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.

You get 1 CP per 100 points of the agreed points limit of the game.

You construct a deck of Stratagems equal to the amount of CP you have.

All stratagems may only be used once per game. Once used, place the Stratagem into a Discard Pile

You can re-buy a stratagem from your discard pile once per game (that is, you can re-buy each stratagem once, you can use the "re-buy" action any number of times) by discarding stratagems twice the CP cost of the re-bought stratagem (e.g. if you want to re-buy a 2CP stratagem you have to discard 4CP of remaining stratagems).

This includes pre-game stratagems, so you can use pre-game stratagems a maximum of twice per game now. No more spamming Raven Guard infiltrate and no more SM relic spam.

"Generic" Stratagems (e.g. Command Re-roll, Prepared Positions, etc) may be used any number of times by discarding any number stratagems of a total equal or greater cost.

One thing that seems a little unfair with the re-buy mechanic costing double is that SM have a lot more Stratagems, them buying 15-20 different Stratagems will give them 5-10 good Stratagems, while Necrons will get 3-4 that are actually good because the pool they are selecting from is smaller. So you're punishing armies with just one or two good Stratagems and maybe that's a gimmick you don't like, but does it increase balance? With IH and IF I'd say no. Obviously this problem goes away if everyone shares the same Stratagem list or you just give a bag of Stratagems to every sub-faction in the game or if you restrict SM to only take one or three of their Legion Stratagems.

I'm also a tiny bit concerned that some armies will stop using Troops. Another change I think I'd urge you to consider is giving Stratagems a time-out of 1 battle round before they can be re-bought, so you shoot twice T1 and T3 instead of T1 and T2. You could also remove the once per game limited and just have the time out mechanic take place every time a Stratagem is used.

This has the benefit that it prevents the issue of "if you dan't have to take troops, people will just bring their powerful units", as 3 units which need a stratagem to work will not all be able to use it.

It may need some new strats for some armies but as a core mechanic, I like it.

I think you're on to something with the once per game usage. I've long thought that, for matched play, the 3 (now 4) common stratagems should be usable 'once per phase' and the faction specific stratagems should be usable 'once per game'.

I disagree with the +1 CP per 100 pts. There's no risk/reward system in doing it that way with the current detachments. Leaving the detachments as is and going back to a +3 and +5 CP's for Battalion and Brigade would be best. I honestly believe that the worst change to have ever been made this edition has been to change the Battalion and Brigade detachments to +5 and +12 CP's.

I like stratagems, I think they've been a great addition to the game, but they have indeed run amok and have become the focus for abuse.

I still think CP's should be generated during game and not be based on your comp.

Having a set 20CP in a 2000 point game isn't a bad thing if you can't use the same stratagem over and over again. Have a look through the 'dex and see how you can make a spam or unbalanced list at 2000 points that uses 20CP of different stratagems. I don't think it's going to be that competitive.

The main reason people want to spam things is to make use of one or two stratagems every turn - I have seldom played a game this edition where I didn't face a rinse-and-repeat turn of the opponent using the same stratagem. In my last 2 games, I used the shoot-twice stratagem on my souped-up-shokka big mek every single turn. it was more or less all I used my CP for. It was very effective, but I sensed that, at the 3rd turn, it was starting to get really old for my opponent. I think that is a really bad thing.

Now, to give list building some necessity (to prevent people using no troops or HQ's) I might add that you have to buy detachments with CP;

Brigade (the big one) would cost 1CP (you are restricting your list to hold your CP)
Battalion would cost 3CP
Spearhead/outrider etc would cost 4CP
Superheavy might cost 4CP, maybe 5CP


That sort of thing.


so to build a 2000 point soup list of 2 battalions, you would have to buy the 2 battalions for 6CP and then have 14CP left to use for stratagems.

If you want to use the whole fast-elite-heavy tax of a brigade, you would have 19CP left to use for stratagems.

If you wanted to run the IG CP battery of 3 battalions of loyal 32 guard and 1 superheavy detachment of knights, you'd have spent 14CP on detachments and only have 6 left for stratagems.

 some bloke wrote:
Having a set 20CP in a 2000 point game isn't a bad thing if you can't use the same stratagem over and over again. Have a look through the 'dex and see how you can make a spam or unbalanced list at 2000 points that uses 20CP of different stratagems. I don't think it's going to be that competitive.

The main reason people want to spam things is to make use of one or two stratagems every turn - I have seldom played a game this edition where I didn't face a rinse-and-repeat turn of the opponent using the same stratagem. In my last 2 games, I used the shoot-twice stratagem on my souped-up-shokka big mek every single turn. it was more or less all I used my CP for. It was very effective, but I sensed that, at the 3rd turn, it was starting to get really old for my opponent. I think that is a really bad thing.

ARMOUR OF CONTEMPT, AUSPEX SCAN, SUPPRESSION FIRE, ONLY IN DEATH DOES DUTY END, CHAPTER MASTER, HONOUR THE CHAPTER, DUTY ETERNAL, RELICS OF THE CHAPTER, TARGET SIGHTED, TREMOR SHELLS, HERO OF THE CHAPTER, TRANSHUMAN PHYSIOLOGY, VENGEANCE OF THE MACHINE SPIRIT.

MARCH OF THE ANCIENTS, SOULS OF IRON, ENGINE PURGE, COGITATED MARTYRDOM, MACHINE EMPATHY, PARAGON OF IRON, OPTIMAL REPULSION DOCTRINES, MNEMONIC AUTO-SAVANT, BEQUEATHED BY THE IRON COUNCIL.

All these Stratagems are at least somewhat decent for Iron Hands, they have a handful more that you'd never ever use. Necrons don't get half that in terms of Stratagems you'd ever consider using. I'd be forced to take Stratagems my army literally cannot use under OP's system, just to fuel CP-rerolls and rebuying my used Stratagems, something Iron Hands would do to some degree, but they wouldn't be forced to every single game to pay double CP for most Stratagems while their opponent uses regular cost Stratagem after regular cost Stratagem because they have enough to fill out their entire 20 CP lineup. The problem of people being able to pull a Stratagem out of their list of 50 Stratagems is to me a more unfun experience than someone just using the same Stratagem over and over again, even just 17 Stratagems is a lot to me. I think it needs to be closer to 10 CP to balance things out, whether that's by saying 1 CP/200 pts or 1 CP/200 pts + 5 CP - x CP (x being based on which detachments you take).

I still might incorperate OP's suggestion in as part of my idea what a perfect 8th would look like, but I think it's one of several building blocks needed to perfect Command Points.

 vict0988 wrote:

 some bloke wrote:
Having a set 20CP in a 2000 point game isn't a bad thing if you can't use the same stratagem over and over again. Have a look through the 'dex and see how you can make a spam or unbalanced list at 2000 points that uses 20CP of different stratagems. I don't think it's going to be that competitive.

The main reason people want to spam things is to make use of one or two stratagems every turn - I have seldom played a game this edition where I didn't face a rinse-and-repeat turn of the opponent using the same stratagem. In my last 2 games, I used the shoot-twice stratagem on my souped-up-shokka big mek every single turn. it was more or less all I used my CP for. It was very effective, but I sensed that, at the 3rd turn, it was starting to get really old for my opponent. I think that is a really bad thing.

ARMOUR OF CONTEMPT, AUSPEX SCAN, SUPPRESSION FIRE, ONLY IN DEATH DOES DUTY END, CHAPTER MASTER, HONOUR THE CHAPTER, DUTY ETERNAL, RELICS OF THE CHAPTER, TARGET SIGHTED, TREMOR SHELLS, HERO OF THE CHAPTER, TRANSHUMAN PHYSIOLOGY, VENGEANCE OF THE MACHINE SPIRIT.

MARCH OF THE ANCIENTS, SOULS OF IRON, ENGINE PURGE, COGITATED MARTYRDOM, MACHINE EMPATHY, PARAGON OF IRON, OPTIMAL REPULSION DOCTRINES, MNEMONIC AUTO-SAVANT, BEQUEATHED BY THE IRON COUNCIL.

All these Stratagems are at least somewhat decent for Iron Hands, they have a handful more that you'd never ever use. Necrons don't get half that in terms of Stratagems you'd ever consider using. I'd be forced to take Stratagems my army literally cannot use under OP's system, just to fuel CP-rerolls and rebuying my used Stratagems, something Iron Hands would do to some degree, but they wouldn't be forced to every single game to pay double CP for most Stratagems while their opponent uses regular cost Stratagem after regular cost Stratagem because they have enough to fill out their entire 20 CP lineup. The problem of people being able to pull a Stratagem out of their list of 50 Stratagems is to me a more unfun experience than someone just using the same Stratagem over and over again, even just 17 Stratagems is a lot to me. I think it needs to be closer to 10 CP to balance things out, whether that's by saying 1 CP/200 pts or 1 CP/200 pts + 5 CP - x CP (x being based on which detachments you take).

I still might incorperate OP's suggestion in as part of my idea what a perfect 8th would look like, but I think it's one of several building blocks needed to perfect Command Points.

My point was that an army which makes use of all of these stratagems will be a fairly balanced one - if you spam dreadnaughts, you will (probably) eliminate a fair few of those stratagems. And being able to use them once (or at most, twice) per game will also limit the effectiveness of a list which relies heavily on just a few stratagems.

As for Necrons, perhaps they simply need a revamp of their stratagems to make them worthwhile? It's unlikely that we will ever find an alternative method which simply drops into the existing system without making any waves!

so assuming that each army has a reasonable selection of stratagems which range from universally useful (shoot/fight twice type things) to entirely situational (up to 10 models can throw a grenade), I would say a set CP value, a CP cost for detachments, and a built deck of stratagems would be really useful.

I would also add a stratagem which would cost 2CP, and allow the player to swap one stratagem in their deck for one they didn't take, worth the same or less CP.
I'd have all the "may regain a CP spent" abilities replaced with "once per game you can discard a single stratagem card to return a spent stratagem to your hand. No stratagem may be returned to the hand more than once per game, in any way. Only one such ability as this may be used per game." meaning you can use this in addition to buying back strats normally, but cannot buy a strat back for a third use, and cannot spam abilities like this (though having a few ways of doing it would give you a redundancy!).

I have a crazy idea - why not drastically reduce the number of stratagems in the game, and make a bunch of them data sheet abilities or unit types?

Remove CP, make each of the remaining stratagems one use only.

Done, we now have a wargame instead of a contest of who can generate the most CPs and spam stratagems.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I have a crazy idea - why not drastically reduce the number of stratagems in the game, and make a bunch of them data sheet abilities or unit types?

Remove CP, make each of the remaining stratagems one use only.

Done, we now have a wargame instead of a contest of who can generate the most CPs and spam stratagems.

Ditto.

Is there a reason why "grenadier" isn't a unit upgrade of IS?
Is there a reason my Havoc with ML needs to run to the lord each time he wants to use an AA missile?
Is there a reason for hitting the dirt not beeing a common rule for infantry?

etc.

I almost feel like many of the stratagems should require a character to 'issue' them to the unit that needs them in order for them to work. Similar to Guard Orders, them stemming from Command Points and having them be actual Commands just makes more sense to me.

I'd have also rather see stratagems be considerably more powerful in effect, but be much fewer in number. So you can only use a few in a battle and at the right moment it can be pivotal; so its not like now where you're using the same set every turn on the same unit. but that's a much larger change.

Or, CP's in excess of the baseline 3 CP for battleforged, why not make them purchasable similar to setting aside points for reinforcement points?

 skchsan wrote:
Or, CP's in excess of the baseline 3 CP for battleforged, why not make them purchasable similar to setting aside points for reinforcement points?

Because a Troops-based meta is more fun than a Super-heavy based meta.

 vict0988 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Or, CP's in excess of the baseline 3 CP for battleforged, why not make them purchasable similar to setting aside points for reinforcement points?

Because a Troops-based meta is more fun than a Super-heavy based meta.

Indeed.
Knights often allready have a real adverse effect on the games even.

Can they have it where only patrol, battalion and brigade detachments. I know that would kill off knight armies so maybe that’s an issue?

Pregame strategems are actually a huge part of the problem, as they are paid for in soup army cp and used in elite superarmy effect. IE, my knight is gets warlord trait and a relic, but my gaurd unit of infantry contributed all the cp to do that. a 704 point unit gets buffs calibrated for the knight army's tiny cp base, so they are superpowerful buffs of low cost.
First, fix the spamming of pregame stratagies.
Any pregame strat for a unit UNDER 80 points, no change.
Any pregame strat for a unit between 80 and 240 points, double price the strat.
Any pregame strat for a unit over 240 points, TRIPPLE the cost.

Now you can still run 3 big knights with your gaurd soup, but you got to think long and hard if you really want them all warlords with relics. It SHOULD cost a lot of cp to make 1600 points of your army (3 crusaders) affected by warlord traits and relics over six roudns of battle. That much buff is a shockingly horrifically terrifying amount of buff that currently you can buy for like 4 or 6 total cp. insane, in a game where it takes something like 2 cp a round to give a 4+ save to a squad of infantry in the gaurd. Compare effect to cost, you suddenly see why command points are cheap to get for gaurd, but also cheaply effective. (Lots of crappy stuff, how very gaurdlike.)

You can run your blood angel captain commando unit, sure but getting each thunderhammer guy to be superbadman in combat is gonna cost maybe 4 cp where it was 2, pregame. Or your custodes bikers, same effect, 2 points per strat to give them warlord trait, relic, and that other thing they always take with blood games victory.

Give a blood angel captain a +1 damage superduperthunderhammer? That's terrifying. Also give him a warlord trait? Horrifying! That should cost 4 cp or more, its a buff that lasts till he oneshots a knight with it.
Give a gaurd company commander the blade of conquest? That's more amusing than terrifying. "look, he is trying to fight the blood angel captain. Oops, he died." "did he charge the knight? Nope, not gonna even think it."

If you then also tailor down the cp that additional detachments grant, I think the issue pretty fixed.

most expensive by points detachment would get all the cp it could generate, and the player would be forced to pick warlord and free relic from that detachment.
Second most expensive by points detachment would generate 1 cp fewer than it now does, but not go negative.
Third most expensive by points detachment would generates 1/2 its normal cp, rounded down, not to go under zero

So now, if you bought, for example, a gaurd brigade, 3 custodes biker captains, and an admech splash battalion, you would generate 12, 0, and 2 cp respectively. 14+3 = 17 cp is nice, but I bet you would spend a fair chunk of that equipping your 3 custodes bikers at the doubled costs. Why? Because your warlord would be forced to be in the gaurd brigade you were so smugly going to let generate all the cp for your friends to use.. So if you put 3 warlord traits and 3 relics and 3 bloodgames winners on the bikes, you would be out 18 of your 17 points, and this FORCES CHOICES on someone DESPITE soup cp being available to play with. Without stacked [pregame buffs] on top of [ingame stratagems] the bikers seem more like normal, if expensive, units.
Aha, you say, what if I just took a battalion of custodes, to get 3+12+4 or 19 cp?
I have less problem with the idea of a battalion of custodes having enough cp invested to make its officers nice, than I have with the idea of a battalion of admech magically granting superman status to a bunch of custodes bikers who were .. just .. out wandeirng the galaxy alone, as they always seem to, in threes. You might still end up spending 12 of your 19 cp to grant them all sorts of buffs and relics, but I think few people would spend all 18 to give them ALL the toys.

If you went with 3 big knights, and 2 battalionss, you would generate .. ah ... warlord knight with relic, 2 other knights you equip (-12 cp) with warlord trait and relic, and then you have 3+5+4+2 or 14 total CP to play with. Meaning you would start with only 2, if you tricked out every knight.
Yes, you could spend it ALL to make your knights damn near invulnerable killing machines, but you would have to seriously commit resources to do so. Sure, you have access to THREE BOOKS worth of strategems, but you ain't using them all if you also feel an urge to buff every knight to ridiculousness.

An all gaurd army, with a brigade and two battalions?
3 (base) + 12 + 4 + 2 = 21 (would have been 24). Pretty much the same as it is now, and probably going to exhaust available strategems before it exhausts available cp's. Much as they often do now.

A sisters of battle army with a cannoness warlord toting a relic and a warlord trait? Would now require that cannoness to be in the most expensive faction you have on the board.
It would be otherwise very similar to its current use and feel, though, A huge admech faction with 3 blood angels in support and maybe 1 knight gallant? Would have similar total cp available, but the warlord would have to be in among all the admech, and equipping the blood angel captains and the big knight with traits and relics would be expensive enough that it would be a choice -- and not a no brainer -- for the guy running that. "I think mabye my gallant will only live 2 rounds" says the man "so I will rotate shields twice, cause it might blow up roudn 1, and I don't want to put nearly half my command points into buffing something that might never even get to MOVE. Landstrider though, that I guess I will pay for." Choices like that, now would be serious business for the soup player.

I sort of don't have a clue how this would affect armies I have never played, but I imagine genestealer soup would be similarly altered to the custodes biker or marine captains. Eldar / Deldar forces, I imagine, would lose only a few command points on their more expensive unit buffs.

Etc.

Thoughts?

I am pretty sure there are ways to tailor each army to work with this system. Perhaps each of a certain command unit in the necron faction would have the side effect of granting 1 cp, if it seemd that army was often under-equiped with cp. Perhaps ork armies would be given a bonus cp for every 50 models they put on the field. This stuff can be balanced out uniquely. A strategem cost more or less here or there, would be very effective, I just don't knwo enough about the orkish action economy, for example, to know how to make the rules up.

Dukeofstuff wrote:
Pregame strategems are actually a huge part of the problem, as they are paid for in soup army cp and used in elite superarmy effect. IE, my knight is gets warlord trait and a relic, but my gaurd unit of infantry contributed all the cp to do that.

That's true of all stratagems; not just pregame ones. You pay to rotate your ion shields with guard CP too, for instance. So specifically targeting pregame strats seems like a treatment for a misdiagnosis. Plus, you create a lot of casualties. Veteran Intercessors and Great Harlequins aren't breaking the game to my knowledge.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
You get 1 CP per 100 points of the agreed points limit of the game.

You construct a deck of Stratagems equal to the amount of CP you have.

All stratagems may only be used once per game. Once used, place the Stratagem into a Discard Pile

You can re-buy a stratagem from your discard pile once per game (that is, you can re-buy each stratagem once, you can use the "re-buy" action any number of times) by discarding stratagems twice the CP cost of the re-bought stratagem (e.g. if you want to re-buy a 2CP stratagem you have to discard 4CP of remaining stratagems).

This includes pre-game stratagems, so you can use pre-game stratagems a maximum of twice per game now. No more spamming Raven Guard infiltrate and no more SM relic spam.

"Generic" Stratagems (e.g. Command Re-roll, Prepared Positions, etc) may be used any number of times by discarding any number stratagems of a total equal or greater cost.

I'm concerned that this would make "weak" strats even less likely to see play. At the moment, something like Crucible of Malediction only rarely sees use because it's a situational strat that requires a specific unit get close to at least one enemy psyker (and really you want to get close to multiple enemy psykers to get the most out of it). Under your proposed system, that thing is probably getting recycled for another Lightning Fast Reactions ASAP.

Basically, you might cause people to only use a given strat twice rather than once, but you also guarantee that the least efficient/generally useful half of a player's strats will never see the light of day.

And I'm not sure that preventing players from using a given strat more than twice is a worthwhile gain for that loss. Sure, you'll stop Raven Guard infiltration spam. You'll also take away half of harlequins' defensive options and take away offensive tools from Grey Knights. Basically, the "winners" of this change will be those armies whose most efficient playstyles happen to only require them to use their best strats twice or less and those armies who have a wide variety of useful strats. Armies that lean on their best strats, even if they're not considered powerful armies, will be punished.

Feels like a sweeping change that would nerf a couple specific problem cases but create other problems at the same time.

Dukeofstuff wrote:
Pregame strategems are actually a huge part of the problem, as they are paid for in soup army cp and used in elite superarmy effect. IE, my knight is gets warlord trait and a relic, but my gaurd unit of infantry contributed all the cp to do that. a 704 point unit gets buffs calibrated for the knight army's tiny cp base, so they are superpowerful buffs of low cost.
First, fix the spamming of pregame stratagies.
Any pregame strat for a unit UNDER 80 points, no change.
Any pregame strat for a unit between 80 and 240 points, double price the strat.
Any pregame strat for a unit over 240 points, TRIPPLE the cost.

Thoughts?

I think you're painting with too wide a brush. I don't know about Relic Astra Militarum weapons, maybe they just need secondary functions to the damage amplifier they provide, like a bonus order when they use some specific order like Fix Bayonets or Get Back in the Fight. I think a target of 1CP = roughly 15 pts is a good place to be in. I don't think that means every pregame strat targeting high-PL units needs a CP increase, some do. The Knight Stratagems you mentioned are good examples of Stratagems that need nerfs, but I also feel like you're mentioning some Stratagems that need buffs, like Astra Militarum's Take Cover which is quite situational.

Depending on whether you implement changes to Stratagem cost at the same time as pts changes you'll get an effect where you might increase imbalance short-term in order to facilitate more balance down the line. I'm not convinced for example that you increase balance by nerfing Knights, BA and Adeptus Custodes pregame Strats. The SM Chapter Master Strat is insanity, but IH are OP and don't use it all the time. So by making a fair nerf you are making the game less fair for the chapters that use that Strat but maybe needed it to fight IH.

The perfect solution IMO would be for there to be no pts costs, Chapter Tactics, Super Doctrines, Stratagems, Relics or WL traits in codexes and have all those rules and pts costs be in Chapter Approved so that you can balance everything all at once. Codexes could replace these parts of the codex with missions, different ways of playing the game or terrain building and painting guides. Instead of GW chasing their own tail they can balance all the rules and costs at the same time and then update that Super Chapter Approved book with FAQs and Errata 1-11 times a year before releasing a new edition of Chapter Approved.