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Kind of goes to what’s rapidly becoming my soapbox: a good, well-balanced game will self-generate more sales than any amount of artificial meta shifts.

Karol wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:


except this is, broadly, what CPs do already, they allow fluffy elite formations, such as raven wing, death wing, Space Wolf Wolf guard etc, well at the same time enchouraging people to sue troops etc in a more standand format by rewarding it. you are not being PUNSIHED for playing Ravenwing, I am being REWARDED for taking a balanced force..

or so the design logic goes.

But that is not true. If I go and take an characterful mono army, and avoid the rule of 3, I am being punished for not taking the 32 IG dudes or some strong melee/shoting. Not just in power, but in the number of CPs I would get, and my army thank to GW did not get any good 1CP stratagems to be spamed.

ohh I agree this is a problem, but it's more a matter of GW not thinking things fully through rather then "by design" the IDEA of CP is "I take some troops in a battlaion and I get more CPs for stratigiums" the PRACTICE is "I take a vanguard detachment of my best stuff, and a cheap guard Battalion" is the system deeply deeply flawed? yes, but we need to correct that flaw.

the problem with the guard is two things interacting together, 1 they have the best tools to regen CP combined with having the easiest time generating CP.
This is a serious game design problem and one that frankly is a horriable design problem. CP regen should be a feature of Custodes, Grey Knights, maybe space marines...

Elite armies that will struggle to field a large model count and thus need to make the most of their limited CP.

Karol wrote:
Aha, so am suppose to look it from a non GK perspective. Only I kind of a own a GK army, I don't see people changing the rules for GK players when their state is visibly unfun. Why should I get punished again, so that a group of tournament players and maybe people playing other armies have even more fun then they have now.

Also you know what, I think GW spots those combos just right. I think they knew very well what the ravellan or IG/soup rules are going to do aka generate sales, And while there is nothing wrong with a company wanting to sell more stuff, in fact it is a desired thing to expect, they really should do something about their knee jerk reaction to stuff. They never fix stuff, they kill it dead and make people buy other stuff. And while for people with good book this means they just have to switch from reapers to spears, for people with bad books this means their bad stuff always stays bad.

I don't see all these knee-jerk reactions, it seems that they are quite hamfisted actually.

Dark Reapers got nerfed, and they are still used.
Flyrants were triple nerfed and they are still used.
Dark Talons were nerfed and they are still used.
Gman was nerfed and he is still used.
Azrael was nerfed and he is still used.
Flyers were nerfed and they are still used.

They keep all the good hammers for the FW stuff.

They just didn't learn from 7th ed.

Giving free stuff (in this case free buffs i.e. stratagems) is fundamentally difficult to balance.

Most playtested edition ever my backside.

Here's hoping they FAQ Battle Forged to give the most CPs (like 3 CPs per turn or something) and detachments get dramatically reduced.
I'd be cool with Battalions only giving 2CPs and Brigades giving 5, and all other detachments getting nothing (Aux still -1), so long as Battle Forged is the thing that grants the bulk of CPs.
That evens the playing field a bit more vs soup, since soup wouldn't really get a ton more CPs than mono-factions.

Also, by having BF generate CPs at the start of each turn would cut down dramatically on pre-game shenanigans.

It could be done very easily via FAQ/Errata.

-

 Galef wrote:
Here's hoping they FAQ Battle Forged to give the most CPs (like 3 CPs per turn or something) and detachments get dramatically reduced.
I'd be cool with Battalions only giving 2CPs and Brigades giving 5, and all other detachments getting nothing (Aux still -1), so long as Battle Forged is the thing that grants the bulk of CPs.
That evens the playing field a bit more vs soup, since soup wouldn't really get a ton more CPs than mono-factions.

Also, by having BF generate CPs at the start of each turn would cut down dramatically on pre-game shenanigans.

It could be done very easily via FAQ/Errata.

-

They also need to seriously rehaul the brigade. You should strive to fill the brigade as it is a full CAD detachment. As it stands, it is more CP friendly and efficient to run 2 battalions. you get the 4 HQ, you can have 6 troops then only have to pick units you want that are points efficient in the other slots. This is 10 CP vs 12 but guard aren't missing out on those 2 CP when they can generate so many. They also get to take the things they want like guard battalion + slamguinius battalion + knight. Taking cheap troops and efficeint LoW and HQs. They don't have to take anything of their fast attack options or elite choices.

Spoletta wrote:

Karol wrote:
Aha, so am suppose to look it from a non GK perspective. Only I kind of a own a GK army, I don't see people changing the rules for GK players when their state is visibly unfun. Why should I get punished again, so that a group of tournament players and maybe people playing other armies have even more fun then they have now.

Also you know what, I think GW spots those combos just right. I think they knew very well what the ravellan or IG/soup rules are going to do aka generate sales, And while there is nothing wrong with a company wanting to sell more stuff, in fact it is a desired thing to expect, they really should do something about their knee jerk reaction to stuff. They never fix stuff, they kill it dead and make people buy other stuff. And while for people with good book this means they just have to switch from reapers to spears, for people with bad books this means their bad stuff always stays bad.

I don't see all these knee-jerk reactions, it seems that they are quite hamfisted actually.

Dark Reapers got nerfed, and they are still used.
Flyrants were triple nerfed and they are still used.
Dark Talons were nerfed and they are still used.
Gman was nerfed and he is still used.
Azrael was nerfed and he is still used.
Flyers were nerfed and they are still used.

They keep all the good hammers for the FW stuff.

Storm ravens were considered too OP along side razorbacks in marine armies, because of the re rolls . Nerf cimes and instead of dealing with the re rolls or nerfing gulliman dead, they nerf the vehicles. And to make it a real knee jerk reaction they nerf them, pardon my GK focus, in the GK army where they have no access to 're rolls and already cost more. Or how about GW saying they didn't want to over power GK with psychic potential, and giving them nerf smite no good psyker school... only to let IG and traitors guard to run around with normal smite for less the a single GK terminator, and top it all of by giving eldar ton of powerful psychic powers, as if somehow eldar stuff did not end up broken even before the "free" psychic power in form of soul burst, specially it's first iterations.

Karol- I know that you had a hard time playing/learning the rules for GK from your FLGS but you're mistaken in that any GK unit/model can get rerolls. All they have to do is be within 6" of any model with the Rites of Battle rule to reroll "1s" or within 6" of Draigo to reroll any misses.

I do agree that GW doesn't seem to understand that if GKs are supposed to be the psychic space marine chapter they aren't even as good as the other chapters in most ways let alone compared to TSons and Eldar.

 greyknight12 wrote:
Kind of goes to what’s rapidly becoming my soapbox: a good, well-balanced game will self-generate more sales than any amount of artificial meta shifts.

Yes, but look at it this from GW’s perspective: creating a well-balanced game with a roster as large as modern 40k while still releasing new content on schedule is hard, while getting the game kinda-sorta balanced in casual matches while shifting up the meta based on tournament results and feedback is easier. This way GW doesn’t have to get the game right every FAQ and codex, they just have to move closer to a balanced game. This gives them much more leeway and longtime fans are used to the inevitable problems.

mhalko1 wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Here's hoping they FAQ Battle Forged to give the most CPs (like 3 CPs per turn or something) and detachments get dramatically reduced.
I'd be cool with Battalions only giving 2CPs and Brigades giving 5, and all other detachments getting nothing (Aux still -1), so long as Battle Forged is the thing that grants the bulk of CPs.
That evens the playing field a bit more vs soup, since soup wouldn't really get a ton more CPs than mono-factions.

Also, by having BF generate CPs at the start of each turn would cut down dramatically on pre-game shenanigans.

It could be done very easily via FAQ/Errata.

-

They also need to seriously rehaul the brigade. You should strive to fill the brigade as it is a full CAD detachment. As it stands, it is more CP friendly and efficient to run 2 battalions. you get the 4 HQ, you can have 6 troops then only have to pick units you want that are points efficient in the other slots. This is 10 CP vs 12 but guard aren't missing out on those 2 CP when they can generate so many. They also get to take the things they want like guard battalion + slamguinius battalion + knight. Taking cheap troops and efficeint LoW and HQs. They don't have to take anything of their fast attack options or elite choices.

Yeah, that makes sense. At that rate, I'd have Brigades generate 3x what a Battalion does, which still should not be much.
If a Battalion only give 2cps, maybe Brigades can give 7 or more. That should encourage Brigades over 2x Battalions

But the main issue is that armies shouldn't be generating most of their CPs via detachments anyway. Rewarding some CP for larger detahcments is fine, but the bulk of CPs should absolutely come from being Battle Forged.
I really like the idea of 3CPs PER TURN being generated by BF (while WL is alive) and detachment CPs being reduced dramatically and are generated as now (once only).
It "evens" out the available CPs everyone has access to, but allows some armies to gain a handful more (but not as much more as now)
It also prevents an army from dumping all their CPs into a single devastating turn, having to spread them out over the course of the game.

-

I don't think that some mono armies could even field a remotely usuable brigade at 2000 pts. I'm very sure that GK can't. GK can field 2 battalions only due to the fact that it doesn't require the extra units that the brigade does.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Im seriously considering it might be better to just give Every list 14-15 CP to start, and not have detachments give any CP.

There can still be characters (named ones) that grant extra CP as part of their kit, but it evens out a lot of stuff and means people don't have to soup in cheap battalions to still be able to use their strats.

It also kinda does away with the max of 3 detachments necessity since it wont matter how many you bring if everyone gets the same CP.

Would certainly shake up the meta..

The only bad thing this change could cause would be that less people would take troops, but since we have the Rule of 3 implemented I don't think it'd be too bad.

I've seen a few variations on that theme, the one I like best was 3 CPs per full 500 points of game size, minus one for each detachment after the first, minus another one for each force you'd souped in. And even then I strongly suspect that people would take the -2CPs for the small Guard detachment to get access to CP regeneration.

 Galef wrote:

mhalko1 wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Here's hoping they FAQ Battle Forged to give the most CPs (like 3 CPs per turn or something) and detachments get dramatically reduced.
I'd be cool with Battalions only giving 2CPs and Brigades giving 5, and all other detachments getting nothing (Aux still -1), so long as Battle Forged is the thing that grants the bulk of CPs.
That evens the playing field a bit more vs soup, since soup wouldn't really get a ton more CPs than mono-factions.

Also, by having BF generate CPs at the start of each turn would cut down dramatically on pre-game shenanigans.

It could be done very easily via FAQ/Errata.

-

They also need to seriously rehaul the brigade. You should strive to fill the brigade as it is a full CAD detachment. As it stands, it is more CP friendly and efficient to run 2 battalions. you get the 4 HQ, you can have 6 troops then only have to pick units you want that are points efficient in the other slots. This is 10 CP vs 12 but guard aren't missing out on those 2 CP when they can generate so many. They also get to take the things they want like guard battalion + slamguinius battalion + knight. Taking cheap troops and efficeint LoW and HQs. They don't have to take anything of their fast attack options or elite choices.

Yeah, that makes sense. At that rate, I'd have Brigades generate 3x what a Battalion does, which still should not be much.
If a Battalion only give 2cps, maybe Brigades can give 7 or more. That should encourage Brigades over 2x Battalions

But the main issue is that armies shouldn't be generating most of their CPs via detachments anyway. Rewarding some CP for larger detahcments is fine, but the bulk of CPs should absolutely come from being Battle Forged.
I really like the idea of 3CPs PER TURN being generated by BF (while WL is alive) and detachment CPs being reduced dramatically and are generated as now (once only).
It "evens" out the available CPs everyone has access to, but allows some armies to gain a handful more (but not as much more as now)
It also prevents an army from dumping all their CPs into a single devastating turn, having to spread them out over the course of the game.

-

Brigades really should be an apocalypse size game and up detachment, when half the armies can't realistically field one at 2k.

I really think that GW will make the most gains if it tried to reduce the range in some of the more extremes of the game.

I think they would do better if they understood that a game where you can have a side with 6 CP versus a side with 20+ CP and the chance of getting more or recycling that CP is going to be an issue. If they made it do that the minimum a side could have was 10, and the max a side could get through list and play selection was 15, you would see a different game and people wouldn’t care about CP as much.

Same with model count. If they tried to build a game that wanted you to try to get to around 50 models, and worked to that kind of behavior, you wouldn’t see silly forces like 200 horde forces and 4 model IK armies doing so well.

So I hope the Faq does some thinking like that, and moves quicker in trying to help people get to these kinds of places.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
I don't think that some mono armies could even field a remotely usuable brigade at 2000 pts. I'm very sure that GK can't. GK can field 2 battalions only due to the fact that it doesn't require the extra units that the brigade does.

Dark Eldar are a very good Codex and they can only field a Kabal Brigade and 6 units won't even benefit from the Chapter tactic.

Ice_can wrote:

Spoiler:

 Galef wrote:

mhalko1 wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Here's hoping they FAQ Battle Forged to give the most CPs (like 3 CPs per turn or something) and detachments get dramatically reduced.
I'd be cool with Battalions only giving 2CPs and Brigades giving 5, and all other detachments getting nothing (Aux still -1), so long as Battle Forged is the thing that grants the bulk of CPs.
That evens the playing field a bit more vs soup, since soup wouldn't really get a ton more CPs than mono-factions.

Also, by having BF generate CPs at the start of each turn would cut down dramatically on pre-game shenanigans.

It could be done very easily via FAQ/Errata.

-

They also need to seriously rehaul the brigade. You should strive to fill the brigade as it is a full CAD detachment. As it stands, it is more CP friendly and efficient to run 2 battalions. you get the 4 HQ, you can have 6 troops then only have to pick units you want that are points efficient in the other slots. This is 10 CP vs 12 but guard aren't missing out on those 2 CP when they can generate so many. They also get to take the things they want like guard battalion + slamguinius battalion + knight. Taking cheap troops and efficeint LoW and HQs. They don't have to take anything of their fast attack options or elite choices.

Yeah, that makes sense. At that rate, I'd have Brigades generate 3x what a Battalion does, which still should not be much.
If a Battalion only give 2cps, maybe Brigades can give 7 or more. That should encourage Brigades over 2x Battalions

But the main issue is that armies shouldn't be generating most of their CPs via detachments anyway. Rewarding some CP for larger detahcments is fine, but the bulk of CPs should absolutely come from being Battle Forged.
I really like the idea of 3CPs PER TURN being generated by BF (while WL is alive) and detachment CPs being reduced dramatically and are generated as now (once only).
It "evens" out the available CPs everyone has access to, but allows some armies to gain a handful more (but not as much more as now)
It also prevents an army from dumping all their CPs into a single devastating turn, having to spread them out over the course of the game.

-

Brigades really should be an apocalypse size game and up detachment, when half the armies can't realistically field one at 2k.

Yeah, probably. But that's a different discussion. I like the idea of a Brigade, but maybe requiring 3 Elites, Fast and Heavy is a bit much for a 2K game. Especially since no army (I can think of) truly has great units in all 3 slots. Typically you'll see at least 1 of the 3 taken as the cheapest throw away option, which is sad.
Requiring only 2 of each (plus all the Troops and HQs) would probably have work better.

Another potential fix GW could FAQ is that CPs generated mid-game are lost at the end of the turn they are generated. So you either use them immediately, or lose them
Combine this with lowering the disparity between detachments (seriously Battalions should not be giving 5CPs when others only give 1), and you get far closer to balanced

-

Likely the best change they could do in the short term is to make CP restricted to the detachment that generates it, as well as any extra CP generated by something like the guard CP farming warlord and item only supports the detachment that model is in.

The you can balance out things like rotate ion shields and all the ridiculous blood angel strats that allow a single 120 model to kill virtually anything from anywhere on the board with no counterplay around the fact that there will be a limited number of total command points available to those models

VIlacom wrote:
Likely the best change they could do in the short term is to make CP restricted to the detachment that generates it, as well as any extra CP generated by something like the guard CP farming warlord and item only supports the detachment that model is in.

The you can balance out things like rotate ion shields and all the ridiculous blood angel strats that allow a single 120 model to kill virtually anything from anywhere on the board with no counterplay around the fact that there will be a limited number of total command points available to those models

Why should CPs be restricted by Detachment? If I have three Detachments from the same faction/book I see no reason to restrict them.

Furthermore,if there are problematic strats, traits and relics then maybe fix those directly?

More and more I am thinking that 3 CP a turn (which accumulates), with the removal of any CP refunding mechanics is the way to go.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
More and more I am thinking that 3 CP a turn (which accumulates), with the removal of any CP refunding mechanics is the way to go.

That just creates new problems though because people aren't disincentivised from just taking the best possible combination of units for the points. Like an army of all custodes on bikes or knights lists just taking armigers to replace the cp battery. There needs to be something to encourage people to take a more "balanced" approach in the type of units they take.

Why? And who decides what's more "balanced"? What if I want to play a list of all pox walkers? Why should I have to take other units if I don't want to do so?

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Why? And who decides what's more "balanced"? What if I want to play a list of all pox walkers? Why should I have to take other units if I don't want to do so?

Balanced as in a variety of unit types and not just max dark reapers and hemlocks. White scars players would be happy there's no penalty for taking all bikes anymore but there should always be a tradeoff for taking a skew list or just spamming whatever is your strongest unit.

An army of entirely pox walkers is kind of a bad example because they're troops so incredibly easy to just load up on as is.

zerosignal wrote:
They just didn't learn from 7th ed.

Giving free stuff (in this case free buffs i.e. stratagems) is fundamentally difficult to balance.

Most playtested edition ever my backside.

Strats aren't the problem as their use is tied to a limited resource: CP which is determined by your army comp. The problem is free CP that breaks that mechanic from CP farm style builds.

 IronBrand wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Why? And who decides what's more "balanced"? What if I want to play a list of all pox walkers? Why should I have to take other units if I don't want to do so?

Balanced as in a variety of unit types and not just max dark reapers and hemlocks. White scars players would be happy there's no penalty for taking all bikes anymore but there should always be a tradeoff for taking a skew list or just spamming whatever is your strongest unit.

An army of entirely pox walkers is kind of a bad example because they're troops so incredibly easy to just load up on as is.

Ah yes GW style "we have problem units but let's not fix those but just bandaid limits" like the rule of 3 that still left underpriced stuff underpriced so people max out on those anyway. Lol.

tneva82 wrote:
Ah yes GW style "we have problem units but let's not fix those but just bandaid limits" like the rule of 3 that still left underpriced stuff underpriced so people max out on those anyway. Lol.

It's asinine to complain about the rule of 3 not fixing every problem with broken units. The game is arguably in a better state with it than without. Saying that the rule of 3 still leaves unit X too cheap doesn't change the fact that the game is better when a player can't take 15 flyrants. Sure a change to points would've been a more balanced solution but it would've been an insane amount of work to get every problem unit to a point where you need to really weigh up if the points cost justify taking a 4th unit of them.

So GW being GW with amateurs as designers(they 100% are NOT professional level) go for the lazy solution leaving game broken mess. 8th ed is horrible mess in terms of balance. It's like 10% of a remotedly balanced. With positive spin...

"Most balanced edition" yet huge stepbacks in terms of balance.

tneva82 wrote:
So GW being GW with amateurs as designers(they 100% are NOT professional level) go for the lazy solution leaving game broken mess. 8th ed is horrible mess in terms of balance. It's like 10% of a remotedly balanced. With positive spin...

"Most balanced edition" yet huge stepbacks in terms of balance.

The game is far from balanced sure, but it is very playable. I'd much rather have a simple solution that leaves the game in a more playable state than have to wait for the next edition for them to try to fix something completely. We know from experience they'll never be able to really fix anything completely. It's not about being lazy it's about using simple solutions that improve the state of the game while not shaking things up too much. The fact that so many people are coming back to the game and having fun is evidence that a lot of people prefer this approach.

tneva82 wrote:
So GW being GW with amateurs as designers(they 100% are NOT professional level) go for the lazy solution leaving game broken mess. 8th ed is horrible mess in terms of balance. It's like 10% of a remotedly balanced. With positive spin...

"Most balanced edition" yet huge stepbacks in terms of balance.

There have fortunately been some concessions back towards previous rules from editions past, rules that were haphazardly tossed out without regard for the decades of "lessons learned" that led to their in inclusion in the first place.

 greyknight12 wrote:
There have fortunately been some concessions back towards previous rules from editions past, rules that were haphazardly tossed out without regard for the decades of "lessons learned" that led to their in inclusion in the first place.

With regards to the "lessons learned" it's much easier to strip things to their core then add things back piecemeal than it is to just strip out only the bad things. Would it be better if they had perfect testing so they could do this before it was released? Yes, obviously. That means time though and time is money. There's realistically only so long they can keep the shareholders off their back about getting it out the door so it can start making money already.

 IronBrand wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
More and more I am thinking that 3 CP a turn (which accumulates), with the removal of any CP refunding mechanics is the way to go.

That just creates new problems though because people aren't disincentivised from just taking the best possible combination of units for the points. Like an army of all custodes on bikes or knights lists just taking armigers to replace the cp battery. There needs to be something to encourage people to take a more "balanced" approach in the type of units they take.

Sure. But there are alternative ways to do that.

ObSec is already a thing, and should probably be removed from non-Troop Custodes. For Knights, it's already implemented reasonably well, with only very limited access to it, if it's pure Knights.

And you could, even and/or especially with fixed and non-regainable CP, make varying costs. Part of the problem already is that Tide of Traitors on 10 cultists and 40 cultists cost the same, which is idiotic. It should obviously cost 4x as many CP on 40 as it does on 10. House Raven strat shouldn't be the same cost on a Castellan and on a Warglaive.

You could link CP costs to Powerlevel and/or battlefield role, giving a discount if a strat is used on troop choices and/or making players pay an extra CP or two if it's played on a superheavy and/or a unit over a certain powerlevel.

Etc.. just brainstorming, but there're lots of ways to go there.