjoy the game. I don't think 40k should be played competitively, if you push the game system to the extremes like that it will break down.

That was not an option to chose from.
There are people that think 40k should be played competitively and they will always try to push the game system to extremes, while denying that they do and claim that they are just playing fluffy lists.
If you invite all your friends to campaign day, you either tell those people not to come, or you apply the rule of 3 to force them to not spam 2k points of PBC, allowing everyone to play.
No. Easy. Way. Out.

 SHUPPET wrote:
There will always be a way to bs games by picking something with a versatile damage output, that has a niche defensive profile or requires a specialist unit to deal with, and then just spamming the gak out of that unit. Balance is something that needs to be separately addressed and Rule of 3 does not solve the games problems immediately, but it's certainly one of the necessary steps towards improving it.

No it isn't, and last edition is extreme proof of that. You were basically able to take as many of something as you wanted, and look at what was actually spammed...mostly troops, whether it be via formations or not, and very few units were spammed otherwise (Warp Spiders being the most obvious example). Do you implement rule of 3 there, or do you just hit the most obvious offenders?

Rule of 3 is lazy. Plain and simple. Units without merit aren't going to be taken and units with too much merit need a fix in the first place. If anything, that spam helps show GW units they might have missed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:

RedGriefer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RedGriefer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
What if you don't have a friendly group of like minded people available?

Drop 40k ,sell all your minis?

Now I still play 40k but I actually prefer the 30k community since I've found that their community is generally driven towards more friendly and narrative games as well as highly encouraging fully painted armies. See if there's a 30k community around you. I know on the East Coast of the US and in the Texas area there's a good amount of 30k players.

But in general, it's not the game system that is at fault, it's the community, if the community was better the rule of three should never need to exist. Playing a game of Warhammer, or any tabletop game for that matter, is an unspoken social contract where I spend a couple hours of my valuable time to play an opponent in which the goal should be to have fun. Expanding on that topic though is a discussion for a different thread.

If the 40k community around you isn't friendly and like minded, try your best to create one.

If you had to choose between uninviting two friends from games and applying the rule of three, which one would you pick?

I'd tell them to cut it out or I won't play them, the rule of 3 makes no difference. I'm not going to spend time deploying just to spend the next hour picking them back up again because they couldn't be bothered to bring a list to actually enjoy the game. I don't think 40k should be played competitively, if you push the game system to the extremes like that it will break down.

That was not an option to chose from.
There are people that think 40k should be played competitively and they will always try to push the game system to extremes, while denying that they do and claim that they are just playing fluffy lists.
If you invite all your friends to campaign day, you either tell those people not to come, or you apply the rule of 3 to force them to not spam 2k points of PBC, allowing everyone to play.
No. Easy. Way. Out.

Then I would choose to uninvite my friends, plain and simple. I can get games elsewhere if they're gonna be like that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 techsoldaten wrote:

While I don't think most people would choose to abuse the rule of 3 this way, I did face a 6 Predator list a few weeks ago.

And in what way is this an issue? Are Predators suddenly broken? Is it bad that Space Marine players are allowed a small amount of leeway to want to get Killshot off at all if they go second?

I'm glad that overall the reception is so positive to this change that there is zero chance of it getting reverted, and all you guys are really doing is pissing into the wind.

It's good knowing that this isn't going to fix anything and hurts the least offending lists. Hope you enjoy your soup!

I don't know if you do know what you think you know.

 SHUPPET wrote:
I'm glad that overall the reception is so positive to this change that there is zero chance of it getting reverted, and all you guys are really doing is pissing into the wind.

Or you could address my points directly instead of just saying "It's staying get over it".

It's going to get reverted as long as enough people submit a formal complaint.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
I'm glad that overall the reception is so positive to this change that there is zero chance of it getting reverted, and all you guys are really doing is pissing into the wind.

Or you could address my points directly instead of just saying "It's staying get over it".

I've addressed them all, you guys keep going around in circles, I'm not interested in participating anymore, I'm on the sidelines from here on it. I'm not saying get over it, you guys can be stuck on this as long as you want. It's reassuring knowing that it's going nowhere, and its funny watching you guys flail around it.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
It's going to get reverted as long as enough people submit a formal complaint.

Yeah, so turn that 2% of the playerbase into 55%+ and who knows, you might just make an impact.

 techsoldaten wrote:


But it feels like this should be called the Rule of Xenos more than the Rule of Three. Flyrants, Dark Reapers, and other units do need some upper limit because otherwise these units break the game. But can you think of an Imperial unit - other than an HQ - that you could say the same thing about? And what does this mean about Xenos armies, are they purposefully designed to have units that are so powerful the rules must prevent players from spamming them?

It's interesting to consider.

On that, is it possible that Xenos armies need the limit more than Imperial ones? It seems to me that Xenos units are often more specialised and efficient than Imperial ones. Most Imprerial units are Space Marines and hence generalist by nature, and Custodes fall in the same boat. Guard are a little more specialist in their troops, but troops are exempt from the rule anyway. The point is though that I think Xenos are more skewed in nature, and the rule of 3 puts a limit on how hard you can skew your list. If you can take a unit that puts all of its value in damage output and nothing else like Dark Reapers and spam it, you end up with a much scarier skew than a list made up of Hellblasters that put some of their points into damage output, some into defence, and some into close combat. I think the nature of Xenos armies’ hyper-specialisation makes the Rule of 3 more applicable to them.

 SHUPPET wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
I'm glad that overall the reception is so positive to this change that there is zero chance of it getting reverted, and all you guys are really doing is pissing into the wind.

Or you could address my points directly instead of just saying "It's staying get over it".

I've addressed them all, you guys keep going around in circles, I'm not interested in participating anymore, I'm on the sidelines from here on it. I'm not saying get over it, you guys can be stuck on this as long as you want. It's reassuring knowing that it's going nowhere, and its funny watching you guys flail around it.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
It's going to get reverted as long as enough people submit a formal complaint.

Yeah, so turn that 2% of the playerbase into 55%+ and who knows, you might just make an impact.

It's only 2% in your mind. I get you clearly don't want change but you need to accept Rule Of Three fixes literally nothing. At all.

4 squads of 6 tankbustas = gamey and spam
3 squads of 8 tankbustas = fuffy and diverse

Uhuh, sure, right. Nor does it change that I'm still taking max KMKs if I want to be competitive.

I cant even run my army of 5 Imperial Knight Gallants in a 2k list!

What am I supposed to do with the other 2 IK?

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
4 squads of 6 tankbustas = gamey and spam
3 squads of 8 tankbustas = fuffy and diverse

Uhuh, sure, right. Nor does it change that I'm still taking max KMKs if I want to be competitive.

I'll do you one better.

3 squads of 12 Tank Bustaz is more akin to fluff, but heavy forbid you have 3 squads of 10 and a squad of 6! That's soooooo unfluffy and against the spirit of the game!

 SHUPPET wrote:
There will always be a way to bs games by picking something with a versatile damage output, that has a niche defensive profile or requires a specialist unit to deal with, and then just spamming the gak out of that unit. Balance is something that needs to be separately addressed and Rule of 3 does not solve the games problems immediately, but it's certainly one of the necessary steps towards improving it.

Except as a blanket measure, it fails to balance in even that aspect. As a notable example, the GW team complained at Adepticon that Hive Guard were too goor. Only, Hive Guard weren't run MSU (not that you can anyway), but at max unit size to take full advantage of the Single-Minded Annihilation Stratagem. They applied a band-aid to internal bleeding.

 Jidmah wrote:

RedGriefer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RedGriefer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
What if you don't have a friendly group of like minded people available?

Drop 40k ,sell all your minis?

Now I still play 40k but I actually prefer the 30k community since I've found that their community is generally driven towards more friendly and narrative games as well as highly encouraging fully painted armies. See if there's a 30k community around you. I know on the East Coast of the US and in the Texas area there's a good amount of 30k players.

But in general, it's not the game system that is at fault, it's the community, if the community was better the rule of three should never need to exist. Playing a game of Warhammer, or any tabletop game for that matter, is an unspoken social contract where I spend a couple hours of my valuable time to play an opponent in which the goal should be to have fun. Expanding on that topic though is a discussion for a different thread.

If the 40k community around you isn't friendly and like minded, try your best to create one.

If you had to choose between uninviting two friends from games and applying the rule of three, which one would you pick?

I'd tell them to cut it out or I won't play them, the rule of 3 makes no difference. I'm not going to spend time deploying just to spend the next hour picking them back up again because they couldn't be bothered to bring a list to actually enjoy the game. I don't think 40k should be played competitively, if you push the game system to the extremes like that it will break down.

That was not an option to chose from.
There are people that think 40k should be played competitively and they will always try to push the game system to extremes, while denying that they do and claim that they are just playing fluffy lists.
If you invite all your friends to campaign day, you either tell those people not to come, or you apply the rule of 3 to force them to not spam 2k points of PBC, allowing everyone to play.
No. Easy. Way. Out.

Here’s an easy way out. Don’t play against idiots. Play with your friends. It’s a game.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
4 squads of 6 tankbustas = gamey and spam
3 squads of 8 tankbustas = fuffy and diverse

Uhuh, sure, right. Nor does it change that I'm still taking max KMKs if I want to be competitive.

I'll do you one better.

3 squads of 12 Tank Bustaz is more akin to fluff, but heavy forbid you have 3 squads of 10 and a squad of 6! That's soooooo unfluffy and against the spirit of the game!

Is anyone arguing Rule of 3 is a fluff rule? It seems pretty obviously a crunch one. As a crunch rule, in a game that in almost every way rewards min unit sizes over max, I'd say yeah, its very much worthwhile to make players take larger units if they want more of something rather than take more individual units and all the mechanical benefits that entails.

Andykp wrote:
Here’s an easy way out. Don’t play against idiots. Play with your friends. It’s a game.

If you define friendship through nothing but war-gaming, that's and easy - though sad - way out, yes.