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That could work and I've considered a nearly identical rule as an add on to the original idea of CP use restricted to the faction keyword of the detachment that generated them.

However, I've mixed sentiments on the CP regeneration abilities at the moment, I'd rather just have them removed. Whenever they're available as a warlord trait or relic for specific armies, it seems to be the auto-take option nearly every time. They're just too good, especially when stacked with a high starting CP amount.

Once again having one way to regain or steal extra CP isn't the main issue, it's being able to do both at the same time that makes the IG CO farm so core to competitive lists.
No other single faction comes close (Except maybe Drukari haven't read the codex to understand their weird rules).

Needing a 5+nets you usually 2-3 extra CP per game not game breaking
Needing a 6+ for both again nets you 2-3

Combining regain and steeling nets you on avarage 7-8 CP extra

You then add in stacking CP abilitys and you can end up in CP gaining which is totally broken

Once again? Where did I claim it was the main issue?

Mchagen wrote:
How in any way whatsoever, is your suggestion a 'true fix' to that issue?

The only stratagem worth spamming CP is reroll. Take that away, and there ceases to be a reason to amass CP's.

I can make do a game with 6 CP's. I only ever feel short of maybe 2 or 3 CPs. Most lists with +10 CP's spend anywhere from 6-8 CPs per game on rerolls.

 skchsan wrote:

Mchagen wrote:
How in any way whatsoever, is your suggestion a 'true fix' to that issue?

The only stratagem worth spamming CP is reroll.

Is it the only stratagem worth using CP on?

I don't disagree with your recommendation. But I disagree with your idea that it is the 'true fix' to cheap CP generation.

Mchagen wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

Mchagen wrote:
Before we started testing the subtractive system, it was suggested that battalions have a min points value. That could be as simple as adding a restriction to a battalion so that each one is a minimum of 20% of the total points amount of the army. For example, in a 2000 point game, each battalion must be at least 400 points.

I think that is still a viable option if we decide to revert to the original idea.

I feel like this will end up as an unnecessary additional constraint that ends up punishing battalions more than help with the CP problem.

Simpler the system, the better.

A true fix to this CP problem is make Command Reroll stratagem "once per turn" only, with 0 CP cost.

That's the significant part of the command point problem though--cheap battalions for specific armies providing easy CP. So yes, it would punish cheap battalions, because they're broken currently.

How in any way whatsoever, is your suggestion a 'true fix' to that issue?

6 ppm guardsmen would help a lot.

 skchsan wrote:

Mchagen wrote:
How in any way whatsoever, is your suggestion a 'true fix' to that issue?

The only stratagem worth spamming CP is reroll. Take that away, and there ceases to be a reason to amass CP's.

I can make do a game with 6 CP's. I only ever feel short of maybe 2 or 3 CPs. Most lists with +10 CP's spend anywhere from 6-8 CPs per game on rerolls.

That would hevily depend on your army, and subfaction.

Xenos players would be shafted.

 skchsan wrote:

Mchagen wrote:
How in any way whatsoever, is your suggestion a 'true fix' to that issue?

The only stratagem worth spamming CP is reroll. Take that away, and there ceases to be a reason to amass CP's.

I can make do a game with 6 CP's. I only ever feel short of maybe 2 or 3 CPs. Most lists with +10 CP's spend anywhere from 6-8 CPs per game on rerolls.

Uhhh not so much. My BA and Iknights both LOVE munching down CP. Captain hammer likes to burn 1 to get all ragey pre-game, 2 to have a 3d6 charge coming in, 1 to get an extra d3 swings, and 3 to fight twice. Mephiston likes having those last couple as well. The knights like charging after advancing, using house raven's reroll all 1's strat, buffing their invuln, blowing up in the middle of enemies, acting on their top profile when damaged, and grabbing multiple relics and warlord traits.

Both of my armies really want like 13 or more CP.

How about only granting CPs for detachments of the main faction? Ie: allied detachments does not generate CP (similar to using assassins, sisters of silence etc).

So if you want allies, you’d want them solely for what they do on the battlefield, and never for CP reasons (contrary, they’d have to make up for the CPs you’d have gotten if you stayed with your main faction).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This also makes sense in that one united force with one commander who knows the military structure and culture of every unit he commands, would command it much more easily than a force of multiple factions, each with not only their own military structure and such, but also with their own language, culture, religion and so on.

Mchagen wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

Mchagen wrote:
How in any way whatsoever, is your suggestion a 'true fix' to that issue?

The only stratagem worth spamming CP is reroll.

Is it the only stratagem worth using CP on?

I don't disagree with your recommendation. But I disagree with your idea that it is the 'true fix' to cheap CP generation.

Burned through 8CP in a 1000pt game with my Dark Eldar and only one was for a re-roll and there were still things I would have done if I had double the points.

If CP is a big issue - the easiest thing is to have a cap on it and maybe also restrict regen to one per turn?

I think the simplest solution would be to tie CP generation to something other than detachments, such as points spent on troops and/or HQs.

That way you are taking guardsmen because you like them, not because they give you a million CP.

They should also do something about the near unlimited CP you can get from the IG warlord + relic + BA relic, as that gets pretty silly fast, and both the IG battery and smash captain detachments are no brainers for most imperium armies anyway.

jcd386 wrote:
I think the simplest solution would be to tie CP generation to something other than detachments, such as points spent on troops and/or HQs.

That way you are taking guardsmen because you like them, not because they give you a million CP.

They should also do something about the near unlimited CP you can get from the IG warlord + relic + BA relic, as that gets pretty silly fast, and both the IG battery and smash captain detachments are no brainers for most imperium armies anyway.

Force to declare a main detachment, only these can use and take Relics.
Re- implement Platoons for IG and R&H, add a bonus for that, like better morale or +1 order, etc. ( 1 Platoon command Squad, 2-5 Inantery Squads, 0-5 HWT Squads but no more then Infantery Sqads.)
Only Main detachments can use CP genereated by other detachments, which share the same keyword, as in if i run 2 Space wolve detachments, they can give over and use both relics, the additional guard detachment can't.

I've seen a lot of napkin math back on forth oh this ... but I think the solution to CP farm batteries and to some extent the proliferation of soup, is to make the following change to CP, its simple and clear but not unfair.
Command points earned by a detachment on units the same faction keyword can be spent on stratagems from their faction, if a command point originates from a different faction that CP only count for half a command point.

This is not only fluffy representing the disorganization of in controlling a combined arms army, it doesn't outright kill off CP farm detachments and soup but it hurts it big time ...
So much so it might be worth taking a battalion of 3 scouts and two cheap Hq's to power your Space marine stratagems ... rather than 3 guardsman units and the Aquilla because it only brings 2.5 usable command points to a combined arms detachment

Unrealistic uncompetative Example Imperial Soup 3CP

Supreme command - 3 Sheild Captains 1 CP
Battalion - Battery battalion with Aquilla 5 CP
Spearhead - 3 x las Pred's + other marine punchy stuff 1 CP

Total CP 10 if you were using it inside source faction but only 7 in reality when used across keyword to power either the shield captains or the space marines. I dont think this is unviable and a bit more balanced,
It encourages the player to look at bringing the battalion inside his actual core faction by rewarding him in extending either the spearhead or the supreme command but doesn't force the fact.

Just get rid of soups for CP generation. Your primary faction is determined by the majority pts. Any other factions within the same army does not generate CP.

Why are we defending a broken mechanism for the sake of "fluffiness"? There is no rational explanation for rewarding fluffy soups nor is there a reason to protect it.

If you want your army to be fluffy, you do it at the cost of competitiveness.

Provide me one example why AM batt + SM should be allowed in terms of game balance.

 skchsan wrote:
Just get rid of soups for CP generation. Your primary faction is determined by the majority pts. Any other factions within the same army does not generate CP.

Why are we defending a broken mechanism for the sake of "fluffiness"? There is no rational explanation for rewarding fluffy soups nor is there a reason to protect it.

If you want your army to be fluffy, you do it at the cost of competitiveness.

Provide me one example why AM batt + SM should be allowed in terms of game balance.

Define faction?
Do you mean codex or keyword, eg sept, hivefleet, captor, house?
As GW has clearly designed some codex's to mix and match keywords as they only realy benifit certain units.or locked charictors to a keyword.

Unfortunately it seems that there wasn't a clear universal vision of what they were trying to build with 8th edition mechanics when they started and they haven't been able to take the step back and rebalance everything if they have settled on a vision yet.

Martel732 wrote:

6 ppm guardsmen would help a lot.

6ppm guardsmen would not only kill competitive guard, but people would just start taking skitarii rangers for chaff and not much would change. Rangers are T3 4+ with a 6++ and 30" lasguns, and shoot better then guardsmen for 7 points.

I think you could make an argument for 5ppm guardsmen, but guard would need things in exchange, like lasguns for sergeants and some of our underperforming units buffed to compensate.

w1zard wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

6 ppm guardsmen would help a lot.

6ppm guardsmen would not only kill competitive guard, but people would just start taking skitarii rangers for chaff and not much would change. Rangers are T3 4+ with a 6++ and 30" lasguns, and shoot better then guardsmen for 7 points.

I think you could make an argument for 5ppm guardsmen, but guard would need things in exchange, like lasguns for sergeants and some of our underperforming units buffed to compensate.

W/e. 4 ppm is absurd.

Martel732 wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

6 ppm guardsmen would help a lot.

6ppm guardsmen would not only kill competitive guard, but people would just start taking skitarii rangers for chaff and not much would change. Rangers are T3 4+ with a 6++ and 30" lasguns, and shoot better then guardsmen for 7 points.

I think you could make an argument for 5ppm guardsmen, but guard would need things in exchange, like lasguns for sergeants and some of our underperforming units buffed to compensate.

W/e. 4 ppm is absurd.

If they are absurd, what are 6pts kabalites then i Wonder?

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

6 ppm guardsmen would help a lot.

6ppm guardsmen would not only kill competitive guard, but people would just start taking skitarii rangers for chaff and not much would change. Rangers are T3 4+ with a 6++ and 30" lasguns, and shoot better then guardsmen for 7 points.

I think you could make an argument for 5ppm guardsmen, but guard would need things in exchange, like lasguns for sergeants and some of our underperforming units buffed to compensate.

W/e. 4 ppm is absurd.

If they are absurd, what are 6pts kabalites then i Wonder?

They're 6ppm. Thats what.

Are you honestly telling me that guardsmen could be 6pts but kabalites are also 6pts?
Even though kabalites literally are a budget marine statwise stripped of it's armor?

I honestly don't see the problem at all. Strategems are a new mechanic to the game and they add a semblance of command strategy that was missing in 6th and 7th. A more numerous force having greater CPs makes sense, and in the current fluff, since the siege and fall of Cadia we see Imperium forces working more closely together, the same goes for Chaos and Eldar. If you are just taking Elite Heavy infantry then you SHOULD have less CPs as you would limit your strategies on campaign. This is why when marching to war, Roman legions were supplemented with Auxiliary Cavalry, Light Infantry, Archers and Slingers. It is why when taking towns in WW2, where possible, foot regiments were supported by Tanks, air support, artillery and even paratroopers.

Play the current game for what it is rather than changing its core fundementals. Don't get me wrong, the game needs adjustments, Orks, GKs, DW and others need a boost, as do fortifications and specific units in current codices, Flamestorm Preds being an example. But CPs and Strategems are absolute core principles of the game.

Side note - I read earlier in the thread one player said that only the reroll strategem is used regularly. I utterly disagree. Just naming SM/BA and Guard Strategems that are very good include: Honour the chapter, Masterful Marksmanship, Only In death Does Duty End, Wisdom of the Ancients, Death Visions of Sanguinius, Descent of Angels, Forlorn Fury, Upon Wings of Fire, Consolidate Squads, Inspired Tactics, Vegence for Cadia, Overlapping fields of Fire, and of course the Relic ones. And the SM/BA also have Hellfire Shells and Flak Missiles, which often mean you see a single ML and HB in these lists just to take advantage of these.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also Guardsmen should be 5ppm and that would solve a lot of issues with Guard. The rule of 3 has already hit them hard with Company Commanders, Vets and HWSs so 6ppm is too steep. 5 would fine tune them I feel.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Are you honestly telling me that guardsmen could be 6pts but kabalites are also 6pts?
Even though kabalites literally are a budget marine statwise stripped of it's armor?

No, kabalites should be around 9 ppm since guardians are 8 ppm.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

6 ppm guardsmen would help a lot.

6ppm guardsmen would not only kill competitive guard, but people would just start taking skitarii rangers for chaff and not much would change. Rangers are T3 4+ with a 6++ and 30" lasguns, and shoot better then guardsmen for 7 points.

I think you could make an argument for 5ppm guardsmen, but guard would need things in exchange, like lasguns for sergeants and some of our underperforming units buffed to compensate.

W/e. 4 ppm is absurd.

If they are absurd, what are 6pts kabalites then i Wonder?

Also absurd.

5 ppm solves nothing for guard. What needs to come back are platoons, that would allready tripple the point cost for cp bateries whilest letting a pure guardsmen army still profit off of 4 ppm guardsmen.

@Martel, why should a kabalite cost more then a guardian?

Poly Ranger wrote:
Play the current game for what it is rather than changing its core fundementals. Don't get me wrong, the game needs adjustments, Orks, GKs, DW and others need a boost, as do fortifications and specific units in current codices, Flamestorm Preds being an example. But CPs and Strategems are absolute core principles of the game.

I don't agree. But I have played the game for what it is--a broken mess. So now we [note; we is my gaming group] come up with house rules to make the game more enjoyable for both sides.

If you aren't willing to test out some extra rules for your gaming, why are you posting in this section, to tell other people how to play their games?

Not at all, I'm merely trying to understand the issue. I saw the title of the thread and was interested. After reading through there are some good ideas but I don't understand *why*. Being a core mechanic of the game, changing CP generation changes the whole concept of list building. (Imo) Whilst there are definitely things that need tweaking, I don't consider this edition the broken mess you do. 7th, 6th... now they were broken messes, when the 7th ed Eldar codex came out it truly felt like GW were trying to troll everyone.
GW are actively trying to equalize the game currently, the rule of 3 on both units and detachments between 1001-2000pts is a huge step in the right direction. As is their +1 for every extra Smite that is cast.
All armies (but 1) have access to cheap CP batteries. Imperium with Guard, Chaos with Cultists, Orks with boys and Grotz, Nids with Gaunts etc... Only Necrons off the top of my head don't. Personally I think it's a waste for people to min-max these. With the Guard one for example, the squads are so much better with a Lascannon and plasma included and the company comanders are significantly better with a plasma pistol and/or power weapon, furthermore since you've opened up those 3 heavy slots, you may as well take HWSs since they are so cheap. People min-maxing at 180pts are gimping themselves imo.
If you don't list build with an eye toward command points thats absolutely fine but no surprise when the opponent has noticably more than you. Much like when I don't take any psykers, I know I won't be stopping any powers or when I havent put any anti-air in my list, I'd better have volume of fire to make up for that -1 or -2 to hit. But that's all part of it, for some armies it's easier to overwhelm opponents with psykers, others pretty much completely ignore morale, others are hard to hit across the whole army whilst others are easier to fit more command points in. Take any of those away and you are taking away some of the variety. That's why I don't understand the problem with CPs, it's part of the characteristics of an army.

 skchsan wrote:
Just get rid of soups for CP generation. Your primary faction is determined by the majority pts. Any other factions within the same army does not generate CP.

I like this, but I think it might be better to keep CP segregated. I don't think you should be fielding 800 points of Blood Angels and 1200 points of Ast.Militarum to provide CP for the Blood Angels. You get 3 CP to spend anywhere, the rest are proprietary to the detachments that generated those CP, allowing detachments with identical <keyword> - ignoring keywords Chaos and Imperium.

A bit more book keeping, but probably worth it. Why does having a ton of guardsmen make the Blood Angels suddenly able to do more epic stuff?

Poly Ranger wrote:
Not at all, I'm merely trying to understand the issue. I saw the title of the thread and was interested. After reading through there are some good ideas but I don't understand *why*. Being a core mechanic of the game, changing CP generation changes the whole concept of list building. (Imo) Whilst there are definitely things that need tweaking, I don't consider this edition the broken mess you do. 7th, 6th... now they were broken messes, when the 7th ed Eldar codex came out it truly felt like GW were trying to troll everyone.

Because 7th edition was bad and 8th is better than 7th, 8th must be good and not flawed? There are some pretty glaring issues with 8th at the moment, and the biggest is still their inability to create concise well-written rules. It seems to be the same problem over and over, even though they've had several editions to learn from. There's a reason there's already a stack of FAQ documents after a year of this editions release and questions adding up due to rule inconsistencies and interactions between base rules and codex books. .

GW are actively trying to equalize the game currently, the rule of 3 on both units and detachments between 1001-2000pts is a huge step in the right direction. As is their +1 for every extra Smite that is cast. .

If the claim of most 'play-tested edition' was even remotely accurate, they could have sorted out most of those issues before the edition was released. There are problematic balance issues that even casual players can spot after a few games, or even upon first read-through. I do like that they are attempting to fix some of the issues, but it seems 8th is more a beta test that players are evaluating for the rules designers instead of a well-designed system from the start.

All armies (but 1) have access to cheap CP batteries. Imperium with Guard, Chaos with Cultists, Orks with boys and Grotz, Nids with Gaunts etc... Only Necrons off the top of my head don't. Personally I think it's a waste for people to min-max these. With the Guard one for example, the squads are so much better with a Lascannon and plasma included and the company comanders are significantly better with a plasma pistol and/or power weapon, furthermore since you've opened up those 3 heavy slots, you may as well take HWSs since they are so cheap. People min-maxing at 180pts are gimping themselves imo..

Players shouldn't have to take a cheap CP battery in order to be competitive, that's part of the point of making the changes. Also, they take the guard battalion for a cheap screen, putting in high cost weapons such as lascannons weakens the purpose of the throw-away unit, especially when most those units are getting destroyed first turn. Shooting off one lascannon that hits 50% of the time isn't typically worth the investment that they aren't filling in better with the rest of their army.

If you don't list build with an eye toward command points thats absolutely fine but no surprise when the opponent has noticably more than you. Much like when I don't take any psykers, I know I won't be stopping any powers or when I havent put any anti-air in my list, I'd better have volume of fire to make up for that -1 or -2 to hit. But that's all part of it, for some armies it's easier to overwhelm opponents with psykers, others pretty much completely ignore morale, others are hard to hit across the whole army whilst others are easier to fit more command points in. Take any of those away and you are taking away some of the variety. That's why I don't understand the problem with CPs, it's part of the characteristics of an army.

There's no surprise when playing with these modified rules because my opponent doesn't have a drastically skewed CP allowance compared to me. That's exactly the point. You're already paying the costs of the units, for their gear, statline, etc. Why is it that units in specific armies then get extra value per point from additional CP than others. Your psyker example for instance--you have no psykers, but you've used those points that could have bought a psyker in place of another unit(s). That doesn't work so well when comparing to CP. Some armies just get more CP generation than others, is it because they are inherently weaker? That would make sense in a more balanced game, but that's not the situation currently.

The original concept in the first post that I've been play-testing wasn't even my idea (mine was completely different), I've only tweaked it a bit. But I was willing to try it out to see if it worked. Most posters in this thread can't even get that far before decrying it a bad idea.

I will agree that CP generation is a glaring problem in this edition.

Cheap CP generating for other more Cp intense armies shows that the ratio of CP generation is too loopsided at this point.

I did find the idea of a flat CP amount while adding specilised force orgs into a list only deducted from that static total sounds like a great idea. But the only problem i can see with it is the fact that you would fall into the same pitfall of using other armies as a "gap" filler to make sure that your CP stays relatively high.

The idea of keeping track of CP from multiple factions sounds like the way to go. People say "But that's too much paperwork, too much bookkeeping"

Im sorry, but keeping track of wounds is just as much "bookkeeping" as keeping track of people's psychic powers and other small things. Keeping track on something which could be delegated to a dice of all things is hardly what i would say as "book" intensive. And since it would stop people relying on soup so much it would make the game more interesting.

Also, i propose that you receive a reward for staying as a single specific faction. Perhaps an additional award of CP. this way building mono army is still just as rewarding as souping

mchammadad wrote:
But the only problem i can see with it is the fact that you would fall into the same pitfall of using other armies as a "gap" filler to make sure that your CP stays relatively high.

Can you explain how this is even possible in the subtractive system in the OP? Taking more detachments lowers CP, with the new beta rule battle brothers in the April FAQ, it makes it illegal to take allies in the same detachment; the common keyword shared among all units cannot be chaos, imperium, aeldari, ynnari, or tyranids. Are you assuming this will not get through the beta?

Also, I agree with you on the book-keeping with the original idea of CP usable only for the faction that generated it. It's not hard to keep track of at all. It's actually one of the easiest changes to implement which addresses most of the problem.

If someone is making a brigade detachment just to fill in extra points (in this example, a IG brigade with a Space marines heavy list) since some armies are actually really cheap to make up a brigade, the problem is that those "cheap fillers" will be heavily incentivized with the system.

Say for example, it was a 1850 -2000 tournament, if you can fill in all you need in your main army in say 1200 or 1000 points(Which isn't that much of a stretch). Then you could just fill the rest with a "filler" army and only suffer the penalties from your main army force

This means if you wanted to have a specialized detachment but also knew that you couldn't fill out the points, then a "filler" army would cover you nicely. Like having say a Heavy support detachment because you wanted to go big on those slots, you can then use a "filler" army to cover up the points difference without loosing CP, excentially making it that soup is mandatory if your going a heavy/elite/fast attack tailored list