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Made in ru
Fresh-Faced New User




I've found myself quite fond of the idea of separating Matched and Narrative even further (after all, they are almost two different games in essence). And I've always been pissed with chapter tactics and the like, the way you get significant bonuses that are meant to represent a themed force just by saying your force is themed. You could always get a bunch of randomly color schemed stock units and call them whatever, changing your mind form game to game.
What if chapter tactics are resticted to Narrative play? This could be beneficial for both Matched and Narrative.
For Matched because CT are hard to balance, given that each faction has a number of them, creating internal and external balance issues, and that would make the game clearer, more economic, with less overlapping rules to keep in mind.
For Narrative mainly because they will make sense as a means of representing an army's focus and quirks (as found in the lore) and will be actually linked to narrative decisions and interests, insted of being just power-ups. Also seeing how SM have entire relic lists and psychic disciplines for each goddamn chapter, it's hard not to place them in the narrative box, as opposed to matched.
Ideally, matched is supposed to be clear, (somewhat) predictable, almost mathematic in some sense (i'm thinking videogames like Starcraft). And it's not the units or rules you choose that win you games, but how you use them. Wiping chapter tactics and probably lessening the number of stratagems can be a step towards... you know... actual matched play in 40k.
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






Matched play is just "here's a points limit work within it, apply the rule of 3, play a game".
Removing sub-faction rules might make it a more streamlined system but then players lose all the flavour an army gets for choosing a sub-faction. You won't see a variety in tactics or units because any benefits different units get for taking a specific sub-faction would be removed.
For example, why play Deathwatch if you get 0 army bonuses for fighting Xenos or Evil Sunz if your Bikes and Trukks aren't super speedy.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/16 12:19:23


 
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






 Gert wrote:
Matched play is just "here's a points limit work within it, apply the rule of 3, play a game".
Removing sub-faction rules might make it a more streamlined system but then players lose all the flavour an army gets for choosing a sub-faction. You won't see a variety in tactics or units because any benefits different units get for taking a specific sub-faction would be removed.
For example, why play Deathwatch if you get 0 army bonuses for fighting Xenos or Evil Sunz if your Bikes and Trukks aren't super speedy.

You can still build flavour into your army through WL traits, Stratagems and Relics, even if all those also get removed you still have army composition. Yes, you could call your bike army a Blood Angels army, but maybe you would rather call it White Scars because they are known for riding bikes.

What about the Blood Angels 3rd company? It consists of a mixture of Tactical Marines, a few Veterans and some Devastator and Assault Squads. Who is going to play that with Blood Angels tactics? This is how most Blood Angels fight, but nobody wants to take a mixed force of Blood Angels because they are overpaying for Devastator Squads that don't ignore the movement penalty like Iron Warriors do and underpaying for their Assault Squads that get extra advance and charge range and hit harder in melee.

There will always be one list that is the best, maybe that's a Bike list, with Chapter Tactics that's probably either White Scars or Dark Angels. The best Blood Angels list might have no bikes and lots of jump packs, which is neat, it's different, but it's still worse than the Bike list. Without Chapter Tactics the best list might still be the Bike list, now Blood Angels can copy that bike list and play the best list or they can play their jump pack list. They won't be playing the best Blood Angels list when taking their jump pack list because they could take the bike list, either way they don't need to play the Bike list, without Chapter Tactics they gain the option of making the Bike list, which they already can by calling themselves red White Scars.
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






Stratagems are situational, you can take one Relic without paying extra CP and a WL trait usually only affects the Warlord and at a push 1 or 2 other units. They are not army-wide special rules.
There isn't always one best list. That's utter nonsense. The fact that sub-faction rules give buffs to certain units or benefit certain playstyles ensures this. Sure you would know exactly what to expect in a tournament if there was only ONE good army list for every faction but that would be the most boring experience ever. If there are 13 SM sub-factions and each one has 2 or 3 good lists each, the variation of SM armies you will likely face is much higher. Same with Orks, Necrons, Aeldari, etc.
   
Made in us
Confessor Of Sins





Tacoma, WA, USA

The flaw here is it basically flattens armies down to even less viable match play forces. Subfaction tactics create synergies and enhance the effectiveness of units that are not there in the basic unit. If it comes down to just the basic unit and army rules, then there will be less variety. That is not a good thing.

Better to fix the issues with specific sub faction tactics than to eliminate them wholesale.
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






I would genuinely like to ask, has anyone ever had first hand experience with sub-faction rules breaking a game or being the primary cause of a loss?
The only instance I can think of was the 8th edition Iron Hands Leviathan spam that got nuked out of existence immediately after the first tournament it got spammed in.
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






 Gert wrote:
Stratagems are situational, you can take one Relic without paying extra CP and a WL trait usually only affects the Warlord and at a push 1 or 2 other units. They are not army-wide special rules. There isn't always one best list. That's utter nonsense. The fact that sub-faction rules give buffs to certain units or benefit certain playstyles ensures this. Sure you would know exactly what to expect in a tournament if there was only ONE good army list for every faction but that would be the most boring experience ever. If there are 13 SM sub-factions and each one has 2 or 3 good lists each, the variation of SM armies you will likely face is much higher. Same with Orks, Necrons, Aeldari, etc.

Chapter Tactics and Super Doctrines are situational, they are in fact too situational, a Blood Angels Devastator will very rarely benefit from his Chapter Tactic and Super Doctrine, while an Ultramarine Devastator will benefit more often. I don't know how Stratagems being situational is a downside, with Chapter Tactics you just have more situational rules. I have advocated for replacing Chapter Tactics with more Stratagems, so on one hand you have two sets of situational rules and on the other hand you have a big set of situational rules.

You're going to LVO 2023 you are getting your Blood Angels list ready, you have to choose between an almost infinite number of lists, one of those lists will have the greatest likelihood of you winning the tournament. You don't have perfect information like you won't know whether you will face counters for list A or list B, but averaging things out there is a theoretical best list. If you have 20 Chapter Tactics then you have 20 theoretical best lists which might all be different, but from among those 20 Chapter Tactics and the infinite lists each Chapter Tactic can bring one will be the best.

If 20 different Chapter Tactics each have 10 good unit choices to choose from but Space Marines absent Chapter Tactics have 30 good unit choices which offers the more options in terms of list building? The one with 30 good unit choices because you can mix and match those units in an infinite number of ways, with only 10 good units to choose from because your Chapter Tactic makes everything else not worth taking you have fewer choices.

 Gert wrote:
I would genuinely like to ask, has anyone ever had first hand experience with sub-faction rules breaking a game or being the primary cause of a loss?
The only instance I can think of was the 8th edition Iron Hands Leviathan spam that got nuked out of existence immediately after the first tournament it got spammed in.

You cannot really narrow things down to one thing losing or winning a game. The straws add up until the camel's back breaks. Any of the games I have narrowly lost where I had worse chapter tactics and any of the games I narrowly won with better chapter tactics on my side was won by chapter tactics you could say. How many games have I narrowly won and lost? Probably about 40 in 8th and 3 in 9th. So that's maybe 10 games lost because of Chapter Tactics in 8th and 1 in 9th.

The Raven Castellan was a good bit better than the alternatives if I remember the name correctly, Catachans kicking my butt in melee occasionally is something Cadians cannot do, but how do you weigh that against Cadians kicking more butt with shooting?
 alextroy wrote:
The flaw here is it basically flattens armies down to even less viable match play forces. Subfaction tactics create synergies and enhance the effectiveness of units that are not there in the basic unit. If it comes down to just the basic unit and army rules, then there will be less variety. That is not a good thing.

Better to fix the issues with specific sub faction tactics than to eliminate them wholesale.

Synergies without costs means imbalance, less balance means fewer good lists. If a unit is bad without synergies it currently has then it should get a points decrease in the world where GW gets rid of Chapter Tactics.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/05/16 15:52:17


 
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






I think the biggest flaw in your argument is that you're equating Matched play with Competetive play, when that isn't the case. Are most Competitive games Matched Play? Yes. Are most Matched play games Competetive? No. All Matched play does is give you restrictions on army build and unit availability compared to the free range Open play.
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






You're going to your friends house next thursday you are getting your Blood Angels list ready, you have to choose between an almost infinite number of lists, one of those lists will have the greatest likelihood of you winning the game. You don't have perfect information like you won't know whether you will face counters for list A or list B, but averaging things out there is a theoretical best list. If you have 20 Chapter Tactics then you have 20 theoretical best lists which might all be different, but from among those 20 Chapter Tactics and the infinite lists each Chapter Tactic can bring one will be the best.

I think my argument works just fine in a casual setting. My goal is pretty optimistic, perfect imbalance, no unit is trash and no unit is amazing. But when you add Chapter Tactics some units must be trash or amazing, if you modify the value of every unit by 1-1,2 then the units that have a trash baseline value and need that 1,2 modifier will be trash in chapters without the proper modifier and units with a value of 1 that don't need a modifier to be worth taking will be amazing in the event they get into a good chapter.

When no unit is amazing or trash it becomes incredibly easy to set up a casual game with friends or with strangers, because unless one of you maximizes synergy and builds for the mission while the other tries his hardest to avoid synergy and an overall army that can play the mission then you can have a great casual game. Balance in competitive 40k is only useful to the extent that it helps balance casual 40k. If something is broken in competitive 40k it really doesn't matter unless it is breaking the ability of the competitive scene to find and highlight balance issues that can ruin casual games.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut




Chapter Tactics aren't hard to balance. If that were the case MANY multiple subfactions would pop up instead of the same few suspects. All you have to do is figure out why that subfaction is broken.

GW simply makes it look like it's hard to do. People here have said to add points for the rules because an Alpha Legion Marine is better than a Word Bearer Marine, but have they considered that even being cheaper would still make the Word Bearers suck because of the useless rule?

CaptainStabby wrote:
If Tyberos falls and needs to catch himself it's because the ground needed killing.

 jy2 wrote:
BTW, I can't wait to run Double-D-thirsters! Man, just thinking about it gets me Khorney.

 vipoid wrote:
Indeed - what sort of bastard would want to use their codex?

 MarsNZ wrote:
ITT: SoB players upset that they're receiving the same condescending treatment that they've doled out in every CSM thread ever.
 
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






Word Bearers are without a doubt the most outlier of utterly awful sub-factions.
As for the balance suggestion, making people pay extra because 1 potential list is OP is an awful way to "balance" the game. Anyone who doesn't take that one specific list is penalised for no reason.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





The way I see it, having or removing chapter tactics doesn't innately help the overall balance of competitive play. Some lists would take the loss of chapter tactics relatively hard; others would benefit from losing relatively little. So removing chapter tactics in competitive play is ultimately kind o f a horizontal move unless you have reason to believe that the gap between haves and have-nots would (in terms of win rates) would shrink as a result of all chapter tactics being removed.

So I wouldn't be all that bothered if they became narrative (or non-competitive; matched play isn't always tournament play) in the future. But making that change now probably doesn't improve the game overall.

That said, if you were to reframe chapter tactics as a thing for non-tournament/non-competitive play, you could probably comfortably expand their scope. Instead of fitting neatly within two or three sentences, you could have chapter tactics that more dramatically impact the way an army plays or is constructed. Sneaky factions could all use some variation on the GSC blip system. Iron hands could gain terminator sergeants. Subfactions could impact Crusade rosters in various ways. That sort of thing.

Basically, there's merit in saying, "We're going to move the fluffiest rules out of tournament play so that we're comfortable making them even more fluffy." But I'm not convinced that removing chapter tactics from tournament play is inherently better for balance or list diversity.


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






Points need to get reworked anyway, whether Drukhari have 70% or 72% win rate.

Casual matched play games needs the removal the most. If Blood Angels are gak then Spike will play White Scars at tournaments, Timmy will just lose a lot, maybe quit playing. Not to mention casuals not wanting homework.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/17 06:34:36


 
   
Made in ru
Fresh-Faced New User




Ok perhaps I didn't articulate my point well enough. My main issue with sub-faction rules is the fact that you get rather important bonuses by just... choosing them. You get the benefits of being, say, Salamanders just by saying that you play them, even if your army is painted in red ('but they are successors!'). There are no guidelines or restrictions as to what your army should be like (in terms of crunch) to be 'worthy' of getting the power-up. What I like about 30k rules is rites of war, you get unique options for army organisation but you conform to requirements.
So CT work fine in narrative play because you act narratively anyway. But in matched, they cause an unpleasant dissonance of intending to be representations of what's special about a sub-faction without having you to actually recreate that sub-faction either through paintjob/conversion or through list building.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/17 09:46:49


 
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






So you're mad that anything that isn't one well identified subfaction can pick and choose its rules. You want to legislate for people painting their armies they way they want.

If your opponent is clearly using an Ultramarines army with their iconography/colour scheme but is calling them Salamanders and using the Salamanders chapter tactics then that's a you problem where you need to ask said opponent not to be TG.

If your opponent is using a homebrew chapter called the "Void Drakes" who just so happen to be painted blue and is using Salamander chapter tactics through the "Scions of the Primarch" or whatever its called trait, where is the problem?
I would be more insulted if they flat put refused to paint their models just to use them as whatever chapter they want.

Rites of War are not subfaction rules and are more akin to a 8th/9th force org or older edition formation. Any of the Legions (which have their own subfaction rules btw) can use any of the generic RoW.

And again for like the 5th time, Matched Play is just a set of rules to set a points/power limit on a game and restrict the spamming of certain unit types. Crusade games which are fully focused on the narrative of "Your Dudes" is Matched Play. Tournament games where the aim is to win the tournament are Matched Play. A pick up game at an FLGS will 9/10 times be Matched Play. You are not going to balance 40k by removing subfaction rules when it has always been the case that units and unit combos have been the OP things in Codexes.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut




Blinkfox wrote:
Ok perhaps I didn't articulate my point well enough. My main issue with sub-faction rules is the fact that you get rather important bonuses by just... choosing them. You get the benefits of being, say, Salamanders just by saying that you play them, even if your army is painted in red ('but they are successors!'). There are no guidelines or restrictions as to what your army should be like (in terms of crunch) to be 'worthy' of getting the power-up. What I like about 30k rules is rites of war, you get unique options for army organisation but you conform to requirements.
So CT work fine in narrative play because you act narratively anyway. But in matched, they cause an unpleasant dissonance of intending to be representations of what's special about a sub-faction without having you to actually recreate that sub-faction either through paintjob/conversion or through list building.

LOL is this a serious post?

Why do YOU care if the opponent is using Salamander rules for a Red Marine? Just in 5th Edition we had people using their Chaos Marines with the frickin Space Wolves codex because of how bad the former was. Get off your high horse and realize people shouldn't be punished when playing the game for choosing the wrong paint scheme or wrong model.

Oh yeah by the way, the restrictions in 30k are hardly restrictions if you weren't going to do something to begin with.

CaptainStabby wrote:
If Tyberos falls and needs to catch himself it's because the ground needed killing.

 jy2 wrote:
BTW, I can't wait to run Double-D-thirsters! Man, just thinking about it gets me Khorney.

 vipoid wrote:
Indeed - what sort of bastard would want to use their codex?

 MarsNZ wrote:
ITT: SoB players upset that they're receiving the same condescending treatment that they've doled out in every CSM thread ever.
 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





Blinkfox wrote:
Ok perhaps I didn't articulate my point well enough. My main issue with sub-faction rules is the fact that you get rather important bonuses by just... choosing them. You get the benefits of being, say, Salamanders just by saying that you play them, even if your army is painted in red ('but they are successors!'). There are no guidelines or restrictions as to what your army should be like (in terms of crunch) to be 'worthy' of getting the power-up. What I like about 30k rules is rites of war, you get unique options for army organisation but you conform to requirements.
So CT work fine in narrative play because you act narratively anyway. But in matched, they cause an unpleasant dissonance of intending to be representations of what's special about a sub-faction without having you to actually recreate that sub-faction either through paintjob/conversion or through list building.

So a few things here.

A.) You're getting into dangerous territory when you start deciding whether or not someone's list is "fluffy enough" or painted "correctly" enough to match a given faction. If someone wants to play the biker-heavy chapter of Blood Angels, it would be pretty rank of you to tell them they can't use Red Thirst because they should be fielding more assault marines instead of bikes. Similarly, telling them their "ultramarines" aren't blue enough or that they're wrong for wanting to use ultramarine rules for their BA-paint scheme biker army is just kind of rude. Not that that's what you're explicitly doing, but you see where you risk implying that sort of thing, right?

B.) Some GW rules for factions are straight up unfluffy for the faction they're meant to represent or less fluffy than another rule would be. Craftworld Iyanden is known for fielding lots of wraith constructs (robots piloted by ghosts) because their living population was devastated relatively recently. The official rules for that craftworld do almost nothing for wraith constructs (especially the wraith guard that are meant to be their rank and file) but allow you to make large squads of warm bodies immune to morale. So the Iyanden trait actively encourages you to make your army look the opposite of the way you'd expect it to based on fluff. You're much better off fielding Ulthwe rules (helps your wraiths stay alive and fits the survivor's tenacity they seemed to be going for with the Iyanden trait) or a custom craftworld trait that specifically benefits wraith constructs.

Similarly, Biel-Tan is known for fielding aspect warriors, but its trait is more useful to non-aspect warrior guardian units and vehicles. Ulthwe is known for leaning heavily on guardians and psykers (and has an okay stratagem for nodding to the latter), but the trait is somewhat redundant with the farseer's ghosthelm, less useful on guardians than some other units, and devalues one of the better psychic powers your farseers can take (Fortune). So when I want to play a fluffy craftworld list, I often end up using rules not officially tied to that craftworld because they fit the fluff better than the "assigned" ones.

C.) I can understand being frustrated by perceived fluff/modeling/crunch dissonance. However, I'm not sure your argument relates to matched vs non-matched play very well. As others have pointed out, some of us use matched play rules for narratively play for a variety of reasons. And if we're talking about strictly competitive/tournament games, then we're talking about an environment where crunch is prioritized over fluff. Your opponent might have replaced all his marines' helmets with Hello Kitty heads; that doesn't mean they don't deserve their Salamander rerolls. ;D So removing CTs from matched play specifically probably doesn't help anything from a balance perspective, and that's really not the place for things to be limited for fluff/modeling reasons.

D.) There are probably ways to make Rites of War style army rules work. However, that's a different discussion than the one you've put forward.

E.) If you want to use limitations/prescribed army building to "unlock" chapter tactics, I can see the merit in that. However, it probably has to be done through more than the oldschool force org chart changes. Giving up your Fast Attack slots is a fake drawback if you weren't planning on taking FA choices to begin with (or if an optimized list doesn't use FA options).

F.) This should have been earlier in the list, but I just wanted to point out that sometimes a set of chapter tactics can be used to represent a faction other than the canon one those traits are assigned to and thus shouldn't be subject to that faction's limitations. So for instance, maybe I like the idea of a marine chapter that is really into launching melee assaults out of their chapter's sizeable pool of tanks. I realize that the BA rules, with their chapter tactics and special engine stratagem, will let me represent that theme better than the custom chapter traits or any of the other first founding options. However, you've decided (for the sake of discussion) that a "proper" Blood Angels force worthy of its BA-specific benefits really ought to have a bunch of jump pack units floating around because BA used to be able to field assault marines as troops, had special rules to help deepstrikers, etc. So now my hypothetical army of dudes in transports is obligated to break away from its theme and field jump packers or else pick a chapter tactic that doesn't represent its fluff as well.

G.) Chapter tactics should probably be divorced from the names of specific subfactions so that people are more comfortable using the traits that reflect their army (including reflecting canon subfactions that break away from that army's main gimmick). So instead of being forced to be "Raven Guard" if you want sneaky marines, you just take the "Sneaky Boys" trait. If you want to play the Iron Wolves great company of the Space Wolves, you can feel free to take the "Mechanized Dudes" trait that helps your vehicles keep functioning when they're damaged. If you like the idea of playing the relatively static scouts and devastators that set up kill zones that their White Scars brothers herd enemies into, you can take the "Static Castle Fellows" trait while still being a "White Scar." This would also solve the aforementioned eldar problems and similar issues that exist for other factions.


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






The Static Castle Fellows are my favourite Space Marine chapter.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 Gert wrote:
The Static Castle Fellows are my favourite Space Marine chapter.

Ah, but by not being a "chapter", you can have Imperial Fist static castle fellows, Raven Guard static castle fellows, and so on. So Shrike can totally be present to fight alongside his RG static castle fellow pals. He's just more accustomed to hanging out with his Sneaky Boys. ;D

Which is to say, you can field a bike-heavy army that uses rules that benefit bikes while also painting them blue and calling them ultramarines. With the intent being that you might want to represent the ultramarines bike company but don't want to be stuck using less-good-for-bike rules.


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
 
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