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.

See, I don't really like the FOC or what we have now. What slot a unit goes into in 40k is really arbitrary. Some armies have "troops" that are packing firepower comparable to a heavy support unit. Some armies have troops that are really cost-inefficient and end up being a "tax". Terminators are an elite unit for most marines, but if you give them even better weapons and psychic powers, they become troops (Grey Knights). So arguing over how many elites or heavy supports an army can have feels sort of pointless.

tldr:
Fluff: Some armies use non "troop" units in a troop-like role. See: Death Wing, Raven Wing, Saim-Hann, etc.

Crunch: What separates a "troop" from a non-troop? Because custodes and heavy intercessors make me think it's not about power. So for armies whose troops aren't great, you're just creating another artificial weakness in the army.

Also, I'm not a huge fan of the way "special detachments" have been done lately. If I could do a fairly significant overhaul, I think I'd get rid of generic detachments entirely and force you to build your army out of codex-level detachment options that come with their own thematic benefits and drawbacks. I might even go so far as to roll chapter tactics into those detachments (and also divorce them from the faction's name). I'd probably expand the chapter/detachment special rules to be more impactful too.

So if I want to play an Ulthwe army, I'd field the "Guardian Host" detachment that requires some guardians but unlocks warlock sergeants for guardian squads. If I want to play a marine bike army, I'd play the "Bike Company" detachment (not a "White Scars" detachment) that enforces a bikes-to-not-bikes ratio but gives my bikes the ability to Jink and treat my bolters as Assault regardless of my paint scheme or fluff. (So an Ultramarines bike company would be totally viable.)

The whole point of detachments is to balance and/or prevent skew and to give you fluffy rules that match your faction. So maybe detachments should actually do that instead of being an awkward one-size-fits-all system.

 vipoid wrote:
I could be wrong, but I think HBMC's point wasn't necessarily that his hypothetical FoC would bear no resemblance to Patrols or Battalions, but rather that you would not have the same plethora of detachments to choose from.

[SNIP EXAMPLE]

Anyway, I think the point is that you would have the appropriate FoC for your game size and nothing else.

As in, you can't choose between a Battalion or 2-3 Patrols or a Battalion and a Patrol or a Patrol and an Outrider or whatever. You just get a single FoC based on game size and that's your lot.

You got it in one. That's exactly what I was getting at.

My FOC idea includes Flyers, Fortifications, and Lords of War though, negating the need for separate detachments for those as well, making them an organic part of the army (if you want them, that is - never compulsory).

You essentially have something very similar to a Patrol at the lower points level, work your way to something similar to a Brigade at higher points, and then like with CP now, you could gain more slots (and more compulsory slots) the higher you went above that 'max' (ie. +1 HQ slots per 500 points, to pull something out of thin air).

Then your unique formations - Dark Angel Deathwing/Ravenwing, Iyanden Ghost Army, Farsight Conclaves, etc. - would have unique FOCs that allowed them to build their army without changing the basic structure or placement of units. Do everything with the army special rules at the top level.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
4th had 2 detachments at 2500

Again, something that would not be necessary if the FOC scaled based on game size.

Agreed HBMC. Just throwing my comment out to show that "double FOC" was a thing for a long time, showing GW was aware of the problem long before 6th

I really like that soup armies have an HQ dedicated to each soup ingredient, this seems very fluffy to me, other than that I think detachments can help encourage more balanced armies alongside missions. I am not a big fan of the Army-specific detachments like Decurions, changing battlefield roles depending on XYZ or Dark Angels' new ObSec rules. More rules = less balance. I wrote up a ruleset for how to identify which battlefield role a unit should have and I think every unit should be included in the appropriate battlefield role instead of changing battlefield roles to fit with fluff (Troops that cost 10+ pts should be Elites, Dreadnoughts should be Heavy Support...), army-building should then be redesigned and rebalanced around that paradigm. I think the idea that armies without Troops are useless because of the minute CP difference is silly.

I rewrote the Necron Decurion for 9th https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/800855.page if you have any requests I can add other ones.

 dadx6 wrote:
Also I'd like to see different FOC's for the different Imperial Guard regiments. Like Catachans should have a sentinel- and infantry-heavy detachment, whereas Valhallans should have a vehicle-heavy detachment design.

Just include Sentinels and Infantry in your Catachan list and vehicles in your Valhallan list, what is stopping you?

Army Specific detachments I'd like to see: A battlesuit-only T'au force that gets extra benefits for using only battlesuit keyworded units (other than Firewarriors, Devilfish, and HQ's). So basically crisis suits, stealth suits, Ghostkeels, Riptides, Stormsurges, Broadsides. Maybe move Stealth Suits to Fast Attack?

You can already make this list, why do you need extra rules for every army archetype? It is too much bloat, like the new Tyranids gak, just balance the damn points argh.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I think army-specific detachments should be the only alternate detachments besides the basic FOC.

You mean something like Decurions or something simpler? What are your thoughts on allies?

Wyldhunt wrote:
See, I don't really like the FOC or what we have now. What slot a unit goes into in 40k is really arbitrary. Some armies have "troops" that are packing firepower comparable to a heavy support unit. Some armies have troops that are really cost-inefficient and end up being a "tax". Terminators are an elite unit for most marines, but if you give them even better weapons and psychic powers, they become troops (Grey Knights). So arguing over how many elites or heavy supports an army can have feels sort of pointless.

This. Units' roles are so unbalanced that an arbitrary FOC wouldn't make any sense unless (maybe) re-working lots of units' roles. Ork dreads for example are heavy support instead of being elites, why? Lootas are still heavy support even now that their weapon is not heavy anymore. Meanwhile troops such as heavy intercessors or wyches fire or punch like dedicated elites or heavy supports. Some armies also have a plethora of units in each slot now and limiting to an arbitrary max 3-4 might be too punishing. Some armies can squadron units whose counterparts from other armies are typically one model units, etc...

I'm in favor of making additional detachments cost points instead of CPs though. The thing is CPs are quite expendable, points are not. So if you want to max out your elites, FA, HS, etc you also pay a tax in points. Same for bringing additional relics or warlord traits to the list.

 vict0988 wrote:
You mean something like Decurions or something simpler? What are your thoughts on allies?

I look at the 7th Ed formations, and the big ones that were formations made up of smaller formations, and if that's what you mean by Decurion, then it's not what I mean by army specific FOCs.

Formations in 7th were all about taking a specific combination of units to get a raft of additional special rules, things that were minor all the way up to 'Free Razorbacks for your whole army!'. That kinda gak basically ruined the game. My goals are far more simplistic; a structure to represent the army, a reason to do so, but some flexibility so you're not stuck with only a few unit types.

So just pulling examples out of nothing, an Iyanden Ghost Army FOC would probably look like (assuming standard 1500-2000 point Battalion level game):

2-3 HQs*
0-4 Troops Choices
3-6 Elite Choices*
2-4 Heavy Support Choices*
0-2 Fast Attack Choices
0-2 Flyers*
0-1 Lords of War*
0-2 Fortifications

*Compulsory units, Flyers and Lords of War must have either the 'Psyker' or 'Wraith Construct' Keywords.
Formation Rules: All units with the 'Wraith Construct' keyword gain Objective Secured.

Again, I'm pulling specific numbers out of no where. It's just a concept.

 Blackie wrote:
I'm in favor of making additional detachments cost points instead of CPs though.

Then you're spending points on nothing, and it starts to become a game where players are playing with different points levels.

The points you spend should go onto the table. No one wants to play a 2000 point vs 1900 point game just because the second guy wanted more Heavy Support choices.

It depends on how many points those detachments cost and how effective some specific units, and all their synergies, are. As long as the game favors MSU armies with cheaper than average models need lots of available slots for some specific roles.

I'd definitely play 1970 points (or even 1900) vs 2000 points if that allows me to bring more powerful lists than the 2000 points ones I could get with a strict FOC. The game already works well players starting with different CPs pools.

An old style FOC could work on an edition that favors mid sized or max sized squads.

And again units roles and squadrons would need a total re-write. It's not fair that AM could bring 9 leman russes as HS or 9 hellhounds as FA, when they could already bring 2 tank HQs, 3 FA tanks, 3 HS tanks, a LoW tank and lots of dedicated transport tanks even with the old FOC limitations. Or that SM can bring heavy firepower just by adding troops.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
...an Iyanden Ghost Army FOC would probably look like (assuming standard 1500-2000 point Battalion level game):

2-3 HQs*
0-4 Troops Choices
3-6 Elite Choices*
2-4 Heavy Support Choices*
0-2 Fast Attack Choices
0-2 Flyers*
0-1 Lords of War*
0-2 Fortifications

*Compulsory units, Flyers and Lords of War must have either the 'Psyker' or 'Wraith Construct' Keywords.
Formation Rules: All units with the 'Wraith Construct' keyword gain Objective Secured.

What's the problem with creating this type of army with a Vanguard Detachment? You seem to argue that the cost of breaking the FOC is too low currently, could that not be fixed by increasing the cost of doing so? Personally I feel like the current cost is super fair, I don't feel the need to ever take anything but a Battalion except when I'm bringing LOW or spamming C'tan and if my opponent pays it I don't think they're at a huge disadvantage for doing so or getting an unfair advantage by paying a pittance.

Are Wraith Constructs pointed as having Objective Secured or no? The only reason to have rules like these (or armies of renown or specialist detachments) is if the standard force org cannot be used to make a balanced version of a thematic lore-friendly army, like if taking 5 Wraithguard is good, but taking 30 Wraithguard is terrible, then extra rules can be added to make a 30 Wraithguard list mediocre without making the 5 Wraithguard overpowered. There is no reason why Wraithlords and Wraithknights need the buff though or become worse when taken together, Wraithknights just need a pts-drop if you wanted them to become top tier competitive (which I guess neither of us want).

Because there shouldn't be a "Vanguard Detachment". There should just be one standard detachment type that scales with points levels.

The FOC was meant to impose restrictions on what you could bring. GW broke this with formations in 7th, and in 8th/9th further broke it with different detatchment types. If you can just pay virtually nothing to bring extra slots, then the slots don't mean anything. The fact that the Rule of 3 exists at all should be more than enough proof that the current system fails on a conceptual as well as a practical level.

But, at the same time, there are formations that don't fit the standard method (armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, Knight armies in general, etc.) and I think it should be the job of the Codex, and not the core rules, to allow for unique formation types. It's about allowing the rules to help represent the fluff, as so often the two do not coincide.

And it ain't got nuthin' to do with being "top tier competitive".

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Because there shouldn't be a "Vanguard Detachment". There should just be one standard detachment type that scales with points levels.

The FOC was meant to impose restrictions on what you could bring. GW broke this with formations in 7th, and in 8th/9th further broke it with different detatchment types. If you can just pay virtually nothing to bring extra slots, then the slots don't mean anything.

The fact that the Rule of 3 exists at all should be more than enough proof that the current system fails on a conceptual as well as a practical level.

But, at the same time, there are formations that don't fit the standard method (armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, Knight armies in general, etc.) and I think it should be the job of the Codex, and not the core rules, to allow for unique formation types.

And it ain't got nuthin' to do with being "top tier competitive".

I agree with all of this, a lot of the current game set up is driven by the 1850 American style of play where traditionally having all your cake and eating it was preferable to the hard choices that had to be made by leaving some stuff at home. The current game structure just doubled down on this, you can have 0 weaknesses in drafting a list and have all your toys with none of the tax.

The FOC is a relic of an era in which armies had 3-5 units in each slot, now they can easily have 15.

Bringing 5-6 units from the same limited role on a 30 units roster isn't the same than doing it on a 100+ units roster. It's not spam when you select just a fraction of the available combinations from a specific role while you're also limited by rule of 3.

Take fast attacks from the ork codex: in an optimized list you can have for example a unit of 5 bikes, a unit of 3-5 deffkoptas, a unit of megatrakk scrapjets and a unit of rukkatrukk squigbuggies, and let's even add a single kustom boosta blasta to the lot. 535 to over 1000 points of stuff, depending on how many models the units have. That's not even half of all the possible combinations: you could hadd two additional units of bikes, two additional units of koptas, three squads of stormboyz, three squads of squig riders, and another couple of different squadrons of buggies, other than upping the already taken squads of buggies if they aren't maxed out already. FW stuff not even considered.

It makes sense that bringing up to 8 (patrol + outrider) is not only possible but also easy. It's basically the same ratio of 3rd edition when fast attacks were just three units in total, warbikes, buggies, trukk boyz and FOC allowed 3 of those.

Same with any other slot.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But, at the same time, there are formations that don't fit the standard method (armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, Knight armies in general, etc.) and I think it should be the job of the Codex, and not the core rules, to allow for unique formation types. It's about allowing the rules to help represent the fluff, as so often the two do not coincide.

And if the author of my codex forgot to add rules for constructing a Wraithhost list? What if my personal Dynasty uses more Fast Attack elements? What is the purpose of having such a rigid system that prevents people from building skew lists if you're going to allow it on an individual basis anyway? How about armies with more expensive units, they can spend far more on just a few Heavy Support choices than an army with cheaper units can, I might be able to spend 500 on Heavy Support, while my opponent spends 1500, is it really that bad if I pay 3CP to spend up to 1500 pts on Heavy Support like my opponent?

Codexes never give rules out on a fair and balanced basis, that's why the core rules should create a balanced environment and codexes should have as little power to ruin the game as possible, the only thing that should be in a codex is datasheets, the rest should be handled in Chapter Approved in an equal and fair manner. Handing out specialist detachments like candy was not a good idea because it covered only select playstyles for select armies and never did so to balance otherwise unbalanceable situations (like the one with 5 Wraiths being good 30 being terrible), they were released just for the sake of releasing rules and rules internally and externally less balanced. Your armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, etc. would do the same.

The fact that the Rule of 3 exists at all should be more than enough proof that the current system fails on a conceptual as well as a practical level.

The fact that allowing people to take 4+ Fast Attack/Elites/Heavy Support choices allowed them to take 4+ of the datasheet is the opposite of proof that the current system fails on a practical level since it was fixed on a practical level by the Rule of 3, there is no practical problem, it's entirely conceptual.

When was the last time you played against someone who used a list (without LOW) that spammed too many units from one battlefield role, that you want the game designers to ban permanently? What type of awful lists are you running into? Because the lists I play against and the competitive lists I see being used don't look super terribly stupid. If someone wants to run a Speedwaaagh without Troops and pays 3CP for the privilege then I think that's a totally fair cost for having a specialized army with different and perhaps fewer weaknesses than a regular army. Paying 6CP or 100 pts would be far too much.

Dudeface wrote:
I agree with all of this, a lot of the current game set up is driven by the 1850 American style of play where traditionally having all your cake and eating it was preferable to the hard choices that had to be made by leaving some stuff at home. The current game structure just doubled down on this, you can have 0 weaknesses in drafting a list and have all your toys with none of the tax.

9th has a CP tax if you don't take Troops.

Wyldhunt wrote:
See, I don't really like the FOC or what we have now. What slot a unit goes into in 40k is really arbitrary. Some armies have "troops" that are packing firepower comparable to a heavy support unit. Some armies have troops that are really cost-inefficient and end up being a "tax". Terminators are an elite unit for most marines, but if you give them even better weapons and psychic powers, they become troops (Grey Knights). So arguing over how many elites or heavy supports an army can have feels sort of pointless.

tldr:
Fluff: Some armies use non "troop" units in a troop-like role. See: Death Wing, Raven Wing, Saim-Hann, etc.

Crunch: What separates a "troop" from a non-troop? Because custodes and heavy intercessors make me think it's not about power. So for armies whose troops aren't great, you're just creating another artificial weakness in the army.

I think this is definitely a fair point.

Honestly, I think the biggest indicator something is wrong is that CORE is not only different from TROOPS, it's also different from mandatory units in detachments (e.g. HQs are mandatory in almost every detachment, yet none of them are CORE units).

But yeah, the fact that we need half a dozen different detachments *and* the rule of 3 would seem to indicate that the system is failing at its intended purpose.

I do wonder if something like the Warmachine system would be better. Basically, each unit would have a maximum number you could take (including Unlimited), and otherwise you're free to do what you want. Could add some caveats (like mandatory units, based on army/army type) but basically the detachment system would be gone.

I don't know if this would be better than, say, HBMC's idea. However, with the current rules, it just doesn't seem like detachments are serving much purpose.

Limiting the max number of a specific unit, from 0-1 to 0-3 for example, is much better than limiting each slot to 0-3 or even 0-4. That is a reasonable way to limit and counter spam, and probaly even the advantage of taking squadrons.

Units that can be fielded in squadrons of expensive models (examples: buggies or leman russes) can easily be limited to 0-1, while similar counterparts that only act as single models (examples: exorcist, ravager, annihilation barge or doomsday ark) can be 0-2 or 0-3. All without affecting anything but extremely skew lists, therefore a good idea.

Or just go to something like this:
No army can spend more than 25% of his points on character units,
No army can spend less than 25% of his points on non-vehicle/non-character units,
No army can spend more than 25% of his points on units on allied units from other codices. (With a list of which codices are eligible to choose from.

This way you have only 3 types of models/units- Characters (which would be unique), vehicles and, non-vehicles. Then everybody can take pretty much whatever they like. I know not every type of list would be allowed with this but I think that most people could live with that. If not then you could come up with some special variant for specific codices (like Knights or armored companies).

 vict0988 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I agree with all of this, a lot of the current game set up is driven by the 1850 American style of play where traditionally having all your cake and eating it was preferable to the hard choices that had to be made by leaving some stuff at home. The current game structure just doubled down on this, you can have 0 weaknesses in drafting a list and have all your toys with none of the tax.

9th has a CP tax if you don't take Troops.

3cp is far far easier to swallow than minimum 10% of a force ending up in the troops slot as a default. If you're wanting to play speed Freaks for example, would you rather play 3cp and have no boyz or have to factor in 270 points of boyz?

That's a provocative example due to the state of boyz atm, but the point is there are next to no limits on building an army beyond losing some cp, so you get for example 3 less cp rerolls per game in return for only taking "good stuff".

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Because there shouldn't be a "Vanguard Detachment". There should just be one standard detachment type that scales with points levels.

The FOC was meant to impose restrictions on what you could bring. GW broke this with formations in 7th, and in 8th/9th further broke it with different detatchment types. If you can just pay virtually nothing to bring extra slots, then the slots don't mean anything. The fact that the Rule of 3 exists at all should be more than enough proof that the current system fails on a conceptual as well as a practical level.

But, at the same time, there are formations that don't fit the standard method (armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, Knight armies in general, etc.) and I think it should be the job of the Codex, and not the core rules, to allow for unique formation types. It's about allowing the rules to help represent the fluff, as so often the two do not coincide.

And it ain't got nuthin' to do with being "top tier competitive".

So how do you field and army that's half ultramarines and half black templar? Are they all in the same FoC? Good luck sorting out those army rules.

 deviantduck wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Because there shouldn't be a "Vanguard Detachment". There should just be one standard detachment type that scales with points levels.

The FOC was meant to impose restrictions on what you could bring. GW broke this with formations in 7th, and in 8th/9th further broke it with different detatchment types. If you can just pay virtually nothing to bring extra slots, then the slots don't mean anything. The fact that the Rule of 3 exists at all should be more than enough proof that the current system fails on a conceptual as well as a practical level.

But, at the same time, there are formations that don't fit the standard method (armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, Knight armies in general, etc.) and I think it should be the job of the Codex, and not the core rules, to allow for unique formation types. It's about allowing the rules to help represent the fluff, as so often the two do not coincide.

And it ain't got nuthin' to do with being "top tier competitive".

So how do you field and army that's half ultramarines and half black templar? Are they all in the same FoC? Good luck sorting out those army rules.

Old school solution, a small limited allied detachment, a percentage allowance or simply don't allow it. The layering of multiple rules bonuses for being painted black or w/e is part of the problem.

Dudeface wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Because there shouldn't be a "Vanguard Detachment". There should just be one standard detachment type that scales with points levels.

The FOC was meant to impose restrictions on what you could bring. GW broke this with formations in 7th, and in 8th/9th further broke it with different detatchment types. If you can just pay virtually nothing to bring extra slots, then the slots don't mean anything. The fact that the Rule of 3 exists at all should be more than enough proof that the current system fails on a conceptual as well as a practical level.

But, at the same time, there are formations that don't fit the standard method (armoured companies, Ravenwing, Speed Freaks, Knight armies in general, etc.) and I think it should be the job of the Codex, and not the core rules, to allow for unique formation types. It's about allowing the rules to help represent the fluff, as so often the two do not coincide.

And it ain't got nuthin' to do with being "top tier competitive".

So how do you field and army that's half ultramarines and half black templar? Are they all in the same FoC? Good luck sorting out those army rules.

Old school solution, a small limited allied detachment, a percentage allowance or simply don't allow it. The layering of multiple rules bonuses for being painted black or w/e is part of the problem.

Well I used marines for a simple example. An Emperor's champion, for instance, is more than just a paint job. I often run SoB with a knight, or with space wolves. It's very much more than just paint at that point. What about running some Martyred Lady sisters with some Bloody Rose? (even though back to a just paint example) The game is way too layered at this point to be wedged in an outdated FoC.

There is not a single problem in the game the FOC would fix, it never did have a good effect on the game and won't suddenly do so now.

You could get around the FOC in 4th and 5th with moving stuff to troops, dedicated transports and multiple units occupying one slot, you could break it in 6th with CAD and allied detachments and 7th ignored it in pretty much every way possible.
And that isn't even taking codices into consideration that could have near identical units in multiple slots.

It didn't prevent skew or spam or hero hammer lists in any of those editions, nor did it create an incentive to run more flavorful lists.

The FOC was a failure that never put real limits on competitive play and power-gaming, but instead put artificial limitation on actually running your guys the way you wanted.

I would really love to see a single advantage of the FOC over the current system of generic detachments, theme detachments (ravenwing, speed mob, transdimensional raid) and armies of reknown.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That all sounds fairly negative, and I'm not really blasting the idea just because HBMC is the one who came up with it.

The suggestion just wants to force people into compulsory slot choices, and there has not been given a reason for why this would be a good idea. Then it goes on to provide loop holes for fluff armies, which then screws over everyone GW forgets about *waves at CSM players reading this*.

The whole thing might work, and actually work well if GW didn't essentially distribute battle roles by throwing darts and if many armies didn't have a single slot cluttered with all their signature units. Not to mention that a lot of codices have just one or two real choices for a slot.

So, I really tried to find something positive about the idea, but it's just not something that would work for Warhammer 40k as it is unless you re-organize all battlefield roles and create dozens of new datasheets for smaller codices.

 Jidmah wrote:
There is not a single problem in the game the FOC would fix, it never did have a good effect on the game and won't suddenly do so now.

You could get around the FOC in 4th and 5th with moving stuff to troops, dedicated transports and multiple units occupying one slot, you could break it in 6th with CAD and allied detachments and 7th ignored it in pretty much every way possible.
And that isn't even taking codices into consideration that could have near identical units in multiple slots.

It didn't prevent skew or spam or hero hammer lists in any of those editions, nor did it create an incentive to run more flavorful lists.

The FOC was a failure that never put real limits on competitive play and power-gaming, but instead put artificial limitation on actually running your guys the way you wanted.

I would really love to see a single advantage of the FOC over the current system of generic detachments, theme detachments (ravenwing, speed mob, transdimensional raid) and armies of reknown.

I have to agree here. There are several vectors at odds with one another so that there's not really a good solution:

#1 - Broken unit limitation - spamming broken units vs wanting to spam fluffy/for-fun units
#2 - points cost - 1 point difference in models making them go from broken to unplayable
#3 - Army makeup - trying to get a sense of "this is what would comprise a 'normal' army make up" vs let the players just play with what they have


The FOC and RO3 is trying to address #1 and #3, but as we've seen since Rogue Trader, the desire to win pushes people to play whatever is broken, and Tournaments just give people a better sense of what is broken.

I've been loving Crusade lately, as people don't come in with the latest broken-meta list. My IG have an 80% win rate because of the smaller games, and I can take the shiny gubbins that turn an IG squad from nothing-to-something for free. Even still, there is so much variability in what constitutes a PL that it's really not in much better shape than points cost.

Just get rid of the FoC/Detachment system. Let people bring whatever they want, limit the amount of times you can take a datasheet with an indicator ON THE DATASHEET. Have people pay CP if theyre bringing a "detachment" of a faction that isnt the same as the warlord's

I think the truth is that any time GW made something that raised the power creep, players were happy at, bc the majority is formed of nerdy guys who wants their armies being the strongest, the bigger.

No wonder if GW started to broke FOCs with Terminator troops, 4 HQ per army, 6 HS and gak like this

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Just get rid of the FoC/Detachment system. Let people bring whatever they want, limit the amount of times you can take a datasheet with an indicator ON THE DATASHEET. Have people pay CP if theyre bringing a "detachment" of a faction that isnt the same as the warlord's

Totally agree. Or maybe just roll Fast Attack, Heavy Support and Elite into one slot - they have lost their meaning a long time ago, don't really do anything outside of game modes like planet strike anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The Deer Hunter wrote:
I think the truth is that any time GW made something that raised the power creep, players were happy at, bc the majority is formed of nerdy guys who wants their armies being the strongest, the bigger.

No wonder if GW started to broke FOCs with Terminator troops, 4 HQ per army, 6 HS and gak like this

You are over a decade too late to complain about this. All of that has been possible in 4th.

Limiting slots will have no noticeable impact on the power of armies. Just look at the state of drukhari or orks after being hit with massive nerfs - with the unprecedented high level of internal balance in 9th's codices competitive people would just shift to the next best thing in a different slot and lose very little. The only thing this does is screwing over people with small collections and narrative players.

 Jidmah wrote:

Spoiler:

There is not a single problem in the game the FOC would fix, it never did have a good effect on the game and won't suddenly do so now.

You could get around the FOC in 4th and 5th with moving stuff to troops, dedicated transports and multiple units occupying one slot, you could break it in 6th with CAD and allied detachments and 7th ignored it in pretty much every way possible.
And that isn't even taking codices into consideration that could have near identical units in multiple slots.

It didn't prevent skew or spam or hero hammer lists in any of those editions, nor did it create an incentive to run more flavorful lists.

The FOC was a failure that never put real limits on competitive play and power-gaming, but instead put artificial limitation on actually running your guys the way you wanted.

I would really love to see a single advantage of the FOC over the current system of generic detachments, theme detachments (ravenwing, speed mob, transdimensional raid) and armies of reknown.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That all sounds fairly negative, and I'm not really blasting the idea just because HBMC is the one who came up with it.

The suggestion just wants to force people into compulsory slot choices, and there has not been given a reason for why this would be a good idea. Then it goes on to provide loop holes for fluff armies, which then screws over everyone GW forgets about *waves at CSM players reading this*.

The whole thing might work, and actually work well if GW didn't essentially distribute battle roles by throwing darts and if many armies didn't have a single slot cluttered with all their signature units. Not to mention that a lot of codices have just one or two real choices for a slot.

So, I really tried to find something positive about the idea, but it's just not something that would work for Warhammer 40k as it is unless you re-organize all battlefield roles and create dozens of new datasheets for smaller codices.

You're not wrong by any stretch, all of the stuff the FOC returning would have quelled in 8th has been squashed by rule of 3 and the umpteen faction rules being layered and made for pure factions. For 9th the FOC would just limit people down from where they are, but I think the context might be the reason both ways here.

There's older players who look back and see how the game spiralled out of "a bit messy/clunky" to pure chaos when allies and formations crept in. Those haven't really gone away as such, people can still ally in stuff that doesn't make sense to make a "better army". My issue with the FOC is remembering when allies came back into the equation in 6th and thinking "oh cool, you can have pdf with marine support", expect that turned into taudar and all the other grossest that didn't have an ounce of fluff in them.

A good chunk of 8ths issues stem down to allies again and the spamming of slots that were previously restricted. Most of 9ths complaints include confusing unnecessary rules layering that's come around as a soft cap on allying and combos of weird picks.

I fall into the category of yes the FOC was a bit dull, yes it wasn't always great for people who wanted to play a certain force, but it stopped more horrendous gamey combos than it punished forces.

I see someone asking how you handle ultramarines and black templars in 1 army, the simple answer is you don't, it goes back to a time when your force was an army of 1 type, with 1 faction, with no layering of crap. What purpose do you have for templars and ultras in 1 army list that can't be handled by running them all under 1 ruleset, because if it even remotely shifts to "I want X unit to do Y as templars" it goes back to being an optimisation for the sakes of it.

brainpsyk wrote:
The FOC and RO3 is trying to address #1 and #3, but as we've seen since Rogue Trader, the desire to win pushes people to play whatever is broken, and Tournaments just give people a better sense of what is broken.

It's not just Ro3 and detachments shaping how you build your army, you also have limits on "leader" characters like captains, warbosses, tau commanders and daemon princes, rules in place to prevent spamming cheap troops as well as rewards for using themed detachments. Each problem is addressed separately, which works much better than the sledgehammer approach the FoC is trying to do.

I've been loving Crusade lately, as people don't come in with the latest broken-meta list. My IG have an 80% win rate because of the smaller games, and I can take the shiny gubbins that turn an IG squad from nothing-to-something for free. Even still, there is so much variability in what constitutes a PL that it's really not in much better shape than points cost.

To be fair, what makes crusade work is the group of players wanting to play crusade, not the awesome rules behind it. If approached with a competitive mindset, it completely falls apart.

For those asking for more limitations than are currently offered, how do armies like Knights (either flavour), or even Tyranids work in your systems, and also, what about the Army of Renown system that's getting more and more use as we move forward?

 Blndmage wrote:
For those asking for more limitations than are currently offered, how do armies like Knights (either flavour), or even Tyranids work in your systems, and also, what about the Army of Renown system that's getting more and more use as we move forward?

Tyranids have been in the game since 2nd and never not worked, I can't see a reason they wouldn't? Knights have had a bespoke army building mechanic since they were introduced, again no change there if you removed allies, the Lance rule is fine.

Army of renown is actually pretty interesting and something they should maybe continue but they need a lot more scrutiny than they seem to receive before being printed. Maybe restrict them from tournaments.

Dudeface wrote:
There's older players who look back and see how the game spiralled out of "a bit messy/clunky" to pure chaos when allies and formations crept in. Those haven't really gone away as such, people can still ally in stuff that doesn't make sense to make a "better army". My issue with the FOC is remembering when allies came back into the equation in 6th and thinking "oh cool, you can have pdf with marine support", expect that turned into taudar and all the other grossest that didn't have an ounce of fluff in them.

Yes, in 9th they can ally in things that don't make sense, but in almost all cases it does not make for a better army. When you see allies these days, you mostly see codices that haven't been updated, DG+nurgle daemons, sisters+guard, belakor's merry men or adMech with a Knight of the Cog. Most others avoid allies to not lose their army rules, while our local fluff bunny can still play his DKOK with a knight and a GK witch hunter squad.
So I really don't agree with that point of criticism. While complexity is an issue, GW has done a genuinely good job in making armies that make sense the "better army". If you pull up any Competitive Inovations article on goonhammer, you will find very few top placing armies from 9th edition codices that "don't make sense".

I fall into the category of yes the FOC was a bit dull, yes it wasn't always great for people who wanted to play a certain force, but it stopped more horrendous gamey combos [...]

It didn't though? All it ever did was preventing people from bringing the same slot over and over again. Which only prevents those few combos where the problematic units share a battle role and there isn't an easy substitute from another slot, the unit cannot form squadrons, be moved to other slots or already costs 400+ points to begin with.
I'd wager that there are almost no combos that the FOC prevented that aren't already caught by the Ro3.

I see someone asking how you handle ultramarines and black templars in 1 army, the simple answer is you don't, it goes back to a time when your force was an army of 1 type, with 1 faction, with no layering of crap. What purpose do you have for templars and ultras in 1 army list that can't be handled by running them all under 1 ruleset, because if it even remotely shifts to "I want X unit to do Y as templars" it goes back to being an optimisation for the sakes of it.

If squashing allies is your goal, you do realize that you can just disallow allies without implementing the flawed FOC system, right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dudeface wrote:
Army of renown is actually pretty interesting and something they should maybe continue but they need a lot more scrutiny than they seem to receive before being printed. Maybe restrict them from tournaments.

I don't think that there is any army of reknown causing problems in tournaments, or did I miss something? I have seen them pop up occasional in high positions, but they are a minority. All of them are perfectly in line with regular armies from the same codex.

Which implies that they are actually did see some playtesting.

 Jidmah wrote:

Spoiler:

Dudeface wrote:
There's older players who look back and see how the game spiralled out of "a bit messy/clunky" to pure chaos when allies and formations crept in. Those haven't really gone away as such, people can still ally in stuff that doesn't make sense to make a "better army". My issue with the FOC is remembering when allies came back into the equation in 6th and thinking "oh cool, you can have pdf with marine support", expect that turned into taudar and all the other grossest that didn't have an ounce of fluff in them.

Yes, in 9th they can ally in things that don't make sense, but in almost all cases it does not make for a better army. When you see allies these days, you mostly see codices that haven't been updated, DG+nurgle daemons, sisters+guard, belakor's merry men or adMech with a Knight of the Cog. Most others avoid allies to not lose their army rules, while our local fluff bunny can still play his DKOK with a knight and a GK witch hunter squad.
So I really don't agree with that point of criticism. While complexity is an issue, GW has done a genuinely good job in making armies that make sense the "better army". If you pull up any Competitive Inovations article on goonhammer, you will find very few top placing armies from 9th edition codices that "don't make sense".

I fall into the category of yes the FOC was a bit dull, yes it wasn't always great for people who wanted to play a certain force, but it stopped more horrendous gamey combos [...]

It didn't though? All it ever did was preventing people from bringing the same slot over and over again. Which only prevents those few combos where the problematic units share a battle role and there isn't an easy substitute from another slot, the unit cannot form squadrons, be moved to other slots or already costs 400+ points to begin with.
I'd wager that there are almost no combos that the FOC prevented that aren't already caught by the Ro3.

I see someone asking how you handle ultramarines and black templars in 1 army, the simple answer is you don't, it goes back to a time when your force was an army of 1 type, with 1 faction, with no layering of crap. What purpose do you have for templars and ultras in 1 army list that can't be handled by running them all under 1 ruleset, because if it even remotely shifts to "I want X unit to do Y as templars" it goes back to being an optimisation for the sakes of it.

If squashing allies is your goal, you do realize that you can just disallow allies without implementing the flawed FOC system, right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dudeface wrote:
Army of renown is actually pretty interesting and something they should maybe continue but they need a lot more scrutiny than they seem to receive before being printed. Maybe restrict them from tournaments.

I don't think that there is any army of reknown causing problems in tournaments, or did I miss something? I have seen them pop up occasional in high positions, but they are a minority. All of them are perfectly in line with regular armies from the same codex.

Which implies that they are actually did see some playtesting.

I'm not against allies as a concept, but the implementation seems to just be all over the place. Armies of renown are actually a good place to put them ironically, likewise knight of the cog is a good mechanic for including some allies.

As a chaos player I've been hamstrung endlessly by the concept of Daemons in chaos marine armies because the rules for doing it never quite land well within the game mechanics.

Regards current lists being impacted by a FOC, take all the lists covered in here: https://www.goonhammer.com/competitive-innovations-in-9th-advent-annihilation/ few of them would fit in a FOC and those that would (bar the knights) use multiple detachments to game faction rules.

Regards complexity, it's a very common complaint expressed on this forum, too many layers of rules and stratagems plus bespoke rules to keep track of is a problem for a fair few it seems.

Im not overly upset with 9th at all, but I do miss the simplicity and choices forced by the FOC and 1500 games, but that's personal preference.