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Just for newer players information- Allies were allowed since 2nd edition. At that time they were limited to 25% of your points with no restriction of what you took including other allies as long as the total didn't exceed 25% (there were restrictions on who you could ally with in each codex). So, allies have a well established history in 40K and are not something new to the game.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Just for newer players information- Allies were allowed since 2nd edition. At that time they were limited to 25% of your points with no restriction of what you took including other allies as long as the total didn't exceed 25% (there were restrictions on who you could ally with in each codex). So, allies have a well established history in 40K and are not something new to the game.

Not the case for 3rd-5th where the only allies mechanism was a select process in the witch/daemon hunter codex iirc.

Dudeface wrote:


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.

It may depend on what armies you used to play. For power armour based ones for example the old FOC didn't force anything, I played SW in 3rd and 5th (I entirely missed 4th due to different interests/priorities in life) and never had to do a single choice about what units needed to stay out of the list due to detachments limitations. With orks however having only 3 FA and 3 HS at most really forced to make decisions, and not easy ones. Same thing in 7th, when actually even elites slots became precious for my orks, but SW still couldn't care less about FOC's limitations. Nor did the third army I played then, dark eldar, although they had their own FOC with 6FA slots, which I always maximized.

Dudeface wrote:
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.

Both daemons and CSM are outdated codices which were already flawed to the core in 8th. They aren't really a good example to support any kind of change.

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.

FOC have been proven to be a bad and flawed mechanic, so why should be being able to fit into a FOC be an indicator of quality?
The point we were discussing was whether those armies match the lore - and from what I can see, there is a battalion containing all three DE subfactions, a huge pile of space wolves running at the enemy with chainswords in hand, a pure knight list coming from a single household and a picture-book crusader heavy BT army led by Helbrecht and Gimaldus that falls just one chaplain short of actually fitting in a FOC.
All these lists are obviously highly optimized, but they all fit their respective army's fluff and all of them would have to change next to nothing if forced into a FOC.

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.

FOC do not solve single one of those problems, but instead introduce a slew of new problems.
With a FOC you still have 50 stratagems per army, you still have seven layers of rules piled onto every loyalist marine, you still need to check which turn it is to find out how fast or killy your opponent is and you still need to check three books to find out the rules for a Speed Mob Warboss. None of the complaints about complexity stem from the list building phase, but from the complexity layered onto the actual game itself.

Which is exactly what I'm saying - not a single problem that 9th has is solved by re-introducing the FOC.

 Jidmah wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
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.

Both daemons and CSM are outdated codices which were already flawed to the core in 8th. They aren't really a good example to support any kind of change.

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.

FOC have been proven to be a bad and flawed mechanic, so why should be being able to fit into a FOC be an indicator of quality?
The point we were discussing was whether those armies match the lore - and from what I can see, there is a battalion containing all three DE subfactions, a huge pile of space wolves running at the enemy with chainswords in hand, a pure knight list coming from a single household and a picture-book crusader heavy BT army led by Helbrecht and Gimaldus that falls just one chaplain short of actually fitting in a FOC.
All these lists are obviously highly optimized, but they all fit their respective army's fluff and all of them would have to change next to nothing if forced into a FOC.

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.

FOC do not solve single one of those problems, but instead introduce a slew of new problems.
With a FOC you still have 50 stratagems per army, you still have seven layers of rules piled onto every loyalist marine, you still need to check which turn it is to find out how fast or killy your opponent is and you still need to check three books to find out the rules for a Speed Mob Warboss. None of the complaints about complexity stem from the list building phase, but from the complexity layered onto the actual game itself.

Which is exactly what I'm saying - not a single problem that 9th has is solved by re-introducing the FOC.

Not as it stands, but if you strip out the layered "pure faction" rules there's a notable volume stripped out immediately. Stratagems are out of hand anyway, I agree there, but my point about those lists is they're not making hard choices, they're getting exactly what they want how they want it.

Again, not too upset with 9th, and likewise a FOC wouldn't "fix" 9th but it might make the next iteration a little more controlled.

 Jidmah wrote:
Which is exactly what I'm saying - not a single problem that 9th has is solved by re-introducing the FOC.

Sort of. The FOC is essentially a USR to limit spamming of units without a cost (CP/coherency/durability). It's not a great solution, but no USR ever is. Furthermore, the FOC is not there to solve the rules layers, stragegem bloat or any other problem except being a generic guideline for army composition.

There's a big difference between 3x1 Megatrakk scrapjets, 3x1 Rukkatrukks and 3x1warbikers vs. 1x3 Scrapjets, 1x3 Rukkatrukks and 1x3 warbikers. And you have the problem of game size, because there's no reason to limit Scrapjects to one unit in a 500 point game, and still be limited to only 1 unit in a 5000 point game. As soon as you introduce game size scaling, you essentially have a FOC of some flavor. If you don't introduce a limitation, then the game is back to what happened at SoCal.

Dudeface wrote:
Again, not too upset with 9th, and likewise a FOC wouldn't "fix" 9th but it might make the next iteration a little more controlled.

But what exactly makes you think that? There is not a single argument in this entire thread supporting that a FOC would add any value to the game.

All the FOC does is limit how often a certain battle role can be played, which causes more harm than good.

I think the idea behind the FOC was to make armies feel like "armies" - i.e. that the commander didn't always have access to everything he wanted, and often had access to things he didn't want (because they're so common).

The idea behind troops is "these are always present, want them or not" and the idea behind the 1 HQ was "the commander has himself, obviously - it's you!''

But as 40k moves away from WAR and becomes a GAME I think that's less important.

brainpsyk wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Which is exactly what I'm saying - not a single problem that 9th has is solved by re-introducing the FOC.

Sort of. The FOC is essentially a USR to limit spamming of units without a cost (CP/coherency/durability).

We have already established that it failed to do that in any edition it existed and that it would never well work for that purpose. If that is its only value, it has no reason to exist.

There's a big difference between 3x1 Megatrakk scrapjets, 3x1 Rukkatrukks and 3x1warbikers vs. 1x3 Scrapjets, 1x3 Rukkatrukks and 1x3 warbikers. And you have the problem of game size, because there's no reason to limit Scrapjects to one unit in a 500 point game, and still be limited to only 1 unit in a 5000 point game. As soon as you introduce game size scaling, you essentially have a FOC of some flavor. If you don't introduce a limitation, then the game is back to what happened at SoCal.

1) The buggy rule is a poorly though out emergency stop-gap and does not follow any established patterns for similar rules.
2) All other datasheet limitations scale with game size, either by detachment count, by points/PL or by explicitly referring to the four game sizes.
3) It's not a FOC at all, and despite its horrible implementation is still superior to it. Which is quite telling IMO.
4) 9 FA slots aren't exactly easy to come by either and will cost the ork player 5-6 CP depending whether he goes for double outriders or two patrols and one outrider.
5) The whole problem only exists to begin with because GW decided to make buggies squadrons to circumvent slot limitations.

Just to show how gakky the FOC is at solving anything, let's apply it to your example:
Codex: Orks currently lists 9 datasheets in the FA slot for orks, five buggies, storm boyz, warbikes, squighog boyz and deff koptas. Technically, there also is the nob on smasha squig, but it becomes slot-free when run along with squighog boyz.
The traditional FOC would still allow players to spam 9 squigbuggies (which were the reason for the emergency stop-gap), the FOC outlined by vipoid on page 1 would even allow players to run 3 scrapjets on top of that. So the FOC is already useless at fixing the one issue it was supposed to fix.
In addition, 7 datasheets (which *all* see competitive play right now) would just disappear from competitive gaming.
Meanwhile, it prevents people from building speed freeks armies or even just running one of every buggy, having three units of warbikers bans your from using koptas and squighogs. Two warbiker mobs, two storm boy mobs and a unit of koptas are now an illegal army.

 Jidmah wrote:

Spoiler:

brainpsyk wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Which is exactly what I'm saying - not a single problem that 9th has is solved by re-introducing the FOC.

Sort of. The FOC is essentially a USR to limit spamming of units without a cost (CP/coherency/durability).

We have already established that it failed to do that in any edition it existed and that it would never well work for that purpose. If that is its only value, it has no reason to exist.

There's a big difference between 3x1 Megatrakk scrapjets, 3x1 Rukkatrukks and 3x1warbikers vs. 1x3 Scrapjets, 1x3 Rukkatrukks and 1x3 warbikers. And you have the problem of game size, because there's no reason to limit Scrapjects to one unit in a 500 point game, and still be limited to only 1 unit in a 5000 point game. As soon as you introduce game size scaling, you essentially have a FOC of some flavor. If you don't introduce a limitation, then the game is back to what happened at SoCal.

1) The buggy rule is a poorly though out emergency stop-gap and does not follow any established patterns for similar rules.
2) All other datasheet limitations scale with game size, either by detachment count, by points/PL or by explicitly referring to the four game sizes.
3) It's not a FOC at all, and despite its horrible implementation is still superior to it. Which is quite telling IMO.
4) 9 FA slots aren't exactly easy to come by either and will cost the ork player 5-6 CP depending whether he goes for double outriders or two patrols and one outrider.
5) The whole problem only exists to begin with because GW decided to make buggies squadrons to circumvent slot limitations.

Just to show how gakky the FOC is at solving anything, let's apply it to your example:
Codex: Orks currently lists 9 datasheets in the FA slot for orks, five buggies, storm boyz, warbikes, squighog boyz and deff koptas. Technically, there also is the nob on smasha squig, but it becomes slot-free when run along with squighog boyz.
The traditional FOC would still allow players to spam 9 squigbuggies (which were the reason for the emergency stop-gap), the FOC outlined by vipoid on page 1 would even allow players to run 3 scrapjets on top of that. So the FOC is already useless at fixing the one issue it was supposed to fix.
In addition, 7 datasheets (which *all* see competitive play right now) would just disappear from competitive gaming.
Meanwhile, it prevents people from building speed freeks armies or even just running one of every buggy, having three units of warbikers bans your from using koptas and squighogs. Two warbiker mobs, two storm boy mobs and a unit of koptas are now an illegal army.

We evidently have differing stances and I think Unit hit the nail on the head above, but in response to this, that is the point. Those competitive lists avoid troops, they bring more FA slots than used to be allowed. You would be forced into making decisions, not every list would be just taming the best unit to max followed by the next best unit to max, because you can't. Although the speed Freaks side of things would take a knock I agree.

Problem is some armies have troops that are as good as elites.

Also, those decisions might be too penalizing. In 3rd edition orks had 6 troops out of the 23 (+3 slotless retinues) units in their roster. And multiple good options among those 6.

Now they have 3 troops out of 60 datasheets. With one mediocre option that is only worthy if used in a specific way (specialist mobs trukk boyz).

Forcing to take bad units is not a good game design, limiting the spam of specific units is. Bring back 0-1, or even 0-2 limitations to units that are not supposed to be spammed and encourage players to bring troops, not force them. I for example think that current limitation on buggies is a good one, something I wish to be the norm and applied to all factions.

An ork army with lots of FA or HS 100% look like a real army. There's no difference in taking 3+ min squads of troops and then all toys or 3+ min squads of specialists and then all toys.

In the past codexes had like 3 FA and 3 HS in total, and someting like the FOC made sense: you could bring one of each options from the codex. Now codexes have 2x or more the number of datasheets, so the same limitations that "worked" 20 years ago, on codexes that were extremely different than the current ones, can't work anymore.

Some armies with limited model count or limited codex options also work very good with a very strict detachment system, others can't. It's amusing that most of those who advocate for bringing back the FOC are people who play armies that wouldn't care about it. It's not making a decision when the only way to be competitive is to spam the best units available since the detachment system doesn't allow much variety. Going 3x3 squigbuggies since only 3FA are allowed is the exact opposite of forcing people to make decisions.

Dudeface wrote:
We evidently have differing stances and I think Unit hit the nail on the head above, but in response to this, that is the point. Those competitive lists avoid troops,

Sorry to interject here, but at this point I'll have to ask to you to provide evidence for this. The overwhelming majority of competitive lists build out of 9th edition codices bring plenty of troops - the article you linked has 3 troops for the first placing drukhari list, 5 troops for the space wolves winner and 2 troops for the BT first place. Which means all the best lists did bring as many troops as the FOC would have forced them to bring.

Almost all 9th edition codices bring 2 or 3 units of troops, with the big exception here being orks - for one because there are no troops that fit with a speed waaagh and because GW went out of their way to ensure that boyz and gretchin are among the worst units in the codex. And despite all that, there are still a few lists from the new pressure/tempo archetype that run two or three units of trukk boyz or beastsnagga boyz.

There is clearly no FOC needed to get people to run troops, and even when the FOC existed people were dodging those requirements by spamming cheap troops or having other units count as troops.

Heck, I can even see some merrit in Unit1126PLL's idea of forcing people to play with a fixed army core of models that are worse than everything else in your army. However, the FOC has never managed to actually do that, because of the reasons Blackie explained. 40k's armies and their troops just vary too much, and current army-specific mechanisms are just way better at tackling these issues.

they bring more FA slots than used to be allowed.

So far, you have failed to provide even a single reason for why this is a problem, despite me asking multiple times about it. Meanwhile, Blackie has provided multiple examples why being able to break out of the strict FOC corset is good for both narrative and competitive play.
In addition, the game has continued to develop under the assumption that the FOC is not a hard limit and doubled or tripled the amount of units found in elite, FA or HS slots. Some armies have to run outriders, vanguards or spearheads to play their army true to the lore, and many of those had ways around the FOC back when it still existed.
Orks could easily bring 7 HS, 5 elites or 9 FA units during 5th. Why is this suddenly a problem in 9th?

You would be forced into making decisions, not every list would be just taming the best unit to max followed by the next best unit to max, because you can't.

See, and this is where you are just flat out wrong. The FOC doesn't prevent these things at all. They merely change what the best units are, at the cost of internal balance and freedom in building armies.
The FOC also doesn't force any decision - you just put the best three things in that slot and forget about every other unit with that battle role until the next balance update. A decision would imply that you could decide one way or the other, but there simply is no reason to not just slam 3 squigbuggies in every one of those slots. There is nothing lost from doing so, and nothing gained from not doing so.

On the flip side you currently make real decisions about having more CP to play more stratagems, get more relics or warlord traits, or to bring better units. There is a real tradeoff here that makes - once again according to the lists found in the goonhammer articles - almost every list from an archetype looks different. While armies tend to have a somewhat fixed core, people take different combinations of units and you often see even powerful units not maxed out because variety and having options is often is just as valuable as raw power.

It's also worth noting that from a purely combinatorical point of view, a FOC will always require less decisions to be made, as it takes away decisions from the player.

To summarize, the FOC seems to serve just two purposes:
- force people to take more troops
- prevent spam

And it has proven to totally suck at both of those, while also causing tons of negative side-effects on balance and choices. The FOC is a horrible mechanic, that should never be put back into 40k ever again.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think the idea behind the FOC was to make armies feel like "armies" - i.e. that the commander didn't always have access to everything he wanted, and often had access to things he didn't want (because they're so common).

The idea behind troops is "these are always present, want them or not" and the idea behind the 1 HQ was "the commander has himself, obviously - it's you!''

But as 40k moves away from WAR and becomes a GAME I think that's less important.

This for sure is how I see it.


While I do like the idea of structure a lot i am seeing now just how poor the old foc actually was. 6th introduced a means of bringing two of them and from what I remember it was shunned as the collective didn't like it so we saw 1999+1 point tournaments to block it but allies were A-OK! Never mind that some armies were playing as a mono faction and allies weren't really a thing they would use, mostly thinking about Orks. I don't even recall such factions being given an exception to just fill the allied slots with more units from a mono faction list, which might have been a good idea, who knows.
I do feel a bit spoiled by the current army construction rules but would prefer some other means of building a list, like percentages as I personally do not enjoy fielding so many HQ's which I feel are a tax I would rather have the choice to pay or not. Now, I can't say just how much percentages would change my army builds right now but I would hope it would let me put a more THEMATIC army on the table. Tat said I especially didn't like the low model count collection of "op" models people on the internet were taking for "tournaments" while defending it as forge the narrative bro.
Might have been ITC related, no real idea about that. But an army should look like an army right? I get it, people will have their own ideas about just what that means to them and maybe percentages would sort it. But moving back to a limited foc just doesn't sound as fun or flexible. Even with percentages some unit openings could be in some kind of access tree connected to certain characters for flavor, or not. The only other weird thoughts I have on army construction are tournament related, how about tournament foc/army construction rules in event packets. something the rest of us can choose to use or ignore. No idea how that would be accomplished. (Or if it should.)

 Jidmah wrote:

See, and this is where you are just flat out wrong. The FOC doesn't prevent these things at all. They merely change what the best units are, at the cost of internal balance and freedom in building armies.
The FOC also doesn't force any decision - you just put the best three things in that slot and forget about every other unit with that battle role until the next balance update. A decision would imply that you could decide one way or the other, but there simply is no reason to not just slam 3 squigbuggies in every one of those slots. There is nothing lost from doing so, and nothing gained from not doing so.

On the flip side you currently make real decisions about having more CP to play more stratagems, get more relics or warlord traits, or to bring better units. There is a real tradeoff here that makes - once again according to the lists found in the goonhammer articles - almost every list from an archetype looks different. While armies tend to have a somewhat fixed core, people take different combinations of units and you often see even powerful units not maxed out because variety and having options is often is just as valuable as raw power.

It's also worth noting that from a purely combinatorical point of view, a FOC will always require less decisions to be made, as it takes away decisions from the player.

To summarize, the FOC seems to serve just two purposes:
- force people to take more troops
- prevent spam

And it has proven to totally suck at both of those, while also causing tons of negative side-effects on balance and choices. The FOC is a horrible mechanic, that should never be put back into 40k ever again.

Your argument doesn't show that a FOC is bad, just that there are too many options (like Outrider and Spearheads), and/or the cost of them probably isn't high enough.

You're correct with this statement, but not in the way your thinking:

 Jidmah wrote:

While armies tend to have a somewhat fixed core, people take different combinations of units and you often see even powerful units not maxed out because variety and having options is often is just as valuable as raw power.

People take different combinations of units because their ability to take raw power is (usually) limited by the RO3 and FOC, and putting that cap on the power curve forces players to make choices on how best to fill in their army. Otherwise people would just take max raw power which would be really bad for the game. You must not remember RTT and 2nd edition, where all you took was models with heavy weapons, and all that mattered was raw power.

Having a FOC absolutely forces taking Troops, and it forces player choices, in points cost, CP cost and unit capability . A FOC in no way changes what's best in a codex, it just changes how many of them you can take. So you take 3 of the best unit in a slot. That's a hell of a lot better than letting people take 20 of them and nothing else. With a FOC, you're forced into decisions about units to take for holding objectives, destroying enemy units, performing actions, being able to even take secondaries for bad matchups.

The only negative effect a FOC has on game balance is limiting options on weaker codexes, but that's a trade-off to limit the stronger codexes. There's no perfect solution here.

But since you say the FOC is horrible, what's the perfect solution to letting players play what they want to play and limits spamming of broken units?

brainpsyk wrote:


But since you say the FOC is horrible, what's the perfect solution to letting players play what they want to play and limits spamming of broken units?

Limiting those untis to 0-1 or 0-2. Simple. Limit the specific units, not the army roles. Like GW already did with ork buggies and flyers in general.

Take this ork list, which 100% respect the limitations of the old FOC:

2x Warboss on squigosaur

3x10 Beastsnagga boyz

2x5 Kommandos
1x10 Kommandos

2x3 rukkatrukk squigbuggies

3 Kill Rigs

A very competitive 2000 points list that spams a handful of units, 5 datasheets in total. This would be legal under the old FOC limitations, very powerful, super boring to play or to face and nothing close to what an army should look. If flyers slots are added to the FOC it could also replace a unit of beastnagga boyz for a dakkajet.

Ironically I play the same amount of troops now (3) than in 5th (also 3), and even less than in 7th (2, the bare minimum to be legal), when the FOC still existed . Same with my other armies that I play or played until not long ago, SW, Adepta Sororitas and Drukhari. Also Harlequins but they don't count having an extremely limited codex, they bring the very same lists' archetypes in each edition.

Only in 3rd I played more troops, but mostly because troops were 25% of the codex units for orks.

I think the army of renowns can be used quite well to make specific armies without needing to put those rules in the codex. However, they could and probably should also be in a codex.

I think the key factor is to consider ways to limit them without leaving them incompetent.

I know space marines quite well so I'll use these as an example. Devastator companies should be possible, as should assault etc etc.

Now, a Devastator company can be quite the scary prospect in some regards, but also they wouldn't be due to point cost and limitations on what else can be taken. The bonus they get is all troops in the detachment are Obsec, including characters and all get bolter drill etc (yes, even centurions). And obviously a refund on a Spearhead detachment for the warlord.

Great, as they should and would need to be. The downside is you can only take Devastator squads, Devastator Centurions, Hell Blasters, 1 single command squad, 1 single captain (never a chapter master) etc etc etc. Only vehicles are Rhinos, razorbacks, dreadnoughts and repulsers.

This may not seem much of a downside, in some respect, but pt cost will be a factor, as will this next key point... All squad must be max numbers and can never be combat squaded - this is purely to guard against min-maxing and exploitation, it has no lore reason.

Fluffy enough to make them fun and narratively correct, whilst also making them actually playable with obsec, buffing a few units but also providing enough limitation not to be openly abused (plus, they are screwed if close combat happens).

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
I think the army of renowns can be used quite well to make specific armies without needing to put those rules in the codex. However, they could and probably should also be in a codex.

They should be in Chapter Approved, that way they can be removed or rebalanced after a year. Codexes should not require errata. The drip-feed of Armies of Renown in campaign supplements is really bad for the balance of the game, it is impossible to balance points and rules separately, they have to be balanced together.

Devastator companies should be possible, as should assault etc etc.

What is preventing you from taking 30 Devastators and 18 Centurion Devastators right now? What makes taking 6 Centurion Devastators good and 18 terrible? Why do you need ObSec?



The reason this list is bad is that some of the units are overcosted, when you give this army Renown rules you are limiting the power budget you can use to make them cheaper and better when taken in moderate quantities, this is a terrible thing.

 vict0988 wrote:
They should be in Chapter Approved, that way they can be removed or rebalanced after a year.

Why? If there's a specific army type that fits my army, why shouldn't it be in my Codex? And why should it be removed after a year? Besides, we don't want more DLC...

 vict0988 wrote:
Codexes should not require errata.

Nothing should require errata, but everything does. What that has to do with Armies of Renown doesn't really make much difference.

 Blackie wrote:
Limiting those untis to 0-1 or 0-2. Simple. Limit the specific units, not the army roles. Like GW already did with ork buggies and flyers in general.

You seem to be suggesting that this is a situation of either/or (if you are not, please correct me).

The FOC plus specific unit limits are things that worked in the past, and should work in the future. What we don't need are blanket solutions to specific problems (ie. Rule of Three, or GW's recent idiotic flyer rule).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Codexes should not require errata.

Nothing should require errata, but everything does. What that has to do with Armies of Renown doesn't really make much difference.

 vict0988 wrote:
They should be in Chapter Approved, that way they can be removed or rebalanced after a year.

Why? If there's a specific army type that fits my army, why shouldn't it be in my Codex? And why should it be removed after a year? Besides, we don't want more DLC...

Datasheets should be proof-read to a point that they never require errata and that's the only thing that should be in a codex, this would mean you can actually trust what is in your codex, buying a codex that is instantly invalidated by day 1 errata creates a bad customer experience.

An Army of Renown might turn out to be entirely unnecessary, OP or UP, that is why it might need to change or be removed. Like the Tyranid Monstermash, I don't buy the need for it for a second, what makes moderate amounts of Tyranid Monsters good but a true Monstermash list trash? It is rules for the sake of rules, if points were adjusted then a Nidzilla list would be at least decent.

 Blackie wrote:
Limiting those untis to 0-1 or 0-2. Simple. Limit the specific units, not the army roles. Like GW already did with ork buggies and flyers in general.

You seem to be suggesting that this is a situation of either/or (if you are not, please correct me).

The FOC plus specific unit limits are things that worked in the past, and should work in the future. What we don't need are blanket solutions to specific problems (ie. Rule of Three, or GW's recent idiotic flyer rule).

Flyers spam is arguably a generic problem, you cannot end your Move within 1" and they cannot be engaged in melee by most units, having a large portion of your army work this way is a generic problem, even if only a few Aircraft were S-tier.

Spamming a single datasheet is definitely a generic problem with the new list-building method, a unit might be balanced if you take 3 but crazy if you take 8, not to mention that it is very boring to look at.

Why should you be able to take 3 of Dreadnought X and 3 of Dreadnought Y because they have been arbitrarily put in different battlefield roles but no more than 3 Annihilation Barges and Doomsday Arks combined because they have been arbitrarily put in the same battlefield role? I acknowledge that there is a benefit to curbing Heavy Support spam and there is generally some relation between battlefield role and what type of unit you are talking about, but using a small-ish CP cost along with RO3 is just a way more fair method of doing it if you acknowledge that battlefield roles are somewhat arbitrary. I think you would have to use a more fair and equal way to assign battlefield roles if you wanted to bring back a FOC.

 vict0988 wrote:
Datasheets should be proof-read to a point that they never require errata and that's the only thing that should be in a codex, this would mean you can actually trust what is in your codex, buying a codex that is instantly invalidated by day 1 errata creates a bad customer experience.

Ok... but that really doesn't have anything to do with FOC or Armies or Renown, Rule of 3, unit restrictions or anything else. I don't disagree, but it's essentially immaterial to the conversation at hand.

 vict0988 wrote:
An Army of Renown might turn out to be entirely unnecessary, OP or UP, that is why it might need to change or be removed.

Then you fix them, not remove them.

 vict0988 wrote:
Like the Tyranid Monstermash, I don't buy the need for it for a second, what makes moderate amounts of Tyranid Monsters good but a true Monstermash list trash? It is rules for the sake of rules, if points were adjusted then a Nidzilla list would be at least decent.

None of it's needed, it's just for fun. You get that, right?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

You seem to be suggesting that this is a situation of either/or (if you are not, please correct me).

The FOC plus specific unit limits are things that worked in the past, and should work in the future. What we don't need are blanket solutions to specific problems (ie. Rule of Three, or GW's recent idiotic flyer rule).

Or, I'm against old style FOC limitations.

I've already explained but my point is to make playable generic collections of model with a bit everything and something like the FOC might be too limiting for some armies. Some factions might have 1-2 very good units spread across the codex, some others might have just one section, or two, containing good units.

As I've also already said the FOC was appropriate in a context in which armies had 20-30 datasheets, with 3 units in each non troop slot at most. What worked in the past might not work now, because we're not playing the same game of the past. The current detachment system is actually pretty balanced, all the problems we may discuss about 9th edition of 40k aren't a consequence of lacking the old FOC limitations.

I vastly prefer those "blanket solutions" or "idiotic" rules instead. Spamming the very same OP unit as much as possible has always been an issue, that is something that should be addressed. Fielding multiple units from the same role is not a problem as long as the list overall isn't OP. Being able to bring 9 squigbuggies and 9 scrapjets was iditioc since the begginning while under the current limitations an army that highly relies on buggies is still possible (up to 15 are still allowed) and it's actually much more fun to build, paint, see, play or play against.

It's specific units that might be OP, sometimes even intentionally by GW, hence limiting those can be an appropriate solution. Limitations on flyers or ork buggies might seem arbitrary but they did their job without nerfing the units: people can still field them and are actually encouraged to do so, but spamming tons of those is no longer possible, and I can't possibly understand why that's a bad thing. Those who didn't abuse the rules can still play and have fun with such models, they were not forced to shelve them. And, as even GW said, spamming units that are supposed to be supporting units and not the core of an army is wrong.

 vict0988 wrote:
Flyers spam is arguably a generic problem, you cannot end your Move within 1" and they cannot be engaged in melee by most units, having a large portion of your army work this way is a generic problem, even if only a few Aircraft were S-tier.

Lots of people taking squadrons of Valks, were there?

The problems with the flyers was't due to the engaging in melee. It was their ability to ignore terrain and just annihilate you with overwhelming firepower, which is what the AdMech and Ork ones were doing. Rather than fixing those, they screwed all flyers. Specific problems should be solved with specific solutions, not blanket approaches.

 vict0988 wrote:
Spamming a single datasheet is definitely a generic problem with the new list-building method, a unit might be balanced if you take 3 but crazy if you take 8, not to mention that it is very boring to look at.

Spamming a single datasheet wouldn't be a problem if the FOC had any meaning.

 vict0988 wrote:
Why should you be able to take 3 of Dreadnought X and 3 of Dreadnought Y because they have been arbitrarily put in different battlefield roles but no more than 3 Annihilation Barges and Doomsday Arks combined because they have been arbitrarily put in the same battlefield role?

A more apt comparison would be the Space Marine Gladiator, which rather than just being one unit, is three, so you can bring 9. It's stupid, and shouldn't be, but GW wants to sell more kits, and limiting you to 3 would go against that.

 vict0988 wrote:
... but using a small-ish CP cost along with RO3 is just a way more fair method of doing it if you acknowledge that battlefield roles are somewhat arbitrary.

It's a patch on a failed system. It's a sledge hammer attempting to hit a nail.

 vict0988 wrote:
I think you would have to use a more fair and equal way to assign battlefield roles if you wanted to bring back a FOC.

We don't have to bring back an FOC. We just have to make sure it gets used. In the current system it serves no purpose because you can just bring more FOCs for virtually no cost. If you have limitations that you can ignore just by bringing more slots, they're not actually limitations.

 Blackie wrote:
I've already explained but my point is to make playable generic collections of model with a bit everything and something like the FOC might be too limiting for some armies. Some factions might have 1-2 very good units spread across the codex, some others might have just one section, or two, containing good units.

I don't think that's a good argument against the FOC. "Some Codices have bad units!" just means you fix the Codex.

 Blackie wrote:
As I've also already said the FOC was appropriate in a context in which armies had 20-30 datasheets, with 3 units in each non troop slot at most. What worked in the past might not work now, because we're not playing the same game of the past. The current detachment system is actually pretty balanced, all the problems we may discuss about 9th edition of 40k aren't a consequence of lacking the old FOC limitations.

I don't think that the amount of available datasheets plays any role whatsoever. And the current detachment system isn't balanced. It makes a mockery of the FOC. We might as well not have it and just play Open games with the way it works.

 Blackie wrote:
I vastly prefer those "blanket solutions" or "idiotic" rules instead. Spamming the very same OP unit as much as possible has always been an issue, that is something that should be addressed. Fielding multiple units from the same role is not a problem as long as the list overall isn't OP. Being able to bring 9 squigbuggies and 9 scrapjets was iditioc since the begginning while under the current limitations an army that highly relies on buggies is still possible (up to 15 are still allowed) and it's actually much more fun to build, paint, see, play or play against.

The buggy change was't a blanket change. If GW had said you can't bring more than 1 of each FA slot and applied it to every army as a result of the Buggy spam, that would be akin to GW's blanket change to flyers. The buggy change was a specific change to specific units that were causing an issue. The flyer one was not.

 Blackie wrote:
It's specific units that might be OP, sometimes even intentionally by GW, hence limiting those can be an appropriate solution. Limitations on flyers or ork buggies might seem arbitrary but they did their job without nerfing the units: people can still field them and are actually encouraged to do so, but spamming tons of those is no longer possible, and I can't possibly understand why that's a bad thing. Those who didn't abuse the rules can still play and have fun with such models, they were not forced to shelve them. And, as even GW said, spamming units that are supposed to be supporting units and not the core of an army is wrong.

Then they should have limited AdMech and Ork flyers, not all flyers.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Flyers spam is arguably a generic problem, you cannot end your Move within 1" and they cannot be engaged in melee by most units, having a large portion of your army work this way is a generic problem, even if only a few Aircraft were S-tier.

Lots of people taking squadrons of Valks, were there?

Ideally, there are many types of fun and effective lists, Valk spam being unfun and ineffective at the moment is not a good thing. Banning Valk spam means that no matter how effective Valks become you will never see an unfun and effective Valk spam list. Flyer spam is toxic whenever it appears.

 vict0988 wrote:
Spamming a single datasheet is definitely a generic problem with the new list-building method, a unit might be balanced if you take 3 but crazy if you take 8, not to mention that it is very boring to look at.

Spamming a single datasheet wouldn't be a problem if the FOC had any meaning.

So what? RO3 gets the job done.

 vict0988 wrote:
Why should you be able to take 3 of Dreadnought X and 3 of Dreadnought Y because they have been arbitrarily put in different battlefield roles but no more than 3 Annihilation Barges and Doomsday Arks combined because they have been arbitrarily put in the same battlefield role?

A more apt comparison would be the Space Marine Gladiator, which rather than just being one unit, is three, so you can bring 9. It's stupid, and shouldn't be, but GW wants to sell more kits, and limiting you to 3 would go against that.

Definitely not, that's a problem created by RO3, not a problem with going back to a FOC. I can bring 3 Annihilation barges and 3 Doomsday Arks now, if we went back to a FOC I would be unable to do so, but would still be able to bring 3 Doomsday Arks and 3 Triarch Stalkers because of somewhat arbitrary battlefield role assignments.

If you wanted to make an effective FOC that actually impacted how much of different types of units people can spam and not just be an overly elaborate RO3 you would have to put Doomsday Arks, Triarch Stalkers and Annihilation Barges into the same battlefield role since they are all similar vehicles with Quantum Shielding.

 vict0988 wrote:
... but using a small-ish CP cost along with RO3 is just a way more fair method of doing it if you acknowledge that battlefield roles are somewhat arbitrary.

It's a patch on a failed system. It's a sledge hammer attempting to hit a nail.

We see mostly balanced lists but people still have the freedom to go kind of crazy if they wish, the system has succeeded spectacularly.

 Blackie wrote:
As I've also already said the FOC was appropriate in a context in which armies had 20-30 datasheets, with 3 units in each non troop slot at most. What worked in the past might not work now, because we're not playing the same game of the past. The current detachment system is actually pretty balanced, all the problems we may discuss about 9th edition of 40k aren't a consequence of lacking the old FOC limitations.

I don't think that the amount of available datasheets plays any role whatsoever. And the current detachment system isn't balanced. It makes a mockery of the FOC. We might as well not have it and just play Open games with the way it works.

In open play you can have allies working together willy nilly, instead of each group of allies being led by at least one HQ. In open play bringing allies has no cost. The ability to bring 6 Fast Attack choices is not a huge problem, especially when those Fast Attack choices are very different.

 Blackie wrote:

Limiting those untis to 0-1 or 0-2. Simple. Limit the specific units, not the army roles. Like GW already did with ork buggies and flyers in general.

Really? Limiting my IG to 1 TC in a 2000 point game? Take the entire AM army and throw it in the trash, as it's win rate just went to 0%. Or, as an Ork player, I can take 2 kommandos, 3 Scrapjets, 2 Dakkajets and 2 units of trukkboys in a 1000 point game? Take the game and throw it in the trash as the entire game just came down to the single dice roll of who goes first.

What about units fielded in squadrons? Am I limited to 2 normal LRBTs, or 6 of them? 6 of them isn't even that strong.

What is the limit on termagant units? Remember, they are Troops choices, and pretty broken right now. 2? 6? Unlimited as Troops? They are Troops, so why can't I field an entire army of them?

In actuality, your "simple" solution solved nothing. It utterly crippled some armies, did nothing to limit the broken ones, and it stopped players from playing what they wanted to play. Which, BTW, is every complaint about the current FOC. What's worse is that the "simple" solution is really just a subjective limitation based on one player's feelings. It's not even objective, and not by GW.

brainpsyk wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

Limiting those untis to 0-1 or 0-2. Simple. Limit the specific units, not the army roles. Like GW already did with ork buggies and flyers in general.

Really? Limiting my IG to 1 TC in a 2000 point game? Take the entire AM army and throw it in the trash, as it's win rate just went to 0%. Or, as an Ork player, I can take 2 kommandos, 3 Scrapjets, 2 Dakkajets and 2 units of trukkboys in a 1000 point game? Take the game and throw it in the trash as the entire game just came down to the single dice roll of who goes first.

What about units fielded in squadrons? Am I limited to 2 normal LRBTs, or 6 of them? 6 of them isn't even that strong.

What is the limit on termagant units? Remember, they are Troops choices, and pretty broken right now. 2? 6? Unlimited as Troops? They are Troops, so why can't I field an entire army of them?

In actuality, your "simple" solution solved nothing. It utterly crippled some armies, did nothing to limit the broken ones, and it stopped players from playing what they wanted to play. Which, BTW, is every complaint about the current FOC. What's worse is that the "simple" solution is really just a subjective limitation based on one player's feelings. It's not even objective, and not by GW.

I'm not sure you have read that correctly. It is suggesting to cap specific problem units, not wholesale capping.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

I don't think that's a good argument against the FOC. "Some Codices have bad units!" just means you fix the Codex.

Which is easy to say. But we all know GW, perfect balance is not even in their agenda and we already have the best internal balance for each codex in the history of 40k. With the current detachment systems things work. Do you really believe we have problems because someone is able to bring more than 3 untis from army roles that in the past were limited to 3?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

The buggy change was't a blanket change. If GW had said you can't bring more than 1 of each FA slot and applied it to every army as a result of the Buggy spam, that would be akin to GW's blanket change to flyers. The buggy change was a specific change to specific units that were causing an issue. The flyer one was not.

Then they should have limited AdMech and Ork flyers, not all flyers.

The buggy change was blanket as it affected ALL buggies, not just the 2 of of 5 that were spammed. 3 out 5 weren't causing issues. Flyers were causing issues due to their mechanics other than OP stats. It's the combination of both. The infamous ork list that tabled the famous drukhari dude abused the footprint of his flyers to prevent assault. Flyers have been limited because GW didn't like games with lots of them, not because a couple of them were OP. Otherwise they would have nerfed those specific models, like they always do. As a FOC lover you should praise this.

And you can still play a ton of flyers in open play if you like it, this restriction is meant for competitive play only.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

And the current detachment system isn't balanced. It makes a mockery of the FOC. We might as well not have it and just play Open games with the way it works.

A flat FOC for everyone IS a blanket solution. I've already explained why but let's dig even further.

People who advocate for the FOC basically argue for two things:

1) It forces players to make choices
2) We'll finally see more troops

But in real life:

1) Only a few factions will actually have to make choices. I played SW since 3rd and I NEVER had to make choices by using the FOC, nor I do now if I take a single battallion. Units are expensive and good units are spread across different roles. I actually struggle to bring more than 2 FA or HS. Space Marines have Heavy Intercessors as troops which are basically Flash Gitz, heavy support for Orks. Or footslogging Multi melta guys as fast attacks. Now If you really want players to make choices then you should argue for custom FOCs, one for each faction.

So factions with more expensive stuff will have like half the slots available for each army role compared to armies with cheaper models. Then all the armies will have to make choices.

2) Limiting elites, FA and HS doesn't encourage taking troops, but maxing out units from these roles instead. I always just brought two cheap min squads of troops in 7th, never more. If an old style FOC was still in play I'd go with something like that for orks:



Only 100 points invested in troops, pure spam of some of the most effective units in the codex, and an oppressive list for casual games. Nothing that resembles "how an army should look". But hey, it respects the old FOC!!

The real "mockery" is that some armies, starting with the most common one, can 100% ignore the FOC restrictions without losing anything. They always could. That's why I'm glad it's gone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

brainpsyk wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

Limiting those untis to 0-1 or 0-2. Simple. Limit the specific units, not the army roles. Like GW already did with ork buggies and flyers in general.

Really? Limiting my IG to 1 TC in a 2000 point game? Take the entire AM army and throw it in the trash, as it's win rate just went to 0%. Or, as an Ork player, I can take 2 kommandos, 3 Scrapjets, 2 Dakkajets and 2 units of trukkboys in a 1000 point game? Take the game and throw it in the trash as the entire game just came down to the single dice roll of who goes first.

What about units fielded in squadrons? Am I limited to 2 normal LRBTs, or 6 of them? 6 of them isn't even that strong.

What is the limit on termagant units? Remember, they are Troops choices, and pretty broken right now. 2? 6? Unlimited as Troops? They are Troops, so why can't I field an entire army of them?

In actuality, your "simple" solution solved nothing. It utterly crippled some armies, did nothing to limit the broken ones, and it stopped players from playing what they wanted to play. Which, BTW, is every complaint about the current FOC. What's worse is that the "simple" solution is really just a subjective limitation based on one player's feelings. It's not even objective, and not by GW.

Playing what they wanted to play is an issue, there should be limitations. Otherwise someone could just field nothing but a single unit, say an army of all battle tanks.

I advocate for armies that bring a bit of everything. Most things will be cappped to 0-3, others to 0-2, and those that are supposed to be the rarest ones and/or centerpiece of an army just to 0-1. IMHO capping leman russes to 0-1 is not even a problem when you can still bring 3 of them, 5 other tanks from the HS section, an HQ leman russ, a named character leman russ, and tanks from the fast attacks and dedicated transport section. Not to mention the LoW. That's already a massive amount of tanks.

Both limitations on ork buggies and flyers have been a success. People still bring those, even in good numbers. They just don't spam them anymore.

I wouldn't put a cap on troops' datasheets unless it's something really elite oriented from codexes with multiple options, like the aforementioned Heavy Intercessors. The max amount of troop units would be limited to the number of units the detachments in play allow.

TLDR, I don't think current detachment system has a single problem. Actually it has one, no subfaction bonus for single LoW. But I'd like to see limitations, like those that flyers and buggies recently got, applied to all armies as a tool to counter spam.

brainpsyk wrote:
Really? Limiting my IG to 1 TC in a 2000 point game? Take the entire AM army and throw it in the trash, as it's win rate just went to 0%.

You wanna bet that tank commanders will be 1 per detachment with your next book?

Or, as an Ork player, I can take 2 kommandos, 3 Scrapjets, 2 Dakkajets and 2 units of trukkboys in a 1000 point game? Take the game and throw it in the trash as the entire game just came down to the single dice roll of who goes first.

1) Dakkajets are limited to 1 in incursion
2) That list is already 50 points over the limit unless you are taking worthless units of 5 kommadoz.
3) You are lacking two mandatory HQs choices clocking in at roughly 200 points because trukkboyz are limited to 1 per detachment and a warboss, beastboss or speedboss is mandatory for orks. Plot twist!
4) I play something roughly resembling that in my current crusade and it's not as powerful as you think.

What about units fielded in squadrons? Am I limited to 2 normal LRBTs, or 6 of them? 6 of them isn't even that strong.


What is the limit on termagant units? Remember, they are Troops choices, and pretty broken right now. 2? 6? Unlimited as Troops? They are Troops, so why can't I field an entire army of them?

In actuality, your "simple" solution solved nothing.

You must have missed the part where he said that his solution applies to broken units only.
If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

 Jidmah wrote:

You wanna bet that tank commanders will be 1 per detachment with your next book?

1) Dakkajets are limited to 1 in incursion
2) That list is already 50 points over the limit unless you are taking worthless units of 5 kommadoz.
3) You are lacking two mandatory HQs choices clocking in at roughly 200 points because trukkboyz are limited to 1 per detachment and a warboss, beastboss or speedboss is mandatory for orks. Plot twist!
4) I play something roughly resembling that in my current crusade and it's not as powerful as you think.

You must have missed the part where he said that his solution applies to broken units only.
If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

The proposed solution is just reactive and subjective, not proactive, and relies on GW reacting, and they don't have a particularly great track record. (though if they go to quarterly updates, its a step in the right direction)

The TC is a prediction, which is irrelevant. We're talking about how things stand now. But if you want to talk future, then in theory the guard codex would be brought in line with current codexes (better with codex creep), so in theory we'd have more than 2 units that can kill something, so in theory that limitation would be fine.

on #1 - ya, but the proposed solution is rid of the FOC and RO3. So there would be no limitation in incursion. Or would you introduce scaling thus moving toward a FOC?
2 - yes, it was 2 units of 5 Kommandos, just to hold a couple objectives. And you are referring to these "worthless" kommandos, right?

 Jidmah wrote:
The poll is over, these are the results:
Elites: Kommadoz are the obvious king here, MANz and burnas follow behind. Nobz and tank bustas are still surprisingly well received, everything else is bad.

3 - that forces me to take HQs I don't want (like the complaint how FOCs mandate Troops). And the restriction placed on any unit (including HQs!) is 0-X, so I'm not required to take one! Plot Twist! If we are mandated to take a HQ, then we have a FOC! So again, we've gained nothing.
4 - It's a heck of a lot better than equivalent guard units. 8PL (110pt) dakkajet vs. a 10PL (200pt) vulture gunship?

So really, the FOC does serve its purpose, but it could use some improvement (like making dedicated flyers 0-1 in patrols, 0-2 in Batts/SH/OR/etc., and increasing costs for other detachments). But problem #1 is unit balance, and problem #2 even with approximately equal unit balance, there will still be a "best" unit, and you need some way of limiting spamming of that "best" unit. The proposed solution accomplishes neither, and to fix the proposed solution you move toward a FOC.

brainpsyk wrote:
The proposed solution is just reactive and subjective, not proactive, and relies on GW reacting, and they don't have a particularly great track record. (though if they go to quarterly updates, its a step in the right direction)

Isn't a reactive solution with regular updates superior? The track record of GW writing perfect codices that did not need any updated is even worse

It's also not purely reactive, as you already have the Ro3 doing a rather good job as a catch-all.

The TC is a prediction, which is irrelevant. We're talking about how things stand now. But if you want to talk future, then in theory the guard codex would be brought in line with current codexes (better with codex creep), so in theory we'd have more than 2 units that can kill something, so in theory that limitation would be fine.

That is kind of the point. The guard codex is an 8th edition codex, and it wasn't that great of a codex even in the edition it was written in. Every 9th edition codex has made a huge leap in regards to internal balance - there are still bad units, but the amount of decent datasheets tends to outnumber those of the previous five editions combined.

on #1 - ya, but the proposed solution is rid of the FOC and RO3. So there would be no limitation in incursion. Or would you introduce scaling thus moving toward a FOC?

I'm fairly sure that blackie didn't propose getting rid of the Ro3. There also is a new rule, following exactly what blackie is suggesting, limiting AIRCRAFT units to 1 for combat patrol and incursion, 2 for strike force and 3 for onslaught.

2 - yes, it was 2 units of 5 Kommandos, just to hold a couple objectives. And you are referring to these "worthless" kommandos, right?

I worded that poorly. Since you were talking about getting first turn deciding the game, you'll need those kommadoz do be part of your alpha-strike. At 5 models, they are too few and can't take any options to perform that role, since those are gated behind having at least 10 models. After all, without a Waaagh! to support them, 5 kommadoz will bounce off even the most basic infantry. Of course, units of 5 kommadoz by themselves are not useless, but their job is to hide, perform actions and occupy table quarters/deployment zones.

3 - that forces me to take HQs I don't want (like the complaint how FOCs mandate Troops). And the restriction placed on any unit (including HQs!) is 0-X, so I'm not required to take one! Plot Twist! If we are mandated to take a HQ, then we have a FOC! So again, we've gained nothing.

Well, you are free to do that, but no warboss means no Waaagh! or Speedwaaagh!, no relics and no clan stratagems. Which also means no damage and therefore invalidating your argument of the game being decided in turn one.

4 - It's a heck of a lot better than equivalent guard units. 8PL (110pt) dakkajet vs. a 10PL (200pt) vulture gunship?

If you need to pull out a FW unit to make a point, it's most likely invalid
Dakkajet is 120 by the way, you pay 10 for each of the extra shootas. And yes, it's fairly cheap, but I'd say a valk with heavy bolters/laser/rockets (150) is not that far behind, and the dakkajet is neither a transport nor can it hover, has less wounds, a worse save and needs to be within 18" to shoot better than a valk at 36".

even with approximately equal unit balance, there will still be a "best" unit, and you need some way of limiting spamming of that "best" unit.

Why aren't the lists winning large events spamming the best unit as often as they can then?
How about addressing the proof that the FOC failed to prevent spam in any edition it existed?

 Jidmah wrote:
How about addressing the proof that the FOC failed to prevent spam in any edition it existed?

I haven't seen any proof presented in this thread that FOCs never did anything to curb spam in prior editions. I don't think anyone would argue that FOCs fully prevented spam, only that they made it harder.

Even if that were the case that FOCs were worthless in prior editions, it only needs to be shown that it would disallow army builds that have been overpowered in modern tournaments to demonstrate that the FOC could have value in ninth.

Lots of mechanics can offer benefits without being silver bullet solutions. Points costs have consistently failed to prevent overpowered lists in any edition, but I wouldn't call that 'proof' that points are a bad mechanic and we should all switch to PL.