Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Yes to both counts.

"I'll tell ya what I want
what I really, really want."
"So tell' em what you want
what you really really want."
"I wanna Huh! I wanna Huh! I wanna Huh! I wanna Huh!
I wanna really really really really fix-cp-ee-aaah!"

You wanna see the fut-cha? Forget the past.
You wanna get CP? Ditch Detachmaahnts.
You wanna just make it... tied to the game.
Fifteen Hundred points? Here's your 15 Cee-Pee.

There are people that want soup to be nerfed. There is strength in soup outside of the CP benefits. I personally would like to make sure most armies have at least some Troops so that everyone can have meaningful games, on the other hand I don't think double Battalions are great to play against, although I'm guilty of bringing it too often myself. I think most Necron lists would stop running Troops altogether if your change was implemented, ditto CSM, BA, DA, GK, SW and maybe also some codex-compliant chapters. Not to mention mono-Knights possibly becoming a real top tournament option, the one mono-Codex faction I don't want to see. I think your solution is too simple, it'd at the very least need to be coupled with a number of other changes to be fair. It's also a tonne of CP which puts a huge pressure on people to put units that can effecitvely use all that CP. Using it all on re-rolls while your opponent is shooting twice, fighting twice and bringing units back from the brink of death is a recipe for losing.

 Galef wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
So, instead of rewarding detachment spam, we’d like to see a level playing field, where both players get the same amount of CP, the same way we want both players to use the same amount of points.

That's what you want.

I agree, but I think it's important to note that some Stratagems are far more efficient because they affect better units and those armies tend to not have access to cheap CPs.
If you standardize the amount of CPs, you have to redo a lot of Strats.

-

Redoing the cost of a lot of strats feels like a feature rather than a bug to me. One of the talking points that comes up on here often (as you well know) is that armies (like knights) with potent-for-their-cost strats are walking around with tons of CP thanks to their guard allies. Giving all players equal, scalable amount of starting CP and pricing strats around players having XCP per Y points makes it easier to price the CP cost of something like Rotate Ion Shields.

Also, I feel like redoing the CP cost of strats might be less work than it first appears. If we assume that most monocodex armies have roughly the same amount of CP and that similar stratagems within those books have similar CP costs, then all you really have to do is identify which monocodex armies tend to have especially high or low amounts of CP (and especially efficient or inefficient stratagems as a result) and adjust accordingly. So most marine and aeldari strats are probably fine as-is. You'd mostly be looking at things like guard and knights and maybe orks.

I also agree that strats would need to be repriced.

I’d like to see the game return to an infantry focus... but that cat’s out of the bag and reproducing with other released cats. You can’t put them back in while GW wants to sell big kits.

I don’t care if “troops” are used or not. If you get rid of FOC, then people will play basic infantry if they have a place in the game, and will play their elite counterparts if they don’t.

All detachment-based CP schemes reward the very soups you wish to avoid. Everyone takes a Guard Batallion as their base, and adds whatever to that.

There are ways to discourage soup... but why? Again, the cat’s out of the bag. Rather than fudge CP, add a premium to the secondary faction. Primary faction (most points spent) cost 100% points. Secondary faction (second most points spent) cost 105%. Tertiary faction @ 110%. No abilities apply outside of faction.

I can easily get 15 or so CP at 1500 points (Guardsman). I usually have cp left over, because the game is usually over by the end of the 2nd turn. Personally, Id rather see X CP pregame, and then X cp per turn based on game size, but that’s a different quibble. Reduce alpha strike, allow for CP build-up to have a critical mass turn on turn 3 or 4, for example.

I don’t see these as being pragmatic solutions given that GW seems to not want to limit unit selections. Many games succeed at this, Warmachine springs to mind. They have lists that use infantry *because they’re useful in the game* as well as stompy robots and cavalry and werewolves because they’re useful in the game.

40k can be the same way. FOC is not the only solution. Detachments are not the only solution.

 vict0988 wrote:

There are people that want soup to be nerfed. There is strength in soup outside of the CP benefits.

True. What do you think of...
* Generating CP based off of game points size (so 15 CP at 1500 points, for instance)
* Keeping detachments even though they're not longer tied to CP generation.
* Lowering a player's starting CP by 2 for each detachment taken from a different codex than the first. Obviously wording would need to be tweaked here.
* Maybe continuing to roll out Combat Doctrine style rules that reward players for sticking to a single subfaction. So you'd get bonus rules for playing all Ulthwe or all Blood Angels, but not for playing Ulthwe alongside Alaitoc or Blood Angels alongside Sisters.

I personally would like to make sure most armies have at least some Troops so that everyone can have meaningful games, on the other hand I don't think double Battalions are great to play against, although I'm guilty of bringing it too often myself. I think most Necron lists would stop running Troops altogether if your change was implemented, ditto CSM, BA, DA, GK, SW and maybe also some codex-compliant chapters.

What is and isn't a "Troop" is pretty arbitrary. Some troops are so good that you want to field tons of them just because of how useful they are. Some troops. are so bad that they're perceived as a "tax" whose main contribution is generating CP. Some units were Troops, but now aren't because reasons. (Hi, Wind Riders. Hi oldschool Crimson Fists sternguard.) Some units are not troops despite being considered a subfaction's go-to unit. Think Iybraesil howling banshees, Saimhann Windriders again, Deathwing Terminators, White Scar bikers, etc.

Basically, the troops = CP system doesn't make fluff sense and is inconsistent mechanically. Often times, "But they generate CP though," is used as a bandaid that excuses poor unit design. If a Troops unit stops being desirable when it stops being a mandatory CP tax, then that unit should probably be revised or given access to a unit-specific stratagem or something. I actually really like the primaris-specific strats from the new marines codex. They give you a reason to field that specific unit without making that unit innately better than their more "elite" counterparts. A similar approach could be used to make other troops more desirable.

Not to mention mono-Knights possibly becoming a real top tournament option, the one mono-Codex faction I don't want to see.

Well, mono-knights would only have access to Knight stratagems which, under this proposed rule change, would have CP costs reflective of their efficiency. So in theory, the overall effectiveness of knights wouldn't have to go up.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I also agree that strats would need to be repriced.

It's like pulling teeth though, it seems very few people want to have their Stratagems nerfed. If every Stratagem has to be balanced around the insane Stratagems I think I can think of some that need to be less than 1 CP.

I’d like to see the game return to an infantry focus... but that cat’s out of the bag and reproducing with other released cats. You can’t put them back in while GW wants to sell big kits.

I don’t care if “troops” are used or not. If you get rid of FOC, then people will play basic infantry if they have a place in the game, and will play their elite counterparts if they don’t.

I think the elite FOC slot is kind of useless in terms of balancing when Custodes get Elites in the Troops slot. The Elites slot is very confused IMO. But if you were to leave HQ alone and move all units with a movement stat of 10+ except vehicles and monsters in the FA slot and all remaining models costing 11+ pts that are neither vehicles nor monsters into the elite slot and finally all vehicles into heavy support slot you might be able to balance around it. As is though it's just a mess.

All detachment-based CP schemes reward the very soups you wish to avoid. Everyone takes a Guard Batallion as their base, and adds whatever to that.

There are ways to discourage soup... but why? Again, the cat’s out of the bag. Rather than fudge CP, add a premium to the secondary faction. Primary faction (most points spent) cost 100% points. Secondary faction (second most points spent) cost 105%. Tertiary faction @ 110%. No abilities apply outside of faction.

All negative Detachment benefits discourage soup, some people want instead to implement CP penalty for soup instead or on top. I think pts is the worst way to do it, the math is going to be a mess, so many unseemly pts values makes me shudder. 381 pt Monolith all over again.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

There are people that want soup to be nerfed. There is strength in soup outside of the CP benefits.

True. What do you think of...
* Generating CP based off of game points size (so 15 CP at 1500 points, for instance)
* Keeping detachments even though they're not longer tied to CP generation.
* Lowering a player's starting CP by 2 for each detachment taken from a different codex than the first. Obviously wording would need to be tweaked here.
* Maybe continuing to roll out Combat Doctrine style rules that reward players for sticking to a single subfaction. So you'd get bonus rules for playing all Ulthwe or all Blood Angels, but not for playing Ulthwe alongside Alaitoc or Blood Angels alongside Sisters.

* I think generating CP based of pts size is a good starting point, I just think you need negative detachments added on top in some form. Then you can also get rid of the rule of 3 detachments, it being a suggested tournament rule seems like a terrible idea because it increases the number of things you need to discuss pre-game and the number of house rules each tournament packet needs.
* I'm unsure what you mean by this point?
* I don't really hate soup that much, if we had negative detachments I don't believe we'd have a need for a soup penalty, but otherwise I'd probably say -2 CP is a good number.
* I dislike combat doctrines and chapter tactics quite a bit from a design perspective, I'd love if they were removed entirely tomorrow, I don't think whether GW chooses to propagate this design or keep it just to SM or maybe CSM we're quite far from having a balanced game because of the introduction of these rules, if we have to wait another year for all the others to be relased it'll be two or three more years before the game becomes as stable as it was before the SM release. Going back and looking at my fandexes that used chapter tactics for SM and AM makes me throw up a little in my mouth. I have made a thread for discussing and creating combat doctrines and two-tiered chapter tactics: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/780052.page The SM release was especially egregious for non-compliant chapters since it forces people to repaint or proxy their mono-CSM, DA and BA lists to/as a compliant chapter, the exact thing good miniature games design would avoid. Let people play with their damn dolls!

This is also why I think putting some basic infantry on the table should be encouraged (whether GW decided they should be Elites or Troops is irrelevant), it makes it more likely that people can put their miniatures on the table and just have a good game. If one player is playing 100% vehicles and the other player is playing 100% fast attack the game is most likely going to be skewed heavily one way or the other. In a team tournament setting that might work because that imbalance is part of the strategy, but in casual games or in regular tournaments it's going to be unfun more often in my experience. Turning Troops into murder machines via Stratagems is also a problem IMO, but then we come back to the problem of people not wanting their Stratagems nerfed.

Double Bat SAVES points with some codex. As they have no good Fast Attack or other cheap/good options.

TLDR: In My Narrative Format you get 5 CP Base and Detachments give more.
Bats = 6 CP
1 CP detachments = 3 CP

The idea is armies that CP farm because they can. Armies that can't get hurt.
Allowing Higher CP means the latter works and the first isn't changed.

I don't like the idea of exclusively tying CP to points and recosting stratagems, as it removes any incentive to bring anything other than the best units in the codex.

However, I would certainly be happy with the idea of tying CP to points, and then tying stratagems to either detachments or units, thus giving people a reason to conform to some sort of FOC.

It would simply take a list of "available in" detachments, EG if you take a battalion, you get a set of stratagems, if you take a brigade you get another set (which can overlap), if you take a spearhead or an outrider you get some special ones which work well with the detachment you chose.

Or you can take whatever you want, have loads of CP and only a few basic stratagems to use.


I would not want to play where the opponent can bring 3 tooled-up knights and have as many CP & stratagems as me, with an actual command-structure.


Things like supreme command detachments can offer tactical strats for pre-game, like bombardments, repositioning, outflanking a unit, and so on.

spearhead could allow 3 heavy support vehicles to have +1 to saves if they are within 3" of each other.

Outriders could allow 3 fast attack units to move before the first turn

things like that, where you have the same CP but unlock stratagems by list building - which makes more sense, as a more varied army will have more of a variety of tactics.

 some bloke wrote:
I don't like the idea of exclusively tying CP to points and recosting stratagems, as it removes any incentive to bring anything other than the best units in the codex.

However, I would certainly be happy with the idea of tying CP to points, and then tying stratagems to either detachments or units, thus giving people a reason to conform to some sort of FOC.

It would simply take a list of "available in" detachments, EG if you take a battalion, you get a set of stratagems, if you take a brigade you get another set (which can overlap), if you take a spearhead or an outrider you get some special ones which work well with the detachment you chose.

Or you can take whatever you want, have loads of CP and only a few basic stratagems to use.


I would not want to play where the opponent can bring 3 tooled-up knights and have as many CP & stratagems as me, with an actual command-structure.


Things like supreme command detachments can offer tactical strats for pre-game, like bombardments, repositioning, outflanking a unit, and so on.

spearhead could allow 3 heavy support vehicles to have +1 to saves if they are within 3" of each other.

Outriders could allow 3 fast attack units to move before the first turn

things like that, where you have the same CP but unlock stratagems by list building - which makes more sense, as a more varied army will have more of a variety of tactics.

I feel like that is eerily similar to Formations. So if executed right, it would be fine, but if not, get ready for the abuse train that was 7th.

I still think the best solution is to keep CPs tied to Detachments, but give bonus for mono-faction and/or generated per turn.

Drop Battalions back to 3CPs per the original 8E release, Brigades to 9, and all other detachments remain as-is
Next, you do one of 2 things, either:

A) any detachment that is the same Faction as your WL (not counting Battle Brothers keywords like Imperium, Chaos, Aeldari, etc) gains +2CP
So a Battalion of Ultramarines would have 5CPs if you WL is also UM, or a Saim-Hann Outrider would have 3CPs if your WL is Saim-hann.
This would allow more fluffy lists to compete with double Battalion lists since you could have close to the same CPs
and/or
B) make being Battle Forged grant 3CPs PER TURN if your WL is alive. With Battalions only being 3CPs, taking a list with multiple and/or cheap Battalions would matter less because gaining 3CPs per turn makes a big enough difference that an extra 4-5 CPs for having those Battlions shouldn't matter as much as it does now.

-

 Galef wrote:

 some bloke wrote:
I don't like the idea of exclusively tying CP to points and recosting stratagems, as it removes any incentive to bring anything other than the best units in the codex.

However, I would certainly be happy with the idea of tying CP to points, and then tying stratagems to either detachments or units, thus giving people a reason to conform to some sort of FOC.

It would simply take a list of "available in" detachments, EG if you take a battalion, you get a set of stratagems, if you take a brigade you get another set (which can overlap), if you take a spearhead or an outrider you get some special ones which work well with the detachment you chose.

Or you can take whatever you want, have loads of CP and only a few basic stratagems to use.


I would not want to play where the opponent can bring 3 tooled-up knights and have as many CP & stratagems as me, with an actual command-structure.


Things like supreme command detachments can offer tactical strats for pre-game, like bombardments, repositioning, outflanking a unit, and so on.

spearhead could allow 3 heavy support vehicles to have +1 to saves if they are within 3" of each other.

Outriders could allow 3 fast attack units to move before the first turn

things like that, where you have the same CP but unlock stratagems by list building - which makes more sense, as a more varied army will have more of a variety of tactics.

I feel like that is eerily similar to Formations. So if executed right, it would be fine, but if not, get ready for the abuse train that was 7th.

I still think the best solution is to keep CPs tied to Detachments, but give bonus for mono-faction and/or generated per turn.

Drop Battalions back to 3CPs per the original 8E release, Brigades to 9, and all other detachments remain as-is
Next, you do one of 2 things, either:

A) any detachment that is the same Faction as your WL (not counting Battle Brothers keywords like Imperium, Chaos, Aeldari, etc) gains +2CP
So a Battalion of Ultramarines would have 5CPs if you WL is also UM, or a Saim-Hann Outrider would have 3CPs if your WL is Saim-hann.
This would allow more fluffy lists to compete with double Battalion lists since you could have close to the same CPs
and/or
B) make being Battle Forged grant 3CPs PER TURN if your WL is alive. With Battalions only being 3CPs, taking a list with multiple and/or cheap Battalions would matter less because gaining 3CPs per turn makes a big enough difference that an extra 4-5 CPs for having those Battlions shouldn't matter as much as it does now.

-

Yeah, we are beyond formations now. I prefer not to revisit them as trying to homebrew which are fine, underpowered, or overpowered was a lot of work. I don't even like the not-formations that cost CP right now.

Tying CP to point also messes with folks whi play with PL, or some other balancing system, as listed in the Matched Play section of the book.

It’s not really that hard to figure out the rough points to PL (the secret ingredient is “20”).

So if we were to avoid cp per turn as a solution, and instead went with 1 cp per hundred points / 5 PL, then 1500 points / 75 PL = 15 cp.

And if you don’t use either system, just agree with your opponent how many cp you will both have for the battle. Uneven “points”? Maybe give the underdogs more CP to represent hard bitten veterans taking on the teeming masses. Veteran status being represented in-game with greater access to stratagems and Re-rolls.

As always, 1/100 points is just a rough and ready idea, not necessarily the exact perfect balance.

 greatbigtree wrote:
It’s not really that hard to figure out the rough points to PL (the secret ingredient is “20”).

So if we were to avoid cp per turn as a solution, and instead went with 1 cp per hundred points / 5 PL, then 1500 points / 75 PL = 15 cp.

And if you don’t use either system, just agree with your opponent how many cp you will both have for the battle. Uneven “points”? Maybe give the underdogs more CP to represent hard bitten veterans taking on the teeming masses. Veteran status being represented in-game with greater access to stratagems and Re-rolls.

As always, 1/100 points is just a rough and ready idea, not necessarily the exact perfect balance.

I think you've touched on something here... Giving the underdog extra CP. What if we gave any army "X" CP for every 50 points/3PL they are below the enemy (at list building).

Playing 2k? you can gamble and bring 1800 points for an extra load of CP, if the opponent doesn't do the same...

An alternative could be to tie CP to units? EG basic troops give you 1CP (in horde armies, it would be troops units of 20+ give 1CP, perhaps, to avoid MSU). HQ units give you a good amount of CP (they are, after all, called "Command" Points). Elites give some, fast & heavy might give some if it makes sense.

This would mean that:

1: Larger armies gain more CP than smaller ones (as they have to spread their CP more thinly)
2: Soup is entirely unneeded - if you bring more stuff, you get more CP


Perhaps tie it into the batallions, EG:

battalion gives you 1CP for each troops unit, up to 3, 1CP for each Elites unit, up to 2, and 3cp for up to 1 HQ.
Brigade gives 1CP for each troops unit up to 5, 1CP for each elites unit, up to 4, 1CP for each fast attack unit, up to 2, 1CP for each heavy unit, up to 2, 3CP for one HQ and 2CP for each HQ after that.

alternative-alternative would be 1CP for 1-2 troops, 2CP for 3-4 troops, 3CP for 5-6 troops. so people can't just take the minimums to get all the CP.

I think the key is making it easier to get CP by not souping than it is by souping. that would fix the problem - being people souping exclusively for CP.

 some bloke wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
It’s not really that hard to figure out the rough points to PL (the secret ingredient is “20”).

So if we were to avoid cp per turn as a solution, and instead went with 1 cp per hundred points / 5 PL, then 1500 points / 75 PL = 15 cp.

And if you don’t use either system, just agree with your opponent how many cp you will both have for the battle. Uneven “points”? Maybe give the underdogs more CP to represent hard bitten veterans taking on the teeming masses. Veteran status being represented in-game with greater access to stratagems and Re-rolls.

As always, 1/100 points is just a rough and ready idea, not necessarily the exact perfect balance.

I think you've touched on something here... Giving the underdog extra CP. What if we gave any army "X" CP for every 50 points/3PL they are below the enemy (at list building).

Playing 2k? you can gamble and bring 1800 points for an extra load of CP, if the opponent doesn't do the same...

An alternative could be to tie CP to units? EG basic troops give you 1CP (in horde armies, it would be troops units of 20+ give 1CP, perhaps, to avoid MSU). HQ units give you a good amount of CP (they are, after all, called "Command" Points). Elites give some, fast & heavy might give some if it makes sense.

This would mean that:

1: Larger armies gain more CP than smaller ones (as they have to spread their CP more thinly)
2: Soup is entirely unneeded - if you bring more stuff, you get more CP


Perhaps tie it into the batallions, EG:

battalion gives you 1CP for each troops unit, up to 3, 1CP for each Elites unit, up to 2, and 3cp for up to 1 HQ.
Brigade gives 1CP for each troops unit up to 5, 1CP for each elites unit, up to 4, 1CP for each fast attack unit, up to 2, 1CP for each heavy unit, up to 2, 3CP for one HQ and 2CP for each HQ after that.

alternative-alternative would be 1CP for 1-2 troops, 2CP for 3-4 troops, 3CP for 5-6 troops. so people can't just take the minimums to get all the CP.

I think the key is making it easier to get CP by not souping than it is by souping. that would fix the problem - being people souping exclusively for CP.

Tying CP to troops just brings us back to the current problem of rewarding armies that have cheap or cost-efficient troops and punishing armies that don't. Compare IG to GK, for instance.

Tying CP to the ability to fill up slots just brings us back to the current problem of rewarding armies that have cheap units in general. Again, compare IG or orks to GK.

Only allowing large squads of troops to generate CP rather than small ones punishes people for playing orks in trukks instead of green tide. Both of which are perfectly fluffy armies.

Simply giving both players X CP where X is based on the game size removes both the need to soup for CP and the discrepencies in various factions' abilities to generate CP in the first place. It also means you can design units and stratagems with a given CP range in mind rather than having to guess whether or not people will be inclined to ally their loyal 32 with a knight detachment, for instance. You can charge a CP cost to include detachments that don't share certain keywords with your first detachment to compensate for the added number of stratagem/unit options souping unlocks.