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 Silentz wrote:

kingheff wrote:
I've posted a rough draft of a change to how allies work in the proposed rules section, if anyone wants to provide feedback.

With respect, we all have. I spent ages writing mine and you haven't read them. You spent ages writing yours and I won't read them. Neither you nor I are going to affect the rules in any way, unless you choose to run your own tournament or gaming group and apply your rules.

#trufax


Edit: I did read them Not terrible and not miles from mine. Don't like the +1 cp for stratagems not from main detachment part. Extra bookkeeping and tough to remember/easy to either deliberately forget or accidentally forget.

Fair point, I'm a fairly infrequent user of dakka so I don't read everything.
To be fair I took approximately five minutes to write mine! Hence why I was looking for feedback. That and the fact that I don't claim to be an expert on the game and there's bound to be lots that I don't know.
In regards to the CP adjustment I figured it might help with people bringing three drukhari fliers just to get the vect strategy, for example.

Personally - soup is much less an issue than over overpowered units. I didn't do great at LVO but my Castellan killed over it's points in every game and no one every even shot at it except in 1 of 6 games. Keep in mind that the only reason it didn't kill 2x it's points every game was the fact that there were turns it didn't even get to fire (this is an ITC exclusive problem with LOS blocking being all over the place) More of less this kind of mitigates how OP the unit is. On a table with wide open shooting lanes NOTHING beats a Castellan over the long haul.

Also - stratagems are quite clearly the biggest issue in the game right now. They are basically free actions just like Ynnari is free actions. ALL FREE ACTIONS NEED TO BE REMOVED FROM THIS GAME.

Slipspace wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Because people are allergic to math.

No. As has been pointed out repeatedly in this very thread it's because 8th edition changed the very nature of how armies and allies work. We now have stratagems and CPs and faction bonuses and different detachment types to consider. That makes taking allies a fundamentally different proposition in 8th than in previous games when the only benefit was expanding the total number of unit choices an army could pick from. Costing units properly doesn't help as a solution because it's almost impossible to properly cost a unit when it can be available to a mono-Codex army with all the restrictions that entails or a soup army with essentially no restrictions at all.

I will reiterate again that these bonuses you talk about were already available in the form of formations (most of which not problematic) and allies could do far worse things. Remember people complaining about Azrael making several hundreds of points of Infantry Fearless and granting them a 4++ too?

Me neither.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Personally - soup is much less an issue than over overpowered units. I didn't do great at LVO but my Castellan killed over it's points in every game and no one every even shot at it except in 1 of 6 games. Keep in mind that the only reason it didn't kill 2x it's points every game was the fact that there were turns it didn't even get to fire (this is an ITC exclusive problem with LOS blocking being all over the place) More of less this kind of mitigates how OP the unit is. On a table with wide open shooting lanes NOTHING beats a Castellan over the long haul.

Also - stratagems are quite clearly the biggest issue in the game right now. They are basically free actions just like Ynnari is free actions. ALL FREE ACTIONS NEED TO BE REMOVED FROM THIS GAME.

You were at LVO? No way! What did you bring?

 sfshilo wrote:

Trollbert wrote:
...... If you're honest, nothing substantially changed from mid 7th (when I quit) to now, were are basically at the same point again.

Besides literally everything about the game changing you mean?

Yeah, everyone complains about Allies and Alpha Strike, people are still not able to finish games on time, rules are distributed thru several books/documents
terrain rules are still an issue as are some armies are clearly stronger than others

8th was meant to solve a lot of problems of 7th, and it worked as long as there were just the index books and got worse over time and now we are back at the same mess that was supposed to be fixed
if you really need to bring up the details that changed instead of something from the overall gameplay that should have gotten better, than nothing really changed

Hmm, the units/strats/powers/relics/traits people been crying about for pretty much the whole edition dominated LVO and GW had no idea?

The game really breaks down when people are applying strats/buffs/whatever to over sized and resilient units. Being able to buff a huge unit of shining spears which can zoom in and out of combat/los, the shooting of your entire army (doom), a knight worth 600 points with a 3++, a 24 man strong loota unit that has endless grot bodies, or that tau crap that gives them re-roll all for a turn or two while surrounded by drones. It comes down to the powers/strats/relics/traits have uses that GW just didn't figure out. Those synergies aren't baked into the costs of the units nor are they reflected in the costs of the buffs because GW doesn't take the time/$ to properly play test their game.

You can try to fix this by limiting the amount of CP they can use (nerf soup but it's way harder than just that). Handicapping those units that abuse these synergies (points nerfs which piss customers off). Stealth nerfs (reducing max unit sizes, upping strat cp costs, changing rule wording) which I would prefer but would be very hard to pull off (and most likely would only be noticed by the most competitive gamers).

People calling for nerfs to soup are trying to solve this problem with a sledge hammer. I don't think those who just want more points for knights are seeing the forest for the trees and I don't think GW has the desire to understand the game well enough to make the stealth nerfs work (given how bad they missed in CA 2017, 2018, the FAQs).

My guess is GW kneejerks and raises the cost of knights and reduces RIS to a 4++ max. Gives yanarri some different rules in the next FAQ which end up more broken (but for different units for that sweet churn $$$). Meta gets shaken up for a couple months,competitive players drop that sweet loot on gsc/nid/ig soup. Eldar, orks and tau figure it out in time for CA 2019 which shakes things up again until 9th edition is dropped 2021.

Just remove allies altogether. There are too many different units and factions in 40k to balance them if you can mix and match.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Because people are allergic to math.

No. As has been pointed out repeatedly in this very thread it's because 8th edition changed the very nature of how armies and allies work. We now have stratagems and CPs and faction bonuses and different detachment types to consider. That makes taking allies a fundamentally different proposition in 8th than in previous games when the only benefit was expanding the total number of unit choices an army could pick from. Costing units properly doesn't help as a solution because it's almost impossible to properly cost a unit when it can be available to a mono-Codex army with all the restrictions that entails or a soup army with essentially no restrictions at all.

I will reiterate again that these bonuses you talk about were already available in the form of formations (most of which not problematic) and allies could do far worse things. Remember people complaining about Azrael making several hundreds of points of Infantry Fearless and granting them a 4++ too?

Me neither.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Personally - soup is much less an issue than over overpowered units. I didn't do great at LVO but my Castellan killed over it's points in every game and no one every even shot at it except in 1 of 6 games. Keep in mind that the only reason it didn't kill 2x it's points every game was the fact that there were turns it didn't even get to fire (this is an ITC exclusive problem with LOS blocking being all over the place) More of less this kind of mitigates how OP the unit is. On a table with wide open shooting lanes NOTHING beats a Castellan over the long haul.

Also - stratagems are quite clearly the biggest issue in the game right now. They are basically free actions just like Ynnari is free actions. ALL FREE ACTIONS NEED TO BE REMOVED FROM THIS GAME.

You were at LVO? No way! What did you bring?

IG cadians with a Castellan. Not experienced in ITC formats and only managed a 2-3-1. I went last in every game though which played a pretty big factor. I faced 2x Ynnari/ 2x choas soup with TS Tzangor bombs/ A DW list/ Imperium dark angels.

Blastaar wrote:
Just remove allies altogether. There are too many different units and factions in 40k to balance them if you can mix and match.

I'd rather allies b.c limited than removed. One of these should be fine

A) Can only take Detachments, Vanguard, Outrider, Spearhead
B) Limited to 1 detachment
C) Limited to Points, 25%
D) Gain no Codex rules other than whats on the Datasheet (No Relics, Stratagems, etc..)

Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...

What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"

bananathug wrote:
Hmm, the units/strats/powers/relics/traits people been crying about for pretty much the whole edition dominated LVO and GW had no idea?

The game really breaks down when people are applying strats/buffs/whatever to over sized and resilient units. Being able to buff a huge unit of shining spears which can zoom in and out of combat/los, the shooting of your entire army (doom), a knight worth 600 points with a 3++, a 24 man strong loota unit that has endless grot bodies, or that tau crap that gives them re-roll all for a turn or two while surrounded by drones. It comes down to the powers/strats/relics/traits have uses that GW just didn't figure out. Those synergies aren't baked into the costs of the units nor are they reflected in the costs of the buffs because GW doesn't take the time/$ to properly play test their game.

You can try to fix this by limiting the amount of CP they can use (nerf soup but it's way harder than just that). Handicapping those units that abuse these synergies (points nerfs which piss customers off). Stealth nerfs (reducing max unit sizes, upping strat cp costs, changing rule wording) which I would prefer but would be very hard to pull off (and most likely would only be noticed by the most competitive gamers).

People calling for nerfs to soup are trying to solve this problem with a sledge hammer. I don't think those who just want more points for knights are seeing the forest for the trees and I don't think GW has the desire to understand the game well enough to make the stealth nerfs work (given how bad they missed in CA 2017, 2018, the FAQs).

My guess is GW kneejerks and raises the cost of knights and reduces RIS to a 4++ max. Gives yanarri some different rules in the next FAQ which end up more broken (but for different units for that sweet churn $$$). Meta gets shaken up for a couple months,competitive players drop that sweet loot on gsc/nid/ig soup. Eldar, orks and tau figure it out in time for CA 2019 which shakes things up again until 9th edition is dropped 2021.

In a game that I drew vs Chaos soup. My Opponent went first and buffed a 20 man noise marine up to insanity level.

Played a strat to let them scout
Played another to make them move twice (or it was warp time I don't remember)
Played a strat to make them +1 to wound
Hit them with prescience
Hit them with 5++ FNP.
Plays a strat to let them shoot twice

Dark matters a unit of tzangors hits them with -1 to hit and +1 invo save.
Makes the 8 inch charge with Gaze of fate
Then fights twice.

I think he spent 12 CP in the first turn....
Strong well thought out list no doubt - but quite possibly one of the worst first turns I've ever had to endure. My Castellan singlehandely with the support of some wyverns and helvrines brough me back into the game though. Only managed to tie the game by detonating my Castellan with my last 2 CP and killing like 500 points with a single dice roll. Would have gone on to win if we had time for 1 more round but that is my fault more than anything.

The point here is the stratagems are doubling to quadrupling base damage based on buffs. Gman gets a lot of hate and costs 400 points. All he does is increase units around him by like 50%-80%max and he costs 1/5 of your army....

 Kanluwen wrote:

And do you remember why "Shadowswords were all the rage"?
Supreme Command Detachments allowing for you to bring Primaris Psykers and a Shadowsword. The +1 to Hit from Shadowsword Targeters when targeting a Titanic keyworded model...gee, I wonder who was commonly showing up in Chaos lists at the time? Couldn't have been two characters with Titanic!

Let's think about this for a second.

....Magnus and Morty are not Titanic. Castellans *are* Titanic. Where are the Shadowswords? Nowhere to be found.

Castellans replaced Shadowswords whole cloth. They do the same job, but with more flexibility. WL traits, houses, and relics are things SS do not have nor will they ever.

 EnTyme wrote:

Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...

What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"

Because if the problem is that big as allies are your fix shouldn't be layering rulea and exceptions over bad rules.
You need to get back to the drawing board and understand why units do or don't work in the game and fix that not turn this into a here is the rules except for list 8+ factions/codex.

Ice_can wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...

What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"

Because if the problem is that big as allies are your fix shouldn't be layering rulea and exceptions over bad rules.
You need to get back to the drawing board and understand why units do or don't work in the game and fix that not turn this into a here is the rules except for list 8+ factions/codex.

Conversely, you shouldn't band aid individual units when there's a fundamental issue with the system. Fix the system first, then deal with specific cases.

Pancakey wrote:

Darsath wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
All I see is nerf nerf nerf! Why not incentivize mono builds by buffing mono armies?

That could work aswell. The real question is, what buff would make people play mono armies?

“Brothers in Arms”

“If all units and dectachments share the same faction, reduce the CP cost off all strategems by 1.”

Yes this makes 1CP strats free.

That would be awesome.

 Stux wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...

What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"

Because if the problem is that big as allies are your fix shouldn't be layering rulea and exceptions over bad rules.
You need to get back to the drawing board and understand why units do or don't work in the game and fix that not turn this into a here is the rules except for list 8+ factions/codex.

Conversely, you shouldn't band aid individual units when there's a fundamental issue with the system. Fix the system first, then deal with specific cases.

Totally agree with that, what I don't agree with is people suggesting fixes that arn't addressing the route cause of the problems.

It seems odd to me that Command Points accrue regardless of mixing disparate forces. If anything, I think a force would lose special abilities from training, access to special equipment, etc. if forced to integrate unfamiliar units. It makes more sense to me that a combined force of dissimilar units would LOSE command points per each integrated ally, since MORE effort has to be made to simply maintain normal chain of command and combat coordination.

 amanita wrote:
It seems odd to me that Command Points accrue regardless of mixing disparate forces. If anything, I think a force would lose special abilities from training, access to special equipment, etc. if forced to integrate unfamiliar units. It makes more sense to me that a combined force of dissimilar units would LOSE command points per each integrated ally, since MORE effort has to be made to simply maintain normal chain of command and combat coordination.

Only if they are thrown together at a given moment - mainy "armies" on the table can represent disperate units that have been working together for weeks, month, years - adventure story 101

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

And do you remember why "Shadowswords were all the rage"?
Supreme Command Detachments allowing for you to bring Primaris Psykers and a Shadowsword. The +1 to Hit from Shadowsword Targeters when targeting a Titanic keyworded model...gee, I wonder who was commonly showing up in Chaos lists at the time? Couldn't have been two characters with Titanic!

Let's think about this for a second.

....Magnus and Morty are not Titanic.

Yes, that's my bad--one of the few houserules that I tend to see locally with the folks I play with is that if you're a LoW? You have Titanic.

Castellans *are* Titanic. Where are the Shadowswords? Nowhere to be found.

Castellans replaced Shadowswords whole cloth. They do the same job, but with more flexibility. WL traits, houses, and relics are things SS do not have nor will they ever.

So why were you complaining about them to start with?

You brought up "Shadowswords didn't need to be souped"--yeah, they didn't but they still required a separate Detachment.

Oh yeah and Castellans didn't exist yet.

Ice_can wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...

What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"

Because if the problem is that big as allies are your fix shouldn't be layering rulea and exceptions over bad rules.
You need to get back to the drawing board and understand why units do or don't work in the game and fix that not turn this into a here is the rules except for list 8+ factions/codex.

I didn't say this was the fix, I'm just saying "Your fix would hurt [insert fringe case here]!" isn't really an issue. Fringe cases can be avoided with one-sentence rules.

 EnTyme wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...

What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"

Because if the problem is that big as allies are your fix shouldn't be layering rulea and exceptions over bad rules.
You need to get back to the drawing board and understand why units do or don't work in the game and fix that not turn this into a here is the rules except for list 8+ factions/codex.

I didn't say this was the fix, I'm just saying "Your fix would hurt [insert fringe case here]!" isn't really an issue. Fringe cases can be avoided with one-sentence rules.

Except your just falling into the same trap GW has so many times in 8th edition. Right X rule in 1 sentence, find it doesn't actually work the way you ment, kneejerk reaction that screws it up even more.
See the mess they have made of fly, wieird FAQ ruling which then got overnerfed for CC models making them useless.
When your rules need more exceptions that thier rules they are an inelegant solution.

 Stux wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

Trollbert wrote:I don't get how people value mini-factions more than balance...

What I don't get is how the people who argue this don't seem to understand that outlier can be given exceptions. "A unit with the Assassin keyword counts as being a part of the warlord's detachment as long as the warlord has the Imperial keyword"

Because if the problem is that big as allies are your fix shouldn't be layering rulea and exceptions over bad rules.
You need to get back to the drawing board and understand why units do or don't work in the game and fix that not turn this into a here is the rules except for list 8+ factions/codex.

Conversely, you shouldn't band aid individual units when there's a fundamental issue with the system. Fix the system first, then deal with specific cases.

So can you prove it's the system itself and not just the same few units that show up that are clearly a mathematical problem?

Fundamentally it comes down to "what is the baseline".

You can balance armies in their codexes - but then soup will be a problem because synergies exist.You can balance factions for soup - and whatever happens to the mono codexes happens.

Sisters+Black Templar is a soup army. Is it a problem for the game? No. Is a pure CW army going "this detachment's Alaitoc, This detachments Ulthwe" bad for the game? Itchy perhaps - but not really.

The problem is you take top tier units from 2-3 books and because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, you create an even greater tier, and the only way to balance is to price these units on the assumption that they are only played under these circumstances.

There is some degree of bitterness here. As I forecast a year ago, Knights are becoming as obnoxious as the Wardian codexes. I would personally like the Castelan to become about as popular as the Valiant. This situation where you are mad to not take one (and only because you prefer say 2 gallants) has to end.

Eldar Flyers meanwhile need to be looked at again - although I feel there the solution is just to cap them at -1 to hit. In fact such a blanket cap would probably help a lot in general.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 amanita wrote:
It seems odd to me that Command Points accrue regardless of mixing disparate forces. If anything, I think a force would lose special abilities from training, access to special equipment, etc. if forced to integrate unfamiliar units. It makes more sense to me that a combined force of dissimilar units would LOSE command points per each integrated ally, since MORE effort has to be made to simply maintain normal chain of command and combat coordination.

Only if they are thrown together at a given moment - mainy "armies" on the table can represent disperate units that have been working together for weeks, month, years - adventure story 101

Perhaps so, but in that case it seems more likely they'd develop entirely new stratagems in place of the prior ones since the context for the original doctrine within the parent force would be lost. Yeah, so now if you add allies you get RANDUMB stratagems! Doesn't THAT sound like fun?

 Daedalus81 wrote:
WL traits, houses, and relics are things SS do not have nor will they ever.

Wait... Why won't they again?

Reemule wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
WL traits, houses, and relics are things SS do not have nor will they ever.

Wait... Why won't they again?

Um you aren't serious are you?

Absolutely not.

But the reality is that people didn't think Knight houses were going to be on the table full time at the end of 2nd edition. And yet here they are.

There is already fluff about tanks having worshipers among the Guard.

I don't expect houses for super heavy Guard tanks.

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a formation for them, and it might have a relic in it. Certainly likely they would have Stratagems in it.

So maybe I am a little serious.

Reemule wrote:
Absolutely not.

But the reality is that people didn't think Knight houses were going to be on the table full time at the end of 2nd edition. And yet here they are.

There is already fluff about tanks having worshipers among the Guard.

I don't expect houses for super heavy Guard tanks.

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a formation for them, and it might have a relic in it. Certainly likely they would have Stratagems in it.

So maybe I am a little serious.

Relics are for characters, which tanks basically aren't ever outside Knights and Tank Commanders.

Reemule wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
WL traits, houses, and relics are things SS do not have nor will they ever.

Wait... Why won't they again?

I can see them totally having a Character Shadowsword etc in a Viglis style Superheavy formation and/or relevant stuff. Its in the fluff same as any other sub faction

Relics are for characters, which tanks basically aren't ever outside Knights and Tank Commanders.

So no real difficulty in them doing the same for superheavy tanks but lets face it it will likely be a Marine one.

In all fairness, there have been IG Superheavy characters before.

Anyone remember Maximillian Weisemann and his Lucius pattern Baneblade?

 Vaktathi wrote:
In all fairness, there have been IG Superheavy characters before.

Anyone remember Maximillian Weisemann and his Lucius pattern Baneblade?

Yep I still have that - there is also the Catachan one as well isn't there?