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First off, I won’t be disscussing whether or not soup is good for the game, that is separate discussion that has been talked to death already on this forum (though I might mention it a bit from a business point of view.) Rather this an explanation as to why there is next to no chance that GW will take substantial measures to combat soup anytime soon.

My main point here is that GW (like any publicly traded company) really own cares about profit. You can complain all you want on forums like this one about game balance, but at the end of day GW only cares about the $$$ they receive. This is probably pretty obvious to most, but I wanted to make it clear as it’s the crux of my thesis. That being, Soup is good for GW’s bottom line.

To illustrate this, let me give you 2 examples.

First let’s take a hypothetical player Steve. Steve is an avid IG player who loves his army, but has played enough of it to aquire a small desire to play something else. Luckily for him Codex: Imperal Knights has just come out! However, like most of us, Steve has a budget of both time and money. Now imagine Steve lives in 2 possible worlds. The first is the one we live in, where there is pretty much zero cost to allying in a Knight. Great! Now Steve can buy and hobby up a single knight without too much concern with the various costs associated with doing so. He can simply ally in the knight into his guard, and use it in a functioning army. Better yet maybe in month or 2 when Steve has more time and money, he’ll consider more Knights as he already has invested into a base. Now World 2 is one set where there isn’t any allying allowed. Now Steve is very unlikely to buy any Knights, as he simply doesn’t have the time or funds to make a full Knight army (despite how cool they might be). Simply put in world 1 GW is making a lot more $ than world 2, which is their main goal.

Now on to example 2, the less extreme more relatable one. Same setup, (2 worlds with Steve the gamer). In this example Steve is more
of a spike, but still plays IG. Knights have still just come out, and Steve still thinks they’re cool. The difference being is that Steve is also concerned about how competitive his army is will be for an upcoming tournament, or just wants a tougher army to face down the stronger players at his local club. World 1 is still our current one. However world 2 is a world where GW makes a rule where detachments only generate CP for the army they where created by. Since a single Knight doesn’t generate any CP for itself, Steve is stuck with only 3 Command points to spend on it. Not much considering he will be spending at least 2 to get a relic a warlord trait for it. This is further worsened when Steve sees his friends all knight army using powerful stratagems frequently. In the end Steve decideds not to buy a knight, in order to focus more on his guard which can maximize his CP to the best effect.

While I’ll be the first to admit these examples are somewhat extreme, there are a large number of people who play warharmmer. Even if example 2 only happens once or twice, it’s a pretty big loss to GW as they essentially lost hundreds if not thousands of dollars from that person. Initial cost to investment is GW’s biggest obstacle in making a profit, so anything which helps combat that is gravy to them. Soup is one of things has been effective in this (as GW’s recent has shown) and while i understand that most people’s solution to fixing it isn’t to outright ban it, anything that hurts it also hurts it ability to combat people’s natural avoidance to high initial cost of investment. Simply put, until soup is proven to damage the game enough to deter people from buying models, GW isn’t going make any changes to it beyond superficial ones.

While I appreciate the post, I feel like this is, more or less common knowledge.

The nice thing is that at the end of the day, the players will decide what they're playing or not playing (and we've even seen events move to "Single codex only" modes, etc.).

You're right of course, though these days it feels like "common knowledge' just isn't quite as common as it once was. While it's more of a case of discussion for discussion sake, all these "Soup sucks!" posts are annoying me as they don't actually produce anything of real worth. Maybe that's just Dakka in a nut shell, but hey a person can dream right ?

But the problem is not that soup exists. The problem is that GW is not making a good codex for every army like it did for IG, and while the soup exists instead of fixing the bad books, they expect to buy more and more armies from people. It something scam artists do.
So the simplification may sound like soup sucks. Because it does the way it works like now. It invalidates whole books, and a ton of units, makes weaker armies without soup options even worse and with each new book the gap gets only bigger. And on top of it, GW policy to they putting out a bad army is to not fix it for years, and more or less tell people to just buy another army.

TLTR version: Because GW love MOOOOOONNNNNEEEEYYYY!

I agree, and I think so does the vast majority of the people here already, that soup is not going to vanish. There's no advantage to GW in removing it, and it does genuinely hurt a lot of players who have made purchases based around soup being a think. And that is not just power gamers, not by a long shot. There are tons of Steves out there, who just though a unit in a different faction looked cool, and realised they could run it in their army. That's cool!

Soup doesn't need removing. I think there just needs to be SOME disadvantage to doing it.

My proposed fix is thus:

In matched play, a detachment only generates any CP for your army if it has a keyword shared by more than half the Power Level of your army. Ignore the keywords IMPERIUM, CHAOS, TYRANID, and YNNARI for the purposes of this rule.

What does this mean? It means you can take whatever you want still. But no CP outside of your primary faction. In competitive play it's a genuinely difficult choice as it should be. In casual play, Steve can run whatever he wants still!

I wish people would stop pouring soup on their models. It's getting ridiculous and messy.

Since nobody will ever explain what soup is I'm sticking to what it actually is

From what I've read soup is basically allying in mutiple different armies, essentially using more then one codex in an army... Tbh I've done this a lot in 7th with Cult Mech, Skitarii, GK, SW and IK in the same army, however it would become more difficult of I tried allying in necrons...

Did they remove the rule that says armies like necrons/nids/DE don't get along with other armies and can't move within a certain distance/share transports ect?

Hoping my rulebook gets in soon haha

Yeah, I agree. I actually bought lore friendly additions to my marines. Inquisitors for example. Would hate for them to be cut off because of a few annoying people in the tournaments and power gamers.

ValentineGames wrote:
I wish people would stop pouring soup on their models. It's getting ridiculous and messy.

Since nobody will ever explain what soup is I'm sticking to what it actually is

Soup is specifically picking and choosing the best units across several factions to make the most powerful army you can.

marcman wrote:
From what I've read soup is basically allying in mutiple different armies, essentially using more then one codex in an army... Tbh I've done this a lot in 7th with Cult Mech, Skitarii, GK, SW and IK in the same army, however it would become more difficult of I tried allying in necrons...

Did they remove the rule that says armies like necrons/nids/DE don't get along with other armies and can't move within a certain distance/share transports ect?

Hoping my rulebook gets in soon haha

In matched play, your whole army must have a shared keyword. This means Necrons cannot ally with anyone ever. Tyranids can be in an army only with Genestealer cults and one detachment of Imperial guard thanks to the GSC special rules. Dark Eldar are more chummy with other Eldar than they used to be thanks to Ynnari, but can never be in an army with non-Eldar.

Basically there's no need for rules about how enemies on the same side don't work together because for the most part they can never be fielded together anyway.

As for transports, those are all based off keywords. There's no universal rules about who can go in what transports, it all depends on the datasheet for the specific transport you are looking at. Most are limited to sub-faction, so an Ultramarines Rhino can only carry Ultramarines and no other chapters or other armies. But there are exceptions.

If soup was about money, they would have done it a long time ago. I doubt soup is driving GWs financial performance.

Have you thought about the idea that, for some people, it's just cool to mix armies / have allies? I realize Imperial competitive lists have all gone the way of Guard allies, but, for Chaos players, we went several editions where Daemons were a completely separate army. It's a lot easier to put out something fluffy and thematic than it was, say, in 5th edition.

To the OP.

I see to many people with Necron/Nid first/second armies to believe your hypothesis is correct.

If we take your ideas to the logical extreme, they should revise Black Templar's to include librarians. All that sweet black templar player librarian money just left on the table.

While I don't think that soup is going to get banned, its not due to profit. It is due to the fact they have 30 years of allies in the game.

GW is aware that a compelling interesting universe with cool models and a quick easy game sells. Not gimmicks about X strategy selling models. Consumers are smart enough to see through that.

And go to the Thread about GW's fiscal success due to 8th edition. That wasn't about Soup. It was about they got a rule system that people wanted to play out, so people returned and joined the hobby.

All signs point to GW being more interested in keeping the rules fresh and working. That is why you see stuff like the Rule of 3 in playtesting. A rule that seems directly opposed to the idea of make rules to sell X models.

 techsoldaten wrote:
If soup was about money, they would have done it a long time ago. I doubt soup is driving GWs financial performance.

Have you thought about the idea that, for some people, it's just cool to mix armies / have allies? I realize Imperial competitive lists have all gone the way of Guard allies, but, for Chaos players, we went several editions where Daemons were a completely separate army. It's a lot easier to put out something fluffy and thematic than it was, say, in 5th edition.

You overestimate GW. Maybe they didn't think of it back then, maybe they had planned it for years but it has taken them this long to prepare for it. Simply saying "If this is better then they would have done it years ago" if like saying "If electricity is so good why didn't humans invent it thousands of years ago?". Gw is a small company and it's all a learning experience for them.

So basically only battle brothers can be in the same army now? Haha I'm gonna have to hear an explanation into why IG and nids can ally

Reemule wrote:
To the OP.

I see to many people with Necron/Nid first/second armies to believe your hypothesis is correct.

If we take your ideas to the logical extreme, they should revise Black Templar's to include librarians. All that sweet black templar player librarian money just left on the table.

While I don't think that soup is going to get banned, its not due to profit. It is due to the fact they have 30 years of allies in the game.

GW is aware that a compelling interesting universe with cool models and a quick easy game sells. Not gimmicks about X strategy selling models. Consumers are smart enough to see through that.

And go to the Thread about GW's fiscal success due to 8th edition. That wasn't about Soup. It was about they got a rule system that people wanted to play out, so people returned and joined the hobby.

All signs point to GW being more interested in keeping the rules fresh and working. That is why you see stuff like the Rule of 3 in playtesting. A rule that seems directly opposed to the idea of make rules to sell X models.

GW's motivations are largely due to profit with the player experience being secondary. Also the rule of 3 isn't to stop selling models, it means a greater range of models being sold. Instead of getting 4 boxes of unit x the player buys 2 boxes of unit x and 2 boxes of unit y or 3 of x and 1 of y. This might seem counterintuitive at first but it greatly helps to pay for the cost of the molds for unit y helping to make that line more profitable. Instead of just unit x being profitable and the time and money invested sculpting, writing rules and creating molds for unit y being wasted. The player experience is a factor but a company doesn't make any decisions like this without waying up what the costs and what the benefits are. If you wanted to take a cynical view you could even have the opinion that the rule of 3 had been in planning before even 8th ed was released to the public. That way GW sells extra units of x while it's what's most viable and then when they introduce the rule they sell the units of y as a bonus.

GW wants profit is a given.

Trying to ascribe the path to getting to it due to Machiavellian model rules and availability violates Occam's razor.

The simplest answer is that they want to provide a compelling universe that people want to buy into and play.

marcman wrote:
So basically only battle brothers can be in the same army now? Haha I'm gonna have to hear an explanation into why IG and nids can ally

It’s a special rule granted by Genestealer cults. It’s a Genecult(who infiltrated the local guard forces) assisting a Tyranid invasion. The rule itself allows one Tyranid detachment and/or one Guard detachment per Genestealer Cult detachment.

 Sinful Hero wrote:

marcman wrote:
So basically only battle brothers can be in the same army now? Haha I'm gonna have to hear an explanation into why IG and nids can ally

It’s a special rule granted by Genestealer cults. It’s a Genecult(who infiltrated the local guard forces) assisting a Tyranid invasion. The rule itself allows one Tyranid detachment and/or one Guard detachment per Genestealer Cult detachment.

That's not quite right. You can have any number of Tyranid detachments in the army. But you cannot have more Astra Militarum detachments than Genestealer Cults detachments.

But yes, they are infested Guardsmen under the influence of the cult, so it's actually very fluffy


Automatically Appended Next Post:
‘The influence of a Genestealer Cult permeates all
aspects of a society, including any Astra Militarum
regiments stationed on their world. To represent the
elements of such forces that have been subverted by
a cult, you can include Astra Militarum units and
Genestealer Cults units in the same matched play
army, even though these units don’t have any Faction
keywords in common. However, you can only include
one Astra Militarum Detachment (one in which every
unit has the Astra Militarum keyword) in a Battle-
forged army for each Genestealer Cult Detachment
(one in which every unit has the Genestealer Cults
keyword) in that army and every unit in the Astra
Militarum Detachment that has the <Regiment>
keyword must replace it in every instance on its
datasheet with Brood Brothers (you cannot include
any Astra Militarum named characters in such
Detachments). In such cases, simply ignore the Astra
Militarum units when choosing your army’s Faction.’

Is the rule of three an actual rule or a rule of thumb?

marcman wrote:
Is the rule of three an actual rule or a rule of thumb?

It's a suggestion for organised play at this time. Tournaments will generally use it, but it's not a rule of the game as such. That said, a lot of people treat it as a rule of the game, so you probably want to make it clear with your opponent one way or the other before playing.

Personally I'd suggest caution in buying more than 3 of any unit (other than troops or dedicated transports which are exempt). It may limit the people willing to play with you and possibly even could become a formal rule one day.

Reemule wrote:
GW wants profit is a given.

Trying to ascribe the path to getting to it due to Machiavellian model rules and availability violates Occam's razor.

The simplest answer is that they want to provide a compelling universe that people want to buy into and play.

I'm not trying to say GW is evil and plotting rules changes like the rule of 3 to dupe people into buying models they know will be useless soon. Just presenting that it was a theoretical possibility if you take it to one extreme. GW seems to have improved quite a bit during the break I had from the game and I'm sure there are people there who genuinely want to improve the experience for the players and keep the hobby healthy. But everything is primarily driven by money and to have any changes approved they need analysis that shows the change will generate more money. It doesn't matter how much it improves it for the players if the projections say it will lose them even a penny. They're a publicly traded company so they legally aren't allowed to do anything unless they can demonstrate it's in the best interests of the shareholders. It's a lot more difficult to sell shareholders on improving player goodwill than it is actual cash flow from more kits being sold.

Karol wrote:
But the problem is not that soup exists. The problem is that GW is not making a good codex for every army like it did for IG, and while the soup exists instead of fixing the bad books, they expect to buy more and more armies from people. It something scam artists do.

Well, the last thing GW wants is for someone to buy an army from another player. They don't get a dime of that.

Personally though, one of the reason I enjoy the current soup rules is because it overall requires the same investment in an army, with less redundancy. I like Grey Knights, but there are... what... 3? unique models that make up the whole faction outside of named HQs? I really don't want to buy those over and over to 2000 points.

Soup didn't make me buy a Guard army; it made me buy a tenth of one. If I really like it, I can add more, but that's always true. Playing something that looks cool and fun is a lot more doable when it requires a comparatively minimal purchase.

40K is in an unusual position because so many of its “factions” are actually part of the same organization. In most other TT games, each faction is distinct and alliances are a rarity, instead of the norm between a large number of factions.

Let’s face it, for many factions - say, Space Wolves vs. Dark Angels - rivalries had to be dreamed up to explain battles between them when in actuality, they are both Imperium space marines that *should* never be facing off against one another (it’s like if the German Heer was battling the SS in WW2).

Until GW shatters the Imperium along faction lines (Em-error dies, each marine chapter/Guard/ad mech/Knights) start vying for the throne, we’ll have Soup.

Maybe GW should make a ‘future’/alt timeline where this occurs...

Also I don't think Soup will go away either, but I think you will see rules that minimize it as we go further into the design cycle.

I believe you have already seen this. When 8th launched, take where ever you wanted, to now you have some rules, like Rule of three, and detachment need to be faction only rules.

I'd expect that you will most likely see some kind of rules on Stratagems/CP usage between soup faction armies at some point, and that might end the discussion.

marcman wrote:
From what I've read soup is basically allying in mutiple different armies, essentially using more then one codex in an army...

So why is it seen as a negative things?
It'd be fun combining a Iron Warrior Chaos Marine army with Dark Mechanicus Skitarri and maybe a Chaos Knight.
Maybe throw some renegade guardsmen in.

Seems fluffy enough.
Surely nobody is sad enough to abuse this freedom...right?

ValentineGames wrote:

marcman wrote:
From what I've read soup is basically allying in mutiple different armies, essentially using more then one codex in an army...

So why is it seen as a negative things?
It'd be fun combining a Iron Warrior Chaos Marine army with Dark Mechanicus Skitarri and maybe a Chaos Knight.
Maybe throw some renegade guardsmen in.

Seems fluffy enough.
Surely nobody is sad enough to abuse this freedom...right?

It's seen as a negative thing because not everyone has it. Imperium, Chaos, and Eldar get it best. Nids get something. Everyone else is on their own.

The issue is that every faction has its strengths and weaknesses. Soup means you can ignore your weaknesses by allying in a different faction that covers it.

Stux wrote:

The issue is that every faction has its strengths and weaknesses.

I love how strongly people believe this.

Fluff wise, it makes plenty of sense. Mechanically, it makes a mess of balance that, at least for tournaments, is wrecking havoc with a number of non-Imperium armies.

 LunarSol wrote:

Stux wrote:

The issue is that every faction has its strengths and weaknesses.

I love how strongly people believe this.

I'm not saying armies are equal. The weaknessess of some armies are relatively trivial, and others are great hurdles. But the point stands, soup makes almost anything somewhat viable, because there's something in your soup elsewhere to shore up it's shortcomings.